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Key Dates

Next Grant Round:
Applications for funding will open early 2025.
> Information about our Grants Program

Independent Grants Panel:
Results of the recent EOI will be notified Dec 2024.
> Information about our Panel

We can help: grants@accan.org.au
or phone 02 9288 4000

Grants Information

How Grants are assessed

Western Sydney University

Indigenous people in Western Sydney are experiencing digital divide. This interdisciplinary project will co-design with an Indigenous scholar and will be overseen by an Indigenous Research Governance Committee. By building on established relationships with Indigenous residents in Western Sydney, the project will provide needed data on Indigenous digital exclusion in Western Sydney and will provide Indigenous co-designed recommendations for closing the digital gap.

John Engeler

What is a 'Business Continuity Plan' (BCP)?

It is a fact of life that emergencies will happen, and computer and communications systems will fail. To minimise the problems for your business it is advisable to have a business continuity plan which:

Outlines what you have done in advance to prevent interruptions to vital services
Lists the steps you and staff will take during an interruption to continue operations
Lists the steps you will take to fully restore services after an interruption
Sets up a Post Incident Review (PIR) after an interruption has occurred

Sample BCPs are available on the internet where you will also find sites that have extensive instructions on their construction and implementation.

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ACCAN National Conference 2015 - save the date

The ACCAN National Conference, Dollars and Bytes - Communications affordability now and tomorrow, was held from 1-2 September, 2015, at the Aerial UTS Function Centre in Sydney.

Affordability is one of our core objectives and was the focus of the Conference. Affordability of communications products is an issue that affects all consumers, from young people, to families and seniors.

Presentations and transcripts are now available and are linked below.

Free calls to 1800 numbers - A great ACCAN achievement

Download: How to avoid 1800 number call charges on mobiles53 KB

Download: How to avoid 1800 number call charges on mobiles336.76 KB

Most Australian mobile providers (but not all) now offer free calls to 1800 numbers. Below is a list of providers that offer these calls for free.

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Everyone should have measures in place to protect themselves online. Here are some useful tips:

Use strong passwords

Passwords should be hard to guess but easy to remember. Some things to consider:
1. Use long passwords (8-12 characters)
2. Use a variety of lower and upper cases, special characters (e.g. $, #, *), and numerals
3. Avoid using common names and places.
Keep your devices, application software and operating system up to date.
Secure your home and office Wi-Fi with encryption and a password.
Install a firewall to stop unwanted internet traffic that may be harmful for your computer.
Back up your data regularly.
Do not provide personal or financial information over emails.
Do not open or respond to emails if you do not know the sender.

ACCAN Spring 2017 Magazine cover

Download: ACCAN Magazine Issue 25 Spring 2017752.57 KB (Note: reading order not accessible)

Download accessible version: ACCAN Magazine Issue 25 Spring 2017 - accessible version40.05 KB

There are no positions currently available

Towards the end of 2019, ACCAN started thinking about what a fully accessible communications sector would look like. We wanted to develop a roadmap of shared goals to illustrate what is needed to ensure all people with disability in Australia have full and equal access to communications technologies and services.

In developing the roadmap, ACCAN sought feedback from a range of organisations supporting people with disability. We asked three key questions:

What communications issues do people with disability currently experience?
What communications issues might people with disability experience in the future?
What approaches could help address these existing and anticipated communications issues?

In response to consumers experiencing long wait times and other significant customer service issues when contacting their telecommunications providers.

ACCAN commissioned Synergies Economics to develop a model to estimate the cost of consumer time that is spent trying to resolve issues with their telecommunications provider.

To extend this work, ACCAN has commissioned Colmar Brunton to collect data for use in the economic modelling prepared.

ACCAN is delighted to award Andrew a Life Membership of ACCAN. Andrew has been a life-long champion for people with disabilities, particularly the deaf and hard of hearing.

He has brought that commitment to consumers through his early involvement with ACCAN’s predecessor organisation CTN, and his support for over the years to ACCAN.

He has been an exceptional contributor to ACCAN campaigns and policy work and an outstanding advocate for people with disabilities in a number of CTN and ACCAN fora, and an outstanding advocate on the many committees and panels he has participated in. He brings to ACCAN a wealth of knowledge and experience on people with disabilities, particularly the deaf and hard of hearing that include:

His involvement in drafting the first disability standard on acoustic coupling;
His involvement with Print-a-Call and later, establishment of Hearing Connections in the provision of both assistive devices and advice on their use
His championing the issues of the compatibility of hearing aids with mobile phones and later, of the compatibility of TTYs with the NBN
His involvement with ACCAN’s Accessible Telecoms Project

ACCAN, its members and so many of the consumers we serve owe a huge debt of gratitude to Andrew for his knowledge, his expertise and his commitment to people with disabilities. We are proud to name Andrew Stewart as a Life Member of ACCAN.

The summary below outlines ACCAN’s activities from 1 March – 31 May 2022

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Griffith University

While cybersecurity self-help advice is readily available to consumers, most resources are focused on preventing unintended sharing of devices, passwords, accounts, and personal information. This advice is ill-suited to intimate relationship contexts where sharing is common. A lack of baseline knowledge about smartphone-sharing practices and the reasons behind them has hampered Australian efforts to strengthen consumer cybersecurity. This project will create a new evidence base to understand everyday consumer smartphone sharing in intimate relationships using a survey and interviews with diverse consumers, to improve privacy protections and cybersecurity for all Australians.

Angelene Falk