US Department of Labor Announces Recipients of Excellence in Disability Inclusion Awards
The US Department of Labor announced that CVS Health and PepsiCo have received Gold Awards in the department’s inaugural Excellence in Disability Inclusion (EDI) Awards program, which recognizes federal contractors that demonstrate excellence in making their workforce inclusive for people with disabilities.
Sponsored jointly by the department’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) and Office of Disability Employment Policy (ODEP), the awards recognize employers that make exemplary efforts in the recruitment, hiring, retention and advancement of individuals with disabilities.
“The US Department of Labor is committed to ensuring America’s workforce is driven by the skills and talents of all people, including people with disabilities,” said US Secretary of Labor Eugene Scalia. “During this inaugural year of the Excellence in Disability Inclusion Awards, we celebrate businesses that excel in meeting their responsibilities and exemplify the spirit of inclusion.”
In its review of award nominations, the EDI Awards’ Executive Review Committee recognized CVS Health’s many efforts, including its “Abilities in Abundance” program, which provides training to people with disabilities to compete for a wide range of positions with the organization. Similarly, the committee found “Pepsi Achieving Change Together (PepsiACT),” a formal partnership between Pepsi and Disability Solutions @ Ability Beyond, a US non-profit specializing in corporate disability recruiting programs, to be worthy of top honors.
“America’s employers have the responsibility to treat all qualified job applicants and workers equally and fairly, regardless of disability. Federal contractors are also required to take proactive steps to be disability inclusive,” said Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs Director Craig E. Leen. “The winners of this year’s Excellence in Disability Inclusion Awards make it clear that including people with disabilities is more than a matter of compliance, it is a wise business imperative.”
“CVS Health and PepsiCo have taken proactive and creative steps to optimize the talent in their organizations by addressing common employment barriers people with disabilities face,” said Acting Assistant Secretary for Disability Employment Policy Jennifer Sheehy. “These organizations have made inclusion a core part of their brand and business goals, and provide models for others to emulate.”
In the year ahead, CVS Health and PepsiCo will participate in a “Year of Engagement” program to share their best practices and encourage other employers to adopt them.
ObjectiveEd Announces Free Access for Teachers
ObjectiveEd announced that the company will provide free access to its digital curriculum to schools and teachers to use with their students with vision impairments through the end of the current 2019/2020 school year.
ObjectiveEd’s distance learning help students practice much of the Expanded Core Curriculum, with skill-building games for Orientation and Mobility, Assistive Technology, and Braille Literacy.
For example, students can improve their early braille literacy skills using ObjectiveEd’s Braille Sheets, where you place a sheet of braille on an iPad, and the iPad knows what’s on that sheet, and students play a game that improves their braille skills. ObjectiveEd won the Louis Braille Touch of Genius award for Braille Sheets, as well as awards from the American Council of the Blind.
For advanced braille literacy skills, ObjectiveEd provides Braille AI Tutor, funded by a Microsoft AI for Accessibility grant. As a child reads from their refreshable braille display, they speak as they read. Using speech recognition, Braille AI Tutor listens to their speech, converts it into text, and compares that text to the original sentence sent to the braille display. If they are the same, the child has decoded and read the sentence correctly. This enables a child to practice their braille literacy remotely, between sessions with their itinerant teacher.
ObjectiveEd’s Orientation and Mobility games include building directionality skills, wayfinding skills, audio location and timing skills, sequencing, categorization, identification, and memory.
IAAP Makes Changes to Exams Due to COVID-19
In the interest of the health and safety of everyone IAAP is adjusting its proctor requirements. If you are now working from home and would like to use the privately proctored exam option, IAAP has adjusted who can proctor for Privately Proctored exams. Family members and managers/direct reports can now act as a proctor. Read more on the IAAP Exam Locations and Format webpage.
Due to test center closures, the IAAP is working with Kryterion and with participants to offer Kryterion Online Remote Proctoring from home. IAAP now accepts any installed Web camera and has posted the requirements for Kryterion Online Remote Proctoring and how to test your camera and microphone details.
M-Enabling Conference Postponed to September due to Coronavirus
The M-Enabling Summit leadership team, organizers E.J. Krause & Associates and G3ict, have been monitoring the COVID-19 situation very closely as it has affected many conferences and major events. While the M-Enabling team believes conferences and business events are critical to the development of the accessibility industry, the health and wellness of conference participants is the organization's top priority. After consulting with key stakeholders, the organizers have decided to postpone the M-Enabling Summit to September 14-16, 2020. The organization believes moving the M-Enabling Summit to September is in the best interest of all participants. The summit will proceed as planned with all conference and event activities during the new dates. The venue for the Summit, with the theme of “Digital Inclusion Strategies: A Catalyst for Action,” remains the Renaissance Arlington Capital View Hotel in Arlington, VA.
The 2020 M-Enabling Summit will highlight how organizations can successfully leverage innovative enabling technologies to make their digital workplaces, learning environments and products and services accessible to users of all abilities.
Registration is currently open. Registration will be honored in September for any currently registered participants.
