AT Scholar Award

Attending the Assistive Technology Association Conference (ATIA) in Florida has been on my radar for several years. Yet with other commitments due to sport, study, and finance, this never quite came to fruition. This year I decided to throw my hat in the ring for the AT Scholar Award, hoping to attend ATIA in January 2027.

I had heard this was always a tough application; previously, many professionals have wanted the opportunity to attend. Some of you may have read my 2024 blog, ‘Who is a professional?’, so I even wondered if I truly qualified. The closing date was August, with the AT Scholars due to be announced in early September 2026.

My ethos in life is to dream big, work hard and be resilient.

This big dream was to attend ATIA, network and learn from others.
I’ve worked hard for years to develop the skills, knowledge, and experience to support my chosen career. On a smaller level, it was hard work drafting and redrafting the application, trying to hit the reviewer’s buttons by answering their questions clearly and staying within the word count.
Resilience comes from keeping at it when you dream of something. When you apply for things, you need to pick yourself up and learn when you’re not successful.

Why ATIA?

I have always loved attending the Communication Matters conference. Even more, since I was 12, I have enjoyed learning and networking at the biennial ISAAC conference. But for several years I have heard that the place ‘to be’ was the ATIA Conference. The draw is its size and breadth of opportunity to get hands-on with equipment, choose from over 400 sessions across a very broad range of themes, meet like-minded participants, and more (will I get any sleep?).

Convinced it was not my turn

By the time the Communication Matters International Conference in Leeds came around on 13 September, I was convinced I couldn’t be successful. Let’s face it, the 13^th is not early in the month! I had chalked the application up to experience and decided there would always be another time. Tina Voizey from ACE Centre came over to say hello on the first evening of the conference. I anticipated we’d be chatting about me missing the Board meeting for a wedding. Instead, within minutes, I was sat open-mouthed; I hadn’t expected to be awarded one of the scholarships to travel to Florida.

Honouring the commitment

Part of my commitment to receiving the award is to share the experience before, during and after the journey. So, let’s start early! So far, I’ve booked my place at ATIA, flights, and hotel.

Reviewing the programme

My particular areas of interest are:

AAC users and mental wellbeing.
AAC users and the increased use of AI.

The programme has already been published. I’ve done a first trawl through to identify sessions I might benefit from attending. In many time slots, several sessions might tick my boxes. This exercise was really useful, as it supported my rationale for self-funding the additional cost of accessing the virtual sessions. These are the ones that are recorded and available after the event. That way when there is more than one session I want to attend I can decide to play catch up once I’m home with the virtual offer.