The Council of Ontario Universities is challenging Ontario undergraduate students to come up with ideas to make the world more accessible for people with disabilities.

To make this happen, they have launched the Innovative Designs for Accessibility (IDeA) student competition in partnership with the Government of Ontario.

The aim of the contest is for students to develop innovative, cost-effective and practical solutions to “barriers” to accessibility in our communities.

Students will vie for $3,000 in prizes with entries that address one or more of the five “barrier” categories: attitudinal, physical/structural, information/communications, technological and systemic.

“Brock University continues to move forward in accessibility in order to identify, prevent and remove barriers to the inclusion of persons with disabilities,” says Greg Finn, Vice-Provost and Associate Vice-President, Academic. “It is important that we encourage the participation of our students in this province-wide competition to remove barriers of all types.”

Prizes will be awarded for first place ($1,500), second place ($1,000) and third place ($500). Finalists will be invited to showcase their designs at the Ontario Centres of Excellence Discovery Conference in May.

Submissions will be initially evaluated by the entrant’s home institution, and then successful candidates will move on to a second round of judging conducted by a panel of experts. Judges will also place a premium on entries whose format itself demonstrates consideration to accessibility issues.

Questions and submissions from Brock students about the contest, should be sent by March 31 to Greg Finn, Vice- Provost and Associate Vice-President, Academic (x4528; gfinn@brocku.ca) and Margaret Sanderson, University Accessibility (AODA) Coordinator (x5454; msanderson@brocku.ca)