This year’s Disability-Smart Awards, which aims to showcase and celebrate the most innovative and inclusive practice among employers and service providers, is now open for nominations. So, if your organisation has helped to transform the lives of disabled people in your workplace/community, the award organiser Business Disability Forum wants to hear from you.
“Through the Disability Smart Awards, we want to celebrate success, whilst challenging other organisations to become more accessible by raising the bar on inclusive business,” commented Diane Lightfoot, CEO of the Business Disability Forum. “Please help lead the way on change by sharing with us what your organisation is doing to ensure the needs of all employees and customers are met.”
AWARD CATEGORIES
This year, there are 11 awards categories to choose from. These include:
- Disability-Smart Senior Champion Award 2019
- Disability-Smart Design Award 2019
- Disability-Smart Workplace Experience Award 2019
- Disability-Smart Influencer Award 2019
- Disability-Smart Technology for All Award 2019
- Disability-Smart Customer Service Award 2019
- Disability-Smart Global Leader Award 2019
- Disability-Smart Communications & Marketing Campaign Award 2019
- Disability-Smart Multinational Organisation Award 2019
- Disability-Smart Diversity & Inclusion Practitioner Award 2019
- Disabled Peoples’ Choice Award 2019
To enter, simply visit the awards categories page and download the appropriate application form for your entry. Submissions plus relevant supporting material should be sent to: dsawards@businessdisabilityforum.org.uk by Friday 6th September 2019.
PAST WINNERS
Last year’s award winners included, Liverpool Football Club, Microsoft, Gatwick Airport and West Midlands Police. Microsoft won the technology category last year for using cutting edge technologies to ensure their widely used products were as accessible to as many customers as possible.
Commenting on winning the award, Hector Minto, Microsoft’s Tech Evangelist for Europe, Middle East and Africa, stated: “Winning the Disability-Smart award was very good for us, not just because of the Windows work but for what people don’t see, which is the number of employees with disabilities working as engineers on the product. It is not somebody doing something for people with disabilities, it is blind engineers, it is deaf engineers, it is people working and bringing their life experience to our product to make it better. There is so much built into the product that empowers people routinely. But it really took the Disability Smart Award to get the message out clearly to the business world and the education world.”
This year’s Disability-Smart Awards ceremony, sponsored by Barclays, will take place on Wednesday 23rd October 2019 at the Foreign & Commonwealth Office in London.
Click here for more information.
Sign up for our newsletter
