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Author: Liz Henry

Visit to the CSUN Assistive Tech conference

Published April 16, 2026 by Liz Henry

GOAT recently joined colleagues from University of Washington’s CREATE lab and University of Michigan at the CSUN Assistive Tech conference in San Diego. We shared booth space to talk with people in the exhibitor hall about open source assistive tech, the A11yhood database, and all of GOAT’s programs.

Olga smiling and throwing a "metal" hand sign, behind a table laden with tools, flyers, stickers, and information about GOAT

We really enjoyed the panels and resulting conversations relating to open source and open culture.  Gregg Vanderheiden on his organization’s new tool for looking up open source assistive tech tools, Learn and Try. This is for the kinds of assistive tech that help you access computers, tablets, and phones, to make “technology” of that sort more inclusive. If you need tech to read, study, take notes, get on the internet, this is a great site where you can find useful help. It has a very elegant, thoughtfully designed user interface, and is aimed at a level where you can be a parent of a disabled kid, or a teacher, without any background in accessible technology, and learn about it.  Rather than searching something like “assisted communication” or “dyslexia” you can click on the bit that says I need help with (Speaking)  or (Reading) and get a list of software tools with links out to download and try them, or enable them in settings if they’re already on your devices.

Jennifer Mankoff and Josh Miele, collaborators of GOAT, held a session on the Open Source Accessibility Summit. It was amazing in 2025 and will be happening again in 2026! https://2025.allthingsopen.org/open-source-accessibility-summit . I hope we can make it this year!

a tool bag decorated with beads spelling out "Free the AT"

We came to CSUN equipped to do some inspection and minor maintenance for mobility gear, but in practice, we mostly just talked with people and gave out our free repair kits. The conference itself had a much heavier focus on tech for blind and visually impaired people than it did on mobility tech. (Repairing braillers might be in our future, as the demand is high!)   In practice, what this meant for me at the conference was that I spent a fair amount of time zooming around to chase down and accost random strangers who were using wheelchairs, and offered them our free toolkits.  They seemed to appreciate the very targeted and useful swag!

Our road trip was really fun, and we spent time having dinners and lunches with our collaborators from CREATE and other orgs, talking about our joint projects and where to take them!

liz and olga smiling radiantly together

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New grant opportunities for disability justice nonprofits!

Published April 8, 2026 by Liz Henry

I want to share two new funding opportunities for disability led, disability justice focused nonprofits! DIF x Tech and Collab Grants RFPs are up on the Borealis Philanthropy website. Please read the details, and if you have questions, please register for the presentation and Q&A session; it will be April 15, 11am PST/1pmCST / 2pm EST.

silly cartoon of a person in a powerchair with a computer handing them a stack of cash

Borealis’s Collab Grants are for disability justice collaborations between two or more organizations. You can read about the details at that link. The basics: If you are a nonprofit with a disability justice focus, and want to work on a project in collaboration with another organization that fits the description in the info about the Collab Grants, then take a look — this might help you create a great collaborative relationship and contribute to general movement building and power.

The second opportunity is focused on disability and tech. DIF x Tech invites proposals at the intersection of technology and disability rights and justice.

 

For the Disability x Tech grant, here’s more details for you now.

This opportunity may be a good fit if you are doing work in any of these areas below:

  • Disabled people sharing technical skills and knowledge with others in the community.
  • Disabled people leading policy, rights, and disability justice activism work related to tech.
  • Disabled people participate in all stages of the design and development of new tech that will enrich lives of people with disabilities.
  • Enabling collective and equitable access to technology and to digital infrastructure.
  • Expanding the participation, leadership, and thought partnership of overlooked and under-resourced people with disabilities in all areas of the technology sector.
  • Partnerships between disability-focused engineering design labs and maker spaces within schools, centers for independent living, or local nonprofit organizations.

That might be a bit confusing! To see what DIFxTech funds, please look at some of the organizations that are currently funded by DIFxTech. You can “click through” to read a little about their work!

Here’s a partial list of current DIFxTech grant recipients and what they do:

  • Designing and building 3D printed wheelchairs for young children (Make Good)
  • Deaf/blind TV production studio workshops (Visionaries of the Creative Arts)
  • Maker spaces and tech/STEM education by and for Deaf people (CymaSpace)
  • Improving video conferencing software for disfluent speakers (AImpower)
  • Policy advocacy for assistive and augmented communication users (CommunicationFIRST)
  • Deaf scientists and educators who are creating online courses to bring STEM education alive in ASL (Atomic Hands)
  • Identifying and fighting algorithmic biases that harm disabled people (DREDF, Bazelon)
  • Tech education and internet access for residents of assisted living facilities (Alliance for Community Services)
  • Plain Language Policy Dashboard, making new legislation more accessible (New Disabled South)

And just to be super clear and transparent: I’m the Program manager for Disability x Tech at Borealis! You can ask me questions about the grant program directly at difxtech@borealisphilanthropy.org.

Cheers, Liz

 

Note: image from https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cartoon_Guy_Being_Handed_Money_By_A_Computer.svg, edited by hand to make it look like a wheelchair not a desk chair

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Tune-Up Tuesday, April 7th at the Disability Cultural Center

Published April 3, 2026 by Liz Henry

GOAT and ILRCSF and other volunteers will be at the Disability Cultural Center next Tuesday afternoon, April 7th from 2:30pm to 4:30pm. We will have free mini toolkits to give away!

As usual, we are at your service to look over your gear – wheelchair, powerchair, scooter, walker or rollator, or whatever other assistive tech you bring. We’ll hear you out to see what is broken, or might be improved, on your device, and will see what we can do to help with those issues.

That might be:
– teaching you and your friends/family basic maintenance and repair
– finding you the service manuals for your devices
– figuring out next steps with insurance, vendors, donations, or other resources

woman wearing a mask with tools working on a manual wheelchair with its rider consulting

The DCC has free tea, coffee, and snacks and is a great place to hang out. We set up on the outdoor patio but there is indoor space as well with nice couches and chairs. It’s by Civic Center BART and a block from the 49 bus stop.

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