The Broadcasting Accessibility Fund has awarded $723,500 in grants across seven projects that aim to improve the accessibility of broadcasting content.

This was also the first time the distribution of funds was determined by a board of directors. The fund was initially created as part of the tangible benefits package associated with Bell Media’s acquisition of CTV.

Rogers Communications’ research into the development of mechanisms that can help blind and low vision users find and consumer video content received the most financing from the fund, at $140,000. The project that received the second-most financing from the fund ($125,000) was an ongoing educational initiative from the Canadian Hard of Hearing Association, which includes a web-based guide regarding device accessibility.

Mediac Systems LLC received $123,000 for updating existing software to improve the real-time and post-production captioning process, while Vues et Voix was awarded a $116,000 grant to develop a fully accessible web platform for radio content focused on disability- and accessibility-stories. Mohawk College, meanwhile, received $80,000 to provide journalism students with training to produce content that is accessible across all platforms.

Komodo Open Lab picked up $77,500 to further develop a switch device which will allow users with limited mobility to control a number of media devices using the same controls used to operate a wheelchair, while CBC reduced $62,000 for a new speech-to-text conversion technology to post transcripts of The Current radio show.

Photo credit: Flickr Creative Commons / Sara Long