Finalists Announced for the 2024 ABC International Excellence Award for Accessible Publishing

October 29, 2024

The list of finalists for the 2024 ABC International Excellence Award for Accessible Publishing has been released by WIPO’s Accessible Books Consortium.

Finalists in the publisher category are:

Shortlisted candidates in the initiative category are:

This year’s winners of the ABC International Excellence Award will be announced by WIPO Deputy Director General Sylvie Forbin during a ceremony on December 4, 2024 at the International Publishers Association Congress gala dinner in Guadalajara, Mexico. This is the second time that the ABC awards are being presented in Latin America.

This year’s wide range of nominations underline the commitment and dedication of publishers and organizations across the world to publishing and supporting accessible content for all readers. The jury were thrilled to review the innovative and inspiring work of so many fantastic nominees. The shortlisted finalists represent the highest quality in the field, and they are a testament to thoughtful, innovative, and inclusive publishing.

Huw Alexander, Managing Director, textBOX and juror.
Guadalajara Cathedral pictured along with the skyline in the evening
Guadalajara Cathedral pictured along with the skyline in the evening (Image: Getty)

ABC award nominees were judged on the criteria of outstanding leadership and achievements in improving the accessibility of e-books or other digital publications for persons who are blind, have low vision, are dyslexic or have mobility impairments that impact their ability to read the printed word. The finalists were selected by an expert jury composed of representatives of publishers, standards bodies and organizations representing persons with visual impairments, as well as accessibility experts.

The ABC International Excellence Award was previously presented at the London Book Fair between 2015 and 2020, at the Frankfurt Book Fair in 2021, at the Guadalajara International Book Fair in 2022 and at the Sharjah Publishers Conference in the United Arab Emirates in 2023.

In 2023, the winners were Bokförlaget Hegas AB of Sweden, the Accessible Reading Materials Library, Chetana Charitable Trust of India, and the Kalimat Foundation of the United Arab Emirates.

Previous winners in the publisher category include Kogan Page and Constantine Editores (2022), Taylor & Francis Group (2021), Macmillan Learning (2020), EDITORIAL 5 (2019), Hachette Livre (2018), SAGE Publishing (2017), Elsevier (2016) and Cambridge University Press (2015).

Previous winners in the initiative category include Mr. Ashoka Bandula Weerawardhana of Sri Lanka and Dorina Nowill Foundation for the Blind – Brazil (2022), National Network for Equitable Library Service (NNELS) - Canada (2021), LIA Foundation - Italy (2020), ekitabu - Kenya (2019), Daisy Forum of India (2018), Tiflonexos - Argentina (2017), Action on Disability Rights and Development – Nepal (2016) and Young Power in Social Action – Bangladesh (2015).

Background

According to a 2017 study published in The Lancet, approximately 253 million people are blind or visually impaired world-wide. Nearly 90% of these are resident in developing countries, where the World Blind Union (WBU) estimates that people who are blind have only a one in ten chance of going to school or getting a job. A lack of accessible books remains a very real barrier to getting an education and leading an independent, productive life.

About ABC

The Accessible Books Consortium (ABC) is a public-private partnership led by WIPO that, together with its many partners around the world, has had real impact over the past decade.  Since its inception, the ABC Global Book Service catalogue has quadrupled in size to nearly one million titles thanks to the inclusion of the collections of participating authorized entities. ABC delivered a total of 164,000 accessible digital files from the ABC catalogue to persons with print disabilities through its authorized entities in 2023. In addition, through ABC’s training and technical assistance partners, almost 20,000 textbooks have been made accessible in over 40 low-income countries, improving access to education for thousands of young people. ABC was established in June 2014 to implement the goals of the Marrakesh Treaty.

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About WIPO

The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) is the global forum for intellectual property policy, services, information and cooperation. A specialized agency of the United Nations, WIPO assists its 193 member states in developing a balanced international IP legal framework to meet society's evolving needs. It provides business services for obtaining IP rights in multiple countries and resolving disputes. It delivers capacity-building programs to help developing countries benefit from using IP. And it provides free access to unique knowledge banks of IP information.