Zanichelli, one of Italy's oldest and most respected educational publishers, has been shortlisted for the 2026 ABC International Excellence Award for accessible publishing.
The award, organized by the Accessible Books Consortium (ABC), recognizes publishers who go beyond compliance to make their content genuinely accessible. Zanichelli's nomination reflects decades of work: from winning the Louis Braille Prize in 2013 to their ongoing investment in digital accessibility across their web platforms.
A partnership built on action
We've been working with Zanichelli since October 2025 to bring AI-powered accessibility auditing and remediation to their web products. Where traditional audits took weeks to initiate and months to act on, our AI agents delivered the first audit in 24 hours and the first pull requests with fixes within 48 hours.
"PRs speak developers' language. They're immediately actionable, and they can be verified quickly."
— Andrea Malfer Poma, Head of Engineering, Zanichelli
The shift from reports to pull requests changed how Zanichelli's engineering team engages with accessibility. Developers are no longer waiting on meetings and interpretations: they review fixes in their existing workflow, comment directly on the code, and see their feedback improve the AI agent over time.
More than compliance
What makes Zanichelli's approach stand out is that they don't treat accessibility as a checkbox. Andrea's team created a dedicated accessibility ambassador role. They're collaborating with a PhD student on alt text generation for STEM images. They want to be accessible, not just compliant.
Previously took weeks to even initiate.
Fixes in developers' existing workflow.
Every issue prior consultants found, plus ones they missed.
"No matter who in your company decided accessibility is needed, the ones who fix it are developers. Workback doesn't talk to your managers. It talks to your developers and tells them what to fix."
— Andrea Malfer Poma, Head of Engineering, Zanichelli
Congratulations, Zanichelli
We're proud to be part of Zanichelli's accessibility journey. Their shortlisting for the ABC Award is well deserved, not because of any single tool or partnership, but because of a genuine organizational commitment to making education accessible to everyone.
You can read more about our work together on our customer story page, and learn more about the ABC Award shortlist.