2026 VizWiz Grand Challenge Workshop

Overview

Our goal for this workshop is to educate researchers about the technological needs of people with vision impairments while empowering researchers to improve algorithms to meet these needs. A key component of this event will be to track progress on four dataset challenges, where the tasks are to locate objects in few-shot learning scenarios, ground all answers, locate all plausible region of focus, and locate and track object and part instances. The second key component of this event will be a discussion about current research and application issues, including invited speakers from both academia and industry who will share their experiences in building today’s state-of-the-art assistive technologies as well as designing next-generation tools.

Banner illustrating VizWiz Dataset Challenge tasks in four columns: (1) Few-shot localization of private objects, with examples like an empty pill bottle and a bank statement. (2) Grounding all answers, showing questions with multiple valid answers (e.g., identifying sugar type or airplane type). (3) Grounding all focus regions for visual questions, highlighting multiple regions linked to different answers (e.g., clock times, cleaning products, bird location). (4) Hierarchical instance tracking, showing sequential images tracking a pill bottle across views.

Important Dates

Challenges go live: Friday, Feb 27 (11:59pm AoE)
Challenge submissions due: Friday, May 1 (11:59pm AoE)
Abstract submissions due: Friday, May 8 (11:59pm AoE)
Abstract acceptance notifications: Friday, May 15 (11:59pm AoE)
Half-day Workshop: Thursday, June 4

Submissions

We invite two types of submissions:

Challenge Submissions

We invite submissions about algorithms for the following four challenge tasks: locate objects in few-shot learning scenarios, ground all answers, locate all plausible region of focus, and locate and track object and part instances. We accept submissions for algorithms that are not published, currently under review, and already published.

The teams with the top-performing submissions will be invited to give short talks during the workshop.

Extended Abstracts

We invite submissions of extended abstracts on topics related to all challenge tasks as well as assistive technologies for people with visual impairments. Papers must be at most two pages (with references) and follow the CVPR format using the provided author kit. Reviewing will be single-blind and accepted papers will be presented as posters. We will accept submissions on work that is not published, currently under review, and already published. There will be no proceedings. Please send your extended abstracts to workshop@vizwiz.org.

Please note that we will require all camera-ready content to be accessible via a screen reader. Given that making accessible PDFs and presentations may be a new process for some authors, we will host training sessions beforehand to both educate and assist all authors to succeed in making their content accessible.

Challenge Results

Few-Shot Localization of Private Object
1st place: To be announced
2nd place: To be announced
3rd place: To be announced
Grounding All Valid Answers
1st place: To be announced
2nd place: To be announced
3rd place: To be announced
Grounding All Focus Regions for Visual Questions
1st place: To be announced
2nd place: To be announced
3rd place: To be announced

Program

Location:

Room 709, Colorado Convention Center [map]
Address: 700 14th St, Denver, CO 80202

Schedule:

8:45-9:00am: Opening remarks and winner announcements for three challenges (Few-Shot Localization of Private Object, Answer Grounding, and Grounding Focus Regions)
9:00-9:30am: Invited talk and Q&A with Kate Saenko, AI research scientist at Meta
- Talk title: SAM 3: Segment Anything Model
9:30-10:00am: Invited talk and Q&A with Shaun Kane, research scientist in responsible AI at Google Research
- Talk title: Disabled People & Disabled Data
10:00-10:15am: Poster spotlight talks
10:15-10:30am: Break
10:30-11:00am: Invited talk and Q&A with Cordelia Schmid, research director at INRIA
- Talk title: TBD
11-11:30am: Invited talk and Q&A with Ramin Ayanzadeh, assistant professor in quantum computing and machine intelligence at University of Colorado Boulder
- Talk title: TBD
11:30-12:15pm: Open Q&A panel with four invited speakers
12:15-12:20pm: Closing remarks
12:20-1:00pm: Poster session