PRESS CONFERENCE ON INCLUSIVE TECHNOLOGIES FOR PERSONS WITH DISABILITIES

At a Headquarters press conference today, panellists from the private, non-governmental and public sectors discussed ways to make information and communications technology more accessible to persons with disabilities.

Axel Leblois, Executive Director of the Global Initiative for Inclusive Information and Communications Technology (G3ict), said that, while article 9 of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities stipulated that that technology should be accessible to persons with disabilities, a “huge gap” remained between the current reality and what was suggested by the treaty, which was adopted on 13 December 2006.  Many countries will sign the instrument on Friday, 30 March.

Panellist Judy Brewer, Director of the Web Accessibility Initiative at the World Wide Web Consortium, said the web was one of the “core resources” in many countries for people to participate in different aspects of society, including education, employment, news, health-care information, civic participation and social networking.  The Web Accessibility Initiative was responsible for developing guidelines for accessible websites, browsers and media players, as well as establishing guidelines for the software used to produce accessible content.  It also produced educational material on how to make the web more accessible in different countries, including information on increasing public awareness of the need for web accessibility, and how to develop -- and maintain -- adaptable policy frameworks for ever-changing technology.

Anne-River Forcke of IBM’s Human Ability and Accessibility Center, explained that accessibility was both a fundamental value and part of the company’s diversity, adding:  “We began our commitment to accessibility and diversity 90 years ago… Since then, IBM has understood that we need to learn about barriers to successfully using and leveraging the benefits of information technologies by all peoples.”  IBM had learned a tremendous amount from employing people with disabilities and those lessons had been incorporated into the software, hardware and internal business systems used today.

Hendrietta Ipeleng Bogopane-Zulu, Chairperson of the South African Parliament at the National Assembly, pointed out that information and communications technology was often synonymous with computers, which were a luxury in Africa.  Given the realities and challenges of the continent, a computer became secondary to access to electricity.  Moreover, accessible technology was vital both to her job performance as a visually-impaired parliamentarian and to raising her two visually-impaired daughters.  At the same time, it was necessary to address technologies like touch-button appliances, which left families out.  It was also imperative to remember the realities of the digital divide…not only among people with disabilities, but also among developed and developing countries.

Responding to a question about the ultimate goal, of G3ict, Mr. Leblois said it represented a “fundamental opportunity” for parliaments and local governments to act on a complex set of issues.  Important goals included the mass production of future assistive technologies and the streamlining of existing product lines to include accessibility in the product life cycle.  Ultimately, results would come about through consensus-building among multiple stakeholders.

Ms. Forcke added:  “What we want to do is establish the common language, the common framework so that we can all begin to understand the value that we can each contribute and receive by embracing accessibility.”

In a further response to that question, Ms. Brewer said she wished the Global Forum could help spread greater awareness of the need for accessibility of all kinds of information and communications technology, as well as the web.  Hopefully, more standards organizations could develop greater integrated accessibility initiatives and technology initiatives could spread around the world while retaining multiple stakeholders.

Ms. Bogopane-Zulu expressed the hope that parliaments around the world could create an enabling environment by putting relevant legislation in place.

Sarbuland Khan, Executive Coordinator of the Global Alliance for Information and Communications Technology, noted the importance of keeping in mind the overall objective of achieving the Millennium Developments Goals.  “We build partnerships which then start to deepen the consensus-building process around very specific issues.” 

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For information media • not an official record