Assistive technology (AT) education is essential for promoting inclusion and autonomy for persons with disabilities, yet academic programs remain scarce and fragmented. This study conducts a qualitative document analysis to map 12 AT academic programs at international and European levels, identifying diverse structures, master's degrees, certificates, and professional training curricula with geographical variations. These findings shape the development of our new master's program in Designing Accessible and Inclusive Living Environments starting in 2025/2026.

This paper discusses the development of an undergraduate course on Assistive Technology for Persons with Disabilities, aimed at addressing the gap in building capacity within higher learning institutions for assistive technology (AT) design. The course integrates community-based learning (CBL) with a design-focused, experiential approach, enabling learners to partner with an individual with disability to identify unmet needs, design prototypes, and evaluate solutions. Through this hands-on, real-world process, students develop higher-order thinking skills and gain empathy, while actively contributing to society. Feedback from students reveals increased motivation and deeper learning. Over the last five years, more than forty assistive devices have been developed with some translated into products and adopted by community partners for daily use. This innovative blend of community engagement and discipline-specific learning demonstrates the effectiveness of CBL in fostering technology innovation whilsts creating both academic and social impact, thus setting a new precedent for assistive technology education.

The proportion of individuals requiring Long-Term Care (LTC) is projected to rise from 11.6% in 2020 to 14.1% in 2070, indicating a 21% increase in the number of people aged 50+ needing LTC over 50 years. In parallel, digitalization is evolving rapidly, demanding the adaptation of digital skills. In 2022, the European Commission introduced the European Care Strategy, emphasizing the importance of a Skills Partnership within the Pact for Skills to strengthen the LTC sector. By April 2023, this vision was realized with the launch of a Large-Scale Skills Partnership in LTC, aiming to train 60% of the LTC workforce annually by 2030. The European Care Strategy identifies evolving skill requirements, highlighting the need for training in soft and digital skills, specialized knowledge, and person-centered approaches. The underlying abstract addresses the digital skills of LTC workers in ten European countries, exploring their relevance, the perspectives of LTC managers versus workers, and workforce attitudes towards digital skills. Initial results reveal common challenges such as staff and financial shortages, and varying levels of digital skills across countries. The findings underscore the increasing impact of digitalization and the necessity for targeted training to enhance the quality and efficiency of LTC services.

The work deals with the knowledge transfer of digital accessibility in Word documents with the use of generative artificial intelligence and gamification. For this purpose, a gamified web application was developed, which conveys the necessary test steps for an accessible Word document in the form of texts and tasks. To correct the tasks, a custom GPT from Open AI was set up that provides personal feedback to the user. The web application was qualitatively tested in a user test and the user-defined language model was tested again separately with a binary classification. The user test showed that the web application and the gamified content were perceived positively. The test of the user-defined language model revealed problems in the analysis of Word documents and error detection in a Word document. This leads to the conclusion that the use of generative artificial intelligence around Word documents is not yet fully developed and that further technical developments are required for an optimal result.