Making every day more accessible through innovation

Nearly one in five people in the country have a disability that limits their daily activities. This is why it’s important to consider accessibility in the design of all products and services. Innovation has an important role to play in this.

To inspire innovative thinking on accessibility, The Lab at O2 is organising a hackathon with our charity partners to give you the opportunity to spend a day collaborating with like-minded people from diverse backgrounds to explore the problems people face and find innovative ways to help.

What is a 'hackathon'?

A hackathon is a time of intense collaboration between people with different skills to prototype new ideas and learn from each other.

What are we building?

During the day you will endeavour to firstly come up with a novel solution that addresses a problem relevant to the area of accessibility, and secondly build some form of prototype to demonstrate the idea and test how well it could work. Teams will be judged on the combination of the conceptual idea and the execution of a working prototype.

Types of disabilities that teams might like to focus on are:

• Visual impairment - difficulty with sight
• Communication difficulties - difficulty of hearing or speaking due to a physical or mental impairment
• Physical disabilities - difficulty with movement, including fine motor skills
• Cognitive impairment - difficulty understanding, processing or remembering information due to a physical or mental condition

Your goal at the event is to come up with an idea that will help people with any one of these disabilities to overcome everyday challenges at home, when out and about, or when using technology.

Teamwork

We strongly encourage all attendees to form teams, as sharing and learning from one another is as important as the presented ideas. If you’re arriving without a team, there will be time during registration to meet others and find an interesting group of people to work with for the day. Teams should comprise of no more than 6 people; typically teams of around 4 or 5 are normally the ideal.

Equipment

If you’re planning to bring any equipment beyond a laptop please let us know when you sign up for your ticket as we might need to PAT test the device as you arrive.

Getting to the event

The event is being held at O2’s campus on Bath Road, Slough. The whole day will take place on the ground floor our building, which is fully wheelchair-friendly.

Please let us know in advance if you have any access requirements or if you have any questions about the event’s accessibility. We want to make sure you are able to fully take part in this event.

We recommend taking advantage of these excellent train links:

• Burnham (Bucks) station: is approximately a 15-minute walk from our campus.
• Slough station: We operate a regular, free shuttle bus from outside the station with Stewarts Coaches, which takes approximately 10 minutes to get to the office. The bus is not wheelchair-accessible, so please let us know if you instead require a wheelchair-accessible taxi to pick you up from the station.

There is also some limited parking if you need to drive to the event, but please make sure you let us know if you require a parking space to be reserved (this can be done on the ticket registration form).

Other than the shuttle bus or wheelchair-accessible taxi, you are responsible for arranging and the cost of getting to and from the event. We are not responsible for any costs or expenses even if the event is moved or cancelled.

Catering

There will be some food and drinks provided during the day for attendees. Please let us know if you have special dietary requirements and we will endeavour to provide suitable alternatives where required.

Code of conduct

All attendees, sponsors, partners, volunteers and staff at our hackathon are required to agree with the following code of conduct. Organisers will enforce this code throughout the event. We expect cooperation from all participants to ensure a safe environment for everybody.

https://hackcodeofconduct.org/

Terms and conditions

By attending the event, you agree to license all ideas under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License.

We feel that this is the best way to encourage innovation by allowing everyone to continue pursuing ideas after the event.

Ticket policy

• Tickets are released on a "first-come, first-served" basis.
• Tickets are limited to one per person. If you would like someone to attend with you, please ask them to register themselves for the event.
• Please ensure your details are correct, as these will be checked by security on arrival.
• If you can no longer attend, please cancel your ticket to allow others to attend, as spaces are limited.
• We reserve the right to cancel tickets ahead of the event.

If you have any questions or comments please get in touch at support@o2labs.co.uk.