Organizer
The main organizer of the ULD conference, and of the special conference track within the ICCHP event is the Support Centre for Students with Special Needs at Masaryk University in Brno, Czech Republic (in short, the Teiresias Centre).
The Teiresias Centre is a special-purpose department servicing the whole Masaryk University (MU). Its task is to make studies at MU as accessible as possible for students with disabilities, such as sensory and physical impairments, and other difficulties.
It was originally founded in 2000 as a service department for blind and visually impaired students (hence its short name, the Teiresias Centre, which is a reference to the mythological blind prophet). Since 2003, it has been extending its activities to services for students with hearing and motor impairments, and, most recently, learning and psychological difficulties.
Today, the Teiresias Centre primarily serves as:
- a teaching centre with a wide range of courses supplementing and/or substituting standard classes,
- a methodical and counselling centre for MU students and staff as well as similar special-purpose departments at other Czech universities and high schools,
- a research institution developing original technological solutions,
- an interpreting and speech-to-text reporting centre,
- and last but not least, a Braille publisher and a national digital library.
The organizer of the ICCHP conference is the Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria. The ULD conference is included in the event every even-numbered year as a special track.