Assistive Tech & Products

Disability eConference: sharing advice and inspiration

Disability Horizons Co-Editor, Martyn Sibley, discusses his new project – Disability eConference – enabling you to share ideas and experiences to support others.

I am excited to launch a new project with you guys today – the Disability eConference!

It is a new concept in the disability field! Using web based tools, personal experiences and all created by you; it will make a great impact in the disability world.

The first topic, which was decided back in April by people who contacted me on Twitter, is “Disability and the Internet”. However you can contact me with your ideas for the actual conference name!

This eConference will enable our community to:

• Share the many specific uses of the internet for disabled people
• Give disabled people new ideas, useful resources and a space for peer-to-peer learning
• Educate non-disabled people how awesome disabled people are with the right resources

Every contributor will share a story, experience, view or opinion on how having the internet enabled them to do something cool.

I want to cover the below areas:

• Parents seeking medical support for their disabled child
• Parents seeking peer-support after knowing their childs’ diagnosis
• Young children (approx 5-15 years) looking for answers on their medical condition
• Young children (approx 5-15 years) looking for peer-support
• Adults with questions on their impairment
• Adults with questions about govt provision for their disability (benefits, equipment etc)
• Education and e-learning
• Government policy consultations
• Dating/relationships/sex
• Music
• Sport
• Employment
• Finance/Banking
• Travel
• Third life gaming

Do get in touch with any other topics I may have missed.

How are we going to do this?

Well, it’s simple. Anyone involved will record a 3 minute answer to a specific question on www.audioboo.fm, which will then be uploaded, along with a little biography of themselves/their experience and a nice photo too. This will all be placed on the eConference homepage; creating a platform for worldwide support and inspiration.

The idea is to have people from all backgrounds and with different experiences. We already have Tanni Grey-Thompson, David Proud and Karni Liddell on board!

The launch date for this first eConference is scheduled for late July. Website developers Misfit-Inc are on board with their slick design and ace user-experience insights.

Sponsorship

If you would like to support this project and back an excitingly innovative community-led disability eConference, please do get in touch.

How to contact me 

Please let me know by Monday 2nd July:

• Any ideas for a cool and appealing conference name

• Which of the areas you want to talk about (all within disability and the internet)

• If you are willing and able to support this projects success through other ways

Email: martyn@martynsibley.com
Twitter: @martynsibley
Tweet hashtag: trending with #dconference2012

Exciting times guys 🙂

By Martyn Sibley

Check out…

• Disability e-courses: the new frontier.
• Disability webinars: changing the world from your home.
• Making the internet accessible to all.

Get in touch: email us at editor@disabilityhorizons.com, tweet us @DHorizons, send us a message on Facebook or leave your comments below.

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