Several accessibility mobile apps created in Ryerson University program

The Chang School of Continuing Education at Toronto’s Ryerson University is running a community and grant program to support ideas related to disabilities, aging populations and minority groups.

Altogether, the Project offers up to $25,000 in funding.

While participants’ work can come in all kinds of forms, several teams have created innovative mobile apps, including:

• AccessNow — crowdsources accessibility information and creates an interactive map to show users accessible venues, restaurants, shopping centres, gyms and more
• Awaits — organizes consignment of wheelchairs at airports and helps connect employees and customers
• Flusher — matches users with facilities that match their preferences and criteria to help people in wheelchairs, those with newborns, members of the LGBTQ community and more
• Menuvox — helps the visually-impaired find restaurants with menus that can be easily navigated using screen readers, screen magnifiers, or portable braille displays

It’s important to note that most of these concepts are in the testing mode and are therefore not ready for widespread use.

More information on the finalists can be found here.