SCCON 2026: Aiming Higher with Smarter Accessibility
“SCCON is exactly the right place for us.” That’s what we wrote a year ago, after getting our very first taste of trade show life at the Smart Country Convention 2025. Even then, as lead organizers, we put together a joint booth with IAAP D-A-CH and other member organizations. For 2026, we wanted to go one step further: a bigger booth, more partners and a motto of our own.
Perfect autumn weather in Berlin
On Monday, October 12, it’s finally time. Berlin is bathed in glorious autumn sunshine as the first of us arrive in Hall 25 for the booth handover. For months, we’ve only known Booth 412 as a rendering. Now we get to see it for the first time in real life and in full color, with all our partners’ logos on the stage wall. One thing is clear: this is going to be good.
Three show days later, from October 13 to 15, we can say: it was. We’re looking back on our joint booth under the motto “Smarter Accessibility for All,” four talks, countless conversations and a team that gave it their all for three days straight.
Smarter Accessibility for All: one booth, many experts
SCCON is one of Europe’s largest events for the digitalization of the public sector. It’s where federal, state and local governments meet the companies that help build their digital services.
Our goal for 2026: to make digital accessibility so visible at the show that no one could miss it. That’s why we invited partners who approach the topic from very different angles. Together with Dialog Group, Materna, mindscreen and CAAT, IAAP D-A-CH, Pfennigparade and the newly founded Verein zur Förderung der Barrierefreiheit (Association for the Promotion of Accessibility), we filled Booth 412 in Hall 25. Visitors found experts on accessible documents from Word and PowerPoint, testing with PAC, high-volume document processing, consulting, usability, certification and training.
A huge thank you to all our co-exhibitors: this booth wouldn’t have been possible without you! You showed what happens when different kinds of expertise come together, and we’re sure this won’t be our last joint appearance.
On stage: our four talks, many perspectives
Alongside the conversations at the booth, we also ran our own stage program. Four talks by axes4 and one interview showed just how many paths lead to accessible documents.
From our team, Markus Erle kicked things off with the axes4 news roundup. The PDF Accessibility Checker PAC, funded by the German Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs, has two big updates: PAC 2027 is getting a fully accessible user interface and, for the first time, will also run on Mac. With version 26.1, axesWord, the No. 1 add-in for accessible PDFs from Word according to the “PDF-Barrierefreiheit 2026” study, helps build in accessibility from the very first step and creates accessible PDF forms directly from Word. And with axesFlip AI, we combine the power of large language models with our proven tools, so even large volumes of PDFs get tagged cleanly.
A year ago, Markus told our booth visitors about the Berlin rollout. This time, Berlin told the story itself. Richard Schuster from the State of Berlin’s Competence Center for Digital Accessibility and Usability shared insights from an administration with around 138,000 employees. Thanks to state-wide licenses for axesWord, axesPDF and axesSlide, every employee across the central and district administrations can work with our tools. His seven lessons learned covered backing from department heads, regular training, accessible templates and a central competence center. We were especially pleased with his conclusion: for him, axes4’s products are currently the best and simplest technical solution for accessible PDFs. But they only reach their full potential when the right structures are in place across the organization.
Josephine Schwebler, IT Architect for Accessibility at the Usability Accessibility Center of the IT System House of the German Federal Employment Agency (BA), also joined us again. In her talk “Knowledge and Skills,” she showed how the BA, with more than 100,000 employees, is embedding accessibility step by step. Knowledge starts with making accessibility visible in the first place, for example with PAC installed at every BA workstation. Skills means having a technical solution that turns accessible source documents into PDF/UA-compliant PDFs. After a proof of concept and user testing, the BA chose axesWord and axesSlide. Our favorite takeaway from her talk: allies are worth their weight in gold.
An association takes off
One very special highlight: the Verein zur Förderung der Barrierefreiheit e.V. (Association for the Promotion of Accessibility) launched right at our booth at SCCON. Its launch members include Gottfried Zimmermann, Klaus Miesenberger and Josephine Schwebler. With offerings such as Knowledge Badges, for example on accessible teaching and the European Accessibility Act, the association aims to spread accessibility know-how far and wide. The launch motto: take off, celebrate, join!
Behind the scenes: one booth, many hands
What visitors saw as a finished booth on Tuesday morning started for us back in the summer: a kick-off with all co-exhibitors, collecting logos in vector format, setting up company profiles on the SCCON platform, ordering badges through the exhibitor portal, spreading talk slots across three days, finalizing the booth design and writing LinkedIn posts for every partner organization. A joint booth means one thing above all: a lot of coordination. And yes, at times it was exhausting.
At the show, all that groundwork paid off. Whenever someone stopped by with a question about PDF testing, certification or accessible Word templates, the right person to talk to was usually just a few steps away. That saved visitors a lot of legwork, and we exhibitors learned a great deal from each other over those three days.
A big thank you to our own team, who spent three days at the booth with energy, patience and a lot of coffee. This wouldn’t have been possible without you!
What we’re taking away from SCCON 2026
By the time the last boxes were packed on Thursday afternoon, the autumn sun was already sinking low over the exhibition grounds. And we had the same feeling as last year, only stronger: SCCON is the right place for us.
The bigger joint booth gave the topic a visibility none of us could have achieved alone. The talks from Berlin and the Federal Employment Agency showed how much real-world experience can achieve when public administrations speak openly about their challenges and successes. And both confirmed what we know from many projects: good software makes accessible documents easy, but accessibility only takes root with training, dedicated contacts and allies within the organization.
Did you start a conversation at our booth that you’d like to continue? Or would you like to test axesFlip with your own documents in a proof of concept? Then get in touch with us. And if you want to get started in Word right away, try axesWord for free.
Save the date: where we’ll see each other next
SCCON 2027 is already in our calendar. Until then, there are plenty of chances to meet us: the axes4 PDF Accessibility Summit takes place online on November 4 and 5, 2026, and on April 8, 2027, we look forward to seeing you at axes4 Day 2027 in Berlin and online.
Thank you to everyone who visited us in Hall 25, and to all the partners who made this booth possible with us. Smarter Accessibility for All!
Were you at SCCON 2026 too? Share your impressions on LinkedIn. We’d love to hear from the community!
