The 2020 CSUN Assistive Technology Conference was due to be held from the 9th to the 13th of March in Anaheim, California. NV Access was due to present a session at the conference as well as attend many meetings with individuals and companies. Over the past couple of days, many of the key participants of CSUN that we were intending to meet with, have cancelled their attendance at the conference. There is growing global concern over the Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) situation. Today, the Los Angeles County declared a local health emergency due to COVID-19.
Limiting travel and large gatherings is one of the most effective ways of reducing the spread of the virus. See the World Health Organisation’s recommendations on basic protective measures you should take.
We have considered the emergency declaration, the cancellation of meetings, our risk assessment of the COVID-19 situation, potential difficulties around travel, and general public health and safety. For all these reasons, NV Access has also decided to cancel our attendance at CSUN this year. This includes cancellation of our session IND-001, “NVDA’s 2020 Insight”.
Various organisations and individuals have proposed the idea of a virtual event. We agree this is the socially responsible thing to do in the circumstances. NV Access is interested in such an event in place of meeting in person this year. Should a virtual conference be organised, we will share information on this in our In-Process Blog. and on Twitter. In the meantime, we are also looking at ways of delivering our planned presentation online. We appreciate everyone’s support, and we look forward to finding other ways of catching up with everyone we would have met at CSUN this year.
One thing we were going to demonstrate at CSUN this year was the new Rate Boost functionality for Windows OneCore Voices in NVDA 2019.3. Instead, we have a Video Demonstrating Rate Boost which we announced in our In-Process Blog today. Do follow our In-Process Blog for more news and information. You can subscribe to the RSS Feed), or Follow us on Twitter to stay up to date.