Education
Restricted educational opportunities and unmet classroom accommodations are ways students with disabilities are left out of many paths to advanced degrees and careers. AI technology in the classroom is particularly capable of having an impact in these scenarios thanks to advancements in transcription, translation, and language understanding capabilities.
Employment
Globally, the unemployment rate for people with disabilities is 2-3 times that of people without, while a shift to remote work has disproportionately impacted people with disabilities. Use of AI tools in recruiting is exacerbating the problem. This results in limitations in a person’s career and an untapped talent pool for organizations. We’re investing in many stages of employment to spark inclusive economic recovery efforts.
Community
Nurturing your community connections is key to maintaining mental health and relationships with family and friends. Mental health is the largest disability segment and a growing concern highlighted during the pandemic. We aim to modernize the options available to help people better maintain their wellbeing and communicate across differences.
Home
Many aspects of society exclude people with disabilities – from people with speech disabilities being left out of voice-powered experiences, to lack of accessible transportation, to software tools that do not understand the disability experience. At the core of this is lack of data and ableist biases in models. By investing in projects that make better use of data from people with disabilities and build affordable assistive technology, we will reimagine societal inclusion.
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Submission |
Submit your project proposal via the online application form. |
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Deadline |
We accept proposals on a rolling basis and review them a few times a year. Applications are accepted in specific areas of interest for each deadline. Upcoming deadlines and areas of interest are:
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Eligibility |
We invite applications from developers, NGO’s, academics, researchers, and inventors to accelerate their work for people with disabilities. This is a global program: Grant applications from all countries are eligible.
If you are worried about not meeting all requirements, please connect to someone in your community who can support you and partner on an application. |
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Requirements |
Review the proposal requirements document. Your project proposal should describe the accessibility challenge addressed, the technical solution proposed, and its potential impact on people with disabilities. Please follow the application form and be as specific as possible. |
AI for Accessibility grant applications are reviewed by Microsoft employees who are directly involved in the AI for Accessibility grant selection process for the sole purpose of proposal review and to determine the grant level to be provided. Projects should be developed with or by people with disabilities. Applications are evaluated on the following criteria:
- Relevance: AI and/or machine learning are core to the project success.
- Impact: Your project clearly elevates education, employment, community, or home outcomes for someone with a disability.
- Data: Your team is open to sharing privacy compliant data for future innovation.
- Feasible: The project is achievable within a one-year timeframe. This could be phase 1 of your project, but there should be tangible deliverables completed each quarter that are wrapped up in 12 months.
- Capable: Your team should have the knowledge and skill to deliver the idea, or you should have a plan to partner with someone who can fill in any gaps.
- Sustainable: The project has room to grow beyond the first year of funding.
- Showcase-able: We want to talk about whatever you deliver!
To estimate the monetary value of Azure computing resources you need, use the Azure calculator. For example, if your plan requires 100,000 Cognitive Services Computer Vision transactions, you will need $100 per month for 12 months, totaling $1,200 in Azure credits for the one-year grant period.
After each application deadline, applicants typically receive a decision by email within 90 days. Select projects are invited to pitch their ideas to a selection committee who will score their projects based on the evaluation criteria. Once projects are selected, part of the award process is aligning on project OKRs and scope which are tracked and reported throughout the 12-months grant period. The project work starts with the official Kickoff Meeting with the AI for Accessibility team.
Yes. This award program is available worldwide.
All IP including background and foreground is solely owned by AI4A grantees. However, we do encourage all our grantees to contribute to and collaborate on open datasets related to your solution.
Please make sure to review the criteria and apply for a grant and we will get back to you.
There are no official restrictions for indirect costs. However, we do our best to ensure that we maximize the amount of cash that goes directly towards engineering, research, or data collection costs. For most universities, this means the cash is a gift to the university, but we also sign a collaboration agreement to ensure we are all on the same page with expectations and deliverables.
If you have questions about the awards program or the application process not answered in this FAQ, please email us at ai4aques@microsoft.com.
