2023 represents an important milestone for Lattes Editori, which turns 130. On the occasion of the anniversary’s celebrations, the historic publishing house will host the Open EEPG Conference: Inclusivity and Accessibility in K12 Education, the annual meeting of the European Educational Publishers Group (EEPG), an organization that brings together educational publishers from 24 European countries to foster the exchange of knowledge, ideas and good practices in the field of educational content production.

The event will be attended by important personalities and entities from the world of books at an international level, who will share their experiences in a day dedicated to deepening the key themes of the conference. Among these, Fondazione LIA was invited to speak about accessibility as a field of innovation for publishing, especially in view of the entry into force of the European Accessibility Act in 2025.

The event

This EEPG conference dedicated to inclusiveness and accessibility is one of the three annual meetings organized by the Group to allow its members to meet and discuss important topics for the sector. In the 14 years of existence of the initiative, it had never been held in Italy before.

This year it will take place in Turin on 20 and 21 June, organized in collaboration with Fondazione Circolo dei Lettori and with the involvement of the Egyptian Museum and the Royal Museums of the city.

The program includes a first day (June 20) dedicated to EPG members, but it will end with a dinner open to all participants to inaugurate the following day of conferences. Indeed, on Thursday 21, Circolo dei Lettori will host numerous sessions from 8.30 a.m. to 5.00 p.m. which, maintaining the focus on education and inclusion, will address the most different topics: from strategies for the integration of Ukrainian children in other school systems, to artificial intelligence and its possible educational applications.

Among the speakers, there will be important personalities such as Ricardo Franco Levi (President of the Italian Publishers Association and the Federation of European Publishers), Dominik Luke (Assistive Technology Officer at the University of Oxford where he founded the Reading and Writing Innovation Lab), Jana Huttova (UNICEF consultant), and representatives of publishing houses and technology startups active in the field of inclusion and accessibility.

LIA Session

On the afternoon of Thursday 21, Cristina Mussinelli, Secretary General of Fondazione LIA will hold the session An accessible publishing ecosystem providing an overview of the new European legislative framework on accessibility and the effects it will have on the digital publishing ecosystem. The standards for the production of accessible content and publications will also be presented, as well as the work conducted by LIA alongside Italian publishers and internationally.

Accessibility is now one of the main fields of innovation for publishing: by 2025 all players in the world of books will have to meet the requirements identified by European and non-European legislations and each of them will be required to do their part.