SoftServe project takes first place in the UN Global Compact in Ukraine Award
IT ClusterOn November 26, Kyiv hosted the awarding of companies within the Partnership for Sustainability Award 2020 – an international project competition organized by the UN Global Compact Network in Ukraine. SoftServe took first place in the competition with the project “Accessibility Testing” in the category “Society”.
The competition aims to promote Sustainable Development Goals and partnerships between enterprises, business associations, governments, civil society, and universities. This year, the organizers received more than 150 applications from Ukraine, Belarus, Macedonia, Poland, and Turkey.
Among the jury members for this year’s competition: Reid Steadman, Director and Head of ESG S&P Dow Jones Indices; Judy Njino, Executive Director and Coordinator of the UN General Assembly Network in Kenya; Ayman Chowdhury, Head of the UN Global Compact Secretariat in Canada; Antonio Hautle, Executive Director of the UN General Assembly in Switzerland and Liechtenstein; Rachel Panaino, Executive Director of the UN General Assembly in the UAE.
The main goal of the project presented by SoftServe was to teach and hire the visually impaired people as specialists of digital accessibility testing of company’s technological products.
“At SoftServe we care about diversity and inclusion and strive to make our products user-friendly for everyone. By involving visually impaired people to the development of IT solutions, testing our designs for usability by people with the same problems, we offer a new level of accessibility testing. At the same time, we have the opportunity to provide such people with important and interesting work, together with comfortable working conditions”says the QC engineer and coordinator of the Accessibility Testing group at SoftServe, Viktoriya Shyryayeva.
Earlier this year, SoftServe developed a two-month Accessibility Testing course, which consisted of two parts: the first with standard lecturers for groups of testers, and the second – the actual part related to Accessibility Testing. SoftServe IT Academy mentors have adapted the training materials to formats accessible to the visually impaired people. Therefore, graduates of this course can be useful on any project that requires regression testing and accessibility testing. 5 people have graduated this course in March and have started to work at SoftServe. Now all of them are successfully involved in client projects and have an opportunity to practice their own expertise in developing inclusive friendly products.
With this project, the company supports the UNDP Sustainable Development Goals: Goal 4: Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all; Goal 8. Promote sustained, inclusive, and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment, and decent work for all; Goal 10: Reduce inequality within and among countries.
About SoftServe IT Academy
SoftServe IT Academy is a part of SoftServe University. Its unique market position is built on the crossroads of SoftServe best practices, new technologies and frameworks, on-job insights, and fruitful teamwork. For many years, IT Academy provides learning solutions for talented people to make them job-ready and enable a smooth and fast IT career start. Our candidates come for experience and stay for their future.
About SoftServe
SoftServe is a digital authority that advises and provides at the cutting-edge of technology. We reveal, transform, accelerate, and optimize the way enterprises and software companies do business. With expertise across healthcare, retail, energy, financial services, and more, we implement end-to-end solutions to deliver the innovation, quality, and speed that our clients’ users expect.
SoftServe delivers open innovation, from generating compelling new ideas, to developing and implementing transformational products and services. Our work and client experience is built on a foundation of empathetic, human-focused experience design that ensures continuity from concept to release.
We empower enterprises and software companies to (re)identify differentiation, accelerate solution development, and vigorously compete in today’s digital economy. No matter where you are in your journey.