The following are the outputs of the captioning taken during an IGF intervention. 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, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.
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>> SABA TIKU BEYENE: Hello, everyone. Good afternoon. Welcome to this session on the digital inclusion and accessibility. Today, we have a crucial objective to explore policies, strategies, technologies and that can promote inclusive and accessible digital services, especially for people with disabilities.
So we aim to address the challenges they face and also identify on the ways to bridge the Digital Divide.
Throughout this session, we will delve into three important key policy questions. First, we will address the topics on policies that can be implemented in different Regions across the world to ensure that technologies and digital services are designed inclusively.
And second, we will examine strategies to bridge the Digital Divide empowering people with disabilities rather than marginalizing them. We will explore how training and education Programmes can be implemented, and be more made on accessible and also inclusive to meet the needs of people with disabilities. So by the end of the session today, we hope all participants joining us from on‑site and joining us from online will gain valuable knowledge on how this really properly include and provide systems and digital services and technologies that really allow all people to actively participate in also engage in the digital world.
So now, let me introduce our panelists and speakers, who will shed light on these important topics.
First we have speakers from on‑site here. Judith Hellerstein representing the western European group.
Second, we have Gonella from Asia‑Pacific representing a Civil Society Group. And online we have Theorose Elikplim Dzineku from Civil Society, representing the African Group and lastly Denise Leal onsite here for the Private Sector and Latin American and Caribbean group. And we also have from our online speakers, Muhammad Kamran representing the private sector Asian and Pacific Group. I will give the floor to the onsite speakers to introduce themselves and give the floor to our online Moderators to introduce our online speakers.
>> Judith Hellerstein: Thanks so much. Welcome everyone for coming here. I'm Judith Hellerstein. I have multiple hats. I do have my own firm, and besides doing other policy and regulatory work trying to help countries have more effective digital economies I do a lot of work on accessibility, directly with the U.S. Government. I participated in the ITU Plenipotentiary and other Internet policies and other ones. Here I'm also representing the dynamic coalition on accessibility and disability, we're one of the main Dynamic Coalitions here. We had our session yesterday.
I am one of the two co‑coordinators here. I welcome you all to the session. Thank you.
>> GONELLA: Thank you, and I appreciate the invitation to participate in this particular session. And my name is Gonella Asbrinct. I'm based in Australia, but I work globally as Chair of the Internet Society accessibility standing group. And Judith just mentioned the Dynamic Coalition on accessibility and disability. And through the generosity of NCERF, we have three persons with disability able to come to the IGF to participate and I'm fortunate to mentor them in their progress in Internet Governance. Thank you.
>> SABA TIKU BEYENE: Thank you, I will give the floor to the online Moderator, Marjorie to introduce our speakers.
>> MARJORIE MUDI GEGE: I'm Marjorie and I'm in Africa. We have Muhammad Kamran and Theorose Elikplim Dzineku that will be talking on the first policy questions. I will give the floor to Theorose Elikplim Dzineku to introduce herself more properly.
>> Theorose Elikplim Dzineku: Thank you, Marjorie, good morning everyone. Good morning, good afternoon a hi. I am Theorose Elikplim Dzineku. I'm from Ghana. I'm a Ph.D. student at University. Just like any of the most of the speakers I will say a share many hats. I work with the Ghana Youth IGF as a team member. I'm part of the ISOC alumni network.
And I do advocacy work and inclusion and encryption. And only safety as well. So I'm glad to be here. I hope we have a fruitful discussion. Thank you.
>> MARJORIE MUDI GEGE: Thank you for that. It is nice to have you here. I give the floor to Muhammad Kamran. You have the floor.
>> Muhammad Kamran: Hello, I hope you are doing well and my video finds you well. My name is Muhammad Kamran. I'm from Pakistan. Currently I'm a practicing lawyer. I graduated two years ago. My specialty is criminal law and specifically cybercrimes and such kind of things. With the passage of time, day‑by‑day as technology is coming into our lives, the thieves are getting smarter. Cyber crimes are increasing day‑by‑day. We can find solutions to the crime and find how technology is having an effect in our life and also the generation that is coming up next like after us, how it is affecting their lives. So I think being here is going to be fruitful for me and for maybe myself and others as well. Thank you for having me.
>> MARJORIE MUDI GEGE: Thank you. I will move directly to the first policy question, which is what policies can be implemented in your region to ensure technology and digital services are designed and developed to be inclusive and accessible to people with disabilities? So this policy question will be addressed by our speakers Theorose Elikplim Dzineku and Judith Hellerstein. So I will give the floor first to Judith Hellerstein.
>> Judith Hellerstein: Hi, thanks so much. Is it a combination of policies and awareness raising. With policies, it has to do with ‑‑ I'm from the U.S.
And in the U.S., we have the Americans with disabilities act, which works to ensure things are ‑‑ at least Government right now, all Government websites and other websites are accessible for persons with disabilities. But also working now in an effort to update the act to make sure that websites and other areas are accessible
With that is the key with the declines to be looking at the World Wide Web, the accessibility guidelines. And what that is a series of guidelines from the WC3 the abbreviation of that. They work on web content guidelines. There is work on all types of publishing of dialogues. The key is that everything nodes needs to follow the WCAG, it has to be 2.1 or 2.2. It is a real big problem lately because today throughout the world, only 3% of the Internet is accessible for persons with disabilities, despite there being over 1.3 billion globally. And a lot larger. So it is a very big problem since many ‑‑ and the problem is also made more problematic is that companies are not telling developers they need to follow these guidelines.
So developers are not doing it and then that have a retrofit a system.
The real question is what you need more is enforcement. Everyone has to follow and make sure that all the sites are at least what WCAG 2.1, preferably AAA compatible. It is WC3.org, if you look at the WCAG, you can get those. That is the key to make them, besides the laws we have is also on making sure that these are accessible and they're also have an issue of metatags. So what we ‑‑ when I say awareness, that people when they're creating sites or when the publishing images or other things, they're not aware that when they take an image that people can't see it.
So when a person using a screen reader comes across that image it could say possibly a man possibly with a dog. All the pictures need to be described. And also what PowerPoints or any of the images or some people like to do cut and paste from a document. But when you are cutting and pasting, you are creating an image and then it makes the document inaccessibility. You have to be aware you have to save the document. It is easy in Word, save it, upload it. The metatags are easy, just right click on it. The software is easy to use. Is it just that people are not aware.
>> MARJORIE MUDI GEGE: Okay. Thank you very much Judith Hellerstein for that. I would like to now from Theorose Elikplim Dzineku's opinion about the policies that can be implemented in her Region to make sure technology and services are designed to be inclusive and accessible for persons with disabilities. So you have the floor.
>> Theorose Elikplim Dzineku: Thank you so much Marjorie. Again, I'm grateful for the first speaker because she essentially tackled part of the things I wanted to say. I will not repeat that again. I'm glad she did spoke about the platform regulations and how content can be more accessible online as well.
So I will speak from the African Region. I'm going to delve more on advocacy work. One of the points that she made, which is very real is the fact that people just don't know that something like that exists. And people are not eye wouldn't eye wouldn't use the word "not interested" but people seem to forget that not all content is easily accessible by everyone. Even content creators themselves do not make provisions for that. When someone is creating a YouTube video. Who are the audiences in mind? How does the person make that particular video accessible to everyone? The whole idea is to create an almost seamless way of consuming content where we don't necessarily have to say this is for able people and this is for disabled people. Because virtually, it is all just one humanity. So the access is very important. But advocacy is more important. Especially in my opinion. Because the content creators and the platform Moderators platform creators sorry, are not even aware of the mistake.
I know for ‑‑ Apple devices or even some of the iPhones now have accessibility options where you can have voice over text to help you out. Or have an easier way of navigating your phone without necessarily being able to see it or hear it. There is a way with that. Again, within the African Region, I don't know how many people are aware of that, how often do we do capacity building to train people to teach people. How many people can afford the devices? We have heard of accessibility, and the digital divide and devices. The question is how many people can afford the mobile devices with the options? What is the percentage of that? Those that cannot afford the devices, what is the percentage of that? It is obviously those who are in the minority gap of affordance, that is huge. How do those people still access content? If they go to the Internet cafe in the local community and say I want to read something on the Internet, how accessible is that content to them? How do they know about that? And how do we probably say it would handle such a situation as well. In our institutions and schools? How many schools have computer lab built to after that. These are some of the questions that need to be explored. But overall, the idea is that we should come to middle ground to bridge the gap so we don't have to assume that everyone can easily access content online and everybody should be able to understand and everybody should be able to afford the whole devices that are able to provide accessibility. I've always stood the whole idea or I've stood on the idea that there shouldn't be any discrimination or gap to point out this person is abled and this person is not able. Technology in a sense should be basic to everybody. And I'm glad you spoke about the web and how content are tagged. Again, I would ask within the African continent and I stand to be corrected on that. How many of us know that? How many of know how to metatarget. Do it in Word and right click. Now we know we can right click with metatags. How many of you know that before this session? How many of us will remember after this session? But if there is any training of capacity building at every level of our schools perhaps we can get used to that. There are basic, easy ways to make sure everybody is included. That is where advocacy comes in and the grassroots community work comes in. Not that just after (audio skipping) we leave behind. But after IGF and various sessions where we speak about bridging the gaps, what do we do after that? I'm going to end here for now and give the floor back. But that is something to think about and take home and see what each individual can do to contribute. Thank you.
>> MARJORIE MUDI GEGE: Thank you very much. Thank you so much for that insightful opinion. So I'll pass the floor to Saba Tiku Beyene, the on‑site Moderator.
>> Saba Tiku Beyene: Thank you for your valuable insights on the first question, Theorose Elikplim Dzineku and Judith Hellerstein.
Now, let's move to the second policy questions. How can the Digital Divide between people with disabilities and those without disabilities be privileged? What strategies can be employed to ensure that technology is used to empower marginalized people with disabilities? I invite Gonella joining us and Muhammad Kamran joining online to speak on this question. Over to you.
>> Gonella: Hello. Yes, I live in the Asia‑Pacific Region which we are now in for VIGF and I have been asked to speak more specifically about activities in this Region. And this region is the most populous in the world. It has huge populations, as we know over one billion. Two little countries in the Pacific that might have 2000 people. That's it. The greatest diversity in religion, cultures, and economies. There is a lot of challenges in this Region.
One of the things though when it comes to bridging the Digital Divide is to ensure that mainstream legislation and policy include clauses about accessibility. So it is not that they are separate policies, which are very important, but having them as part of communications acts communication policy makes a different. If we take the case in Australia, sure, we have disability ‑‑ national disability strategy that has some key aspects on accessibility to communications technologies. But also the telecommunications act includes specific provisions there as well.
So certainly when it comes to the disability discrimination legislation. With all of the cases, implementation has to happen.
It is one thing to have the policies but they need to be implemented. That is really where persons with disabilities come in, to ensure that they are part of the process in helping implement policies.
In Australia there is funded through the federal yesterday in the telecommunications act, the Australian communication consumer action network, ACCAN. Its role is basically to represent consumers and consumers with disabilities in Government, in the Private Sector to make sure that there are implementation actions happening in all of those cases. So again, you have consumers generally they're represented in this body. But specifically persons with disabilities, so there is a cross fertilization of ideas, strategies, advocacy.
I wanted to mention the public procurement provisions that enforce, in a number of countries. It started in the U.S. with something called section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act. And it means that Governments need to include ICT accessibility criteria when they purchase anything ICT related.
And in Europe, it has been harmonized with European standards.
One is EN301549. And that is talking about user requirements by persons with disabilities and how to achieve that in public procurement. That has been adopted in a number of countries across the world. Kenya, India, and Australia. And we want to see the implementation of the public procurement type of provision. And my final point in this particular session here, is in a mainstream organization to try and make sure that there is an understanding of accessibility in persons with disabilities and bridging the Digital Divide. It is really, really important to have accessibility champions. People who have some knowledge of accessibility and work in various or parts of an organization and can remind content developers, any tech developers to make sure that debt is included as particular products are developed. Thank you.
>> Saba Tiku Beyene: Thank you for that insight. I will give the floor to Marjorie and then second question will be also answered by Muhammad Kamran joining us online. Over to you Marjorie.
>> MARJORIE MUDI GEGE: Thank you, Saba. Muhammad can you take the floor. Can the Digital Divide for those with and without disabilities can be reached, how can we empower rather than marginalize these people.
>> Muhammad Kamran: Technology can help us in many ways, specifically when it comes to disabled people. It can help various ways, there is assistive apps and devices. Google Assistant is one of the small examples. I think if we include that to other gadgets and other devices, it can be helpful to us. Coming to the bridging of a technology between the disabled people and others. First of all, I think that disabled people ‑‑ we cannot call them disabled but we should call them specially abled. If God takes one thing from you he for sure will give you so many other blessings, where he is not blessed with that thing, the normal people, he will bless you with that.
I think there are people that are specially‑abled. To bridge the Digital Divide between people with disabilities and other people, it is important to normalize the digital platforms and technologies and to make it easily available to everyone. Such digital platforms can include like implementing the feature like screen readers or captioning. Testing phones that is available in some apps and phones but not everything.
I have used the word "normalizing" these things. We have to normalize these things and make it available as much as we can.
Also by prioritizing accessibility and engaging the disabled people while making the Programme it is and these strategies, because if the disabled people are part of making the policies, these policies will be made so much effective on the ground right root level. They're the ones affected and are the ones to tell us how to make strategies that are the best at ground level.
Providing training and resources to individuals with disabilities can also help them navigate and utilize technology very effectively. As I said earlier, if (audio skipping) to the people who are the effectees, only then do we get the results as much effective as we need. Collaborating, and one more thing, like, it is one of the most important things that collaboration with the technology organizations like those organizations which work for technologies in the Government entities and also the disabled organizations. I would say those organizations that works for disabled people.
Technology companies and disabled organizations along with the Government entities can collaborate while making such platforms, while making such Programmes or policies. I think it will be one of the very effective ways to bridge the technology between the disabled people and those who are normal people.
Training and education Programmes to be made very accessible to every one of us. Specifically to individuals who are disabled.
Providing an attorney format such as Braille or your origin. Physical assistance to the learning environment should be made accessible. Only physical learning environment and physical learning environment is going to help them in the best way. Because if let's say if a person is blind. If he sits there in a physical learning environment, I think he is going to learn it as fast as like none other platform. That is why I have included physical learning environment into my opinions.
Incorporating assistive technologies as I mentioned earlier. That Google Assistant is also a very effective thing. But we can include such assistive technology in different gadgets. And different platforms and different aged people. Like Google assistance is going to work the same for everyone. If we divide it according to age groups, what our 10‑year‑old kid needs, it is different from what a 25‑year‑old person needs.
I think dividing it into age level is also important to me.
Offering flexible learning options such as online, et cetera. If someone has no access to physical learning environment they can be given options with online learning. We are connected online. Some of us are sitting in Ghana. Some are in Japan, and online is important. Same is for the disabled people. They're the ones who need it more than us.
>> MARJORIE MUDI GEGE: One more minute. Please round it off now.
>> Muhammad Kamran: I'm sorry I'm taking long. We need to be involved in designing the policies. The last point is as I mentioned earlier, while designing each and every policy and Programme, we need to consult these people because they're the ones who are affected so they're the ones that will give us the policies which are like effective on the ground. Thank you so much.
>> MARJORIE MUDI GEGE: Thank you, Muhammad. It was very insightful. I learned a lot about many things I don't know about. I think we can move now to the next policy question. That is policy question 3. So Saba Tiku Beyene, we have Denise Leal.
>> Saba Tiku Beyene: Thank you Marjorie. Now, I really want to give the floor now to Judith Hellerstein to train on the training on what kind of education Programmes can really be made to accessible and inclusive to meet the needs of people with disabilities? So I would like to give the floor to Judith Hellerstein to answer this question and please if you have any comments or if you have any questions feel free to raise your hand from here. For online participants you can also put in the chat and Marjorie will take one of that. Judith Hellerstein over to you, please. And also, at the end, you can also raise about your key takeaways and recommendations on the topic.
>> Judith Hellerstein: Thank you for giving me the floor. I am be leaving shortly. I'm organizing the 5:30 session on policy network on meaningful connectivity and I have to run out afterwards.
One of the keys on the training and education Programmes, the key is that Programmes need to be designed to make accessible to all. And I know a lot of places like to use a lot of pictures and descriptions. But then all of the pictures need to be described. Because otherwise the person with disabilities are not getting anything out of them. We had a perfect example of one of our disability fellows who created a special Braille keyboard in India for medication. You need to have a lot ‑‑ you need to rethink the sessions and what you are trying to gain out of it.
So that way you can actually address all of the people. Everyone can benefit from the same session.
So if you use pictures, you have to scribe them. If you use diagrams, you have to describe them. Otherwise the person won't get there, they'll get frustrated and drop off. If you want people to be active in it, they need to feel part of the whole conversation and part of the learning. And they need to partner with it. That is the key is you need to have ‑‑ rethink how you are going to do online education or in‑person education to focus on how you are going to meet the needs. And there is also the problem is that there are many different needs. You have persons with visual disabilities, you have a person hard of hearing, and then you have persons with cognitive disabilities. And so each one is very different and has a different approach. So there is no one thing fits all approach. You need to tailor the approach to the actual group. So you can really address all the issues. With cognitive ones, you have to also make sure that it is not too many images and pictures are not ‑‑ they cannot deal with all the pictures while maybe a hard of hearing person would want that. You really have to work with who is the community you're trying to address? Then figure out how you are going to address it and how you are going to meet the needs of those. That is sort of what goal you have in mind there. The other one is make sure everything is accessible. Make sure the platform you are using is accessible.
Oftentimes people think the platform is or the company said oh, yes, it is. But it really isn't. The key is to get the Programmes audited and tested by another company in that business to audit and test them and make sure they're actually accessible.
Because so many Programmes say they are. It could be individually the components are, but put together in the actual Programme, it no longer is accessible. That is why it is key to have accessibility testers and have a firm whose who's auditing that. Enforcement is the key. Places say yes we will do it. It could believe initially. But they add more material they didn't keep up the standards and then the whole Programme is inaccessible.
I would say that is my takeaway. Make sure that you have an online Programme tested by an accessibility firm to make sure it actually works. And that there is no ‑‑ and that pictures are described and preparatorily metatagged so people can read it and see it.
Now I have to runoff to my ... sorry. Gonella has my information and can share my information.
>> Saba Tiku Beyene: Thank you Judith Hellerstein for your insight. Now I will give the floor to Denise Leal to share on how training is in education Programmes can be made more accessible in inclusive to meet the needs of people with disabilities. Denise Leal first introduce yourself then answer.
>> DENISE LEAL: Hello, I'm Denise Leal from Brazil. I'm here to represent Latin American Caribbean people. I believe to the Private Sector in Academia and I'm also part of the youth launching Caribbean IGF. And I was part, I'm a former fellow of the youth Programme of Brazil. You might be thinking why am I here speaking on the topic? I was a volunteer and teacher in the inclusion Programme in Brazil. Ponativeco University of Goyas. We worked there with elderly and also will people with disability. I had some experience in the topic then. So answering this question before answering this question I wanted to say that I am very happy because we have this session because we are giving voice to the topic to theme. It is important and we need to do more often. I wish we had more participation on the topic. The IG community really could get more involved on it.
For beginning, when we talk about training and education Programmes and how they can be made more accessible and inclusive to meet the needs of people with disabilities. I think first of all we need to give space and voice to the people with disabilities to speak about their situations, how they feel. What are their needs? Sometimes very often we don't really give space to them to speak about their needs or we don't have patience enough to listen to them speaking. They think oh, they speak in a different way or hear in a different way. We must be patient, when a person without disabilities sees and listens to a person with disability, the person really needs to be hurt at that point. We need to give space and voice. And power to the people to say what are they, your needs. Of course, we need policies on the topic, but we also need people to understand the policies. In Brazil we have almost 15% of the policy is a person with disabilities. So it is a large amount of people. Is it not a small number.
In Latin America it is 85 millions of people with disabilities. And therefore we need to work on policies to make training and education Programmes more accessible, not only the online one, but also the offline one. And also schools need to be more accessible. When it gets to the technology topic, and Internet topic. What we have seen in Latin America is people with disabilities are getting space on social media to speak. Is it nice. When it comes to Internet the social media is having a paper a work on the topic. They're occupying the spaces on Internet and it is nice. And we need to moderate more. I have seen in South America people deliver online bullying and hate for speaking about their lives an issues.
What we need ‑‑ our colleague has spoken really well on the topic that we need online training, online platforms that are accessible. But also we need to moderate the social media website so we don't have people with disabilities suffering in the spaces from all the kinds of problems they could suffer in online spaces.
I also believe that technology plays a huge role on the topic, helping people to get more connected to learn more. I have a friend that has spoken on the youth Latin America IGF. He's today a lawyer. He is a person with disability. He is able to be a lawyer because today in Brazil, the legal system is almost everything online works. So he is able to use online platform technology to help him in his legal activities.
Today, he's in a high ‑‑ he has high education. He has studied and planning to go for a master degree because of technology on education in Brazil education.
I also wanted to highlight an important point, which is we have in Brazil only 14% of people going for higher education. 14% of people with disability. That is a really small number.
Also there is a way to get almost 25% less for people with disabilities in terms of salaries.
So it is so unfair. And the law is ‑‑ the law talks about it. We cannot have wage gap of salaries, it is a reality. So we have policies under them, and we have laws on them. But how can we make them a reality? A practical reality? How is the accountability of the theme of the topic? So I wanted to leave you with the answers and also these questions.
I hope that in the next years, the next IGFs we have more involvement on the theme and topic and have more people with disabilities speaking and occupying spaces. Thank you.
>> Saba Tiku Beyene: Thank you Denise Leal if your valuable input. So far we have been discussing on implementing policies that really prioritize inclusive and accessible design using technology and technology services, especially the diverse needs of people with disabilities. We also talked about the need to develop a training and support Programmes to advance the literacy. Digital literacy. And also the assistive technology skills for people with disabilities. And also offering ongoing technical support to address the accessibility challenges have also been mentioned as well.
Bridging the Digital Divide also has been mentioned by providing accessible ‑‑ affordable access to some devices and also Internet connectivity creating accessible digital content and also some of the digital literacy Programmes as well.
We have also been discussing on fostering the collaboration among different stakeholders to promote the digital inclusion. And raising awareness and advocacies have also been mentioned for the rights and needs of the people in the digital realm.
Now I will give the floor to any questions or comments from on‑site and also please feel free to share your comments and questions in the chat. Marjorie, our online Moderator will take it from there.
>> ATTENDEE: Hi, I'm Joel from Brazil. I represent here the federal Council. The federal bar of the Brazilian Bar Association. Although at this moment I'm speaking in my personal capacity.
I see this very empty room, regrettably, which means to me we have a big challenge on including persons with disabilities. We talked about inclusion in this conference. Women, Indigenous People, so on, which is quite important of course. But it looks like the challenge to include persons with disabilities is even bigger. I will have a brief statement.
Two questions to the panelists. I would like to express my sincere appreciation to the sponsor organizers and organizations for hosting the crucial pan on the persons with disabilities. The insights are insightful indicating the complexities of disability. The gateway for partners, jobs, purchase products. Ensuring apps and platforms are designed to allow persons with disabilities the same opportunities is not just about technical accessibility, but also inclusivity, in user experience.
In this regard, given the diverse types of disabilities and unique challenges which presents in the digital space, how can we ensure that our efforts in digital inclusion are not just broad but also deep expressing the specific needs of each disability type. How can we foster a collaborative environment where Governments, businesses and individuals work hand in hand to drive meaningful change in digital accessibility?
Finally in addition to technical accessibility, how can we ensure that the content and (?) of digital platforms are inclusive allowing persons with disabilities to fully engage in online activities such as stating job hunting and shopping. What strategies can be employed to ensure that digital content is both accessible and relevant to their needs. Thank you very much.
>> Saba Tiku Beyene: Thank you very much for that question. I give the question to gunnel to answer the first question and second question maybe Theorose Elikplim Dzineku if you can add on that one.
>> Gonella: Yes, there was a lot in the two questions. I will probably start by addressing one aspect in your second question. And relating to employment. And I will refer to a fellow here at IGF, she's blind and finished her high school education with a gold medal. She's the only one in her cohort that didn't get a job at the end. She's got a degree in computer science, et cetera. She started her own organization because she's a very strong woman.
But the percentages of people with disabilities who have employment is far too low. And what is happening in some countries, like Sri Lanka and Australia is that there are organizations training bioethics persons with disabilities in marketable jobs but as well as that, raising awareness in companies that may employ those people. And being part of the interview process, being mentoring there for a number of months as the person joins the workforce.
So that process really does make a difference. It has been quite successful. It is long‑term. It is again this thing about employers understanding that a person with disabilities isn't a liability. They're not a liability. Persons with disabilities have proven by many studies to be very loyal employees. Very consistent in their work. And there might be some accommodations needed in their workplace. But it is to raise that awareness of how it can be achieved.
I might pass it on if anyone else wants to have a say on that question?
>> Saba Tiku Beyene: Thank you very much, maybe Theorose Elikplim Dzineku if you can add on the second question and then proceed to another one.
>> Theorose Elikplim Dzineku: Thank you I will try to make my answer brief so we can have more questions. But just on the quick one, I should ‑‑ I agree with the person that asked the question, because this is ‑‑ more like I would say more important than other sessions, it is a critical topic. When he said the room is empty I saw the camera and I was like well, yeah. Stay challenge we face. We talk about inclusion and we don't include the people who need to be included.
It is more like trying to solve somebody else's problem without having the person there to give you the whole idea of that. But that notwithstanding, I do agree with my earlier speaker, making the whole ‑‑ I agree with the point on the idea that the people with disability have equal right and equally committed to their work. Just like how we able people are committed. To address somebody's need you have to speak to the person. It is easier being an able person saying you need to build a platform, you need to do this. Without necessarily talking to the disabled people. I will come back to the whole idea of speaking to people who need the help and asking them how they want the help. It is better to speak to them to tell ‑‑ not devices but tailor innovations around what they want. And not what we assume they want.
It is always needed to have them included in every discussion we do as well. Another question on collaboration. How does Government and others collaborate. I don't know if it is this simple, but there has to be collaboration. Reaching out to them. I know in Ghana we have an organization called inclusive tech, being owned by Dr. Mill cent. She's the Office of Disabled. She mostly has disabled people training them in innovation, building technology. That is one thing. I'm sure other countries have similar things. Collaborate with Government or civil servant to get help.
The last point on this point as well, how do we create content? To the first point. And the people what type of point they want, if they're involved. I'm sure there is a lot of challenge disabled people that are computer science people and know how to build the app. Let's give them the opportunity to do that. I guess that would help.
>> MARJORIE MUDI GEGE: Thank you Theorose Elikplim Dzineku.
>> Saba Tiku Beyene: Thank you, Theorose Elikplim Dzineku. Since we're running out of time maybe for the next questions ‑‑ okay. Okay. So we have a question from on‑site and I will give the floor to Veronica.
>> ATTENDEE: Hello. Can you hear me well? Hello, my name is Veronica. I'm Italian. I'm the Chair of the Internet society youth standing group. Thank you for bringing the topic of disability to the IGF. I don't actually have a question. I have a comment because I would actually like to bring my own experience. When I was a child due to an infection I lost between the 30 and 70% of my hearing ability. And for me, the interactions since I was child has always been very difficult, especially with people that have very low tone of voice. So I always have to ask them to repeat what they say. And hearing your panel, your intervention, I think it is something that is lacking and it is granularity of approach. Not all disability are the same and not all of them have to be treated like that. For example, in my experience, I don't have full hearing capacity. And the interaction in person for me is always very difficult. In order to hear your intervention, I always have to read the subtitle. And so for me, you know, those type of auxiliary instrument for me are very helpful.
And on the other hand, I had to give a Lightning Talk the other day, where this instrument was not actually available. And for me, it was very difficult to understand people who were talking at the microphone.
And just for you to say that sometimes it is also digital tools are very helpful. I have a better interaction online than I have compared to the interaction I have on‑site or in presence.
So what I would like also to you know, invite you to consider is also that digital tools can be an amazing tool to help people with disabilities. Mine is a disability that is not recognized in any way because in order to be recognized as disabled person, each country has his own parameters. So it is not always simple, you know, to get access to ‑‑ how to say, aids or tools on this. So yes. That is it.
>> Saba Tiku Beyene: Thank you Veronica for your comment. Next, please.
>> ATTENDEE: Hello this is Omar from Pakistan. I will leave some disappointment to the Brazilian guy. And some statistic from Pakistan as well with regard to the persons with disabilities. These empty Chairs in the room show the seriousness toward the inclusion of the digital literacy for people with disabilities. So I think these rooms should have been more crowded than ever. We also have seen very least number of people with disabilities, some disability in the IGF during the Kyoto international conference center.
This also shows that the actual people with the disabilities with inclusion of them in any field, especially the Internet, this is somehow a disappointment. I think the IGF should take it very serious.
If I can just give the statistic of my country, my friend my class fellow and my college colleague is on the panel. Muhammad Kamran. I'm happy for him to be on the panel. Pakistan with a population of 236 million population. In which 6% of the population is somehow with disability physically or mentally. But it is also a disappointing moment that only 37% of the population among the 236 million are using Internet. The journal public, only 37% of the Internet users are in the population.
So you can guess and observe that a country having 236 million population having just 37% of the Internet user. How will you take or how will you notice the people with disabilities? I think IGP should really work. The technical, companies, Civil Society should be more serious. I'm hopeful that we can see some good number of people with disability next year in IGF happening everywhere. I'm hopeful. Thank you.
>> Saba Tiku Beyene: Thank you very much for that comment and questions.
Now I will give the floor to our speakers on‑site and online to give their final remarks or final words and also they can address on the comments and also the question asked. I will give the floor to the speakers and please make it very brief up to 30 seconds, over to you.
>> Gonella: Yes, in regard to the gentleman from Pakistan. I totally agree with you. We need to have more persons with disabilities attending. Because the disability community's motto is nothing about us without us. We need to be here. I have a disability. We need more people who represent our own voices. I would strongly suggest that you write to the IGF Secretariat. To the MAG, to express your disappointment that there aren't enough persons with disabilities here. The IGF Secretariat has a funding Programme, but it still isn't enough people with disabilities coming here. One short point is we have as the accessibility standing group, a training Programme on persons with disabilities in digital rights and Internet Governance. And paired with the DCAD. Dynamic Coalition on accessibility and disability, we have a small amount of funding to bring people here. But we need so much more. So thank you very much for that point.
>> DENISE LEAL: Hi. I would like to thank you for your participation and questions. I was a little bit worried since we didn't have lots of participation but we had questions, comments and online questions also. It is really important point and well, thank you Veronica for what you have said. Have you spoken to us? It is the same in Brazil about how it is sometimes difficult to recognize the disability of a person. Most importantly, when the person doesn't have a disability that is visual, which you can easily see, the person suffers a lot of prejudice and doesn't have her rights recognized immediately. So it is important that you say to others and we talk about it. Because we have these disabilities that we cannot see. But we must recognize their consistency that this people need somehow help and be recognized as people with disabilities.
Thank you for the Brazilian person here. I don't remember your name. Joel, I think. Thank you for being here and your comment. I think that it is actually difficult your question. What strategies are both accessible and relevant? How can we make the online content more inclusive. Well, we have ways to make it, but also do we have the economic interest in making it? And also I think that the answer and this question goes aligned with the question from my other friend, the other lawyer here from Pakistan. About the technical and infrastructure aspects for Internet. I think that we have an example in Brazil, a successful example of the Indigenous and traditional communities where they couldn't have access to Internet. So they community itself organize and a local Internet.
So maybe in the case of people with disabilities and other minorities, maybe the answer is the communities itself not the people with disabilities community, but other minorities and local communities could be the answer to it. But we have to mobilize and make the people understand the need says of all the minorities and communities. In the case of the Indigenous we can't make it because they're all located in the same place. How can we make our small communities and minorities work together to find an infrastructure solution? I believe it is possible. We have to work harder on showing it to people. As you have all noted and told us and spoken about it, we don't have that much people here. We should have a crowded room. We don't have. We must mobilize more people and have space and voice to talk about the situation to have a better structure and technology for people with disability. Thank you, everyone.
>> Saba Tiku Beyene: Thank you, Denise Leal. I will give the floor to Marjorie to take the floor to our speakers for their final remarks. Or recommendations or any key takeaways.
>> MARJORIE MUDI GEGE: Thank you, Saba. We have Theorose Elikplim Dzineku and Muhammad Kamran remaining. I like to include the online participants I will read out the questions and (audio skipping) give your final remarks, can touch on that. (Reading) (audio skipping) what policies can be implemented to protect abusive content against people with disabilities online because there is some kind of stigmatization especially on social media. From Joseph IGF Ghana (?)
Continue to build barriers of people with disability or breakdown these obstacles and create a more inclusive future.
>> Theorose Elikplim Dzineku: I will try to keep it very short. In terms of policies and stigmatization, it is real, stigma is real in every Sector. It is worse for the one with disabilities. Because again, some of the things Veronica said and all the speakers say over and over is some of the disabilities are not visually ‑‑ it is not visual for you to see. The mistake is trying to group everything as one.
I will say policy takes time. We need to know if we have such policies, for example. I would not really say Ghana we do or not. Because honestly I've not done that. I would not want to state that on authority. It would be a good thing to find out if we have one. How accessible is that? Are people even aware of such a policy? Is there a common knowledge to do. In terms of stigmatization, it is to teach people that people with disabilities is human. We're okay and everything is fine. It is a good thing to start with. As I conclude I take the time to say thank you to everyone. We hope that this session understands more. I will leave my email in the chat. Feel free to suggest any project or capacity building training. This is not just a one time of discussion, it can be something that conditions. And we have a more (?) and people who would really, really want to ‑‑ I'm probably saying what they are going through and how we can basically build content around them.
I will stand on the first point at the beginning. Advocacy is key. Advocacy never ends. It starts, but it is a continued process. I hope we take that in. Thank you so much, I hand over to Muhammad Kamran.
>> MARJORIE MUDI GEGE: Thank you, Theorose Elikplim Dzineku. 30 seconds, Muhammad Kamran.
>> Muhammad Kamran: Thank you, everyone. I hope all the questions were already answered. As far as what we can do for implementing the ideas, I would ‑‑ like we talked in detail about all of the things, I will add one more thing. We said that it the Government should do and we should do this and that. One more thing to add here is seeing the situation in the room right now, the people with disabilities needs to address their issue.
We will not be only the ones.
They will make us take about that. This empty room is maybe they're not interested. They have to be interested. And we have to be organizing some conferences or awareness sessions to educate them so they can come up and talk about their disabilities. So I think we have talked about all the aspects possible in a very short span of time. I'm sorry if I have left anything. I am thankful to all of you for having us here, letting us speak. I hope to see all of you and some others tomorrow.
>> MARJORIE MUDI GEGE: Thank you Muhammad. Saba Tiku Beyene, you have the floor. Thank you.
>> Saba Tiku Beyene: Thank you so much. So we have come to the end of our session now. And I would like to thank our speakers our panelists for their valuable inputs and also contributions indeed your expertise and insights has been truly enlightening.
What I would like to say is let's all together continue our efforts to ensure the inclusivity n in digital technologies and digital service s. Thank you all for tending our today's session, joining from on‑site or from online. And we hope you found this very informative and thought provoking. And yeah, remember that your involvement is crucial in creating a more inclusive future for all persons. Have a wonderful day. Thank you so much.
(Applause)