ACCAN congratulates Dr Will Tibben and Gunela Astbrink, winners of this year's 2013 Telstra-TJA Christopher Newell prize for their paper 'The Role of Public Procurement in Accessibility to ICT'. The annual prize is awarded to the best paper offered for publication to the Telecommunications Journal of Australia (TJA) that demonstrates the benefits of telecommunications for people with disability.

Tibben and Astbrink's paper highlights research funded by the ACCAN Grants Scheme in 2011. The paper outlines the benefits of having accessibility criteria as a standard part of government ICT procurement policies. In simple terms, this means that when governments buy information and communications technology (ICT) systems and services, there is a requirement for any equipment or services to incorporate universal design principles so that they are readily usable by everyone.

For more information, visit http://www.tja.org.au/index.php/tja