Vodafone Foundation Smart Accessibility Awards

The Vodafone Foundation Smart Accessibility Awards is a new contest to promote the development of IT applications designed to improve the lives of those with disabilities and people that are older, to help them get more actively involved in society.

The programme is supported and co-organized by AGE Platform Europe, the European network of around 160 organisations of and for people aged 50+, and the European Disability Forum (EDF), the NGO that represents the interests of 80 million Europeans with disabilities.

Launched in Brussels, the competition will award the best smartphone application in four areas:

•Social participation: refers to applications which help users to become more involved in today's society and help them benefit from using new technologies, whatever their age and/or capacity. The aim is to help everyone to access the web and social media through smartphones.

•Independent living: refers to applications which help users with everyday tasks such as washing or opening a door easily and safely so that they can live more independently

•Mobility: refers to applications which enable users to travel freely and safely whatever kind of transport system they would like to use. It also refers to the use of GPS and locations apps which can help guide people in unfamiliar places.

•Wellbeing: refers to applications which improve the users' health and overall feeling of wellbeing.

Entrants can compete for a share of the €200k prize fund from 14 June 2011 to 15 October 2011 by submitting entries here.

So how can we make sure that everybody can use smartphone technology? Can you develop an App to make life easier for ageing users or users with disabilities?