About ICC

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International Camp on Communication and Computers for Partially Sighted and Blind Teens, ICC is organized under the patronage of Jan Kepler University in Linz. The head of this European event is the professor Klaus Miesenberger from Support Interuniversity Institute for visually impaired students. The camp was originally intended as just an Austrian educational event, but soon it turned out that there was an extraordinary interest in the camp all over Europe, in the USA and in Japan. A team of national coordinators was created; its members manage the participation of students from different countries. At the beginning, Czech Republic was represented in this coordinating team by the Grammar School and Business Academy for the Blind (dr. Wanda Gonzúrová) together with Tereza – Support Centre for blind students at CVUT (Ing. Ondřej Fránek). Since 2001 the Teiresias Centre is the Czech national coordinator of the ICC.

The ICC has already taken place in most of European countries (the camp took place in the Czech Republic for the first time in 2005). About 50 participants from 20 countries usually take part in the ICC in two runs. Eighty PCs, thirty Braille displays, several Braille printers and practically all internationally used screen scanners with voice output and several special software applications are provided to the students.

The aim of the ICC is to advise the young blind on various possibilities that computers offer for communication with the world around them, for gaining information for their studies or just for fun.

Until 2013 the ICC did run in two weeks every year. The first week was focused on students in the age of 15–17, i.e. on secondary school students with the aim to help them preparing for the school-leaving exam and university entrance exams. Apart from that, another seminars on basic PC skills for beginners (basics of PC use, basics of Windows OS, text editing, Internet access, e-mail) were held. The second week was intended for students in the age of 17–20 with more specialized seminars such as Screenreader, MP3, HTML programming, ICQ, etc.

Since 2013 the ICC will be held as one ten day event focused on students aged 16 to 21. The program is composed from practical workshops opened to students with basic knowledge of using computer as well as workshops for more advanced users.

The combination of both age groups enable to meet high school students and university students and will offer them the unique opportunity in sharing and gaining experience about what study at university means in reality.

ICC offers to youngsters

  • to meet peers from different countries all around the world during ten day event in the safe and barrier free environement
  • learn more about modern information technologies for the blind and to work with it 
  • experience international and intercultural exchange

Program

The program is composed from two main blocks of activities: practical workshops and leisure time activities. The workshops are divided to two thematic sections: aimed primarily to enlarge knowledge and skills in the field of working with computer and with assistive technologies and using computer as a tool.

An inseparable part of program are leisure time activities and trip day.

More detailed information about workshops, workshop content and leisure time activities will be provided by the national coordinator.

Participation information

Persons interested in participating the ICC should: 

  • be aged 16–21 (bear in mind that you can only take part in ICC twice)
  • be fairly fluent in English (the whole tuition and accompanying programme of the summer school is in English)
  • have basic informatics knowledge (ability to work with a PC equipped with special software)

ICC participation fee

The participation fee of ICC is about 400€ depending on the host country. The price includes accommodation, catering, workshops led by professionals, social program including an excursion day and the assistance services. Teiresias Centre in its role as the national coordinators agency participates in covering the costs of participation.