Microsoft is currently accepting proposals for the AI Accessibility Grant Programme to enable its work through grants, technology investments, and expertise.
AI for Accessibility grants support projects that use AI to empower people with disabilities. They look for individuals or teams who are not only passionate about making the world more inclusive, but also firmly rooted in the communities they aim to benefit. They want to invest in ideas that are developed by or with people with disabilities.
Areas of focus
- Low-Cost Assistive Technology: 80% of people with disabilities live in low- and middle-income countries; only 1 in 10 have access to assistive technology
- They believe that designing relevant assistive technology with and by people with disabilities in these regions will stimulate innovation and help create better opportunities.
- Community: Connections are key to maintaining mental health and relationships with family and friends. Mental health is the largest segment of disability and a growing concern during the pandemic. Artificial Intelligence is modernising ways to better maintain wellbeing and communicate across differences.
Topics
- Mental Health
Theme 1: Community and Intersectionality
Theme 2: Appropriate and Responsive Interventions
Theme 3: Within Reach and Accessible
Benefits
- Their grants cover costs related to data collection or labelling, model development or other engineering work.
- They provide Azure calculation credits worth $10,000, $15,000, or $20,000, as well as Azure development support and resources.
- They will be included in a community of support for current scholarship holders and alumni.
- They provide a designated mentor based on the topic of your grant to help unlock the potential of your project.
- They give you access to a support platform for crafts and share your subsidy project more widely.
Eligibility Criteria
- They invite applications from creators, NGOs, academics, researchers and inventors to accelerate their work in favour of people with disabilities.
- This is a global programme: grant applications from all countries are eligible.
Deadlines:
- Mental Health: 12 August 2022
- Low-cost support technology: 1 November 2022
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