On a Tuesday, March 4, in Vienna, Austria, Erin Taylor steered her wheelchair before a gathering of the nation’s parliament and leading dignitaries. The young woman then operated a device exclusively with her eyes, bringing a hyper-realistic avatar to large screens to address the room.
“Technology holds tremendous promise for persons with disabilities—a promise realized when we codesign and control these technologies from the start,” Taylor said through her avatar. She called for an AI-empowered future, built in concert with the people who need solutions most.
Taylor was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) in 2023, a neurodegenerative disease typically leading to full-body paralysis—it has no cure. She joined Parliament as a guest of the Scott-Morgan Foundation (SMF), a leading non-profit rewriting the future for people living with disabilities, and a consortium of collaborators leveraging AI.
The moment, which included her multilingual avatar cracking jokes in Viennese German, kicked off the Zero Project Conference, hosted in Vienna’s United Nations headquarters. As the largest accessibility-focused event in Europe, the conference saw roughly 1,500 attendees join panels and workshops, showcase groundbreaking innovations, and network with visionaries from around the world.
Teams from Lenovo, the global technology powerhouse, joined ZeroCon for the first time to meet with long-standing collaborators, share expertise, and explore the frontiers of assistive technology.
“It was a privilege to bring our vision of Smarter technology for all to Zero Project, where such brilliant innovators and advocates share our commitment to inclusion,” said Calvin Crosslin, President of the Lenovo Foundation and VP of human resources. “We took the opportunity to exchange ideas, show our own assistive tech solutions, and see how AI is already transforming lives.”
The same technology showcased at Parliament—with an interface developed by Lenovo and running on a ThinkPad x12 detachable tablet—was debuted at Lenovo Tech World last October, with Taylor welcoming Lenovo Chairman and CEO Yuanqing Yang to the stage. That moment was the culmination of a multi-year collaboration with SMF.
SMF leadership spearheaded Lenovo’s involvement in the Zero Project Conference—convening accessibility leaders, hosting panels, and exploring new collaborations that could leverage Lenovo’s technology expertise and end-to-end AI portfolio.
“Erin’s call to action in Austria’s historic Parliament—to ensure digital rights become human rights—is a powerful reminder of technology’s potential when developed thoughtfully and inclusively,” said LaVonne Roberts, CEO of SMF United States. “The future of accessibility isn’t siloed innovation, but open collaboration. Our work with Lenovo exemplifies this approach – combining our foundation’s expertise in lived experience with their technological capabilities to create solutions that are more effective, more accessible, and more sustainable than any single organization could build alone.”
Establishing a culture of inclusive design
Several presenters at Zero Project Con referenced the phenomenon of “curb cutting”—a noted example of an accessibility-driven change that benefits many others. In adding ramps or otherwise leveling city curbs and sidewalks to accommodate wheelchairs, countless others benefitted: parents with strollers, shoppers with carts, children on scooters, and many with limited mobility. The theme was clear: Innovation for marginalized groups can enhance the experience of countless others.
“The scale of this opportunity is staggering – over 2.5 billion people currently need assistive technology, projected to exceed 3.5 billion by 2050,” Roberts said. “At the Scott-Morgan Foundation, we’re working to ensure these aren’t just statistics but a call to action. Each number represents a person whose talent, voice, and potential is waiting to be unleashed through thoughtful, inclusive technology.”
The same ethos informs the work of Lenovo’s Product Diversity Office (PDO), an oversight team that reviews products across the company for compliance, accessibility, and consideration of diverse global users.
“Truly, we go beyond compliance to establish a culture of inclusive design, where accessibility is part of the foundation of our innovation,” said Ada Lopez, who leads the PDO and joined the event. “The Zero Project conference was an incredible showcase for what’s possible, certainly, but it also made clear how much we can gain by listening and collaborating across organizations. Integrating different solutions is a huge part of what we do at Lenovo—and how we discover the ways assistive tech transforms everyone’s lives—and I’m excited to explore more opportunities to make a real impact.”
Lopez offered guidance to the entrepreneurs, non-profits, and larger companies at the event on how to evaluate, deploy, and scale accessible technologies globally.
Collaborating for an accessible future
Crosslin participated in a panel called “AI for All,” discussing ways to democratize technology and then evaluating assistive technology pitches from global entrepreneurs.
“It’s often easy for innovation to happen in a silo: push the technology, serve a single demographic of end user, and deliver a dedicated solution,” Crosslin said. “But this limits what we can accomplish together. This is a space where the outcome can be much greater than the sum of its parts—precisely what we see with Erin’s avatar.”
Led by SMF, the avatar solution integrates powerful AI-driven technologies: a custom avatar from D-ID, personalized voices from ElevenLabs, and eye-gaze tracking from IRISBOND. Lenovo led the development of the interface and provided devices to share and test the tech with individuals with ALS around the world.
“The tireless efforts of the Scott-Morgan Foundation, their collaborators, and Ada within our own Product Diversity Office are really moving the needle—it’s thrilling to see,” Crosslin said. “The democratization of AI is happening.”
The collaboration continues to grow, including exploring integrations with recognized alternative and augmentative communications (AAC) leader Smartbox.
Employee advocacy and support
After the Zero Project event, Crosslin and Lopez made the short journey to Bratislava, Slovakia, home to the largest Lenovo office in Europe.
“We carried the momentum from the event of building an inclusive future,” said Santiago Mendez, Lenovo’s head of corporate citizenship for Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, who also joined the Zero Project Conference. “We looked at our existing local initiatives and new ways to directly engage our communities in creating a more equitable world.”
In Bratislava, Mendez hosted conversations with employees, shared the tireless work of the employee resource groups across the region, and discussed further opportunities to support a culture of inclusion—from technology design and development to quality of life for employees.
Learn more about Zero Project, the Scott-Morgan Foundation, and Lenovo’s commitments to environmental, social, and governance excellence.