CREATE’s partnerships provide support for our students, our research, and our translation efforts. We continue to forge important relationships with disability-focused organizations and accessibility-focused companies.
Industry
Meaningful connections among companies and researchers to build community, enhance educational, and accelerate research innovation
Community
Essential collaborations with researchers, faculty, students, and disability-focused communities to guide our work to improve accessibility
Campus
Mutually supportive allyships with student and disability groups to co-sponsor events like hackathons and speakers to build a culture of accessibility
We are grateful to the funders, community partners, and UW communities that sustain us.
Consider joining us to amplify each other’s missions. Contact us at create-contact@uw.edu.
Partner & Community Accessibility events
CREATE has a custom event calendar that lists events sponsored and hosted by partner accessibility and disability organizations, including opportunities to volunteer.
Partners news archive
Blind and Low Vision Teens Join CREATE through YES2 Summer Internships
September 3, 2025 This summer, CREATE hosted three high school/undergraduate interns through a program that focuses on career preparation for young Washingtonians who are blind or visually disabled. Left to right: YES2 intern Susanna Haley, DUB Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) student Kaija Frierson, YES2 intern Mohammed Al-jawadi, YES2 intern Kaleb The Washington Department of…
Community Day 2025 Recap
June 5, 2025 On May 28, CREATE student and faculty researchers gathered with industry and community partners to discuss concerns about and approaches to sustainable accessibility research. Two hybrid panel discussions covered timely topics, followed by research presentations from CREATE students and the CREATE-HuskyADAPT Research Showcase. Thank you to all who attended Community Day and…
Community Partner Spotlight: Disability Empowerment Center
March 24, 2025 The Disability Empowerment Center is a nonprofit organization run by people with disabilities and rooted in the philosophy that people with disabilities should have the choice to live independently and thrive as important members of our community. DEC provides King County residents with free individualized services such as skills training for independent…
Coffee Chat Recaps - Winter 2025
March 4, 2025 CREATE has initiated Coffee Chats – one or two opportunities per month for conversation among faculty, student, staff, and industry and community partners. Topics have included opportunities for student involvement in CREATE, how researchers can benefit from community-engaged research, and where to find funding for research. These meetings have proved useful for…
Adapting toys to be accessible for local families
December 20, 2024 At HuskyADAPT's holiday toy adaptation event in November, about 80 volunteers adapted toys, ranging from a baseball pitching machine and spinning art kit to lava lamps, remote control cars and a bilingual play drum. The volunteers connected the toys to a switch that can make it easier for children with disabilities to…
HuskyADAPT Mini Hackathon: Adaptive Solutions
November 18, 2024 This month, CREATE's ARRT postdocs and HuskyADAPT students collaborated to put on an impressive and successful hackathon. The team worked with our partners King County Library Systems and Washington Assistive Technology Act Program on the event where teams designed adaptations to everyday challenges for people with disabilities. All six teams came up with…
Gatzert Child Welfare Fellowship for Reham Abuatiq
June 13, 2024 Congratulations to CREATE Ph.D. student Reham Abuatiq, who has received the 2024 Gatzert Child Welfare Fellowship, which will fully fund her for one quarter for her dissertation writing phase! Advised by CREATE associate director Heather Feldner, Abuatiq's dissertation work explores the Healthcare Transition of Middle Eastern Youth with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities and…
Spring 2024 Research Showcase
May 30, 2024 The closing event for CREATE's Community Day 2024 on May 20th, this research showcase was co-sponsored by HuskyADAPT. Posters and presentations A11yBoard: Making Presentation Slideshow Reading and Editing Accessible to Blind Users Designing human-AI and multimodal interactions to make presentation slideshow reading and editing accessible. Zhuohao (Jerry) Zhang, Gene S-H Kim, Jacob…
Community Day 2024 Recap
On May 20, 2024, approximately 150 researchers, students, and partners participated in the discussion and discovery of CREATE's Community Day 2024. Two hybrid panel discussions covered timely topics on disability and accessibility. Thank you to all our presenters, volunteers, and attendees for making this year's Community Day such a success! We look forward to sharing…
CREATE AI+Accessibility Hackfest - Winter '24
March 6, 2024 In March 2024, CREATE students gathered with industry and community partners for a hackfest to explore and invent the future of AI and Accessibility. The event featured invited speakers Heather Nolis, Ian Stenseng, and Shaun Kane and exciting workshops on building custom GPT and creating accessible Jupyter notebooks. Attendees brainstormed on ideas submitted…
Ben Taskar Memorial Event
January 26, 2024 In January 2024, the CREATE community was invited to participate in the Taskar Center's 2024 Annual Ben Taskar Memorial Event, themed "Transportation and Responsible AI." Sessions Project Poster Viewing and Team Discussions Explore innovative projects from the course on "Responsible Data Science in Urban Spaces" under the guidance of Anat Caspi, TCAT…
Community Partner Spotlight: PAVE
November 8, 2023 CREATE is pleased to work with PAVE (Partnerships for Action | Voices for Empowerment) to help guide our efforts and shape solutions around the needs and limitations of accessible technology. They’ve supported our grant applications, shared opportunities for participation in CREATE research projects with their community, and published CREATE research on the…
Virtual Traffic Stop App Aims to Ease Tensions, Aid Communication
October 2, 2023 The designers of the Virtual Traffic Stop app aim to ease tensions and prevent misunderstandings between drivers and law enforcement during traffic stops. For Hard-of-Hearing or Deaf drivers, the app can be used to communicate with law enforcement via chat during the video. Users can add family members and invite them to…
User-informed, robot-assisted social dining for people with motor impairments
June 1, 2023 A team of Allen School robotics researchers has published a paper on the finer aspects of robot-assisted dining with friends. "A meal should be memorable, and not for a potential faux pas from the machine," notes co-author Patrícia Alves-Oliveira. Supported by a CREATE Student minigrant and in the spirit of "nothing about us without us," they are working with the Tyler Schrenk Foundation to…
Accessible eSports Showcase 2023: Event Recap
In April 2023, CREATE hosted its first ever Accessible eSports Showcase event, bringing together members of the CREATE community, local community organizations, tech and games Corporate Partners, and folks from all over the Seattle area looking to learn about and celebrate ongoing strides being made in making video games more inclusive and accessible to people…