March Quarterly Newsletter

I. EVENT

Continual Engine exhibited in the 37th Annual CSUN Assistive Technology Conference 2022, held between March 14 to 18, 2022, at Anaheim, California, and co-presented with George Mason University on The Role of Champions in Accessibility Technology Innovation.

The session covered the journey in the development of PREP, an artificial intelligence-based solution for document remediation (PDFs, Word, PowerPoints, etc.) describing the partnership between Continual Engine and George Mason University. Both organizations engaged in a beta trial to test, validate, and enhance PREP’s capabilities which played a critical role in gaining a deep understanding of existing solutions, workflows, and approaches, understanding where to incorporate collaborative intelligence approaches (technologies built for humans to provide context). Gathering feedback and use cases from end-users throughout the process to vet, test, and make improvements, resulted in making PREP a robust, intelligent, and intuitive technology solution for document remediation.

Presenters:

Korey Singleton, ATI Manager George Mason University
Rajiv Narayana, CLO Continual Engine US LLC
Vijayshree Vethantham, Vice-President, Partner Engagements Continual Engine US LLC

II. COMPANY UPDATES

1. Continual Engine wins Gold and Bronze at the 2021 Brandon Hall Group Excellence in Technology Awards

Continual Engine, a trusted leader in delivering innovative and scalable learning and accessibility solutions, is pleased to announce it has won the coveted Brandon Hall Group gold award in the category of Excellence in Diversity and Inclusion Innovation and a bronze award in the Excellence in Learning Management Technology for Small and Medium-Sized Businesses category.

Invicta

The gold award recognizes the company’s solution InvictaTM in joint partnership with one of the largest publishers in the world, Pearson Education. InvictaTM is a transformative platform which leverages advanced artificial intelligence (AI) techniques, like deep learning and computer vision, to automate the authoring of accurate, high quality alternate text (alt text) for diverse images in STEM, computer science, accounting and other disciplines.

An expert-in-the-loop feature enables review of the alt text output by subject matter experts, or accessibility specialists. InvictaTM can process hundreds of images in a matter of minutes, which makes it a scalable, efficient, and compelling solution for organizations, individuals, and educational institutions seeking affordable solutions for accessibility and ADA compliance.

If you are interested in learning more about our upcoming webinar on Invicta, please email us at contact@continualengine.com.

myAthina

myAthina was awarded bronze jointly with Falabella India, a global retail giant. myAthina is an artificial intelligence-enabled learning ecosystem platform that offers small and medium-sized organizations with an easy-to-implement, intuitive, and affordable solution for employee upskilling and learning. myAthina has demonstrated improvements in employee engagement and retention by offering a fully customizable white-label platform and a carefully vetted feature set focusing on what is important for an organization in a competitive world.

“We are privileged to receive this recognition by the Brandon Hall Group for providing the best-in-class artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled solutions that address digital accessibility and e-Learning”, says Mousumi Kapoor, Founder & CEO, Continual Engine. “As a company dedicated towards providing transformative solutions that enable equal access to all, this recognition is truly an honor and a motivator for us to reimagine and innovate the future”.

2. GSV CUP Elite 200

We are delighted to share that Continual Engine made it into The Elite 200, the acclaimed list of semifinalists in The GSV Cup — the world’s largest pitch competition for EdTech startups run by female-led, multi-stage venture capital firm GSV Ventures. Companies selected to The Elite 200 represent the top pre-seed and seed stage startups in digital learning across the “Pre-K to Gray” space. Continual Engine was selected from a global applicant pool of 750+ companies, the largest application pool for the GSV Cup yet. More than 175 judges from leading venture capital firms and strategic partners in digital learning like Accel, General Atlantic, Reach Capital, and Owl Ventures, among others, used rigorous criteria to determine the 200 most promising companies.

III. NEWS ARTICLES:

1. The Hidden Image Descriptions Making the Internet Accessible

The text boxes given are examples of alt text, which people who are blind or have low vision often rely on when navigating the web. When it’s available, the text can be detected and read aloud or translated into Braille through screen readers, assistive technology that can be accessed in the form of software programs, apps or even browser extensions. For these users, alt text is essential to the online experience. But it is not always available, or even helpful. Haben Girma, a lawyer and disability rights advocate, speaks candidly about barriers the visually challenged face every day.

2. Mindset Matters: How Businesses Must Analyze Real-Time Trends to Grasp the Breadth of the Disability Economy

Any business that wants to engage in the growing Disability Economy must recognize the landscape of this community itself is not limited to simply the economic realities that drive this consumer market or the evolution of entrepreneurship, but rather something far greater. There are various social forces at play that are driving change and need to be understood for businesses to actively engage in this space in any real authentic way. Analysts should constantly be paying attention to the social structures that are defining the very architecture of the disability narrative and make those connections to articulate a sound business strategy that works for the modern corporate environment.

3. Website Accessibility Considerations for Private Institutions of Higher Education

The COVID-19 pandemic dramatically increased the use of the internet and digital platforms by institutions of higher education. While providing online content has great potential to improve the ways that institutions communicate with and educate students, institutions must also be aware of their respective compliance obligations when acting in a digital world. Thompson Coburn’s Higher Education Group previously detailed the requirements of the Department of Education’s new Distance Education Rule in a webinar for institutions looking to educate students online. This blog post focuses on website accessibility considerations and provides a high-level overview of legal requirements for private institutions of higher education.

4. ADA Title III Federal Lawsuit Filings Hit an All-Time High

Seyfarth Synopsis: Plaintiffs Continue Filing ADA Title III Lawsuits in Record Numbers with no Sign of Stopping.

The number of ADA Title III lawsuits filed in federal court in 2020 dipped slightly under 11,000, but the plaintiffs’ bar came roaring back in 2021. There were at least 11,452 federal filings last year – an all-time record since we started keeping track in 2013 when there were only 2,722 suits. That’s a 320% increase in eight years.

I. EVENT

II. COMPANY UPDATES

1. Continual Engine wins Gold and Bronze at the 2021 Brandon Hall Group Excellence in Technology Awards

2. GSV CUP Elite 200

III. NEWS ARTICLES:

1. The Hidden Image Descriptions Making the Internet Accessible

2. Mindset Matters: How Businesses Must Analyze Real-Time Trends to Grasp the Breadth of the Disability Economy

3. Website Accessibility Considerations for Private Institutions of Higher Education

4. ADA Title III Federal Lawsuit Filings Hit an All-Time High

Editors:

Debangku Sarma

Vijayshree Vethantham

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