IGF 2010
VILNIUS, LITHUANIA
16 SEPTEMBER 10
SESSION DC6
1415
ICANN
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Note: The following is the output of the real-time captioning taken during Fifth Meeting of the IGF, in Vilnius. 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 session, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.
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(Please stand by for DC6, workshop Dynamic Coalition on Accessibility and Disability.)
>> ANDREA SAKS: Okay. I'm going to connect automatically.
Are we on? I just told everybody I was stupid, but that's fine. I would like to test the captioning. I want that shad, I want you to take your workshop and announce it. Okay, fine.
Okay. It's now, I think I'm going to start. Thank you.
Welcome to the fifth, I think we are the it's the third live meeting face to face meeting of the Dynamic Coalition on Accessibility and Disability at the fifth meeting of IGF in Vilnius, Lithuania.
Welcome, everyone who has come.
I have an agenda. There are copies, hard copies available. Alexandra has them at the back of the room if somebody wants one. It's also on the board and we have captioning.
And as we have many people who are watching the captioning who English is the second language or have hearing difficulties of some kind, when you do speak, would you kindly please give your full name and your organisation and your affiliation, and or your question or comment. That would help a lot so that the captioner knows who you are and everybody else does, too.
The DC was actually formed after the Rio event for those not familiar with it, because there were lots of things lacking in accessibility features, and awareness.
So the ITU, specifically the ITU T decided it would like to sponsor the Dynamic Coalition on Accessibility and Disability.
It has progressed from strength to strength. I have a very good team all around the world, many of whom are here, many of whom participate in workshops and many who follow the e mail reflector.
We need to have more people join, as I mentioned in the main session on access and diversity. We need more sponsors because though many of the members have contributed to captioning in the past, before captioning became a normal part of the IGF as of this particular meeting that all workshops are now captioning. We paid for our own amongst ourselves.
So there is other work to be done. We have to go through today some of those points and some of those work items. So we'll go through that.
We will be hopefully advising the Secretariat of the IGF on what we have found here and what we need to do still continuously.
So with that, I would like to take the agenda and say: Do I have an approval of the agenda? And silence is golden. If you are quiet, that means it's okay.
(There is no response.)
>> ANDREA SAKS: Fine, the agenda is approved.
Now, we also did a report on the second meeting of the Dynamic Coalition on accessibility and disabilities in Sharm El Sheikh in Egypt on the 16th of November when we met in 2009.
It is attached in annex 1 for those of you who have full access to the Internet and can look at this online on the Web site. It has been out for over a year. We did not make hard copies of it.
We were captioned, so the report was taken from the captioning. Alexandra, our Secretariat, has just put it on the screen for us. So you can see it if we have any questions.
Do I need to get your approval on that report?
>> CYNTHIA WADDELL: I move that we approve that record.
>> ANDREA SAKS: Cynthia Waddell has kindly said we need you on the mic. Could I have a mic given to Cynthia? Let me recognize you and then I can give you the mic Cynthia Waddell would like to make a statement.
>> CYNTHIA WADDELL: I would like to move that we approve the report of the second meeting of the Dynamic Coalition on Accessibility and Disability at Sharm El Sheikh.
>> ANDREA SAKS: All right. Is that fine for everybody? Any objections?
(There is no response.)
>> ANDREA SAKS: Fine. Thank you very much.
Okay. Now, as I said a moment ago, we need to have feedback from people about the specific features that we have had, the services that we have had regarding accessibility. I have never had any problem with anybody coming forward with what they think. It's not to be negative. It's to improve. I have also I would like to start with a volunteer that I'm going to volunteer. And that's Ginger Paque who I had a brief discussion with this morning about the wonderful opportunity we had to have remote participants.
Ginger, would you give us a little information on how that worked and how it is working and just about what has happened here?
Thank you, Ginger, I put you on the spot. I hope you don't than mind.
>> GINGER PAQUE: That's okay. I'll just make it all up. So far, actually we have had some glitches. We have had some problems, but I do always I do want to point out that even in the physical rooms we have problems. We have overflow of sound from one room into another. There are difficulties in any circumstance.
So the fact that we run into difficulties in remote participation does not mean it is not amazing. It is truly amazing. There have been 33 remote hubs or remote meetings in local regional areas, registered of those so far, at least 25 have connected for interaction.
On Webex for interaction we have had up to yesterday evening, all of my data, 360 plus participants. There have been 18 remote presentations. So the actual panel presentations were done live from sites outside of Lithuania.
This does not count the number of people who watch the Webcast, who listen to the audio cast or who read the closed captioning without going on Webex. That's a significant, probably the majority of people do that, actually.
So the numbers I gave you are people who were on the interactive platform. We did have a few glitches, but we had an amazing flexibility and things worked really well. I don't know if other people were involved in panels that had remote participation and can comment on it. I had remote participants, presenters, and questions and comments.
And I found that it went quite well as an option for people who can't be here today.
>> ANDREA SAKS: Ginger, thank you very much. I appreciate what you've said. I just saw the hand in the corner of Shadi Abou Zara, and Nicholas is going to give you the mic. Thank you.
>> SHADI ABOU-ZARA: I want to thank Lithuania for offering this wonderful event of the IGF this year. As you said earlier, Andrea, we are providing constructive critique.
Some of the issues that I have personally observed were first of all, from the planning side, very little information on the Web site. For instance, to the bus timetables. It makes it very hard to plan the day and to plan my accessibility needs together with when I need to be at the conference.
And from the physical venue itself, there were issues of long distances between the different buildings. For instance, between the registration and the main session and going back and forth. Also the parking lot or the parking spaces, fairly far away. There is actually Judy entering the room. She might be able to speak on that behalf. I had a discussion with her earlier about the distances and the difficulties with having those distances.
And the other thing is the accessibility of the transportation. There was not guaranteed. There was buses provided, but to my knowledge not accessible.
And also that the bus timetables ended earlier than actually the sessions end. We got into that problem yesterday where the session ended maybe even two hours later than the last bus went.
Last but not least, I want to be point out that room 1, the podium there had no ramps. I actually had to be lifted up the ramp, up the podium in order to be able to deliver a speech. So those are some of my observations from the accessibility of this session.
>> ANDREA SAKS: Thank you, Shadi. Judy, would you elaborate what we are talking about now don't giggle, you have to speak because you're wonderful.
Tell me, tell the captioner and everyone who you are, full name and who you are affiliated with. Shadi has put you on the spot by saying some of these problems of accessibility directly affected you.
Could you elaborate for us? We will be making recommendations to the IGF Secretariat for the next event. Thank you. Carry on.
>> JUDITH OKITE: Thank you, Andrea. My name is Judy Okite. I work with Free and Open Software For Africa. I am based in Nairobi, Kenya.
The accessibility to this place was an issue beginning from the airport to the hotel. And once we got here, there was an issue at the security because they couldn't allow the taxi to come in. So I didn't have a wheelchair at that point. So you have to take the long stretches and then, thirdly, the means of transport. Personally, I cannot be able to use the big bus. There was no any other option. So for me to get here, I have to take a taxi, which the costs are on my head.
My recommendation will be that the host country, the Secretariat sitting on the host country must ensure that they have persons with disability in their committee because there are a few things that are overlooked, but an able bodied person might not easily single out.
Thank you.
>> ANDREA SAKS: Thank you very much, Judy. I appreciate you giving us that insight and I have another person here wishing to speak. Gerry? Would you raise your hand so Natalie can see where you are? Go ahead, we have one person in front of you.
Give your full name and where you come from.
>> ABDOULAYE DEMBELE: Abdoulaye
>> ANDREA SAKS: It's not working?
>> (Remarks in French.)
>> ANDREA SAKS: Would you translate in English for everyone? Alexandra is going to translate for Mr. Abdoulaye from French to English. Go ahead, Alexandra.
>> ABDOULAYE DEMBELE: (As translated) My name is Abdoulaye, I come from Mali. I want to join the observations made by Judy and by Shadi. I also have had some kinds of physical challenges. I would like to submit the observation, my observation to you.
>> ANDREA SAKS: Thank you very much, Abdoulaye. I really appreciate that. I have Gerry Ellis first and then Jorge. Okay, great.
We need the mic up here, please.
>> GERARD ELLIS: Good afternoon, everybody. Gerry Ellis, software engineer from Dublin, a usability and accessibility consultant.
My comment about accessibility would be really in advance of coming here, trying to get information on the event itself. And the Web site itself. I was trying to look up the timetables and plan ahead what events I would go to. And the timetable was 100 percent inaccessible. I could not make head or tail of it because it wasn't structured as a proper table.
That was my main one. The other is, I agree with Shadi about the buses. You didn't have a clue from one day to the next what time they were coming from. You can't blame the drivers for not being able to speak English, but there should have been some kind of board telling you what time the buses were going.
Thank you.
>> ANDREA SAKS: Thank you, Gerry.
Jorge Plano here.
Jorge, would you raise your hand so Natalie can find you with the mic? He doesn't know who you are.
>> JORGE PLANO: Jorge Plano. My comments on the accessibility of the painted programme. There is information that distance is only by color that this is the area to which the each session belongs is indicated only by color. This is an accessibility error. It is easy, it would be easy to show the relevancy with an icon or similar.
>> ANDREA SAKS: If I can recapitulate that, there are people who are color blind who are not going to be able to understand the color coding to know which workshop belongs to which main section.
Am I correct in interpreting what you are saying?
>> JORGE PLANO: That is.
>> ANDREA SAKS: We need to ask the Secretariat to put a symbol or icon on each category of the main session that correlates they can have the color, but they have to be able to have the icon there as well so that people with color distinguishing problems can also determine which session it belongs.
Right? I would like you to take the mic over to tell me your name, I'm sorry. Kevin, sorry, go ahead. Name?
>> KEVIN CRUISE: Kevin Cruise, and I'm with Gerry Ellis here. It's something I notice which I nearly broken my neck on, the protectors raised two or 3 inches, cable protectors. If you're walking along, you almost fly.
>> ANDREA SAKS: I'll add to that because I use a cane. The cable protectors are very difficult to navigate around. For people who have sight problems, that's an issue.
Let me write that down. Cables. Color and icon.
Would you like to no, Natalie, the next gentleman is over here. Then I get you, Fernando.
Would you give your name and affiliation, please?
>> MOHAMED JEMNI: Okay, thank you, Andrea. Mohamed Jemni, Tunisian Foundation for Human Resources and Technology.
I came, I attended the session a little bit late, but I don't know, maybe Shadi noted that. I noticed that the Web site of IGF is only level A in conformity of accessible alliance. It's not enough and the Web site of International Forum as IGF should be referenced in conformity of accessibility guidelines.
I believe that some people with disabilities cannot access to the information on the Web site since it is not level 3A.
And thank you.
>> ANDREA SAKS: I'm going to ask someone for the benefit of the report to explain what 3A means. And I do believe I have an expert.
Can we go do that? Can you hang on, Fernando, please? Shadi, would you explain that so it goes into the record?
>> SHADI ABOU-ZARA: The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines is divided into three levels of accessibility. Level A, AA, and AAA.
And we usually recommend the AA provides basic level of accessibility and in some cases AAA might be useful to strive for, at least parts of AAA.
So I think that relates to the issue that Gerry had pointed out of not being able to navigate through the table. It's because the table was inaccessible. It was not following the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines during the development of the Web site.
>> ANDREA SAKS: Thank you. I'm going to just jot all that down. If you could go to Fernando, please? Fernando, would you raise your hand so Natalie can find you? Natalie is doing a great job of taking the mic everywhere, carry on.
>> FERNANDO BOTELHO: Fernando Botelho. Just to complement what was said about the cables and the protection that was installed over some cables, there are a lot of people without any disabilities that fly via, I observed or who told me they almost fell and tripped on a number of occasions. That's definitely a universal design kind of example.
Thank you.
>> ANDREA SAKS: And also I would like to point out that Shadi really can't navigate the room very well either. Is that not true? That's correct, Shadi indicated that navigating the room over the cable holders, which are two and a half inches, about 4 inches across, consequently there's a little difficulty for him to go from one side of the room to the other unless he goes up to the front or the back.
I think that is a definite no no for next time.
I wanted to ask if I know this is a bit embarrassing, but we have to find out about the amenities. Were they available to people in regard to elevators, Loos, anything else like that besides the noise? Also I'm going to make a note of the noise and not having a proper ceiling so that we could contain the noise of each workshop, as Ginger has pointed out. I put that in.
Is there anything else that anybody wishes to add to improve the accessibility for our experience next time that goes in the report that we will write? Ginger, please.
>> GINGER PAQUE: I'm aware of this so I'll mention it. Did someone find out if the handicapped restroom was finally opened? I requested that it be open because it was locked. It was open? Okay, thank you.
>> ANDREA SAKS: That is a good point. It was locked upon arrival. It should have been opened immediately.
Okay. Not to be locked. The point is, they do that, I found out, to prevent people who are able bodied from using them. I'm thinking if you've got to go, you've got to go. Unless the person is waiting outside that is disabled and I'm sure anybody in their right mind would let the disabled person go first or be forever hung up and strung out. That's silly. The point is, they have to be unlocked immediately upon the opening of the centre.
I saw that Arnoud had his hand up.
>> ARNOUD VAN WIJK: My name is Arnoud van Wijk, I'm the Internet Society Ambassador on the IGF task force. Sorry, captioner, that's not my name, but that's okay.
There's one thing you see sometimes in the main sessions on those screens, but most did not show the captions next to it. They are showing some general programme information not reasonably related to the main session.
It would be nice if you have the captions of the of the main session both together. It makes a stronger message.
>> ANDREA SAKS: The captioning should be closer to the speaker's face or the person speaking or the action going on the stage so people can watch the stage at the same time they watch the captioning.
Have I got that correct? Because no, I'm not sure I understood. Would you like to repeat that for me, please, Arnoud?
>> ARNOUD VAN WIJK: What I'm trying to explain is you should have two screens next to each other. One showing the main session and the other doesn't show anything. Sometimes the slide, sometimes it's a Power Point about the whole programme of IGF. We could have used the captions next to it. Some do show it, but most don't.
>> ANDREA SAKS: I've got it. The screens that were around the centre that showed the action going on in the main centre had an additional screen next to it which only had a published mode of the agenda of IGF and that could have been used for captioning.
So persons with disabilities who could not go to the main session could follow what was going on. Got it. I've written it down. Okay. Two screens.
One for captioning, one for the video.
Got it.
And sound.
Okay.
In other words, a form of total communication, total conversation.
Excellent points. Do we have any other? Peter, you're looking at me. Yeah, I know he wants to raise his hand even when he doesn't.
(Chuckles.)
>> ANDREA SAKS: Peter Major, please.
>> PETER MAJOR: Peter Major. I'm from the Hungarian Embassy in Geneva.
Getting back to the IGF Web site, I think it could be much improved, as we all agree upon that. With respect to accessibility. However, there is one more aspect of that. I think it should be a kind of scheduler which would make life easier to create your own programme that is to have a selection of the sessions you want to attend. You can download it to your PC and it would show eventually the collision or the conflict of different sessions and eventually it might even indicate how you can get to the session itself.
So probably it's a relatively easy task to do. I know IGF Secretariat lacks the resources, but probably if there is a will, there is a way.
>> ANDREA SAKS: There's two points here. You want to be able to have the sessions grouped according to classification; is that also what you were saying? Because there's two issues here. Making it more accessible, being able to download what you want in a concise way, and I want to add something to this because it might influence what you say.
We discovered, Cynthia Waddel and myself or Cynthia discovered it, but I did notice that the other night when I tried to look up the workshop that I was going to spontaneously chair, moderate that I didn't know I was going to moderate until last Friday, that none of the people who were actually on the e mail list of who were speaking were on the Web site. The Web site had not been brought up to date. There are many, many Web sites of programmes that are not up to date. There needs to be more stringent policing of that.
With that in mind, how are we going to do this? We have to give Chengetai solutions. Can you elaborate?
>> PETER MAJOR: Andrea, you got me. The heart of the matter is to have up to date Web site. It should be regularly updated, which means on a regular basis and during the IGF it should be updated on an hourly basis, indicating all the changes, all the venues.
The speakers and so on and so forth. So probably it is a huge task. And well, what I suggested originally to have a tailor made programme for yourself. When I speak about downloadable, what I had in mind is to group your programme according to your interest. But this should be also, you should be able also to update it in case you need it.
>> ANDREA SAKS: In other words, I don't know if a programme exists to do this. It might be something that they start to create for us, but we would like to see a programme that allows you to group the workshops that you yourself are interested in that allows you to download it, that allows you to update it.
So that, I've got you, Gerry. That's pretty much what you said. That's an interesting idea and that will be communicated.
Gerry, did you want to add to that? I'm sorry. Axel, I'm afraid, has the mic before you and I didn't even know.
Possession is nine tenths of the law, Axel, go ahead.
>> AXEL LEBLOIS: Axel Leblois from the GAID.
Just a suggestion that if we had all the presentations and any kind of documents that are to be shared during those DCAD sessions at the IGF, we would be able to have them in format for everyone to consult them or use them during the presentations. It would facilitate everybody's kind of work in getting to the content of the discussions.
As well as the links to the captioning, I think it would be very useful for future reference. They could be put on the DCAD Web site if the IGF Web site does not have that functionality.
>> ANDREA SAKS: We have two issues here, presentations and captioning.
One, you want to see again, this is again cooperation amongst the people who are giving and making the workshops, but those presentations should be on the Web site in advance so that people when they attend the Web sites can access them on their own PCs during the Web site if they need to. The captions should be posted and made available on the IGF Web site. We will be posting many of these Web sites after the fact because we have asked for them specifically.
Like this particular meeting will have the captioning and we are going to use it as our report because you will be able to see what was said accurately.
I said Gerry first and then I acknowledged Cynthia and Arnoud did you want to say something else? You're fine, carry on.
>> GERARD ELLIS: Gerry Ellis again. Just to add to Peter's suggestion of being able to personalise information on the Web site and be able to download your own personal schedule, which I think is what Peter is suggesting and it's an excellent suggestion.
It is shocking to me that this is an Internet Governance Forum and the Internet site is so poor. It's shocking.
To make a suggestion is to go beyond what Peter is suggesting and have them develop an app so that if somebody has an iPhone they can download the presentation during the day. Most people as we hear over and over again, most people have mobile phone. That's something that if it is going to happen next year, we need to start training up now to ensure that it's done in time for next year. Just a suggestion.
>> ANDREA SAKS: Okay. That's a great idea. App for the mobile phone so the information can be downloaded.
Those apps exist, do they not? It should not be difficult. Cynthia is next. Thanks, guys, it's great.
>> CYNTHIA WADDELL: On the IGF Web site on the left hand side is a link for transcripts. If you click on that link now, you'll find transcripts of open Forums, three coalitions that have already had their meeting, regional, national meetings and a number of workshops are already posted at this point.
>> ANDREA SAKS: Basically they are posting the captioning for us. That link is there. Is it accessible, Gerry? You and Fernando are my guides on this. I want you to check that out. We'll soon find out if those links are accessible. That's your project right over the meaning and give us a report at the end if you both will. That would be great.
Now, does anyone else want to add to what we are going to put in the list?
You know, it's terrible, but we know each other so well, it's you and Peter, I know when you are going to speak.
>> GERARD ELLIS: It's not to add to the list, but maybe as a recommended solution, I think what Judy said quite awhile back about the Secretariat having some kind of handbook or some kind of requirements with which we can approach the host countries. We have a resource called how to make presentations accessible to all. It deals with how to actually make the presentations accessible, including speaking into the microphone and making sure that stuff is captioned.
But it also points to accessibility, physical accessibility checklists. If I may tell you, the URL of the resource. It's www.W3.org/WAI/training.
>> ANDREA SAKS: What is it?
>> GERARD ELLIS: /accessible.
>> ANDREA SAKS: Shadi, can we put this on the work plan so we can take it and add to it I'll come to the work plan later. Hang on to that idea. I have a feeling that this is something that ICANN can do. Basically, there is something like when I started the meeting, I did ask all of you to tell me your name. I know most of your names anyway. The point is, the people who are remote don't know you. The captioners aren't in the room. And we need to identify you and also so when you see the captioning, you can see yourself in print.
We need to have instructions how to run a meeting with captioning. And I bet you there are things that I don't do that I can learn to do.
The captioner now knows I'm the Chairman, but I realise I didn't give my name at the beginning of this. I made faux pas
>> SHADI ABOU-ZARA: It is a draft for review. It would be good to have them get broader input from different perspectives. And we focus mainly on the presentation aspect. We need physical accessibility guidelines and checklists and other resources.
>> ANDREA SAKS: Do we dare, this is something I want to ask the group. Do we dare, which we'll come to a vote on, putting something like this on the work plan which we have to do remotely which we'll come to later. Do we dare actually create a new guideline? Because we did one after Rio that we submitted to we did a secondary report. That might be before somebody joined.
It does need updating. Basically we do a new guideline, we are going to give what we've done today in a short form with pending the guidelines we are going to develop starting with yours as a base plan and adding the other bits so that there is the beginnings of a guide book for the Secretariat and for all people who are chairing meetings.
So I'll bring this up again when we come to the workshops. I would like you all to think about that before we go any further.
Cynthia, you wanted to make a comment, please.
>> CYNTHIA WADDELL: This is Cynthia Waddell. Along the same line that were reported, there are remote hubs and there are persons with disabilities on the remote hubs.
One of the issues would be providing guidelines for the moderators of the remote hub and facilitating access for remote participants who have disabilities, such as how to manage the transcript, the scribing that is coming through on the Webex, for example, with the application that we use.
How to ensure that the person with a disability can communicate whatever their needs are during the meeting and also do the training for the moderator on running the application.
We also along these same lines, we have during IGF a number of remote participants who actually gave presentations remotely. So again, along the lines of this guidelines on accessibility and training resources, we need to ensure that.
I know yourself, Andrea, you and I participated in a trial run of captioning for the programme and there needs to be more of those so that the moderators can actually, every time they run a training programme they should have captioning running so the moderator can become comfortable with understanding how that works along with the video and white board and Power Point uploads for the presentation. Again, a more robust training for the remote hub so that everyone can participate on the remote hub.
>> ANDREA SAKS: Let me clarify that, too. Who is going to Cisco tonight? Cisco has Webex.
The problem is, there are pods that are within Webex. I did check, can we have the Power Point and captioning on the same screen? Which can't. There is a flaw in the remote hub situation. If the person wants to watch the Power Point, he can hear the audio, see the Power Point, but the captioning cannot be displayed.
This is a major problem with how Webex is structured. They need to be made aware of that at Cisco.
There are other issues. I looked at other remote tools that people use for conferencing where people can actually participate. So this is an issue that also is not necessarily IGF's problem. It is the problem ...
(Please stand by. Lost audio.)
(Attempting to reconnect audio.)
(Reconnected).
>> ANDREA SAKS: Is it working? Can people can the captioner hear me? Yes, okay.
I will just finish what I'm saying. Let Cynthia come in and Andrea wants to say something.
All the captioning remote participation tools that work together Roy is in the room. He's going to run to 4 and fix 4.
They aren't perfect, we can't tell anybody which captioning tool to use.
So the problem is just to make IGF aware that this is a problem of accessibility that needs to be addressed.
So the thing is, I did ask Bernard Sadaka, could we have captioning at the same time we had a Power Point?
You said at this particular juncture, no.
So the animal hasn't been invented yet that can be doing that. Each remote tool, like webinar, Adobe connect, Webex all have their flaws. They don't have a uniform way of working.
So I think we have to write this carefully.
Cynthia, did you want to add to this?
>> CYNTHIA WADDELL: What I was speaking to was the accessibility functionality, the types of functionality that would enable access, not the particular application.
For example, I demonstrated that in Zambia at the conference on access needs for persons with disabilities of a particular programme that addressed the functionality of a Web site, of a Web conferencing tool.
I'm not recommending any particular one. I'm just saying that there are certain types of features that when IGF chooses an application, they be aware of what it can do and what those limitations are and communicate that in the training for the moderator and for the participants.
>> ANDREA SAKS: I agree with you, to communicate the training of what the limitations are, that we need to be aware of them, but sometimes we don't find them out until we actually use them.
And I agree that we should tell them that all training for remote participants should include captioning.
Ginger, do you have an opinion on that? Because Ginger is the period of time on it.
>> GINGER PAQUE: I am certainly not an expert on it. I was typing into Room 4 because of their captioning problem. I missed the question.
>> ANDREA SAKS: The question is you cannot have the captioning and the presentation at the same time on Webex and if you have a deaf person on the other end he can see the Power Point, but he can not see the captioning. He has to choose.
This is a problem. It depends upon how the captioning pods are set up within whatever tool you're using.
>> GINGER PAQUE: Correct. So what could be possibly done, and this is a fix. It's not because Webex is not yet set up to do that and I would mention that Cisco has given us, has given the idea of a complimentary copies to facilitate it. So we're lucky that we have anything.
You know, don't look a gift horse in the mouth, kind of thing. Until we manage to really get it. Not defending Cisco or Webex, but it's what we've got.
>> ANDREA SAKS: Point taken on that.
Our job is to do it.
>> GINGER PAQUE: Yes, I'm not in the spirit of the workshop. You know, I am just trying to get things straight.
One thing that could be done for people and yes, we do need to work on it. The IGF needs to work on it. We also need to learn to be flexible and, for instance, if we use two computers or a side by side split screen, we could have the closed captioning from the closed captioning site and have the slides and the other screen on the Webex site.
What you would have to do is access the Web site separately. That's the only fix that I can think of right now. Yes, we will take it into account later.
>> ANDREA SAKS: Thank you very much, Ginger. We have what we call a solution. Two screens, one for the captioning; one for the presentation. And the remote participant. And we have Roy in the room and Roy is cognizant of this particular problem. And Roy was the captioner that participated in the training that I was on and that Cynthia was on.
It needs further investigation and I don't know if I can dare impose on you, Roy. You are an expert on captioning.
Perhaps at some point, would you like to just say a few words about this particular problem?
The problem is ... come up and get the mic, kid.
The problem is we can not on the remote Webex have the Power Point on the same screen as the captioning at this particular time using this particular tool and that this is something we need to make the IGF aware of, that we it needs to be all inclusive or accessible or we have to figure out split screens or two browsers. We have to put this in the guidelines of how we do this so that somebody who is deaf in a remote area can have the benefit of both the Power Point and the captioning and the ability to communicate.
And this guideline that we are proposing to possibly put in as a work item for DCAD need to be able to help the Secretariat and the remote hub moderators function for the next IGF.
That's kind of the situation.
>> ROY GRAVES: This is Roy graves. I'm with Caption First and we have worked with a lot of different, let's call them desktop sharing software like Webex and Go To Meeting.
And many of them in order to be compliant with U.S. regulations have a captioning feature. So they meet the requirements, but it is cumbersome at best and useless in most of the situations.
Webex actually has one of the best features, but it's only available on one of their platforms, not the typical platform that you see most people use, which is hosted by an individual.
Their system that is hosted by their servers is or does have a different captioning feature that's a little bit better. In general, what we recommend to most people is to use a split screen type of situation because that works best in the general types of situations until these desktop sharing applications are forced to improve their captioning features.
>> ANDREA SAKS: Thank you. That's what I needed. I needed wording which we now captured.
Thank you very much, Roy. As Chengetai said to me, don't give me the problems, give me the solutions. So they have something that we can put in the guidelines that we can advise people. Thank you very much, Cynthia, thank you very much, Shadi. Thank you very much was there another hand up? Did you want to say something, Arnoud? Yes, you want to say something? All right. Arnoud is a person who totally relies on captioning.
>> ARNOUD VAN WIJK: Hello. I'm Arnoud Van Wijk.
I have had had interesting conversations with people from Lithuania and Czech Republic and Soviet countries. It seems in Soviet times disabilities didn't exist. It was all locked up, hidden away.
So maybe for about ten years these east Bloc countries have encountered disabilities. We have to keep that in mind when explaining to them because it is more new and complicated than for America and the rest of Europe. It's good to keep it in mind.
>> ANDREA SAKS: Thank you, Arnoud, a very valuable point. Thank you for sharing that.
Now, I think we've probably covered everything about accessibility and what we need to do or what we need to communicate unless somebody else has another point?
(There is no response.)
>> ANDREA SAKS: Thank you very much for that. We can now move we have actually inadvertently covered 4 and 5 at the same time. 4 was the feedback from the IGF participants on accessibility measures taken at this IGF meeting. And number 5 was remote participation, comments and experiences.
Is there anybody else anybody wants to add about remote participation? Ginger, thank you very much for coming in. You are an expert believe it or not. We rely on you to help us understand what is going on and thank you for coming in to do this.
>> GINGER PAQUE: May I break in?
>> ANDREA SAKS: Of course you can.
>> GINGER PAQUE: I did want to mention. I don't know if everyone in the room is aware or if the whole Dynamic Coalition is aware that the remote participation working group is extremely appreciative of your efforts foreclosed captioning.
As a backup for remote participation when sound goes out, for people who don't have good enough Internet connection that they can get Webex or they can get even the Webcasts, they can almost always get the closed captioning.
So it works for the fact that we as remote participation don't offer captioning and we do not have the accessibility for people with hearing disabilities. It also helps people that can hear and have Internet connection problems.
So we do appreciate the interconnection and the link between the two efforts and we would like to continue to emphasize that link with the remote participation working group.
So thank you to all of you in the room for the help you give to remote participation.
>> ANDREA SAKS: Thank you also in return for the remote participation for persons with disabilities who can't travel. So it's a joint effort here. Thank you very much, Ginger, for those comments.
Okay. Moving right along, it is 10 after 3 and feedback on the two workshops.
What did we accomplish? We have 180 and 182.
I've got them in the number of order of numbers, but since 182 was before (feedback).
>> ANDREA SAKS: Did I do that? Gosh, sorry for that feedback.
Can mobile apps create a new golden age of accessibility? That was organised by EBU and supported by DCAD and UNESCO.
David? Do you want to just go over and have a quick synopsis for those people who were not able to be in that? What did we accomplish?
>> DAVID WOOD: David Wood here. Thanks very much. So what we were trying to look at was the way that
>> ANDREA SAKS: Could you put your mic closer to your mouth, please?
>> DAVID WOOD: Right. Is that better? What we were intending to do is examine the ways in which applications, the software packages that you find on things like smart phones and iPads and so on can or should or will be used to help people who have disabilities.
We have a lot of agreement, both Internet and mobiles on which these things are usually found are a necessary part of living today for everybody, both for those who have disabilities and those that don't.
And actually, they are fundamentally of great value to liberate those with disabilities.
Many organisations are looking at ways either to create more and better applications or proposing rules and guidelines for their production, which is very useful.
We heard first of all from the BBC. I like the idea that we should try to develop an accessibility framework across different media and which can be used for policy and then the Broadcasting Corporation of Japan in HK showed us some of the work they are doing on multiple version sub titles and kind of text to Avatar conversion.
Cisco told us about the things they do for Webex. They had a suggestion that as a matter of policy, the application should have the same look and feel as the API, the programming interface, whatever it is, Windows or something else or linings, that Linux that it's used with Chrome or Android.
We heard from W3C about the many guidelines that they are developing and from the realtime text task force about the new tools that are going to be valuable both for those with and without disabilities.
And then finally, Arun Mehta told us about his work. I was struck particularly about opening a door to the needs of those with mental challenges.
So what did it amount to? It amounted to a list of things that we looked at that could be done. Of course, there were the obvious things about wider communications, more widespread use of the guidelines and to establish a common set of documents about the issues and to carry on the dialogue.
But more specific things was, we somehow need to encourage a greater commitment to open and standardised systems so they can be used across all platforms. We need tools that can make writing the applications very easy and simple.
Of course, the obvious idea that one of the best ways of writing a good application is for the people who have disabilities to be the Web developers.
So let he or she who have to use them design them, if you can.
We looked at some aspects whether you can make those applications use to people with disabilities. It looks like groups needed personalisation for groups of persons with disabilities.
We need to pay attention to those who have combined disabilities, say sight and hearing. There are things called touch methods, called Aptic methods that you can look at there.
We can ask ourselves whether the applications cannot be used for disabled users, but for nondisabled users also. It may be that if there's an audio commentary on something, that people could use that who don't have disabilities, as it were, for multitasking, something of this kind.
And then we touched on quite a sensitive issue. A number of people came back to it, which is about prioritisation of disability groups. When you talk about a Web site or a TV programme or radio programme, how do you decide which disability group to serve the most with the most money? It does seem as if you can't, there's no rule for this, but you have to examine things case by case and based on the content itself and the context in which it's used.
So that was the summary.
There is on the IGF Web site those notes together with some of the presentations that were given.
Well, I've tried to upload them. I can't promise they are there, but they should be there. You are kind enough to give an oral presentation on some of the conclusions at the plenary assembly yesterday afternoon on access and diversity.
I think it was an interesting valuable session and as you know, there were about 50 people came, apart from the Panelists. So I think it was a very useful session and a lot of thanks to you and all of the DCAD people for organising it.
>> ANDREA SAKS: Thank you, David. I'm going to quickly present the other workshop that went into the main session. Because we were scheduled after the main session on access and diversity, which is where we fall in. When they began with accessibility, well, they didn't actually take accessibility into account in Athens. Rio, barely. We've made progress.
They didn't make a classification for access in terms of accessibility for persons with disabilities or older persons.
So we have had to drop into that particular main session in order to put our views across. Last year we were the stars of the show with Gerry and Shadi showing people how blind people can access the Web and how also Web builders can actually make a beautiful Web site that looks exactly like one that wasn't accessible. It was a great success. Cynthia Waddell presented the message we wrote and I get the feel our message will be a continuing one of what needs to be done.
Yesterday I was at well, yesterday I presented unexpectedly, as I think I mentioned earlier. I didn't know I was going to do the moderation for an accessibility workshop of sorts until Friday because somebody was unable to do it. That's the other one that fed into the main session, which was workshop 114, digital inclusion, reaching the most socially excluded people in society.
Now, that was really fun because I went in cold. I didn't know what the heck I was going to do, as we found out the people who were there were not on the Web site. It was a totally cold experience.
But it was warm once we got it going. Axel I brought in because Axel was part of us. The DCAD supported us being there and we had a lively discussion on who was excluded and why.
I'm not going to go into everything that is on there, but this will be in the report about who was on that workshop when I do the DCAD report.
But we were able to synthesize the fact that young people this was the exciting bit. I'm going to mention the young people in another second.
The young people commented on what they wanted. They wanted to go to the library and do their homework. Why don't we make libraries technically up to date. Instead of going to the library like we used to for books, they go to the library because they can't possibly afford a computer, but they can do their homework like we used to in the library.
Lots of interesting comments were made by them.
And also about being safe on the Internet.
The other part was indigenous people and that has to do with multilingualism and that also has to do with the fact that a lot of languages aren't written down and have no script.
And that indigenous people need to be included and included on the designing of their Web sites so that they play a part in that and maybe in the case of certain languages that have no script, that those Web sites are in fact read to them, not unlike a situation for somebody visually impair. There's work that has to be done on this, but that was discussed.
We came to the subject of women not being included. And women, Claudia Gray, who was in the audience, actually presented on what the next workshop, which is DCAD, but she gave a very profound speech on the fact that women were marginalised and that that was due to domestic situations and gender issues, cultural issues.
Not only did this apply in the developing world, it also applies in the developed world with certain cultures have imported themselves to be in a western culture, and still continue exclusion of women from participation. This also restricts on both situations education, job, job benefits and also that causes them to possibly remain in poverty and ignorance without education and not only that, women who are disabled are at the bottom of the heap.
So consequently, that was an important feature. It was interesting to follow that conversation. There was a lot more also regarding the fact that we talked about persons with disabilities. Since we're pretty okay with that so we won't go into the details here.
The other thing that was so shocking, one of our participants who was giving a presentation commented that in his country the parliamentarians did not have Web sites. They did not communicate with their constituents by e mail.
India is a vast country and has plenty of rural areas and large populations and they are still going out into the wilderness, and this was the country that was mentioned, to talk to, how many people can you talk to at one time? Whereas if they were to go on electronically and give what they are doing and explain what they are doing within their Governments to their constituents, it would benefit the people out in the field. There are even hubs out in rural areas in India that are ready and waiting for that kind of information.
I see Arun shaking his head.
Since this is your country, is there something you would like to add to that for the benefit of DCAD? You know your country. I'll go back to the explanation of the workshop. I found this interesting and surprising. Carry on.
>> ARUN MEHTA: Would you sort of make that question little bit more precise as to what would you like to know?
>> ANDREA SAKS: I found it, I think the word was shocking, that there are parliamentarians who live in cities who probably have Internet at home, are not using that tool to communicate with the vast populations and the tele hubs that are out in, you know, computer hubs that are out there and do not use that as a tool to communicate with people through the Internet and I don't have any verification of this, but this was put out by our mutual colleague.
>> ARUN MEHTA: There was a statistic recently that something like 85 percent of rural India has never heard of the Internet.
So when we have that kind of statistic and, you know, that is the demographic, that is the person whom the parliamentarian is really trying to reach, very few are city kinds of seats. Most of the seats are out there.
Until and unless the general level of awareness and digital empowerment improves, you know, the parliamentarians will follow rather than lead, which is a pity actually.
No, this is something that we need to do work on and something that can be achieved here in this specific problem and Osama I'm sure is working on it.
The problem is work it is a big country, people don't have access and know about it and so on.
>> ANDREA SAKS: This ties into the other aspect, broadband, how strong is it, what is it, where do you get it, other people have access to it.
We will publish the notes that I made with the people who are responsible for this particular workshop, and it was oh, not Annette who sponsored it. There will be more information in the publication about it. There were two workshops along with DCAD people in that meeting were in that meeting. Gerry Ellis was there and made a comment that was absolutely fabulous Gerry, you can say your own comment about the cost: Give Gerry the mic because why should I paraphrase when I've got him in the room?
>> GERARD ELLIS: This was at the main session? That one?
>> ANDREA SAKS: Yes.
>> GERARD ELLIS: I was trying to go forward when you go beyond UN Convention and legislation, you want to show industry that there's economic benefit. I gave the example of eGovernment. Governments want to put their products and services online because they see that as a saving.
But if they exclude large numbers of the population like older people, people with disabilities, they are going to have to provide what they call human intermediaries. In other words, they are going to have to make members of staff available to help those who can't use their inaccessible systems.
If they make their systems accessible, then there will always be some need for human intermediaries, but it will be much, much reduced and they can use those people for far more efficient and's effective pieces of work. There's economic benefit to them. Loads of things in eGovernment, but it's an example of how making something accessible can be beneficial to government and to other people rather than just people with disabilities themselves.
>> ANDREA SAKS: Thank you. Now this is all leading up to our last workshop, because also the work of DCAD of what we can do and Axel Leblois had a survey would somebody give him this piece of paper, please?
Raise your hand. I'll let you do the synopsis of the last workshop. Even though I gave this one, I want a synopsis, please, because of the fact that this is all going to tie into what we do with the work plan because Gerry made one other point which I thought was really vital.
He said we're taking the people out and we need the people, we need the human faces, the human interfaces in and to reduce the cost of excluding human beings who help those people who are older who are also left out of the Internet because of many reasons of not being able to have the technology or understand the technology or see the relevance of the technology in their lives.
There was a concern about that. So there's a lot of different kind of things that we were thinking of doing which will tie in later to the next step in the agenda, which is next steps and future activities.
But Axel, would you kindly please give a synopsis of the workshop that we just had? Thank you.
>> AXEL LEBLOIS: It was 180, from Athens to Vilnius, the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. We had what I thought was a very productive session this morning, very well actually very good active and very well moderated and topics that we covered were the following: First Claudia Gray, who is representing the person that was actually initially supposed to be here.
>> ANDREA SAKS: Clara Luz.
>> AXEL LEBLOIS: Yes, from the University in Mexico, talked about Internet accessibility and development and she actually covered resolution 58 that was adopted by the world communication report conference in Hyderabad a few months ago. This review of the Hyderabad vote actually brought a lot of the issues that we were discussing this morning, including Rapporteurs and responses to promote accessibility as a result of the convention being ratified by many countries.
We then went to a presentation by on Web accessibility by older persons. Jyrki gave us a lively presentation of the worldwide demographics that actually she an increasing number of persons aging persons and gave us some definitions and I was pleased to see that I was between the old definition of developed nation and the old definition of developing nations. I thought to myself, all right, I have still three years to go!
(Chuckles.)
>> AXEL LEBLOIS: Anyway, to be serious, the level of issues that these increase in the aging population we create is significant.
Because a lot of those persons who either have not been used to using technology or cannot use technology because they have impairments actually creates a new barrier of immense proportion. In fact, this morning we did not mention the statistics, but in the United States U.S. census, for example, it shows that 52 percent of persons over 65 years of age live with a disability. So that's a majority of persons over 65 years of age.
So Jyrki came with a number of different graphical expression of the barriers that persons that have difficulties to use technology may have, which I could give a little bit of fun time during his presentation.
Overall, I think the most important part was the notion that within the UN system and the United Nations Members States and also civil society, there was a movement currently to consider having a Convention on the Right of Aging Persons. And I think this was a key element that came out of Jyrki's presentation that this is a new dimension to the work that we at the DCAD do, which is to keep in mind the issues of aging persons as part of our accessibility scope.
We then with Martin Gould presented the interim results of a project which is the G the index measuring digital accessibility to persons around the world.
We went through a couple of partner presentations. The first leg of our presentation we went over the implication of the CRPD, the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities for ICT accessibility and showed how by looking at all the details, showed how many dispositions existed to, for state parties to consider. A very complex set of dispositions.
Martin explained how from a methodology standpoint we developed a self assessment tool kit for policy makers that was based upon the convention and the index we developed with the survey was directly derived from that self assessment framework, noting that in the UNDP recommendation for human rights monitoring, you have already three legs that are distinct to actually measure the human policies.
Our methodology was matching that recommendation.
I went over the results. To be very succinct, the results showed that overall, the legal framework that ratifying counsel ryes should put in place to protect the rights of persons with disabilities were starting to be in place. Most countries do have guidelines for persons with disabilities. The majority of them talk about accessibility and define it. The majority of them define reasonable accommodation, which is a new phenomenon around the world. That is good news.
On the other hand from the implementation standpoint, a number of countries are missing fundamental policies in areas where they should have accessibility where it comes to broadcasting or services in education, so on and so forth.
One of the key elements that I know is dear to many of us here is that virtually very small number of countries, I think it was 11 percent, had any form of statistical correction of data on ICT accessibility. Therefore, making it impossible to measure progress and really drive policy.
So a lot of work to be done. We went then on comparing the results of the index with other indices, the human development index and the index and concluded that in our next edition we would try to further improve on that processes, validation by country and also time to collaborate with other institutions to gather institutional data that could be collected in the context of other surveys, conducted by international organisations.
>> ANDREA SAKS: No, no, no, I am not done with you yet. You haven't mentioned everybody else. You want
>> AXEL LEBLOIS: I'm sorry, I thought you just wanted the presentations. Then we had a panel discussion that the discussion went on with Fernando Botelho, from Brazil. Gerry Ellis, Cynthia Waddell, Peter Major, adviser in Hungary; and Sylvia Bazaar from the Worldwide Web Consortium. Charles from BBC moderated a very, I think, interactive panel discussion and some of the aspect that came up had to do with the actual gap between policy making and implementation of those policies in country.
The discussion around how do you make this happen was probably the most positive this morning. Some of the issues that were raised, for example, and that Janet and Charles mentioned and insisted on was apparently there is a very low level of the existence of the rights of persons with disabilities around the world. That is something that was suggested should be done by Advocates in every country to promote the CRPD.
Some of the other discussions that were, that came up this morning also had to do with the affordability of assistive technologies. They were contributions from the delegation of young persons who actually insisted that the availability of open source software and free software was a very important aspect for them. Fernando had an opportunity to contribute his own thoughts on that since that is the core of his activist entrepreneurial business in Brazil. So they changed ideas.
I don't have my notes with me. This is from memory. I may have forgotten some of the ideas and interventions. Please feel free to add to what I just summarised.
>> ANDREA SAKS: One of the things I would like to add thank you for mentioning the young people. Shadi had a good conversation with the young people because the Web is an important aspect of his work with W3C and one of the things, I met with him later I've done something rather cheeky and I better tell you about it. I invited them to make a presentation. One of the things that was discussed was, though they had an IGF youth Forum, did they have any persons or young people with disabilities? And they actually had not.
However, when I spoke to them later, they already know who they are going to ask. They already know in Guernsey where they are. They are going to be included and they have agreed to do a ten minute presentation. They have all year to work it out. They are very tech no savvy. I was impressed. They interviewed me and I now know I need a face lift, but never mind!
The thing was wonderful. We haven't gotten confirmation we'll be in Kenya, we don't know how the IGF is going to go completely, that isn't clear yet, at least from the horse's mouth, but having a presentation, DCAD inviting these young people, especially people who have disabilities as well and presenting on that, I thought you guys wouldn't mind if I stuck my neck out and said please come. They will handle their own funding if they can. It's just an idea at this point. They were really excited.
I think if we have young people in DCAD or contributing to DCAD, that is an extremely important aspect. If I open the floor, can I have comments of my rashness? Anybody want to comment on that?
Fernando, we have Peter and then we'll put you. Go ahead, Peter. And also Arnoud.
>> PETER MAJOR: This is a brilliant idea. They should be invited and have their say and they sure a real experience, what is the whole thing about. You can't get experience until you do it for real. You can't get it from books, from presentations. You have to do it yourself to get really involved. And if I have a flaw, this probably would apply to other people as well, aging people as well. Aging people, that is politically correct.
I am just wondering how we could get them involved and following up on Jorge's presentation, which I think didn't get enough attention. Probably we should get the kind of mention from that as well. Thank you.
>> ANDREA SAKS: Okay. Fernando? You wanted to say something?
>> FERNANDO BOTELHO: I'm Fernando Botelho, leader of 123.org. I want to make a comment. It's a wonderful idea to bring one or more young kid or teenagers or however the correct terminology might be, but since there is a tremendous difference between the experience of somebody with a disability in a developed and developing country and 80 percent of the persons with disabilities in the world are in developing countries, I would like to suggest that at least one teenager from a developing country with a disability be representing that segment of the population.
>> ANDREA SAKS: I think at the next meeting where we do a teleconference we can go into greater detail on these ideas and brainstorm, but we've got those two. That doesn't mean we can't have more. Doesn't mean we can't completely have a workshop of young people and maybe as Arun keeps looking at me, they could be young people with mental challenges.
So it's just an idea that is out there, but we've got a yes from those two because they were so dynamic, I really loved them. They're techno savvy and the fact that they embraced the idea of having kids with them who had disabilities and they already had a friend who had made that software which could be used on the Web for screen reader. They are already on their way.
That is an important thing for the rest of those guys who haven't got a clue as what needs to be done. So I think we need to bring them in because they are the future. I take that point on board.
But you will decide. I just drop the penny. I said it doesn't mean it's going to happen, but I asked if they want to do it and they said yes. I said I'm inviting you, but we have to work out the details.
I have been given a note from my Secretariat. We have only until quarter past 4 and we have to talk about the work plan. Do you want to put it up on the board for me, Alexandra? I'm going to jump a little bit. The survey, next steps, future steps, that is the work plan. I'm going to combine those two. Alexandra, would you kindly open?
>> ALEXANDRA GASPARI: We have two other speakers, Judy and Abdoulaye who would like to speak and then we need to go to the work plan.
>> ANDREA SAKS: I didn't see the hands back there. Please starred, Judy.
>> JUDITH OKITE: I would like to comment on the workshop 182. That we had yesterday. The mobile applications. They are wonderful. Right? But when we talk about mobile applications on iPhone and iPod, then for me where I come from, that will still be an accessibility issue because how many people can be able to afford that? So if we could have the mobile applications from the basic, added into the basic mobile phone, that will be fine.
On the workshop 180 from Athens to Vilnius, I would really encourage the persons with disability to be included right from the national level, national to regional to here because really, when I come from, Kenya, there is nothing that I could really carry home because yes, Kenya has signed to the UN agreement but I am not sure whether that was meant to be a political mileage because nothing is happening there. Thank you.
>> ANDREA SAKS: Judy, would you consider for next year thinking about when you go home and talk to your friends and your colleagues about a presentation for next time? Because I think those comments ought to be heard. It's, we decide what we are going to do during these teleconference meetings and if you can get access to Skype, then you can call on a land line with only a minimal amount of charge. If there's some way we can get you funded over there.
I met one of the ministers from Kenya who was in the workshop in 114. I got his card and I think I'll hook you two up. It's important what you said about developing countries and your participation, directly would be very valuable. Maybe we do you remotely, too. So I would like you to make a submission for next year, please. Thank you.
And Abdoulaye, would you like to speak? You will speak? French and Alexandra will translate.
>>: Merci.
>> ABDOULAYE DEMBELE: (Remarks in French.)
(As translated) Still again, Abdoulaye here from Mali.
I would like to say that I would like for the future to have again more initiative like what we had last year in October and to experts like professor Arun Mehta from India and other experts came over and show us what to do in practice every day for persons with disabilities. That I would really like if this experience can be repeated.
>> ANDREA SAKS: Thank you very much, Abdoulaye. I appreciate your comments.
>> ABDOULAYE DEMBELE: (Comments in French.)
(As translated) Concerning DCAD in particular I would like to propose that if possible it would be translated to French, because there are many potential contributors who are Francophone and they can not participate to the DCAD teleconference when it is had. This is a disadvantage. Even if I listen when I participate, I cannot really participate as I wish, as I wish.
Merci, thanks.
>> ANDREA SAKS: Alexandra and I will try to figure out something about that for you, Abdoulaye.
(Comments in French).
>> ANDREA SAKS: Okay. I hope my French is enough. I was trying to say I will find a solution for that. Merci beaucoup. For intervention.
We are now on the work plan, guys. Can we put the work plan up? Okay, right.
Now, we've come up with a couple of things that we discussed earlier. I was going to discuss about a survey and a future report on the improvements of accessibility over the last five years as an outcome.
We have discussed that. And I am wondering just how to organise this. We have shall we go? It's there, and add on, if we can, what else we've discussed on. I'm going to read them aloud.
Move forward and build upon the Hyderabad declaration on IGF accessibility for persons with disabilities.
That is what we were talking about earlier. We have to come up can we elaborate that, that we also say the guidelines that you discussed, Shadi? Do you want to comment? Can I have the mic over to Shadi, please?
>> SHADI ABOU-ZARA: They are not really guidelines as such. Just in the void of, we provide training materials at WAI and we very often see that even at accessibility conferences, presenters are not aware of accessibility requirements. In the void of not finding other references, we put this together, which are just recommendations.
Raising awareness, even for people who are unaware of disability. It starts with a small anecdote saying: Do you remember a time when people around you broke out in laughter but you didn't hear the joke? Be careful is not to leave out information for some people in your audience.
For example, if you say you can read it on the slide, you are probably excluding people who cannot see the slide.
So it is very introductory, trying to even for people unaware of accessibility, trying to make them aware of how to be sensitive to accessibility needs and it goes on to then several sections including planning the event in advance, providing accessible material, planning the session, preparing the slides, what to do during the presentation and also some other notes for awareness raising.
It points also to other checklists that we found online for physical access, for instance. I think, I'm not sure exactly what the checklist was. I thought it was a five way checklist, but I think it's a different one.
So maybe this resource we can give it along with other things as guidance, as help to the Secretariat in order to plan sessions.
What I personally think is that we have a lot of fluctuation between one IGF and the other, depending on how aware of host country is or the specific organisers in the host countries, depending on the venue itself.
So we are always basing it on luck, what we kind of get and what they can do. They can magically try to come up with, rather than to really have structured guidance and information that the Secretariat would hand to the organisers each time.
So we have a basic level of accessibility.
>> ANDREA SAKS: I just realised reading number 5 covers it. I think what I'm trying to do is write this thing so we can submit our new work plan.
And the Hyderabad declaration is something different and I was trying to fit that in there. So let me come back to 1 or 2 later and go to 5 because that applies to what we're doing. That's my error.
What you said is fine and accurate and actually can be implemented into 5.
It says: Improve the report to IGF on accessibility and disability in the IGF meeting and write guidelines to the IGF Secretariat on how to organ IGF meeting.
In particular, taking into consideration the provision of sign language interpretation, which I did not see this time. Realtime captioning, accessible announcements on the Web, hard copy documents developed under the clear print guidelines agenda in Braille, which I didn't see this time and auditory announcements where the online conferencing tool can be used with assistive technology such as screen readers, screen magnifiers, providing for the stream can and captioning, space on the registration form to include special needs requests when they register, and the list of, I would say it says et cetera, but I would add there the list of requirements discussed in the DCAD, the third DCAD meeting.
So then put et cetera.
So if I do that there and the list that was discussed, then I've got 5 set.
If that's agreeable to everybody, we have number 5 and we should keep number 5 with the addition of that one sentence. Would that be okay with everybody?
(There is no response.)
>> ANDREA SAKS: Okay, one down and not too many to go.
All right. Number 6, I know I'm going in an odd order. Improve promotion of accessibility features at IGF so more persons with disabilities can join in the future, especially in the planning stage.
We are the ones that do that in DCAD. I think we should keep that in there and discuss it. Is that agreeable to everybody?
(There is no response.)
>> ANDREA SAKS: Okay. Study which measures I'm coming down here and we'll come back to the others later.
Study which measures have to be taken at the world and regional and national level in order to take into consideration the expectation and needs of persons with disabilities for communication, networking on the Internet.
This study could be considered the survey and also could be something that Axel and Gerry, who are interested in doing a survey and Alexandra and David Wood were interested in.
If we are going to do a survey, we have to decide what that survey is and we have to get pretty sharpish on it. I don't know if if we are going to Kenya, we only have probably less than a year to do it.
So is there a committee that wants to do it? Arun, you want to say something?
>> ARUN MEHTA: Hi, this is Arun Mehta from India. There was mail from which had as an attachment.
>> ANDREA SAKS: I could not incorporate that into any meeting and perhaps this will be taken into consideration when we begin the work. Axel?
>> AXEL LEBLOIS: One thing that would be very important, very interesting would be able to survey different disability organisations in different countries to see whether the terms of the problems they encounter. The problem I think is these organisations can influence policy makers is the key towards the future of progress we can make.
>> ANDREA SAKS: Let me ask you this. We can do a number of different kinds of surveys. We could that's one suggestion to do persons in developing countries. We have the idea of disabilities for communication and networking in the Internet. Obviously, that would be taken into consideration.
I think we have to be a little generic at this moment and do we want to keep number 7 with a few changes of wording? And if so, to incorporate what Axel has said or have a survey open to be discussed at a future date?
Okay, Axel just shook his head yes, a survey of a specific nature that should be discussed at a future date. Perhaps at the first teleconference because if we are going to do real work, we are going to need everybody to come in on it and help.
And that means they may be responsible in their own country for dealing with other organisations who work with persons with disabilities.
So here is the wording. Study measures that have to be taken at the world, regional and national level in order to take into consideration the expectations and needs of persons with disabilities in communication and networking, that would be a possible survey. Shall we say country to country? Or shall we just leave it open?
Possible survey to be developed at a future date.
Okay. Gerry, you wanted to say something before I write this down?
>>: Gerry Ellis: Hi, Gerry Ellis here. I'm just wondering if we are talking about a survey is going to happen, Axel's idea is right. If Axel's group in the G3ICT are addressing Governments, if you like, we don't want to do the same thing. I agree with Axel's idea, we persons with disabilities talk to the persons with disabilities and maybe that's where we should be surveying. I agree with that. As to number 7 there, I suggest to you maybe it's, as lofty as it is, take it out all together and replace it with the survey.
>> ANDREA SAKS: That's too vague, I'm afraid. I wouldn't agree with that. A survey could be anything. It could be how many toilets have you got. We need to keep it in the guidelines of the international Forum.
Instead of a study, we could say we could create a survey. Would that help if I change it that way?
>>: Gerry: Undertake a survey.
>> ANDREA SAKS: We have to have a goal. Create a survey which measures have been taken at the world we can take out ...
Which are including regional and national level wait a minute.
Tell you what I could do, including persons, this is just a suggestion, with disabilities in both regional, national levels in order to take into consideration the expectations and needs of persons with disabilities for communication networking in the Internet, or communication, I could just leave it as communication.
>>: Gerry: Somewhere in there, say measuring the expectations and actual outcomes or measuring the outcomes and needs of persons with disabilities. Would that make sense?
>> ANDREA SAKS: Let me see if I can stick that in there. Regional and national in order to take into consideration the expectations and measuring and hang on and measuring the needs of persons with disabilities. Let's put a full stop.
Would that work?
>>: Gerry Ellis: You have to word in there, take into account. Is that the expression that is there?
>> ANDREA SAKS: Take into consideration.
>>: Gerry: What I suggest, replace that with measuring. See, does that work?
>> ANDREA SAKS: All right. We're going to put it to the vote.
In order to measure the expectations and needs of persons with disabilities. Is that good?
Okay. Let me read this to you again and then I'll just absolutely take out the other bits.
Create a survey including persons with disabilities in both regional and national levels in order to measure the expectations and needs of persons with disabilities.
Now, the rest of the sentence reads.Ment for communication, networking in the Internet. Now shall I don't know how you want to change that, but that doesn't seem right to me. Or is that okay?
We can tidy the language later. Is that okay with everybody? But we got the general idea?
Cynthia, you're a great wordsmith, about we don't have a lot of time. Can we tidy the word language later?
>>: Cynthia: I'm going to ask, do you want to create and conduct a survey or just create the survey?
>> ANDREA SAKS: No, Cynthia, again I think this needs to be discussed and we don't have time to go into detail. Creating a survey, it takes two years to get a response from a survey. So at the moment we are going to create the survey. We might bring it to IGF. We might send it out.
So are we in agreement that we are going to create a survey? And then see what we do with it? So Cynthia is right. Have I got it?
(There is no response.)
>> ANDREA SAKS: Okay, fine.
Now, next one. Help IGF Secretariat building a Web site accessible to persons with disabilities, paying particular attention to the accessible electronic survey and feedback forms.
And attending meetings and accessing what is the word I want for details? Accessing somebody help.
Information for forthcoming meetings.
Does that help? Is that okay?
(There is no response.)
>> ANDREA SAKS: Okay. That one, we'll do that. Disseminate information and involve more partners in the DCAD work.
I definitely want to get more members. We have someone here who is going to be joining us. I'm just going to get his card out.
Actually, he's from Tunisia, it's Mohamed. Mohamed is wanting to join us. Mohamed, would you like to say a few words and be a part of this particular bit? We need to disseminate more information, involve more partners in the DCAD work. Mohamed asked to join. We have a new partner here in DCAD. We want to welcome you to DCAD.
(Applause.)
>> ANDREA SAKS: Would you like to say something? You can say five seconds.
(Laughter.)
>>: Mohamed: Thank you, Andrea. I'm glad to be here and on behalf of the Tunisian civil society and especially association active in the domain of the assistive technology people with disabilities, I'm glad to join the coalition and I would be more than happy to contribute with you in any task you need my contribution. Thank you.
>> ANDREA SAKS: Thank you. Thank you very much.
I'm going to move on to 10, propose to the multistakeholder group mag that a DCAD serve as observer at mag meetings in order to mainstream ... On accessibility matters. We have not been successful on that. We may have to continue working with the Secretariat. I have to reason to think that maybe that might not happen. Should we leave that there?
I'm persistent bugger, so I'll keep trying.
And it may not be me. It may be one of you.
Encourage IGF to take into account the needs persons with disabilities in debates about Internet Governance. Boy did we need to have that in the mainstream session of access and diversity and I think that is one thing that I mentioned to Markus that we need to have accessibility for persons with disabilities as a mainstream topic including use, indigenous people, women and persons with disabilities. I'm prepare to go to war on that one. I think we should leave that in there.
With a view to that and we'll discuss that again. Should we leave that in there? I see yes?
(There is no response.)
>> ANDREA SAKS: Okay.
We are going to definitely do this. Serve as a resource for example answer questions and/or give advice on accessibility issues to the IGF secretary. I think this is an ongoing thing that we already do and I think we will obviously continue doing that. I think that's a given. That stays.
Now, again I'm going to go backwards a little bit. Number 4, Ginger and the remote group, I think we need to have a greater affiliation with because here is number 4. Study and implement liaisons between DCAD and other DCAD Dynamic Coalitions to provide the disability perspective relative to the mission and focus each of each of the Dynamic Coalitions. One outcome is to open dialogue to mainstream the disability perspective in the IGF.
I think we've established a good participation with the remote participants. Carry on, the mic to Ginger, please.
>> GINGER PAQUE: I just need to mention that the remote participation working group is not a Dynamic Coalition. So you might want to change the wording.
The other thing is that you might want to add something that stresses that this is a two way relationship you are establishing with people. It's not just you asking for help to people in collaboration, but you offering it to us and to other groups.
>> ANDREA SAKS: We'll get the wording sorted out. Everybody okay with that? We'll change that, instead of working with other Dynamic Coalitions because many coalitions, I'm afraid, are not active. We have enough on our plate to deal with. So can we what would you like to be called?
>>: Ginger: Organisations.
>> ANDREA SAKS: Organisations. Other IGF organisations. Would that work?
Okay, instead of Dynamic Coalitions. Is that agreeable to everybody?
(There is no response.)
>> ANDREA SAKS: Okay. We have no problem with number 3 because she does it very well. Alexandra. Maintain and update regularly the DCAD Web site with respect to DCAD work including informing on workshops, Accessibility and Disability in ICT. Let's give Alexandra a hand for doing she had the
(Applause.)
>> ANDREA SAKS: She had the updated went for our programmes. Right on top of it. Carry on, Alexandra.
>> ALEXANDRA GASPARI: I just want to add a word concerning the DCAD Web page and ITU. The DCAD Web page, it is under a domain that I don't have full control. So it is a bit different from the other page that we manage at ITU. It's accessibility portal. I just want to say that I would like to do many more things, but I can't, first.
Second, I wanted to add at least for this year on the Web page for each DCAD meeting that we had, the virtual teleconference, I would like to add all documents that were discussed: The agenda and the transcripts. So whichever is, whoever, missed the teleconference can go back and look at the agenda, look at the transcripts that were discussed. Even if they didn't participate. All the meetings that we had at least this year, there will be put on the Web. But you have to let me, you have to bear with me because I have also other projects that I have to work on, but I think it will be an excellent idea to add on the DCAD Web page for every teleconference, this year we had like three or four.
>> ANDREA SAKS: Four.
>> ALEXANDRA GASPARI: Four? Okay. For each meeting the agenda, et cetera, et cetera, if you agree.
>> ANDREA SAKS: Thank you, Alexandra. What we'll do, since you know specifically which Web sites you are dealing with and what our parameters are, can you adjust the wording on that? Thank you.
Everybody agreeable with that?
(There is no response.)
>> ANDREA SAKS: Okay, we are back to 1 and 2, move forward and build upon the Hyderabad Declaration on Accessibility for Persons with Disabilities.
We ought to leave that. There's no harm in leaving that. We could do more on that. If that's agreeable, can we leave that there? Go ahead, Gerry.
Wait a minute, you haven't got the mic yet.
>> GERARD ELLIS: We need to add last year's message. So we say the declaration from Hyderabad and the Sharm El Sheikh message.
>> ANDREA SAKS: It is already on the Web so we have that. Maybe we need to do a new message or
>> GERARD ELLIS: Do we not need to add the message to the work plan and say we promote both? Or do we not? I don't know.
>> ANDREA SAKS: Hmm, this is kind of up to you. We are going to be we can always look at that. That's an entirely different thing. It's already on the Web. What our message was last year, do we want to build on the message? Cynthia is cooking. I can see her cooking. Please give her the mic before she dies.
(Chuckles.)
>> CYNTHIA WADDELL: I think Gerry is going in the right direction. We probably need to call it the DCAD Sharm El Sheikh message. Or call it something I mean, we have the Hyderabad declaration on IGF accessibility and the same sentence, you just say move forward and build upon both the Hyderabad Declaration on IGF Accessibility for Persons with Disabilities and the DCAD Sharm El Sheikh message. How about that?
>> ANDREA SAKS: Done. That's perfect. We got it.
All right. Is everybody agreeable with that?
(There is no response.)
>> ANDREA SAKS: Fine. Number 2, study how to raise the declaration and message the declaration the declaration and the message, I know that's coming, awareness within the IGF community and the mechanism for wider adoption at the IGF level, a way forward to achieve this goal could foster the adoption by other IGF Dynamic Coalitions.
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER: Organisations, please.
>> ANDREA SAKS: Organisations and other ...
>>: IGF Dynamic Coalitions and organisations.
>> ANDREA SAKS: Okay. So is that agreeable to everybody?
(There is no response.)
>> ANDREA SAKS: Is there anything else you would like to add to this work plan? Gerry? This will be number 13, be careful.
>> GERARD ELLIS: One that I don't know what it should be, but for next year's IGF, so let's assume it's going to go ahead. For next year we need something practical that we can demonstrate and show, rather than just talking, we have to be able through demonstration, the demonstration that Shadi and I did last year at the main session went down very well and for next year we have to think of something.
>> ANDREA SAKS: I'll put that down for one. I have two other hand, we're out of time. We'll make a decision.
>> GERARD ELLIS: Don't put it in the work plan if you don't want to, but we have to think about next year's presentation. The second one is, how can we find out and work in conjunction with other, and you'll plan activities such as the WSIS, like the UN Convention, like the white board treaty that is going on.
How can we feed into that and learn from that? We need something in the work plan to try to feed in and influence those as well.
>> ANDREA SAKS: That would be covered under other organisations, I think.
But I can word that. So IGF Dynamic Coalition and other organisations.
I think that would cover it because I can't you can't just walk into WSIS unless, of course it's a little bit more complicated, but we could do something about that. That has a technical issue that can I come back to that? It's something that I think we need to discuss. We can't just decide now.
Fernando and then Ginger.
And then we are going to have to wrap up.
>> FERNANDO BOTELHO: Hello, this is Fernando Botelho. My understanding is the next IGF might happen in Kenya. If that is so and even if that is not so, I think there have been a number of demands from representatives from countries in Africa as well as Latin America regarding very practical solutions and low and no cost solutions.
And we have touched on this theme in many of our workshops, but I think it has to be more, we have ran out of time at times and we have not been focused on it as directly as we should. So I think we should either have this as the focus of the workshop or have the separate workshops specifically focused on low cost.
>> ANDREA SAKS: The subjects of workshops, we will discuss and we could probably just put plan future workshops. Would that be agreeable as number 13? Because we can't be specific.
>> FERNANDO BOTELHO: Sure, sure.
>> ANDREA SAKS: Plan future workshops for the next IGF meeting.
How is that? That's number 13. That works.
Ginger?
>> GINGER PAQUE: Sorry, but I would like to revisit number 4 with an agreement with our colleague at the front table. I'm sorry
>> ANDREA SAKS: I can't quite hear you. I can't read your lips from this distance.
>> GINGER PAQUE: Right now I'm speaking as co Coordinator of the Internet Governance caucus. I would like to go back and revisit number 4 in agreement with my colleague in the front table I'm sorry, I don't remember your name.
I think that there would be good to specifically mention some options if there's any possibility there that you think is appropriate, but I also think that this Dynamic Coalition should be working more closely with the Internet Governance caucus and it might be good to mention that specifically because we need to strengthen ties between civil society.
Thank you.
>> ANDREA SAKS: Okay. Gerry, how do you feel about that? That's more closely aligned with what we are doing.
>> GERARD ELLIS: That's exactly what I have in mind, trying to identify other groups and making sure we are influencing them. Exactly the kind of thing that Ginger is talking about there.
>> ANDREA SAKS: One comment more from Cynthia and then we have to oh, okay, Judy, but you have to be really fast. We are going over time.
>> CYNTHIA WADDELL: Suggested language: Studying liaison between DCAD and the other IGF organisations including the Internet Governance caucus.
>> ANDREA SAKS: We'll get the wording straight a bit later. We don't need to do that right now. We are in agreement we can talk to other IGF organisations including the Internet Governance caucus. So that will be adapted.
We will put this out on the Web and Judy, you have the last comment.
>> JUDITH OKITE: On number 12 could we add accessibility issues to IGF Secretariat and the hosting country Secretariat?
>> ANDREA SAKS: Yes, I think we could. What does everybody feel about that?
(There is no response.)
>> ANDREA SAKS: You got it.
Okay, ladies and gentlemen. I think we have come to the end. We are over time.
If there is any other business and it's not urgent, by e mail we are going to announce the next meeting. It probably will not be until after the plenipot at the ITU because I'm not available and we will come back to you regarding that.
We will see where we are going and what we're doing in the plenary. We'll come back to you.
Is there any other business that is definitely urgent that you have to mention or can you hold it until the next meeting via conferencing?
(There is no response.)
>> ANDREA SAKS: Thank you everyone for doing a great job in getting through this meeting. Thank you very much. The meeting is now closed. Thank you, captioner, you were wonderful.
(The meeting concluded at 0820 Central Time.)
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