On 15 August 2025, Azadeh Emadi invited 10 internal and external partners for a collaborative workshop to explore and discuss the potential of the TouchTool and Extended Reality (XR) technology as a way to open up new avenues for engagement for disabled audiences and creators in the performing arts. The workshop included presentations as well as facilitated discussions and hands-on testing of different tools and devices.
Participants included Maria Oshodi and Ian Abbott from Extant Theatre Company, Robert Softley Gale from Birds of Paradise Theatre Company, Jared Hutsby from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, as well as Julie Ritchie and Issy McGrath from Deafblind Scotland. These external representatives were joined by University of Glasgow researchers Julien Le Kernec and Mohammed Abdelaaty Hassan from the engineering department, Kevin Mitchell and Ilya Starshynov from the physics department and Eirini Nedelkopoulou from theatre and film studies.
