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About CAST

CAST's mission is to transform education design and practice until learning has no limits.

Our values:

  • We thrive on high-quality creativity and relentless innovation. 
  • We celebrate individual differences and variability. 
  • We believe in self-reflection that feeds lifelong learning and improvement. 
  • We measure excellence in ideas and products by the impact these have to make life better for as many people as possible by making true learning opportunities available.

CAST is a nonprofit education research and development organization that created the Universal Design for Learning framework and UDL Guidelines, now used the world over to make learning more inclusive.

The acronym "CAST" derives from the original name of our organization, Center for Applied Special Technology. Now we're simply CAST.

Our CAST of characters includes over 50 talented employees, including world-class educators, learning scientists, instructional designers, literacy experts, policy analysts, UX and graphic designers, software engineers, and a first-rate administrative and executive staff.

CAST | Until learning has no limits®

Download our one-page overview

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Our History

Since its founding in 1984, CAST has seeded and grown the field of Universal Design for Learning through creative research and development, strategic partnerships, teacher preparation and support, and international outreach.

Explore our Timeline of Innovation

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