Red DOG launches as first approved supplier under EDAI's open accessibility framework

A Blind Ant design fiction. Red DOG does not exist (yet). Nothing here is a real announcement, and no real person, company or customer is quoted.

Liverpool and Brussels, 7 September 2027. FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Red DOG today announced the launch of its enterprise support and deployment service for NVDA, the free and open-source screen reader. It is the first supplier approved under the European Digital Accessibility Infrastructure agency's (EDAI) framework tender.

The problem

Large organisations tell the same story. Their blind and partially sighted staff prefer NVDA, and their IT departments hesitate to deploy it. The software is not the obstacle. Documentation, packaging, security review, a number to ring when it breaks, and a contract a procurement team can sign are the obstacles.

What ships today

• A deployment pack for managed Windows estates, with a published security and update review.
• Three support tiers, from business-hours email to a named engineer on call.
• The NVDA Add-On Studio, a workshop for blind developers and accessibility specialists to build, test and share add-ons.

What Red DOG owes NVDA

Red DOG works under EDAI's 40/40/20 clause. On every contract, 40% of net surplus goes to NV Access in a ring-fenced fund NV Access alone controls, 40% stays with Red DOG, and 20% goes to the Add-On Commons for the developers who build extensions. Red DOG's accounts are audited and published each year. Red DOG has no say in NVDA's roadmap, and says so in its contracts.

"A support company that takes from an open project is a parasite, and one that gives back half of what is left is a colleague. We would rather be the second," said Ines Calloway, Red DOG co-founder. (Ines Calloway is a fictional person.)

First customer

"Our blind colleagues were already using NVDA on their own laptops. What we lacked was a way to deploy it properly and get help when it mattered," said Anneke Verhoeven, head of digital workplace at Rhein-Maas Regionalbank. (Anneke Verhoeven and Rhein-Maas Regionalbank are fictional.)

The symbol

Red DOG's mark is a guide dog in a technology vest: independence, mobility and confidence, in a world where the terrain includes the internet.

What this is not

Red DOG is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Red Hat, Inc. Red Hat is a registered trademark of Red Hat, Inc., and is named only to describe the kind of relationship between a company and an open-source community that Red DOG hopes to learn from.

Red DOG is not affiliated with or endorsed by NV Access. NVDA remains an independent project maintained by NV Access and its contributors.

EDAI is a fictional agency and has no connection to any EU institution.

How to make this real

This piece is released under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) licence, and the idea is yours to take. A realistic order of work:

1. Ask NV Access what funding structure would help them and what would harm their independence, before anyone designs anything.
2. Write the 40/40/20 clause as a standalone procurement term that works for any open project, and test it with a procurement lawyer.
3. Find one public body or regulated business with a real deployment problem and a budget.
4. Build the deployment pack and support service for that one customer first.
5. Publish the accounts from the first day.

Questions, or want to use it: reddog@blind-ant.com

More about this

• This is one Object of Red DOG, a Piece at Blind Ant.
• EU creates agency to fund open accessibility infrastructure: A fictional launch release for EDAI, an EU agency that funds open-source assistive technology, with the 40/40/20 clause every approved supplier must accept.

About the author

Blind Ant is written and run by Charlotte Joanne. About Blind Ant says more.