Let's come together for a 3rd Summit!
After the first and hugely successful Summit 2019 in Berlin and our first event outside of Germany, the 10-year anniversary Summit in Amsterdam last year, we are extremely pleased to announce our 3rd Summit! 🎉
Join us for two days of gaining knowledge about web accessibility, exchanging experiences and meeting like-minded enthusiasts from all over Europe and beyond: May 24th-25th, 2025, in Würzburg, Germany!
Again, the summit will be jointly run by multiple web accessibility and inclusive design related meetups from all over Europe. And again, it will feature a full-day BarCamp and a second day with community run workshops.
We are currently in the very early stages of planning, and we ask you to give us some time before providing you with further details. In any case, mark the weekend on your calendar and plan for sufficient time – Würzburg is a beautiful city to visit!
How do I benefit?
As an accessibility enthusiast, you will meet a lot of like-minded people from various disciplines and with all sorts of skill level. You will be able to share your experiences, broaden your horizon and make new friends.
As a meetup or event organiser, you will get new impulses for your events, put them into a bigger context and just have a lot of fun with your usual attendees who will hopefully join you to the Summit. Take it as a super-social excursion that takes you out of your usual boundaries. 😉
Organising? Join in!
If you're organising an accessibility meetup, inclusive design related event or anything similar and want to get involved with the Summit, please get in touch. We hope to be able to mobilise many accessibility enthusiasts from Germany, the Netherlands and many other countries. We'll try to get in touch with as many groups and meetups as we get to know of, but you're welcome to be faster than we are. You don't necessarily have to take an active role but we'd still appreciate your input.
BarCamp + Workshops
We run the summit as a 2-day event:
- Day 1 is all about conversation and sharing experiences. BarCamp-style sessions mixed with a handful of pre-planned presentations for all attendees, pretty much like we had at the Accessibility Club Summit 2024 in Amsterdam.
- Day 2 is for learning, expanding our knowledge and putting things into practise. Visit one of several workshops about developing and designing accessible websites and digital content, run by community members like yourself.
BarCamp Sessions
In addition to the pre-planned presentations, there will be further parallel sessions, which will be jointly decided on the morning of the event in the style of a BarCamp. Each participant can propose a session — it does not have to be a prepared presentation. Just bring your own topic! It can be a discussion round, an exchange of experiences, or you are welcome to show what you have been working on recently. The audience will decide together which topics will become a session.
Pre-planned presentations
For the BarCamp day, we'll use a hybrid schedule style with both spontaneous sessions and pre-planned presentations. To shape the pre-planned part of the programme, we are currently running an anonymous Call for Presentations. A jury of dedicated volunteers from the Accessibility Club community will be selecting a set number of presentations from the submissions to create an engaging core programme for the Summit. If you'd like to contribute, check out the Call for Presentavtions and submit your idea!
Captions & Live Stream
The pre-planned presentations will be supported by human-made live captions that can be read on site on a monitor and on private devices via an internet connection (e.g. on a smartphone).
In addition, the pre-planned presentations will be recorded on video and published after the event. The presentations will also be streamed live during the event if the technology does not let us down. All ticket holders will be sent the access data for the live stream in a timely manner to the e-mail addresses stored in their tickets.
The other, spontaneous BarCamp sessions and the workshops on 25 May will not be subtitled, recorded or streamed live.
Call for Presentations
Got insights, experiences, or research on accessibility that you'd love to share? Our Call for Presentations is your chance to contribute to the Accessibility Club Summit 2025. Submit your idea by 30 March 2025, and be part of the curated programme shaping the discussions at the event. The selected talks will form a dedicated track during the BarCamp day, creating a strong core program for the Summit.
Our CfP is completely anonymous — we’re not looking for big names, but for great ideas! We especially encourage new voices and those from underrepresented groups to take the stage and share their perspectives on accessibility in design, development, or community work. A jury of dedicated community members will review all submissions and curate an inspiring lineup
Call for Workshops
The Summit isn’t just about listening — it’s about doing! If you want to teach, guide, or collaborate hands-on with others, we invite you to propose a workshop. Submissions are open until 31 March 2025, so bring your ideas to life and help make accessibility more practical for everyone. The selected workshops will take place on Sunday, 25 May 2025 at the THWS, complementing the BarCamp day with hands-on sessions.
As a workshop host, you will receive 80% of the participation fees (€ 25 for half-day and € 50 for full-day workshops), with the remaining 20% supporting the overall event organisation. Please note that, as a non-profit event, we are unable to cover travel or accommodation costs. However, we will provide the venue and manage participant registration.
We particularly encourage newcomers, people with disabilities, and members of marginalised groups to submit their workshop ideas. Your workshop should focus on teaching and implementing accessibility topics; commercial promotions are not permitted. All accepted workshops will be published on our website.
Schedule
| Time | Agenda item |
|---|---|
| - | Accessibility Testing and AuditingThis 1-day training event provides hands-on training in testing for accessibility. We will cover various testing methodologies including automated, manual, and use case testing and provide helpful job aids for each. We will also cover how to configure and use various types of assistive technologies and discuss how to use each during manual and use case testing. Note: This is not training about how to use assistive technologies. While we will be covering assistive technologies and will also be using them periodically, this training is not focused on testing a system for compatibility with screenreaders. This is a holistic training aimed at all facets of accessibility, which extends far beyond users of specific assistive technologies. Workshop by |
| - | AI beyond the hype: what will it truly mean for accessibility?Artificial Intelligence (AI) is both exciting and intimidating. It can see and hear better than many humans, making it a powerful tool for enhancing accessibility. However, the topic is controversial. Within the accessibility community, some view it as a solution to all problems, while others remain skeptical. In this workshop, we will present a balanced perspective on the current state of affairs:
In the second part of the workshop, we will build our own "Testing Tool" using the concepts of "Dive Coding" (no coding experience required). We will conclude with an open discussion about how AI will shape the future of accessibility. Workshop by |
Performers
-
Karl Groves
Accessibility Consultant
- Internet
- https://www.karlgroves.com
- Mastodon
- @karlgroves@mastodon.social
-
Roel Van Gils
Digital Accessibility Nerd and founder at Eleven Ways
BarCamp Tickets
As always, we do our best to keep tickets for the BarCamp and workshops as affordable as possible. Please take a moment to explore your ticket options:
- A regular ticket for the BarCamp day costs a minimum of €25 (including German VAT). We’ll send you extra love if you use Tito's pay-what-you-want option to increase the price yourself — if the Summit is worth more to you and you'd like to help us make it even better. We recommend starting at €30.
- Not everyone can afford to buy a ticket. If you can, please show your support by purchasing a Scholarship Supporter Ticket starting at €50. This will unlock a free scholarship ticket for someone else — and earn you eternal gratitude. You can also increase the price as you wish!
If you are eligible for a bill without German VAT, please read the notes at the bottom of the ticket page before purchasing.
Workshop tickets
Tickets for the workshops on Sunday, May 25, are already available for the first session and will be added gradually as new workshop proposals from the community come in. Participation will also be affordable:
- Half-day workshop for € 25 (incl. German VAT)
- Full-day workshop for € 50 (incl. German VAT)
80% of the ticket revenues will be given directly to the hosts.
Ticket scholarships
If you really want to attend the BarCamp but can't afford buying a ticket, please don't hesitate and get in touch with us. We're giving away a free scholarship ticket for every supporter ticket that has been sold. There is no formal application process — please just write us a nice email and let us know a bit about you. We love to help you out! 😊
Location
The Summit will be held primarily, if not exclusively, on the campus of the Technical University of Applied Sciences Würzburg-Schweinfurt (THWS), where Joschi also teaches. As a state university, the complex should be completely barrier-free.
Next steps
We will provide you with more details as soon as possible over the next few weeks, so please keep an eye on this website, our Slack team, and our Mastodon account. As always, tickets will be available at a non-commercial cost level, and we will again have a scholarship program.
How do I stay updated?
Slack Team
You can either join the #announcements channel in our Accessibility Club Slack Team. We use the Slack team for organisational tasks as well as community stuff. If you'd like to broaden its purpose and make it an even more open platform, we'd love to hear your ideas!
Hosts
-
Joschi Kuphal
Designer, programmer, lecturer, event organiser and restless tinkerer from Nuremberg
Joschi is working on the web since the mid 90s and founded the web agency tollwerk in 2000, which he continues to shape to this day. He has shared leadership of tollwerk with his team in an equal, cooperative and self-organizing way since 2022. He launched a couple of event series like the border:none and Material conferences, the Accessibility Club and the CoderDojo Nürnberg. He's occasionally running IndieWebCamps, hosting the monthly accessibility webcast technica11y and used to be one of the driving forces behind the Nürnberg Digital Festival.
- Internet
- https://jkphl.is
- Mastodon
- @jkphl@mastodon.social
- joschikuphal
- Github
- @jkphl
-
Tobias Aubele
Professor in the field of usability, human-computer interaction and accessibility, head of the e-commerce degree programme and consultant
Tobias is a professor of e-commerce at the Technical University Würzburg-Schweinfurt (THWS) and a consultant. Before joining the university, he worked for more than 15 years in an international multi-channel company in various management positions, most recently as Head of E-Commerce, including with the babywalz brand. He heads the laboratory for conversion optimisation and user experience at the Faculty of Computer Science and Business Informatics.
- Internet
- https://fiw.thws.de
- tobias-aubele
-
Falko Melz
Accessibility consultant, strategist, and advocate for inclusive digital transformation
Falko has 15 years of experience in IT, driving digital transformation in gaming, banking, and the public sector. Despite a visual impairment, he has led large-scale IT projects and specialized in digital accessibility. Now, as an independent consultant, he helps organizations develop strategies that go beyond compliance, demonstrating how digital inclusion can be a key driver of innovation and usability.
- falko-melz-38574124