The Zero Project has announced the Zero Project Awardees 2025, centred around Employment, and Information and Communication Technology (ICT). 77 innovative solutions from 45 countries will receive a Zero Project Award at the Zero Project Conference 2025 in Vienna, Austria (March 5-7, 2025).
From women entrepreneurs to company strategies and DPOs as employment facilitators, to the arts as job promoters; from solutions featuring low-cost prosthetics to assistive technology accelerators, and from sign-language solutions to AI-based innovations: all Awardees contribute significantly to advancing the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), standing out for their innovation, impact, and scalability.
The 77 Awardees come from 45 different countries and from all six continents, with Europe (27 Awardees), Asia & Pacific (18), North America (11), Africa (10), Latin America & Caribbean (8), and Australia & Oceania (3).
The countries with the highest numbers of Awardees are the United States of America (8); India, Austria, and Germany (4 each); Canada and China (3 each). All awarded solutions are scalable, with many already operational in several countries. Notable additions to the geographical distribution are Guinea and Guyana, which are represented for the first time, and China joining the list of countries with the highest number of Awardees this year.
Strategic partnerships of the Zero Project in South Asia and Ibero-America have contributed to consistently significant numbers of cross-sectoral nominations and Awardees from those world regions.
The Zero Project Call for Nominations 2025 (#ZeroCall25) called on innovative, impactful, and scalable solutions from around the world to submit their nominations for a Zero Project Award. #ZeroCall25 opened on May 8, 2024 and closed on June 30, 2024.
The Zero Project Team is reviewed all nominations in an extensive multi-step process that involved more than 300 hours of review and the support of more than 350 experts of the global Zero Project Network. The final cohort of Zero Project Awardees 2025 was announced on the International Day of Persons with Disabilities (December 3, 2024).
Becoming a Zero Project Awardee opens doors, opportunities, and promotional channels with the support of the Zero Project Network of more than 10,000+ experts and through exclusive initiatives to advance innovations for disability inclusion.
The Zero Project's research topics are based on the UN CRPD's definition of rights of persons with disabiltities and seek innovative solutions to advance their implementation. #ZeroCall25 called on innovators around the world to submit their nominations of innovative solutions that remove barriers for Inclusive Employment, or through Information and Communication Technologies (ICT).
Click on one of the cards here below to learn more about the topic definition.
Article 27 of the CRPD addresses Work and Employment and informs this year's #ZeroCall25 selection process. The topic covers many different areas, such as supported employment, vocational training, entrepreneurship, micro-finance, work and employment in the Arts, and more.
Learn more about the topic definition.
Information and Communication Technologies have become increasingly important for persons with disabilities. This topic covers a whole range of solutions, including web accessibility, 3D printing, AI, and other applications. ICT is part of every Zero Project Call for Nominations.
Click to find out more about the topic.
The Zero Project Call for Nominations is open to innovative solutions from all countries and all sectors of society.
The #ZeroCall25 research topics are Employment and ICT. Nominations must be submitted for one of these two topics. To ensure that your nomination falls within the scope of #ZeroCall25, please read carefully through the criteria here below. The Zero Project's methodology is based on a 4-year cycle of research topics. Therefore, nominations that work primarily in the fields of education, independent living & political participation or general accessibility will not be considered as part of #ZeroCall25.
The #ZeroCall25 selection process is centered around three main criteria: Innovation, Impact, and Scalability:
The nominated solution will have demonstrated to be innovative and effective in removing barriers for persons with disabilties. The research takes into account the local context, geographies, and groups of beneficiaries.
The impact of a particular solution could refer to the number of beneficiaries or people using a service, the solution’s growth rate, or the influence on improved public services, among others. Any selected solution must have been deployed and have already had an impact; the selection process does not consider projects or products at a concept stage.
All nominations are reviewed for their potential in replicating and expanding to new geographies or growing in another way that allows a maximum number of persons with disabilities to benefit from the innovation. Among the 800+ solutions that have been awarded since 2013, scalability has been indeed multifaceted, ranging from open-source applications to the replication of effective policies, to the expansion of inclusive start-up solutions to new countries.
