The following are the outputs of the real-time captioning taken during the Twelfth Annual Meeting of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) in Geneva, Switzerland, from 17 to 21 December 2017. Although it is largely accurate, in some cases it may be incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. It is posted as an aid to understanding the proceedings at the event, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.
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>> The captioning working? (Audio cutting out) is this better?
>> Audio was in and out. I've tried disconnecting and reconnecting.
>> Hello. Hello. This is a test to see if the mic is working.
>> Oh, yours is working, is my mic working? (Audio fading in and out) what I'm going to do is if the speakers that we have ‑‑
>> What are we doing? It's okay, it's all right. It seems to be working now. I'm going to slow down here. And I'm going to just introduce what this is workshop is about. And I'm not going to speak too fast. Since this approval of the UN convention on the rights of persons with disabilities, a lot of effort's been made to achieve an inclusive society to include persons with disabilities. And persons with specific needs. Probably people wonder why we use that term. And that term is to cover people like older persons with aging disabilities and people who do not wish to think of themselves as persons with disabilities.
Because people think that they have (?) And there are plenty of people who lose their hearing and don't think they're a person with a disability. Specific needs, and also, covers things like literacy. It is still a disability. It is important to understand that disability's not attached to just a few persons.
And one of the things we want to encourage is that people who create services for assistive technology or set up meetings doing different things they would normally do in their whole life to make a new product that they take into account things that are universal design. Which is to make something ‑‑ and that includes persons with disabilities.
Now, I have people who (?) Different topics. (Audio fading in and out) she represents women with disabilities. Participate (audio fading in and out.) The health question. And then, we have the next generation web expert, which is Mr. Shadi Abou‑Zahra and then, and he is with ICT accessibility? Pakistan. So he will be speaking. And then, we have the benchmark (?) That it's been created in 119CRPD signatory countries. And that's the vice president the institution. We work to have another speaker. Gerry Ellis. And Gerry Ellis withdrew his participation because of the fact that WebEx is not accessible for blind people. And this is a problem ‑‑
I said I would speak and explain why he withdrew his participation. And I totally support his position. So the first presenter is Gunela, the title of her speech is Principles in Practice. So I'm going to ‑‑ hold on, one second. Change of program. We're going to use ‑‑ I'm being told that we are going to have he has asked if he could participate first. Would you mind, Gunela if that's okay? I'm sorry, it wasn't on my sheet. I know it's very late. Thank you for staying up. Maziito. Is he on? Can we see? Masahito, can you say something, please?
The technical difficulties and getting on this WebEx never ceases to amaze me. If you can hear, communicate by email. I'm going to go back to you Gunela, would you like to begin?
>> GUNELA ASTBRINK: Thank you very much, Andrea, I'm very pleased to be here to speak. And my topic is about Universal Design Principles in Practice, going to cover a little bit about what universal designs and give some examples.
So there is a definition on the human convention of those with disabilities. So then to what is the term universal? But sometimes we have used other terms and they are inclusive to some (?) And quite a bit of debate about ‑‑ if you have a flat entry to a building.
So that's very useful for delivery vendors, but it's vital for wheelchair uses. Universal design is applicable to other disciplines, including telephone and the internet. So much it's formed online ramps, in a way, describing ramps from actual physical buildings into the internet. Next slide, please. There are seven principles of universal design. This is what comes from the original building environment. But they can be translated into the online world.
And these are equitable use, flexibility in use, simple, perceptible information, tolerance, low physical effort and size, space, approach and use. So I'll go through each one of those and give some examples. So the first one, next slide, please. The first one is equitable use.
And this is hardware, software, apps, devices, whatever that are designed in such a way that most people can use without special adaptations. And that's really a key to what we're talking about. If you compare it with the building where wheelchair use has entered the same main entrance of everyone else, that's what we're talking about here.
We're not talking about side entrances or special entrances. We're talking about the main entrance. So people with disability in the online world can, then, use the phone or web conferencing system. And we heard from Andrea before, some of the difficulties with the current systems. And so, if we have equitable use, people with disability can use the systems with no extra expense. And no adaptations. It's really important. An example here is the apple iPhone, a person with a visual impairment would use without having to buy and store extra software. Now android have a number of built‑in accessibility features, as well. Next slide, please, the second design feature is flexibility in use. That can be used in ways with best suitable information. In this occasion, smartphones can be used by keying in by voice. That's quite common. And this is handy for many people on the go if they want to speak through the phone. I should also add that assistive technology can be connected to the mainstream device for these. So that's another part of that flexibility and use. Could you just change the slide, please? Thank you. Okay. So next slide, again. Simple and intuitive to use.
This is designed for the use of people of all age groups and most disabilities. We all want to have intuitive interface design. And find simple ways of using it. If we have a website that is easy to follow with a navigation system that is really what we're talking about with simple and intuitive to use. And we know there are a number of websites which can be quite complex. And sometimes, this has to do with young designers based on the perceived preferences of what they think the audience is. For that particular young age group. That doesn't mean that works for everyone.
Then we have acceptable information. This is clearing pathways to get information on websites that help everyone and encourages people to continue using the site. For example, a website to look at it ‑‑ say, no, that's too difficult ‑‑ we know people with hearing impairments need captions on videos. And this is also valuable for video support. Say it's in English and people have another language as the main language. Having those captions really make a difference. You can also look at it from the point of view if you can use captions when the audio has to be turned off. For example, in a conference. Or in an environment such as in a cafe.
Also, people with visual impairment need to have description of images on websites, for example. And this is especially important when there are links on those images. All the people need to appear confident in using software being able to get back to the starting point. That can be a challenge. A physical effort. Just as the door to a building should not be too heavy to open, a method of opening and using devices should not require a large amount of physical or mental efforts.
So a person for learning disability, for example relies on that are not too tiring to understand. It's another way of looking at low physical effort. Size and space for approach and use, key pad and buttons should be well spaced and large enough to be comfortably used by a person with large hands and fingers. And often, we know that with some smartphones, it can be a challenge. But for people who have tremor or limited hand dexterity, it's vital to have size and space. A final example, realtime transcription, captioning via face‑to‑face if we're here and we're gaining value from the captioning we see on the screen and online. This is very valuable for people with hearing loss and English as a second language and useful for checking on facts that might have missed when the speaker was talking.
So that is in a nutshell, some ideas about the practice of universal design. And there are plenty of others. And I wanted to finish off with talking about universal design as one mechanism to improve accessibility for people with disability. But we have to bear in mind that people with disability may have additional interface needs. We're talking, again, about the interoperability. And there are a number of occasions when inaccessibility design itself is important rather than trying to get everything under universal design.
So there is an overlap there, and we need both. And there's a lot of potential for future innovation both in universal design and designing for accessibility specifically. So thank you very much.
>> ANDREA SAKS: We're having trouble getting certain things done. Thank you very much. We're still having technical difficulties. I hope everyone can hear me. I'm going to make a comment that Gunela has always come no matter how far and has become a person with a major temporary disability and she's got a boot on her foot. She's experienced a new element of being a person with a disability that she didn't expect to do.
I would like to, then, actually go to the next person. While we are trying to get ‑‑ Mohammed Shabir. Could you help Mohammed get the microphone directly in front? Mohammed Shabir is giving a speech on the challenges and opportunity. He's on the board of directors of the Pakistan chapter. Would you like to go ahead, please?
>> MOHAMMED SHABIR: Hello. Am I able? Thank you, Andrea, and thank you very much. Thank you all for coming here. The subject has other interviews ‑‑ I would like to start by thanking CAD and others who really organized this workshop and supported us to be here at IGF and giving us the opportunity to speak. It's a profound privilege to be amongst this audience.
Mainly, I will be talking about Pakistan, how persons with disabilities in Pakistan use ICP accessibilities. But I want ‑‑ how an impact with person with disabilities in Pakistan are taking advantages of ICTs. What are the opportunities? And how the state of ICP inaccessibility can be for countries.
Keep in mind, I'll be talking and giving examples from Pakistan. But people in developing and some of them are the same. And they can be dynamic subject. And people using accessibility. Before I talk about the ICP accessibility, Pakistan as a state stands in terms of ICT and technological developments.
There is a shortage of statistics but we see indicators and indicators that are provided by the Pakistan authority.
Of September 201, about 141 million mobile users in Pakistan. This is about #0% of the whole country's population. And it's really amazing, if we see the stakes in 2018, there were about 7.5% of the people. And in last year four years since introduced, 3G and 4G technologies in the country, the internet connectivity and online connectivity has taken a jump start. And now more and more people are being connected. Similar as other people use technologies and persons with disabilities are also taking advantages of these technologies.
They are using these technologies to make their impact to make their lives better and to contribute whatever in the next development. So this was ‑‑ and we see that how this helps ICTs and the technology with the accessibility in Pakistan. Let me give you one example that prior to 2007, just ten years back, persons with disabilities to sit in the superior exam, why a person with disabilities, there were laws that would not allow them to sit in those exams.
But thanks to this technology and thanks to the policies, now persons with disabilities are not just competing for the competitive exams, but some of them have passed those exams. Now they are serving in civil ‑‑ one in foreign space. Aside from that, also serving in academia, in policy. So there are a lot of domains that have just opened because there is an accessible technology which enables a person in disability to do their work efficiently as any other person would.
But this is not a person with disabilities are using these technologies. But there are certain challenges. Those challenges might ‑‑ firstly, there are technology ‑‑ there is affordability, of course, awareness about the technology and universal design and willingness to update. I thought about these challenges. Validity of technology. We know there is technology ICP accessible for person with disabilities. But one example that could be vocalized, visual impairment so they cannot ‑‑ English language all those languages.
Sometimes, the availability of technology or availability is a problem in developing countries. For example, if a computer costs about $800 or $600, making accessible for 30% going to cost about (?). And by example, it's costly, it's equal for everyone. Then, there is other challenges. Awareness about the technology and universal. One part, there isn't. On the part of developers, or ‑‑ again, the person with disabilities is also at times not even know that technologies are available. There are schools and even universities, we need more because there are a lot of people with disabilities who do not have awareness of these technologies ‑‑ then, there's a willingness of the people of the developers to adopt the technology. This could also be a challenge that we see that ‑‑ as already highlighted that due to different reasons, people in may not want to adopt technologies.
Yes, there are certain advantages of this. Pakistan has assigned UN CRPD. Recently ‑‑ has ICP guidelines and it's the policy for IC policy. It is called digital Pakistan. And that interesting thing about policy, their input is considered while the policy was being formulated.
So would be working ‑‑ an organization where the decisions were happening given on the part of the person with the disabilities. And how this policy that is accepted, chapter at how the ICP can be accessible at the next level for the person with disabilities in Pakistan.
Lastly, how technologies can be made accessible. And this is the last part of the presentation that how we can get these technologies accessible. But I will highlight a few. First, we need to collaborate. Exchange transfer of technology and technology and other services amongst the countries and amongst the state enable for person with disabilities.
We also need to collaborate under UN CRPD which also talks about the collaboration amongst the international stakeholders on accessibility or other technologies to make that person with disabilities. Just to conclude, I had some of that accessibility is not just for persons with disabilities as our chair very particular. We may all meet some time or another the ultimate for our any effort to make the technologies and to control that technologies are accessible for persons with disabilities. And they are developed in developing and development at the same time at the same price. And at the ‑‑ and at the same technologies, which are available at the same time and same price as the ‑‑ receives.
If there are certain ideas. Thank you for your patience. Thank you.
>> ANDREA SAKS: Thank you, Mohammed Shabir. Thank you very much for your perspective on Pakistan, which, of course, is a country that is not considered the western world, but it is a wonderful world. It has a wonderful group of people who are ‑‑ who I've had the pleasure of meeting. I haven't gotten there yet, but there is a big problem with including persons with disabilities there. Thank you for speaking about that.
I'm going to go to the next speaker, and we still haven't been able to connect with Masahito Kalamari in Japan. Masahito Kalamori. Just for the captioner. So they have the correct spelling.
The next person is, I'd like to introduce is an old friend of mine, Shadi Abou‑Zahra. Does it come out? Yep. She knows it. Famous. Shadi's been captioned many times with me. And Shadi is ‑‑ I don't know what your official title is at W3C. But W3C is, basically, the organization that is responsible for web guidelines for accessibility for persons to the web. And rather than me trying to define that, I'm going to turn it straight over to the title of his presentation is Next Generation Web Accessibility Guidelines.
This is not an accessible room. We have exceptions here that we're going to take up with the UN. Go ahead.
>> SHADI ABOU‑ZAHRA: Okay. Great. My name is Shadi abou‑zahra, I'm the specialist at the world web of consortium. WTC is the organization that has the mission of ‑‑ what's the mission? Meeting the web's full potential.
So, it was created by Tim Burns Lee. There's a close relationship here between the internet and the web. So it's a very central organization that develops core web standards like HTML and so forth. That make the ‑‑ make the web work. And you could argue, the web is the predominant interface to the internet and technologies are continually converging on to the web.
Be it BDO, television, even automotive industry, robotics. All of these things are converging through the internet, but on to the web becoming the interface of that. The web is really essential for people for people with disabilities. It's a unique opportunity unprecedented before to have equal access to education, employment, research, entertainment and many more aspects of daily life.
Making the web accessible is one of the core missions of WTC. It has the web accessibility initiative, which I work for with a couple of colleagues. Focuses on making the web accessible by making sure the core standards are accessible. We define accessibility specifically on terms of disproportionality due to disability. So if something is locking you out due to your disability that is considered an accessibility issue.
But having said that, it fits within the broader aspect of inclusion and making things work for everyone. We have other aspects at WTC that focus, for instance, on internationalization. How to make things available in different language things about privacy. The fact it's open standards and the affordability here is substantial. Particularly, for many people with disabilities as unfortunately in many societies and most societies, they are deprived from employment and from education and other aspects.
So this has societal impacts, as well. What I'm trying to say is that all of these bits and pieces are not individuals, they fit together and that's where I will see the universal design. Putting the user first. Thinking who will be using your product or your service? And when you're talking about the web, usually, it's everyone. There's very little products on the web or in the internet that are for just a specific set of people. Usually, your audience is very diverse. Alone if it's for your employees only or intranet or extra net or something.
Still, your employees are very diverse in age, disabilities, ICP skills. Use that design and ensuring that you put the user requirements first is what will lead to successful products and services. And they have mentioned the guidelines that we have at WTC. So besides ensuring accessibility of the website standards.
For instance, making sure that HTML has features to support accessibility. For example, so that images can be described. Those descriptions are available for somebody who cannot see the content. But these descriptions are also used by search engines, they're used by people who are roaming and do not want to download the imagines or the videos and want to download the descriptions instead.
So there are many uses of these features beyond accessibility only. And we often use the phrase, essential for people with disabilities and useful for all. Essential for some, useful for all. It is kind of ‑‑ to make these standards accessible. More externally facing, what we develop are the web accessibility guidelines and there are three sets of guidelines there. The web content accessibility guidelines defines what is accessible content.
For instance, what you have to do to make your videos accessible. Things like captioning and providing transcriptions. Or what do you have to do in order to make your web application accessible to someone who can't use a mouse. To have ‑‑ to make sure it's operable by keyboard, which includes voice commands and other means of using the web.
Besides the web content accessibility guidelines, we also have the user agent accessibility guidelines. And user agents are all the software that act on behalf of the user to access the web and render the content. These are web browsers, but sometimes, also media players. And more frequently, apps. Apps act very often as time browsers. They access pieces of a website and render to the user. And they need to ensure accessibility features, as well. Very simple example, if I caption a video and put it on the website, but the browser or the media player I'm using does not use these captions. Then, accessibility's still broken. And last but not least, I think, really, for me the most important standard is the accessibility guidelines.
Off link tools are all softwares and management systems that are used to create web content. This includes social media where all creators of content when we're using twitter, when we're using Facebook, when we're using our company content management systems. We are creating content.
So how do these tools support this in creating accessible content and maintaining the level of accessibility? This is something that is incredibly important in the framework of ensuring that content is born accessible and has maintained so it benefits not only people with disabilities but benefits many more.
I think Gunela highlighted very well the analogy of the so‑called electronic ramp. However you want to call it. The fact that when people with disabilities use a ramp, they need that. But everybody else benefits from that, as well. And the same applies to ICT, as well.
This is where standards fit in. Just one last word that we are in a very rapidly moving society. In terms of ICT. It's changing very quickly. We now have basically everything connected. There are a lot of sessions, actually, the next session in this room is on IoT and accessibility of IoT. Great potential for people with disabilities here.
But at the same time, also great challenges. We need to make sure that all of these new technologies that come, that enable that we consider accessibility from the start and we have an opportunity here to work together on universal design to make sure that these systems are not only accessible for people with disabilities, but usable for the broad society. Under the umbrella of universal design. Thank you.
>> ANDREA SAKS: Thank you, Shadi, I appreciate you coming from Vienna.
>> SHADI ABOU‑ZAHRA: Not too far.
>> ANDREA SAKS: And coming this way and giving us the information we need to know about web accessibility. And for the continued future of accessibility for web accessibility. That's a mouthful. I have one Mr. Speaker. ‑‑ speaker. And that is Francesca, president of the Global Initiative for Inclusive ICTs, which is an organization based in the United States that goes all of the globe trying to get people to be accessible. I think that's the best way of putting it.
It's a new accessible tool covering one run 9, CRPD signatory countries. So I'm going to ‑‑ rather than trying to explain that, I'm going to let you do that. I didn't know your title was Institutional Relations. They've been trying to institutionalize me for a long tile.
>> FRANCESCA: Thank you, Andrea. Thank you very much for the introduction. And yes, the global initiative for inclusive technologies and Andrea is our delegate. So the ‑‑ just a little brief ‑‑ next, please. We December 2006 adoption of the convention and the rights of persons with disabilities by the United Nations General Assembly. And our mission in life is the disposition of the convention on the accessibility of information, communication technology.
And we worked with the UN ‑‑ with the ICT industry, convention, organization of person with disabilities at large and standards development organization like the IoT and others. Next slide, please.
So we ‑‑ I'm going to talk very briefly about new tool, which will be available in January of our website. We're working on, and the G3IC index. Stands for digital accessibility rights evaluation index. It's are survey based on 121 countries, 119. We got two more. That covers about 89% of the world population.
And the based on the simple method to benchmark the progress and assessing opportunities. And so, phi per commitment, five per country, capacity to implement and ten for country ‑‑ of five points for maximum of 100 points. And this will allow countries ‑‑ will allow countries to compare their progress with benchmarks and results in essential areas of ICT accessibilities.
Next, please. So this is mainly ‑‑ we are actually relying on a very ‑‑ on a group of applicants and ICT experts accessibility experts. So it's a very collective work. As I said, the results ‑‑ this is a result of the IGF. But there is this ‑‑ with the official in January 2018. So there are good news from this survey. Number one is 84% of the countries globally have the constitutional articles, lows or organization defines the rights of persons with disabilities. Is that 64 of these countries globally have a definition of reasonable accommodation, which includes in a lower regulation regarding the rights of persons with disabilities. That's another important aspect. By including ICT accessibility or electronic media in the country regulations.
Next, please. So there is a particular evolution of legislation as we see supportive accessibility. But how much impact of any impact, really, there is. It's available for ICT accessibility. And I'd like to give an example for websites. Accessible websites, as we heard before. So from the survey, countries with no policy. Next, please. I ‑‑ 53%. And countries that have a policy ‑‑ there's no implementation is 2%. And policy with minimum implementation is 21%. So the countries with no significant ‑‑ of web accessibility according to our survey is 76%.
Many aspects. How do we close the gap? We have selective variables, which are based on legal and policy foundations as recommended by ICT model policy which is available in different languages all the UN languages, the six UN languages. Identified through statistical or case studies analysis. And I'll go a bit further on that.
And outcomes are measured by ‑‑ which is consistent with the notion ‑‑ for progressive implementation. In the key areas of accessibility. Like, for example, accessibility, ebooks so on and so forth. Very quickly, the analysis. But the commitments that I was mentioning before are based on the ‑‑ has the country ratified the convention, for example? Then, we assign five points. It means you will see in the presentation, actually, that the core is for commencements and global results is 16.39 over 25 points. That's the country has a government agency for ICT accessibility, yet. We are assigning another five points and so forth. And the country capacity to implement really goes down to 12.7 over 25 points.
And then, finally, the outcomes that are based on the consistent with this call for action that we did last year with DPI and international disability alliance and ‑‑ we have over the area of ICT accessibility, like WebEx accessibility, mobile services, ebooks, accessibility, inclusive ICT for education and employment. Government and assistive technologies for independent learning and, finally, procurement. Then, for ‑‑ can you please go ahead two more slides? Yeah. One more.
Yeah, then the total there ‑‑ I'm sorry, the country is basically go down to 10.79 over 50 points. So as you see in the overall index, we are going from 16 good commitments, capacities to implement. And then, we're going to country, again, lower.
Any way, this is going to be interesting for all of you who wants to have an overview on what's happening in terms of ICT accessibility and as you will visit the website, you will find all of these data points. And we want to be very transparent and get feedback from accessibility experts and applicants and whoever want to give feedback on these points.
So we have only three recommendations, persons with disability is number one point that we really ‑‑ the participation of person with disability and policymaking and monitoring is number one, essential to close the gap.
We do offer some training. We will see, eventually, in the presentation. Number two, is promoting ICT accessibility impact of procurement. This is our number two recommendation to close the gap. Public procurement doesn't cost anything. But there are ways to get the right things in that area. And we do offer procurement portal where you can find a lot of information about policy and other resources.
And then, finally, training and certification of professional in ICT accessibility, we also think is very important. And we, we have joined forces with the professional organization for international organizations for accessibility professions.
Well, you will find everything in the presentation. The slides remain behind. But anyway, that's quite important. You will see the type of training that we ‑‑ which includes web accessibility for professionals, for developers and ICT accessibility and procurement is to be released in 2018.
So the conclusion, there are resources available in terms of modern policies and other publications are all available on our website. So with that, I close. And I hope this gives an outlook on how we work on the civil society side to help the process. Thank you.
>> ANDREA SAKS: Thank you very, very much, Francesca. We did have him on for a few minutes, but he's dropped off, again. Can you call him? He's out of range. Okay. Well, let me just ‑‑ let me try one more thing. He's had difficulty, you just ‑‑ I'm on to his Skype. It's interesting, I'm using about three tools to communicate. I'm using email, WebEx, I'm using Skype and I'm using my phone. And it's incredible that we don't really have a good communication tool that's on the web that really can encompass everything that we need plus audio and other things.
So it's ‑‑ it's the way it is. But we have to see if we can change that. That's ‑‑ from working with this today, it's been quite interesting. What I'd like to do is recap for the moment until we get can Masahito back on. We have a few minutes left. And I just want to review what everybody spoke about.
We had Gunela speak about women with disabilities ‑‑ from Australia in principles in practice. And we didn't have Masahito and we didn't have Gerry Ellis, who I understand has snuck on.
>> He's not audio.
>> ANDREA SAKS: But if you want to type a message, go ahead and do it and we'll read it out. And then, we have Shadi, who is a representative of the worldwide web, consortium WC3, the Pakistan center. And Francesca, who you just heard. Would anyone like to address a question in general or specifically to a speaker?
Raise your hand and I'll recognize you. Please, go ahead, and please give your name. And if it's yours, I know it's unusual. Will you spell it for the captioner and please, go ahead.
>> (?) From Sri Lanka. My question at the moment, we are developing a cure for visually impaired persons to use internet access. So I saw the presentation, especially that you mentioned, the second bullet. You have Sri Lanka for this presentation, yes. I just wanted to know that (?) Support because actually this is developed by (?) We need someone by your side to support us and actually work for the people. Otherwise, it will be a project in vain.
You can communicate and help on this kind of thing.
>> FRANCESCA: Sure. I'm not sure ‑‑ I'm not sure it was in the slide because we didn't really, yet, the countries. We did survey persons. There are members of civil society, as well. The index is based on the voice of advocates and accessibility experts from the persons with disabilities. I forgot to mention that we work with the ‑‑ realizing the survey. Which has a large network. Regional organizations of persons with disabilities.
>> Just to follow‑up, my question is just how we make the collaboration.
>> ANDREA SAKS: Can you repeat that question, please?
>> My question, following integration, how do we make the collaboration with the creators of this kind of product?
>> ANDREA SAKS: Okay. How ‑‑ I'm not sure I understand exactly what you said. How are we going to what? I have a theory.
>> Make a collaboration.
>> Oh, that's the biggest problem. We have many big companies all over the world who do try to make their products accessible. But you have people that go into developing countries, I hate that term, but countries that do not have a really big infrastructure, and they sell anything they want. And we end up throwing it on a scrap heap. The only way we can deal with that, I think, is to continue to come to places like the IGF, ITU and to work together with people to try to encourage the bigger companies to do something.
>> This is ‑‑ this product ‑‑ it's actually developing for the disabled community. So that's why ‑‑ I believe (?).
>> ANDREA SAKS: Gunela's going to try to answer the question.
>> GUNELA ASTBRINK: I think it would be useful for us to know a little bit more about the kiosk that you are planning to develop based on the project that has been going on for a little while. I also would suggest organization in Thailand, in Bangkok. In the Asia‑Pacific region. And I can put you in touch with people there. I think it's called NEC‑TEC. And that might be something appropriate. It's just the starting point.
I think if there's time, Andrea, maybe I can explain a little bit more about the project in Sri Lanka that could be interesting for us to hear about unless Masahito is coming online.
>> ANDREA SAKS: Well, the group is ‑‑ I'm quite open to let this go any way it wants. We have ten minutes past. We've got about half an hour. And we could do that.
>> 20 minutes.
>> ANDREA SAKS: 16:40 is when the next one starts. That's fine, we've got all of this technical work for you. Anyway, okay. Gunela, I'm going to ask your indulgence on this. Because we do have Masahito's slides, and I'm wondering if the group would like to see that. I can't actually present those and rip through those pretty quickly. Would you like to see?
Not able to get one because of low ‑‑ I just got a message ‑‑ oh, yes, I will send the slides, let me see if I can get these slides up on my computer so I can see them myself. Just a minute. I do have your slides. Do you have Masahito's on yours? I have them. I've got them. Here we are. I can see them now.
Okay. What Masahito does, he's the rep for ‑‑ and next slide, please. And what the point of ‑‑ accessibility, in a sense by making sure that standards that are created have accessibility features put them in. And we encourage companies to do the same thing. And it lowers costs of operation purchase, there's more competition and it makes the price go down, which is very important to developing countries. And it lowers their market entry. And you've got a wider market and more availability. Next slide, please.
Now, we've got a couple of pictures here. This is the actual secretary general of the ITU. And that is the director of the ITU's sector where this work is being done. Oh, he's done something fancy. Saying the ITU is a specialized agency of the United Nations since we have some persons with visual situations. It expanded in 1865 and it's the oldest international organization inheriting the international ‑‑ telegraph when we first got from the United States to England. We had to go through an operator.
Over the years, the ITU has been contributing to getting things homogenized, globalized and able to be interoperable. And standards the first objective of the ITU.
Now, there are 193 member states and other 800 private sector entities that belong to the ITU and that and private companies like AT&T, there are different companies, Google, that's Microsoft, they are not interstates, interstates are the countries. And its headquarters are in Geneva. Some of the stuff you don't realize that the IGF standardized is that we the sound of Kodaks that are used in movies, and that's Malcolm Johnson who is the deputy secretary who wasn't back at the time we were doing the early days of the director of the ‑‑ because we are responsible for better sound. Who is not doing my slides? Keep going? They're ahead of me? Oh, god. Thank you. I got completely thrown.
These are standards, I'm not going to go through them all. I've given you a few. Standards are a way that governments adopt and become interoperable. And persons with disabilities could actually begin to hope for global accessibility. And proof technologies, that's hopeful, but not impossible. And the next slide, please. The necessary modifications and adjustments that we need to do are disproportionate.
Now, by that, Masahito means that everybody has to do the same thing. And we need a particular ‑‑ persons with disabilities as an exercise of their rights are included on an equal basis of all other human beings and all other ‑‑ sorry, I get tongue tied, and all other rights and supplementals that the world enjoys.
Now, I'm not going to ‑‑ we'll skip that. I've already mentioned the Emmy award. Now, question 26. I've mentioned. That's the group that is ‑‑ kids are going deaf by the ear buds in their ears and listening at a higher decibel rate for too long. Whether it's working with WHO on that, it's extremely important that message gets home to teenagers and their parents and to the rest of you who like to listen to go to bed at night with ear buds in your ears because you like to sleep. Don't do it.
New recommendations that have come into effect, we have accessibility terms and definitions. And some terms are ‑‑ we don't call people deaf and dumb anymore. And we don't use hearing impairment at the request of the communities of deaf and hard of hearing people because the solutions are different. If you're hard of hearing, if you're deaf, you need visual input there was a huge discussion
Whatever disability, trying for sponsorships for you at the same time. I won't go through all of the different recommendations, except as they are here. F.790 is one that is written and harmonized with ISO. That explains a lot about what should be done in standardization. And Etsy has also harmonized with it. If people would read that when they create things, we would have a much better situation. I've gone through ‑‑ how many pages does he have on this? Oh, let's look at the time. I can just about do it.
We have some questions? No. Just ‑‑ okay. One of the things that's very important is that if we have things standardized, we will, in fact, lower the cost of the market and we won't have a situation where solutions are interoperable. F.702. Again, I won't go into that because of the time definition. But it is ‑‑ I will say this. Changing the size and color and position of captions are important. We had to adjust this page today so we can see the actual presentation with the captioning on top. Everywhere we go, we train technical staff. It's what I do. And what a lot of ‑‑ ‑‑ everybody has either does, no, never been asked to do it and hasn't good a clue how to do it. I'm constantly saying, can you do this? Can you do that? We're lucky that the boys and girls who have been helping us here have been doing a great job adjusting as we want.
Now, providing multiple captions, and I think you wrote that ‑‑ because for Solvini, it's the intellectually challenged, I think that's for you. And it's the personalized service. We can do things like that, we can do things that, like have sign language interpreters in the room. The reason I'm going mention this one is extremely important. It's over the internet. It has closed captioning and it doesn't just come on ‑‑ different fonts, colors, and sizes, audio guidance, system, audio, electronic program guide, you can find programs. If you seeing the electronic program guide. Emergency alert over live channel, as well, as video on demand. This was standardized by ITU. And it is being deployed in ‑‑ Portugal, it's in Brazil. It's in Japan. It can be implemented into a television set and a set top box. It was presented in New York on the 1st of December, 2017 as part of the international day of persons with disabilities. If every broadcaster utilized this technology as it can go on top of a TV set with a set top box, can you imagine how wonderful it would be to have accessible TV everywhere? It's not possible.
It also can do closed and open sign language. Some of you in Europe have seen sign language and it's open and you can't turn it off. But that's ‑‑ there is a sign language system for regular programs. And sometimes, sign language is that person's only language. And sign language is different in every single country. They're going to start servicing in 2018.
People who are blind can't navigate the tube, the underground, the street. It's amazing. It's been ‑‑ it cannot ‑‑ we can't depend on GPS if you're inside. This can take care of it inside. That's F.291. That we expect to be successful. For instance, there is a picture here, and I'll describe, of a young woman with a cane walking down a ramp and it says written on text so we know what is being said to her. But it's being audibly said to her. Welcome to Pimlico station, follow the ramp down.
So she knows that she's expecting a ramp and she's going to go down instead of falling. But she will also be told where to go, where to find ticket, all of that. It would be great for museums and libraries or supermarkets. And it's expected to be tested globally.
So we're working on that. Trying to make sure they slow down the speed of speak, make it louder or lower, it's something that isn't done very easily, and we're working on that, as well. I'm not going to go through anymore because of the time thing. They've been working with a standard of SML ‑‑ synchronized.
>> Synchronized multimedia integration language. SMIL.
>> ANDREA SAKS: Thank you. This is the expert on that. Creating global stems for accessible global future, and some of the IUT standards for accessibility are adopted by governments, industry and available on the market now. And these standards provide a good way to satisfy a reasonable accommodation required by UNCRPD. Now, it's time, it's his last sentence here. Now it's time for implementing global accessibility services.
I did that pretty fast. But he went through a great deal of trouble. It's unfortunate we could not connect him to WebEx. I'm going to have to close this meeting, but Gunela's meeting is starting next. A lot of us will hang about afterwards. This relates to what you're doing accessibility-wise. So this will continue. This will continue on and I will be remote moderator and I'm going to change places. So I'm going to close this particular meeting and turn it over to Gunela whose meeting is ‑‑ Internet Governance ‑‑ no. Questions? We have five minutes.
We have a question over here.
>> ANDREA SAKS: Go ahead. Someone turn on the speaker.
>> Sorry, (?) My name is Bashir (?) I only have in the civil society and working as ‑‑ IGF. Recently, I have recruited to ensure accessibility guide. I'd like to seek the collaboration of to support us to develop two things. One, a national guideline, two, a toolkit by which content providers and others can easily make ‑‑ this would be very much helpful for Bangladesh as we have 25,000, the largest portal in the globe. And unfortunately ‑‑ for people with disabilities.
So it's my primary ‑‑ the guideline or toolkit to ensure accessibility. Thank you.
>> SHADI ABOU‑ZAHRA: Absolutely, if I can respond to that, Andrea. And response to everyone in the room. We have two modes of translation. One is voluntary translation and the other is called authoritative translation. So we have ‑‑ it's a procedure that we actually recognize the translation. We have this authorized translation in several languages already.
I think this would be a way the web content accessibility guidelines is also recognized as ISO4500. It's an international standard.
We really recommend not to redevelop a standard that exists to actually use existing materials regarding supporting the implementation and how to build capacities in a particular countries. Those might need different strategies. I think this is also a question earlier from Sri Lanka, there's a lot of opportunity to look and learn from other countries. I think looking and learning from other countries, what they've done, what worked well.
But at the same time, developing your own strategy and your own implementations that would apply the information kiosks. I'm not a friend of let's import something that happened somewhere educational that sometimes doesn't work. But on a standard that I think we should all strive for global universal standards because really the accessibility requirements do not change with borders.
But the way to get there, the way to implement it, that needs different strategic and through consider the regional aspects here. I'd love to talk more with you and give you my card to sort of exchange more, authorize translations. And anyone else wants translations on the web accessibility standards, I'd be happy to talk with you, as well.
>> ANDREA SAKS: And I'm delighted to meet you because I've recognized you from the literature. I think I'll let Gunela start her workshop and get ready for her workshop which is the next one. And thank you for your comments. Which is Internet Governance 2017. No, Internet of Things, accessibility for persons with disabilities.
9:30
>> GUNELA ASTBRINK: I wanted to say, thank you very much, Andrea for this particular session, and we will probably have a few minutes break because this session on the internet of things and accessibility is scheduled to start at 20 minutes to 5:00. So it will give time for people to move around and for new people to come in. Thank you very much.