The digital environment is a crucial aspect of daily life, and it's essential to ensure that all individuals, especially persons with disabilities, can fully participate and benefit from emerging technologies The session will explore the challenges persons with disabilities encounter when engaging with emerging technologies and will present transformative solutions through Open Educational Resources (OER). Discussions will focus on the barriers to accessing and effectively utilizing these technologies, emphasizing the critical need to integrate inclusive design principles in their development to foster truly barrier-free environments. Additionally, this session will highlight policy recommendations, technological innovations, and collaborative efforts aimed at fostering digital inclusion, sparking meaningful conversations, and identifying actionable strategies to ensure emerging technologies are accessible and beneficial for all.

The session will also look at the importance of incorporating inclusive design principles in technology development, adhering to accessibility standards like WCAG, and ensuring seamless integration of assistive technologies. The objectives include accelerating the achievement of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) through digital inclusion, enhancing accessibility through technology, and promoting global standards for accessible digital content and platforms.

Topics to be covered will cover, but are not limited to, AI-enabled accessible OER, data privacy/protection issues, quality criteria for accessible OER, interoperability standards, and human rights/ in the digital realm. The outcome goals include developing actionable recommendations for stakeholders, fostering collaboration, and raising awareness about accessible and inclusive digital content and technologies.

By embracing accessibility, inclusivity, and the principle of "Nothing About Us Without Us," one  can harness the Internet's transformative potential to create a more equitable and sustainable world for everyone. This session will spark meaningful conversations, identify actionable strategies, and promote collaborative efforts to ensure emerging technologies are accessible and beneficial for all.

• How will you facilitate interaction between onsite and online speakers and attendees?

To foster inclusive engagement, we will facilitate interaction through Q&A sessions, ensuring equal opportunities for both onsite and online participants to contribute. The onsite and online moderators will not only field questions but also relay chat comments aloud, acknowledging that individuals with cognitive disabilities may prefer to express themselves in writing rather than verbally. 

• How will you design the session to ensure the best possible experience for online and onsite participants?

The session is committed to inclusivity, featuring live captioning for attendees who are deaf or hard of hearing, or whose native language is not English, as well as sign language interpretation by certified interpreters. To encourage audience participation, we will encourage questions from the audience both online and in person. Additionally,  the Q&A pod will be set to allow participants to view all submitted questions and rank them by importance, ensuring that everyone's voice is heard.

• Please note any complementary online tools/platforms you plan to use to increase participation and interaction during the session.

To facilitate engagement for remote attendees, we will leverage virtual collaboration platforms and live-streaming tools, enabling immersive online participation and interaction. Additionally,   the Q&A pod will be used to crowdsource questions, configuring the settings to allow participants to view and rank all questions by importance. To further enhance accessibility, live captions will be displayed on a dedicated screen, ensuring that viewers can easily catch up on any missed content. For online viewers, we will also provide stream text links, enabling them to follow along in real-time.