As we move inextricably into a digital economy there is a looming crisis for a growing number of increasingly marginalized individuals. The accessibility technologies we have are meeting the needs of only some, at high cost, and will not work with many new technologies. The path and pace of technological change predestines these approaches to fail in the very near future. At the same time the incidence of disabilities is increasing as our population ages.The same technical advances however hold the potential for a radical paradigm shift in our approach to accessibility that can harness the pace of innovation and have it work for us rather than against us. An international consortium is forming to tap the unprecedented ability to pool resources and match demand with supply enabled by the Cloud to build a Global Public Inclusive Infrastructure (GPII) that can deliver accessibility to every individual where they need it, when they need it and in a way that matches their unique requirements; automatically so that they do not need to negotiate, explain, qualify or justify.Cloud4All represents a European based effort to advance the GPII concept by pulling together a large multi-sector international community including stakeholders, industry leaders and experts in emerging technologies to thoughtfully research, design, develop and test the key software infrastructure and pilot implementations needed to explore this promising approach to digital inclusion. Cloud4All will do this by:-Creating/refining user profiling standards and tools capable of capturing the individual needs and preferences of the full range of users facing interface barriers-Creating/refining interface and materials profiling standards and tools capable of characterizing the full range of ICT/materials users need to access and the different techniques and strategies for accessing them-Improving mechanisms to match users and with interfaces and materials they can use or techniques or services that can make them usable-Creating a mechanism to allow users to locate solutions from many different sources in a single search-Demonstrating automatic, on-demand, matching or modification of mainstream and specialized technologies
to match each individual as they encounter them, including proof-of-concept demonstrations of this approach across a spectrum of technologies including: Computer OSs and Browsers; Web pages/Apps; Mobiles; Kiosks/Info-Transaction Machines; Installed and Virtual Assistive Technologies; Digital Televisions and Smart Homes-Testing of the concept with users with a wide variety and combination of physical, sensory, cognitive, language, and learning disabilitiesIf successful, this approach may give us our first chance of reaching the large group of users that do not qualify for or otherwise have not been reached by special services, but nonetheless face barriers to access that prevent them from participating in our rapidly advancing digitally enabled society.