A major conference bringing policy, industry expertise and lived experience together to tackle digital accessibility will be held in Newport this month, as new figures show more than a quarter of people in Wales are disabled.

Access for All: From Policy to Reality takes place at The Riverfront Theatre on September 30th, running from 10am to 4pm. Organised by accessibility consultancy Cewri, the event aims to move the conversation beyond compliance and towards practical change, offering delegates tools they can use to improve their digital services immediately.

The conference arrives amid growing evidence of a gap between the accessibility policies many organisations publish and the barriers disabled people continue to encounter in everyday life — in employment, education, transport, healthcare, entertainment and digital access alike.

Nearly 98% of websites still fail to meet basic accessibility standards, and research shows seven in ten disabled online shoppers abandon websites they find difficult to use. In the UK, 16.7 million people — a quarter of the population — were disabled in 2024/25; in Wales, the figure was 26%. Disabled households represent an estimated £274 billion in annual spending power, a market organisations risk excluding through poor design.

Rather than a conventional industry event, Access for All will place disabled speakers and those working directly in the field centre stage. Confirmed contributors include Paralympic gold medallist Ellie Challis, Commonwealth Games swimmer Alex Rosser, broadcaster and retired Paralympic champion Liz Johnson, and Swim Conwy head coach Aled Davies. They will be joined by accessibility specialists Gavin Evans and Mike Taylor of the Digital Accessibility Centre, Swansea University's Professor Harold Thimbleby, product designer Gemma Helyer, and Martyn Jones, Interim Chair of the Wales Committee and former CEO of Learning Disability Wales and Diverse Cymru.

Joanna Goodwin, event organiser and CEO of Cewri, said accessibility should not be seen as a niche concern. "Accessibility is not about designing for a tiny minority," she said. "Accessibility offers opportunities for everyone — consider video captions, electric toothbrushes and dropped curbs. All of these were designed to meet an access need but now have use for anyone. One in four people in the UK are disabled and accessibility failures aren't abstract technical problems. They can mean someone cannot buy something, book something, pay a bill, apply for support or access information independently. That is exactly why the people affected by the decisions of organisations need to be considered from the beginning. Technology should be an answer to a problem, not the starting point for one."

Booking and further details are available at cewri.org/events.