Over 100 Undergrad Students
Over 48 Graduate Students
Over 160 Research Publications
Over $10M Research Funding
Gamification survey (external link) from a human–computer studies perspective
Blind viewers are entertained (external link) when media creators engage in AD
Patented teleconferencing robot (external link) makes the participants present
Since 1996, the IMDC has developed more than 50 different Assistive Technology (AT) projects, employed and educated 15 staff, 3 post-doctoral fellows, 10 PhD students (including Ryerson’s first Deaf PhD graduate to complete her dissertation partially in American Sign Language and who received the inaugural Alan Shepard award in 2013), 38 master’s students, and over 100 undergraduate students. Numerous partnerships with industry collaborators, other EDI institutions, community organisations, such as Canadian National Institute for the Blind (CNIB) and Canadian Hearing Society, and international collaborators drive much of the EDI research carried out at the IMDC.
The IMDC is challenging stereotypical notions of accessibility, breaking down barriers to technology, education, entertainment and healthcare, through its Inclusive Design methodology; creating opportunities for innovative solutions that meet a range of diverse human sensory experiences and perceptions along with differences in culture, gender, age, place and education. Private and non-profit student-developed applications resulting from IMDC research include: robotic in-class presence for neurodivergent children, hands-free technology for those with mobility impairments, personalized video healthcare applications for older adults, enhanced audio description for blind audiences and live text-animated captioning applications and high-resolution vibrotactile artforms for Deaf and hard of hearing viewers.