For the second year, Forbes has recognized the Speech Accessibility Project as a global leader in accessibility.

Forbes included the project and the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in its Accessibility 200 list. It includes global leaders in communication, mobility, education, software, consumer products, robotics, sports and recreation, travel, the workplace, entertainment and more.

“Accessibility has evolved from a legal mandate to a bustling frontier of innovation, impact and profit,” said Alan Schwarz, Forbes assistant managing editor. “From juggernaut companies to lone entrepreneurs, accessibility innovation inspires new features, products and services that transform how people with disabilities – and often the wider world – communicate, travel, learn, work, play sports and so much more. It’s now beyond ‘the right thing to do’ – it’s integral to a smart business.”

Mark Hasegawa-Johnson, the Speech Accessibility Project’s leader and a professor of electrical and computer engineering, said he’s thrilled that Forbes chose to recognize the project.

“We believe our work is changing how people with speech differences interact with technology,” he said.

The project, supported by Amazon, Apple, Google, Meta and Microsoft, records people with diverse speech patterns to improve voice recognition technology. It’s based at the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology at Illinois.

In the project’s first phases, it worked with nearly 15 trusted partners with direct connections to potential participants. They connected 4,500 potential participants with the study and enrolled nearly 2,000.

It is now recruiting people who stutter and those who are deaf and hard of hearing.

This is the second year Forbes has recognized the Speech Accessibility Project. It was also included in the inaugural Forbes Accessibility 100 last summer. Forbes expanded it to 200 this year because of “overwhelming response.”