The 18th annual Technology and Persons with Disabilities Conference, scheduled from Monday, March 17, through Saturday, March 22, near Los Angeles International Airport, is the largest gathering of its kind in the world.

"We are the largest and we are the only university affiliated conference of this kind in the world," said Bud Rizer, director of CSUN's Center on Disabilities, which puts on the event each year.

The conference will be held at the Hilton Los Angeles Airport Hotel and the Los Angeles Airport Marriott Hotel.

This year's event features a keynote address on Wednesday, March 19, by inventor, entrepreneur and author Ray Kurzweil, who has developed a range of groundbreaking speech and character recognition products, and the international premiere later that day of a new IBM multimedia theater presentation on accessible technologies.

The conference is a showcase for presentations, displays and demonstrations of assistive technologies that can help people with disabilities (physical, sensory, communicative or cognitive) function more easily in their daily lives.

The event will begin Monday and Tuesday with 20 different pre-conference workshops, for which participants can receive continuing education units (CEUs). Then, the main part of the conference will be held from Wednesday through Saturday, with more than 300 different presentations scheduled.

Last year's event drew about 4,200 participants. This year, Rizer said conference registrants include people from all 50 states and some 36 foreign countries, including more than 100 participants from Canada and more than 50 from Japan.

Internationally, to those interested in assistive technologies, the CSUN conference is the place to learn about and experience the latest and the greatest.

"Through the conference, we generate a tremendous amount of attention for the university and its range of excellent programs for people with disabilities," Rizer said. "We're also providing our students an opportunity to learn the best practices in this field, and we are bringing some of the best assistive technologies to campus for our students to use." Northridge's Center on Disabilities provides support services to more than 800 CSUN students with disabilities, including translating textbooks into audio files or Braille format.

Conference presentations will cover a wide range of topics, including how people with disabilities can access the Internet, the use of assistive technologies in the school setting, workplace accommodations, and the latest innovations for the blind or vision impaired.

On Wednesday, technology giant IBM will unveil its half-hour theater presentation on how accessible technology can help people with disabilities master their work environments. The presentation, "Shape the Future: Information on Demand," combines a live show and multimedia elements, and will be performed hourly during the remainder of the conference.

In addition to the presentations and special events, the conference also will feature exhibit halls at both hotels from Wednesday through Saturday displaying products and services from more than 155 vendors. From Wednesday through Friday, the conference will host a "Web Playroom" equipped with accessible software at the Marriott hotel.

For more information, see the center's Web site at www.csun.edu/cod/conf."