People with disabilities have limited opportunities for participation in all areas of life. Despite all progress, environments as well as processes in all areas of life still have limited accessibility for people with disabilities. Education and labour are particularly relevant for inclusion and are still affected by above average inequality.Digital technologies and tools offer great potential to overcome access and usage barriers and innovate our society towards more sensibility towards exclusion by barriers.However, in the digital realm new obstacles can be created by insufficient accessibility, incompatibility with existing technologies and knowledge and skills deficits.We invite fellow researchers to present and discuss visions, projects and new approaches for research, development and evaluation on the following topics:

• Digital technologies (software, apps, assistive technology) to support people with disabilities in different educational settings
• Innovation for participation by technological means
• Accessibility of education-related technologies and environments
• Accessibility of work-related technologies and environments
• Development and evaluation of advanced assistive technologies for labour, education, and everyday life
• Use of Robotics, Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality or Gaming in advanced assistive technologies

The aim of this session is to bring together researchers and developers who are engaged in the development and evaluation of advanced technologies to improve the inclusion and participation of people with disabilities in all life areas.This session is organised by: Research Cluster ‘Technology for Inclusion and Participation’ (TIP), TU Dortmund University, Germany.

Chairs

• 
  Susanne Dirks, TU Dortmund
• 
  Bastian Pelka, Sozialforschungsstelle Dortmund
• 
  Jens Gerken, TU Dortmund University