Welcome to ICCHP 2018!
The 16th biennial International Conference on Computers Helping People with Special Needs (ICCHP) will be held on July 11-13, 2018 again in Linz, Austria, its place of origin and location of the core organizing team.
ICCHP had the honor to accompany and support the revolutionary developments of Assistive Technology (AT) and eAccessibility over the last three decades. It is proud to serve as a means for scientific exchange and communication in this context.
The UN Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities (UNCRPD) is the globally accepted reference and expression of the societal transformation towards effective inclusion and participation of all people with disabilities in society. The UNCRPD refers to AT, eAccessibility, eInclusion and Design for All as precondition and means of support. Exactly these are also the core topics of ICCHP. Since the first conference in Vienna (Austria) back in 1989 ICCHP has evolved as a unique and one of the few long term references of R&D and evidence how Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), AT and eAccessibility have been implemented and have significantly contributed to the improvement of the life of people with disabilities. It was my pleasure to join most of the past ICCHP conferences.
ICCHP provides an interdisciplinary platform and scientific forum including all sorts of stakeholders. It is remarkable that all proceedings published in Springer's Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNCS) and made available online since 2006 have reached more than 100.000 (some almost 200.000) downloads of articles. This makes ICCHP a well-recognized reference for our growing and expanding field.
ICCHP’s mission for inclusion and participation in the information society strives for better AT for support, enhancement and restoration of resources for people with disabilities and compensating limitations of standardized Human Computer Interaction (HCI). This mission still gains more importance due to the ongoing ICT revolution (Internet / Web of Things / Ubiquitous computing / Cloud based services).
The ICT revolution brings along an increased potential for inclusion and participation, but also risks for exclusion and thus the responsibility for implementing eAccessibility. It provokes a growing number of challenging research questions. Old boundaries of concepts dissolve, new approaches and fresh thinking are needed: not only in technical terms, but also in legal, social, economic, pedagogic and other terms. ICCHP is open towards all these aspects and invites to and provides a platform for an according holistic discussion for improving the lives of people with disabilities in every corner of our world.
ICCHP 2018 will host high-quality, well reviewed submissions from scientists, users, practitioners, educators and policy makers. In addition to the traditional paper sessions, the forum also invites industry representatives showing their new products and looking for new ideas. In particular ICCHP welcomes young researchers, the next generation of experts in our field, and encourages them to contribute to the Young Researchers Consortium as well as to the Coding for a Cause competition. Additionally, the conference affords spaces and times for less formal discussions – an important factor supporting the transfer of knowledge so needed in our endeavors.
Please examine our current call for papers and updated web information and consider joining us on July 2018 in Linz. ICCHP is an outstanding international meeting place, a stimulating and inclusive venue for presenting research.
Come and get involved!
Georgios Kouroupetroglou,
University of Athens, Greece
General Chair ICCHP 2018