ZeroCon26 – Innovation & Inclusion in Action
Join live or on‑demand Fireside Chats covering EU accessibility law, AI‑assistive tools, inclusive nightlife, election tech & neurodiversity.
The Zero Conference is taking place this week at the United Nations Office in Vienna. If you are attending in person, reach out and let’s meet up.
You can also join the Fireside Chats remotely or watch the recordings afterwards. Fireside Chats will be live-streamed on YouTube with English captions and International Sign.
These are the fireside chats I’m looking forward to (and at the same time, my personal “watch later” list, in case I don’t catch them live):
Day 1: Wednesday 18
The Implementation of the European Accessibility Act
Wednesday, 18 February 2026 | 11:20 - 11:40
When the European Accessibility Act came into force in June 2025, it became the first EU-wide law requiring private sector products and services to be accessible. But what’s actually happening on the ground?
Business Accessibility Forum (BAF) interviewed EU officials, disability rights organizations, professional accessibility bodies, and leaders from major companies. The result: Europe’s first report on EAA implementation from a business perspective.
Our findings show a landscape still in progress - companies navigating evolving guidance and uneven enforcement across member states. Yet those treating accessibility as strategy, not checkbox, are already seeing competitive advantage and stronger innovation cultures.
This Fireside Chat shares what we learned: how to move beyond the “business case” debate and make accessibility a natural part of how business is done.
When a Webcam Becomes Access: Sense Pilot
Wednesday, 18 February 2026 | 13:20 - 13:40
This Fireside Chat features Sense Pilot—a Zero Project Awardee of 2026—, which enables gaming through tracking head movements and facial gestures through a standard webcam, translating them into on-screen actions, redefining accessibility, independence, and inclusive entertainment for all.
How Disabled Leadership can transform the most powerful systems
Wednesday, 18 February 2026 | 15:00 - 15:20
In this Fireside Chat, Dr. Kush Kanodia—an international disability rights leader—shares how disabled‑led leadership and campaigning have transformed major systems from the Premier League to NHS England and Greater London governance
The Accessibility Gap in School Policy Documents - and how to bridge it
Wednesday, 18 February 2026 | 16:00 - 16:20
School policy documents play a central role in shaping everyday educational practice, defining expectations, rights, responsibilities, and procedures to students, parents, teachers, and school leaders. However, these documents are often written in ways that unintentionally exclude the very communities they are meant to serve.
This fireside chat will explore the concept of hidden barriers in school policy documents, with a particular focus on accessibility. Drawing on research and practical examples, the talk will examine how language complexity, document structure, formatting, and assumptions about prior knowledge can create obstacles for parents and students with disabilities, those with lower literacy levels, multilingual families, and communities already marginalised within education systems.
Nightlife and parties that everyone can attend and enjoy
Wednesday, 18 February 2026 | 17:00 - 17:20
This fireside chat dives into the often-overlooked world of accessibility in nightlife. Featuring DJ Okma, a DJ with a disability, it will explore what it takes to make parties, concerts, and club experiences truly inclusive.
Day 2: Thursday 19
Playing Music Through Gaze: EyeHarp
Thursday, 19 February 2026 | 10:40 - 11:00
This Fireside Chat features EyeHarp and Fundación SIFU—a Zero Project Awardee of 2026 from Spain—that enables persons with severe disabilities to play music via eye or head movement, train therapists, and scale globally, now adding robotic instrument control.
Beyond the Founder - Leadership Transitions in NGOs
Thursday, 19 February 2026 | 13:00 - 13:20
Leadership transitions are a critical inflection point that test an organization’s resilience, culture, and long-term impact—yet they remain one of the least transparent and often mishandled moments in the disability and accessibility ecosystem.
Fable Fireside Chat: Passing the CEO Baton offers a rare, real-time look inside an active CEO transition at Fable, where co-founder Alwar Pillai handed leadership to incoming CEO Toan Dinh. Rather than polished retrospectives or abstract theory, this conversation surfaces candid, practical insights from leaders navigating succession as it unfolds—exploring the emotional realities of letting go, the strategic work of onboarding new leadership, and the operational decisions required to preserve mission through change.
Designed for founders considering succession, leaders preparing to scale, and board members stewarding organizations through transition, attendees will leave with concrete strategies for planning a handover, avoiding common pitfalls, and building organizations that endure beyond any single leader. This session demystifies one of the most pivotal—and under-discussed—moments in an organization’s lifecycle for the #ZeroCon26 community.
https://zerocon26.zeroproject.org/sessions/c2Vzc2lvbjoyMTM0Nzk=
Elections - Open Data, AI, and Accessible Technology
Thursday, 19 February 2026 | 13:20 - 13:40
Countries worldwide increasingly rely on technology to organize elections, from biometric voter registration and electronic voting machines to machine readable vote tabulation systems. The design of these tools has a direct impact on accessibility for voters and poll workers with disabilities.
Please join Rylin Rodgers, Disability Policy Director at Microsoft, and Virginia Atkinson, Senior Global Inclusion Advisor at the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES) for a discussion on the future of accessible election technology and a new database —a community‑informed effort to catalog accessibility features across a wide range of election technology products. The database will provide evidence-based data for advocacy by organizations of persons with disabilities, support election officials in procurement, guide observers and media in evaluating technologies, and help technology providers communicate capabilities.
Because election technology evolves rapidly, the database is designed as a living resource. In addition to creating an open-source database of existing election technology options, this initiative seeks to identify accessible technologies that have not yet been used in elections but have the potential to be adapted for this purpose. Rylin and Virginia will discuss what might be possible in the near future as technology continues to evolve and how to not miss opportunities arising from AI.
Please join us for a discussion on accessible election technology and be ready to share examples of assistive technology that you think should be deployed in the elections context!
Presentation of a New OECD Report - AI, Employment and Neurodiversity
Thursday, 19 February 2026 | 17:00 - 17:20
This session presents a new OECD report on how AI and advanced technologies can support neurodivergent learners in VET and their transition to work, including XR practice environments and AI-personalised training materials.
Artificial Intelligence - Is It Reframing Assistive Technologies?
Thursday, 19 February 2026 | 17:20 - 17:40
This fireside dialogue explores whether artificial intelligence offers an opportunity to move beyond “assistive technology” toward technology that adapts to people, rather than requiring people to adapt to technology.
Day 3: Friday 20
Innovating Inclusion: Africa’s Disability‑Driven Transformation
Friday, 20 February 2026 | 10:40 - 11:00
This Fireside Chat highlights how AT4D and partners are using this moment to accelerate disability inclusion in Africa —flipping traditional development approaches and shifting power towards investment & lived experience-driven innovation, and agency.
Campaigning for a Good F*** - the Fight for Inclusive Nightlife Spaces
Friday, 20 February 2026 | 11:40 - 12:00
This Fireside Chat highlights research that explores the intersection of disability, nightlife, and sexuality; arguing that the right to sexual expression; intimacy; and pleasure must be understood as central rather than peripheral to the disability rights movement.
Inclusive Community Engagement in the Australian National Autism Strategy Development
Friday, 20 February 2026 | 13:00 - 13:20
Public policy should be grounded in community need, be evidence-based and incorporate the wisdom of practice. This requires the inclusion of diverse stakeholders, especially those most affected by the policy, those most underrepresented and those responsible for its implementation or practice.
In 2023, Autism CRC undertook foundational co-design work to develop a series of recommendations for inclusive community engagement in the National Autism Strategy. This co-design process included a literature review and environmental scan, workshops and interviews with autistic individuals, families/carers and organisation representatives, and a national survey.