A delegation from the Government of Castilla-La Mancha visits AccessibleEU headquarters in Spain

A delegation from the Government of Castilla-La Mancha visited the European Accessibility Resource Centre—AccessibleEU in Madrid. The group, headed by second vicepresident José Manuel Caballero and commissioner for Accessibility José Luis Escudero, was welcomed in Fundación ONCE headquarters by its general manager, José Luis Martínez Donoso.

During the visit, the delegation got to know first-hand about the work done by AccessibleEU and its achievements since its inception in 2023: over a hundred events celebrated, over 35,000 professionals trained, 260 library references and 301 good practices collected. In2024, the centre published the study 'Multimodal solutions to foster accessibility in digital products and services', carried out with the help of Digital Europe.

All of this, its promoters explained, has helped raise awareness about accessibility, attract new members to the community, and disseminate knowledge about accessibility needs and solutions among both public and private stakeholders responsible for ensuring compliance with accessibility standards and requirements. It has also succeeded in fostering open debates and conversations about accessibility legislation and standards.

The visit to the centre was also attended by José Martínez, president of ONCE in Castilla-La Mancha; José Antonio Romero, manager of CERMI-CLM; Almudena Alcaide, director of the R&D&I Department of Fundación ONCE; and José Luis Borau, head of the Department of Accessibility to the Physical Environment of the same entity.

They all had the opportunity to visit EspacIA, Fundación ONCE's innovation centre where various technologies designed to improve the quality of life of persons with disabilities are developed. There, they learned first-hand about some of the projects that Fundación ONCE is working on, such as the assistance robot AccessRobots, Accessible Medicine Plus, the Alexa app Cuídate Accesible, the videoconferencing solution AccessMeets, Intelidata, Elisa 3.0, and Walkerpisa, among others.