Last year, Google.org announced their Google Impact Challenge: Disabilities competition, and over1,000 nonprofits from 88 countries submitted designs for open source technology that could improve the lives of disabled people around the world. This week, Google.org announced the 29 winners, to whom they have dished out a cool $20 million.
Universal Design (UD) is an approach to design that increases the potential for developing a better quality of life for a wide range of individuals. It is a design process that enables and empowers a diverse population by improving human performance, health and wellness, and social participation (Steinfeld and Maisel, 2012). It creates products, systems, and environments to be as usable as possible by as many people as possible regardless of age, ability or situation.
