Project Grant 1843485

This $749,685 National Science Foundation project grant under the Technology, Innovation, and Partnerships program (CFDA 47.084) will fund the development of an Automated, Integrated, Multimodal Software (AIMS) system to improve inclusive access to information for persons with disabilities. Saint Louis University leads a consortium that includes software companies Vital, Unar Labs, and Viewplus Technologies to build a unified framework for authoring, converting, and delivering accessible content...

This National Science Foundation (NSF) Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project award of $222,489 aims to develop an accessibility interface technology to improve software usability for the approximately 61 million Americans living with disabilities. The proposed solution will enable end-users to access up to 80% of commercially-available software, while also providing software distributors a low-cost method to fulfill accessibility mandates and increase product usage and...

This Project Grant award from the National Science Foundation (CFDA 47.070 - Computer and Information Science and Engineering program) to the University of Maine System provides $1,126,197 to develop a multisensory navigation assistance tool to aid individuals with visual impairments. The three-year project aims to: Identify information access requirements and optimize delivery via multisensory smartphone interfaces to support indoor navigation for blind and visually impaired individuals. Create...

VisionWay: Accessibility-Aware Path Selection for Wayfinding The National Eye Institute's Vision Research program (CFDA 93.867) awarded The Ohio State University $1,262,274 on September 1, 2025, to develop VisionWay, a mobile wayfinding framework customized for people with visual impairment (PVI). The five-year project (completion date August 31, 2030) addresses the critical gap in existing smartphone navigation solutions that fail to account for sidewalk accessibility hazards such as...

This Project Grant award from the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) Federal Grant Program (CFDA 47.070) provides $457,873 to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to develop new technology that enhances communication and interaction for individuals with severe disabilities. The key objectives are to build and test a novel user interface that leverages multiple information sources, such as eye gaze, language models, behavior...

This National Science Foundation (NSF) Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CFDA 47.070) Project Grant award of $140,758 to the University of Texas at Arlington (UTA) aims to explore the feasibility of using teleoperated robotics to assist individuals with visual impairments. The key goals of this one-year project are to: 1) conduct surveys and interviews with visually impaired individuals to understand the challenges they face in employment and explore their interest in using...

This $275,000 SBIR Phase I Project Grant awarded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) under the NSF Technology, Innovation, and Partnerships (CFDA 47.084) program supports the development of a wearable multimodal sensing device by Skywalk Inc., a for-profit Asian-Pacific American-owned manufacturer. The device aims to enable more intuitive interaction with augmented reality (AR) technologies by turning human hands into cursors, turning any surface into a touchscreen, and unlocking new...

This National Science Foundation (NSF) Early-Concept Grant for Exploratory Research (EAGER) Project Grant, awarded under CFDA 47.041 Engineering, will leverage virtual reality (VR) and wearable technologies to study how individuals with visual impairment navigate through crowded urban environments. The $300,000 grant, awarded to New York University, aims to elucidate the sensorimotor interactions and cognitive processes underpinning the navigation of persons with visual impairment through...

This Project Grant award from the National Science Foundation (NSF) Directorate for Engineering (CFDA 47.041) will fund research to advance accessible collaboration tools for visually impaired information workers. The $943,192 award to Northwestern University will: Develop a taxonomy of accessibility barriers and design guidelines for AI-powered collaboration tools to support ability-diverse team communication, coordination, and knowledge sharing. Create an accessible infrastructure of new...

This $274,999 National Science Foundation Project Grant under the Technology, Innovation, and Partnerships program aims to develop a wearable, computer vision-based, real-time Braille-to-speech learning device. Braillewear will receive funding to establish technical feasibility of a device that detects intricate textural patterns in a contactless approach and provides auditory feedback to augment mechanosensory learning. If successful, the technology could unlock the full potential of...