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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>> MUHAMMAD SHABBIR: Hello, and good afternoon ladies and gentlemen I am your moderator for the roundtable workshop number 69 beyond tokenism: Disability leadership in internet governance thank you very much for joining us today in IGF 2025 for this very important discussion as we move forward and look towards the future where WSIS 20 is being reviewed, IGF is mandate is getting a new direction.
It is very important that we discuss and analyze that how persons with disabilities have been participating in the IGF discussions, what have we so far achieved and what should be done next? In this context, in my limited understanding while we were proposing this workshop, we thought that though persons with disabilities have been participating in internet governance spaces, they come, they participated, discussed, highlighted accessibility issues but the representation at the decision‑making table or in the room where decision were made with regards to internet governance, digital accessibility, we had a very tokenistic representation of persons with disabilities there. Though some would arguably also say that even that tokenistic nomenclature or expression can also be expanded to internet governance spaces to some extent as well. To explore different dimensions and aspects of this question and this topic that what has happened so far and what can be done next, I have a very excellent and imminent panelists on the stage here and online. I thank everyone for sparing their time to join us on this panel but before we go through the panelists and ask some very critical questions, we need to understand what digital accessibility means and who better to talk about what digital accessibility means is the father of the internet known as Vin Cerf we have a video talking about disability and persons with disabilities. May I request the support team to kindly play the video.
>> VINTON CERF: Hello I'm chairman of the leadership panel of the Internet Governance Forum today I'd like to talk a little bit about accessibility of the internet and the World Wide Web. And in general, accessibility for a lot of digital applications. This is not easy. In order to understand how to make applications accessible to someone with a disability, is a nontrivial exercise you really have to have intuition and that's hard to get unless you happen to have a particular disability where you have to make use of certain kinds of applications like screen readers so that you have an appreciation for how well or how poorly some of these ideas work. One thing that I can assure you of is that if you are responsible for user interfaces or what's called user experience, it will be very, very helpful for you to see examples of successful applications and also examples of not so successful ones and try to understand what made them succeed or fail it also occur to me that in addition to examples from which you can gain intuition that we may discover with artificial intelligence that our ability to interact with the services of the World Wide Web and the internet through alternative means than keyboards and mice might turn out to be important I'm thinking of course of oral interaction with artificial intelligent agents. We may be able to make an application a lot more usable if it's a question of negotiating with a system as opposed to trying to work your way through a two‑dimensional space in a linear way which is what of course the screen readers will do for someone who has vision impairment so it may very well be that AI is our friend here in a number of different dimensions, this is relatively unexplored territory although we're seeing a great deal more oral interaction hands‑free kinds of interaction which is helpful for people who don't have a visual impairment or an audio impairment but who don't have the ability to use their hands at the moment. There are often situations where hands‑free is really, really important and valuable the message here is that accessibility is a high priority. The internet should be for everyone and that's inclusive for people with various disabilities and second it's important to recognize that everyone who has one or more disabilities will have different combinations and flavors and so there's no simple single solution for audio impairment or visual impairment. We really have to design interfaces that are adaptable to people's needs. Once again, a very, very important topic to make sure that the internet really is for everyone. So I'm glad to see that the DCAD, the DCAD dynamic coalition on accessibility is active in the Internet Governance Forum. I'm looking forward to your conclusions and your discussion as you search for better ways in making the internet an accessible place.
>> MUHAMMAD SHABBIR: Thank you very much Vint Cerf we heard that how accessibility is important. I just want to add number one, when Vint was speaking about building internet which is for everyone he meant that following the universal design which everyone can use and if it is made accessible the common misunderstanding is that it is made accessible for persons with disabilities, but everyone else can use that. So a device which is used or prepared to make it accessible for people who lack hands or physical disabilities, it can also be used by other people who are driving or who want to do some other task while using the machines, now before we move forward, the discussion, I want to go to the speaker on the stage Gunela Astbrink, she has a wide experience of promoting advocating and making systems and policies accessible for people with disabilities. She has vast experience of policymaking as well. So with her experience of being the accessibility being the leader of accessibility standing group of the internet society, being the MAG member I would like to ask her Gunela what in your opinion do you think that WSIS GDC and inclusion strategy mean for persons with disabilities? And what policy mechanisms can we dare to improve to make the digital environments particularly accessible for people with disabilities. Gunela over to you.
>> GUNELA ASTBRINK: Thank you very much. I will try to answer the question. With this WSIS 20 + and also the inclusion strategy and we are right in the middle of this discussions when it comes to WSIS+20 and the global digital compact and we will see results according to plan by the end of the year and these are very complex negotiations. And we will have to find ways to be able to input into that. So the WSIS+20 has recently released an elements paper and this is based on consultation with member states and other stakeholders. And there are a number of paragraphs in there and I won't go into great detail but it does talk about digital divide. It talks about accessibility for persons with disability. And also reinforcing existing frameworks for multistakeholder cooperation. So we need to read that, we need to make comments by the 15th of July into what is called the zero draft and we have the opportunity to import just like any other stakeholder does. I will also talk about the global digital compact. And this is another instrument that is being, well, it has been drafted but it's now a matter of how that harmonizes or not with the WSIS+20 and I want to refer to digital literacy skills and competencies. And it says we, as in the GDC commit by 2030 to provide accessible use interfaces. These are based on some of the Sustainable Development Goals and in that case, it's number four and ten. And also to target and tailor capacity building for underrepresented groups. Including persons with disability. To ensure meaningful engagement in design and implementation of programs. And that's really important when we are talking about disability leadership. That here there is something stated about that meaningful engagements. So we have to ask ourselves how is this going to be implemented? Because this is a high level global instrument. And obviously it requires national legislation and regulation in many cases to do so. So I just wanted then to go into how do we move from policies to implementation and there are a number of complexities with that and I want to refer to basically a case study and this is for internet society. It is important to have senior staff who are accessibility champions. And the internet society has an accessibility standing group. And it has developed an accessibility framework. And we are very fortunate that we do have a disability leader in Dr. Muhammad Shabbir who was on the board of trustees of the internet society for two years.
And then during that time, a resolution was unanimously approved on an accessibility framework. So then how do we move to the implementation stage? And again, I want to emphasize the importance of senior staff being accessibility champions. And it's been a long a winding road. But now we have a possibility to achieve that. Through the internet society, talking about building a culture of accessibility and minimizing barriers to participation. And through that, we feel that the internet society can benefit from more people with disabilities being part of the organisation in a number of different ways. So I think I will stop there, but that gives just a flavor. So thank you very much.
>> MUHAMMAD SHABBIR: Thank you very much Gunela for your wonderful insights. Your discussion has a lot to unpack yo and we may come to you during the discussion session to unpack some of the statements that you have made.
Audience may have some questions. But you talked about internet society while presenting the case study and we are fortunate to have the executive director of the internet society foundation right on the stage.
And this gives me a sort of more motivation to bring her in now and ask her because Sarah Armstrong is the executive director of ISOC foundation and she has a vast experience of philanthropy. So Sary, I have a couple of questions for you.
For your intervention. First it's to your philanthropic experience and that is that what role the philanthropic organisations can play in making the organisations and internet governance accessible for people with disabilities? And focusing on the more narrower part what internet society and internet society foundations are doing in this context to train persons with disabilities in leadership and what more as a philanthropic experienced person you would recommend that can be done? Sarah, the floor is yours.
>> SARAH ARMSTRONG: Thank you so much Dr. Shabbir, can everyone hear me okay? It's a pleasure to be here especially with such special people here on the panel and I appreciate the opportunity to discuss the work of the internet society foundation as well as discussing the philanthropic environment. It is definitely an issue we all need to be focused on and that is because we know that there's a large percentage of the population who is in many cases permanently disabled and they really need to have the opportunity to enjoy all of the things that the internet brings into our life. We are committed as an organisation to be sure that we have content services, policies and programs that are in fact accessibility oriented and we want to make sure that accessibility is all about what we do because of the fact that digital inclusion means internet really is for everyone and that is our vision statement. We have as Dr. Shabbir noted, we have been working with the standing group, the accessibility standing group, and I just want to hand, go through a couple of the different things that the internet society foundation is doing specifically and then I will move onto what we believe the philanthropic remit can do as well.
We are accessibility champions as Gunela mentioned we have a large portfolio of grant programs and a number of our grant programs are in fact very much focused on targeting the audience of people with disabilities. And being sure that they are funding or we are funding organisations and people who are very sensitive to the needs so we have training programs with some of our grantees from skills which is all about teaching digital literacy. We have other programs with our beyond the net chapter program and then finally we have connecting the unconnected which is about community networks. Also focusing on people with disabilities. We also as Gunela mentioned have an operational framework. This was something that was approved by our board. And in fact, has become a really, really big focus for the organisation. And that is a strategy that is based on the nothing about us without us. So it's guiding what the internet society and the internet society foundation is doing in this area.
We also have been working on our website and making sure that all new content meets the WCAG 2.1AA standard and also we do an annual audit to make sure that that continues and our most recent score was a 99 out of 100 in terms of our desktop so that was good to see that we are making such progress in those areas. In addition to the grant programs, focused on persons with disability, we also have a training course and this training course is entitled disability leadership training and internet governance and digital rights. This program is a five week program about 15‑20 hours long and it's developed specifically with the ISOC accessibility standing group. It builds leadership and embeds accessibility in internet governance discussions. It's designed for persons with disabilities. And advocates and trainers. And it covers accessibility policy and links to internet governance so this really, this program here does in fact advance disability leadership. But the question is, is there more that can be done, is there more that can be done by us and then talking about the other possible philanthropic organisations who may be looking at the same important issue. It's an ongoing journey so there is some things that we've done. I discussed those so far but there are other things that we can look at, explore opportunities for funding for disability leadership. Is one concept. Encourage grantees to offer more training and support systems. Introduce possibly the tracking and the publishing of participation data so these are things that we're looking at as we go on this journey. So we're going to continue to move forward and stay committed as I mentioned. We have a, from the board level down, a real support for this direction. And so that is the place right now where the foundation and the internet society are. And then in addition what role can philanthropic groups play.
This is where I split it into three different areas that I believe the philanthropic community can do to make a better world. Encourage inclusiveness in funded events such as IGFs or NRIs for example for our web page for the internet governance grant program. We have have disclaimer, a line that we encourage people to strongly, you know, make sure that the dialogues that they're having in these IGFs and these NRIs and in these schools of internet governance, that there's strongly encouraged to review and follow the guidelines developed by the dynamic coalition when planning any type of event. So we are keeping an eye on that and keeping in touch and seeing how that move is going forward. We also would recommend that philanthropic organisations require accessibility features such as captioning and sign language. Accessibility platforms and venues. And we definitely feel it's important for people to reference and enforce the dynamic coalition on accessibility guidelines. Furthermore for the ideas for philanthropic organisations, supporting mentorship, linking new leaders with experts, funding and facilitating disability specific networks and coalitions. Convening dialogues and embedding accessibility in IG agendas and also back leadership of those who are facing intersecting challenges such as gender geography. And finally some other key roles for philanthropic organisations to play. Prioritize funding for underrepresented regions. Invest in research on barriers and solutions. Support impact measurement to refine the strategies and ensure accountability. So what I've described here are ideas for what we believe other philanthropic organisations can do and that of course is built on the recommendations that have come to us.
That we have now followed through and implemented for our website, for our training program, for our grant program, et cetera, and we believe that very, very strongly that all of these different areas together have a unique opportunity to drive equity by investing in accessibility and leadership ensuring the internet is, in fact, for everyone. So with that, I will thank you and Dr. Shabbir, turn it back to you.
>> MUHAMMAD SHABBIR: Thank you very much, Sarah for this wonderful intervention and outlining some of the activities and also illustrating the plans that internet society particularly the fellowships that internet society is doing and trying to advance the work of, work on digital accessibility for people with disabilities. We have heard from practitioners, I think it is now high time that we talk about evidence and research based evidence on the accessibility and digital accessibility for people with disabilities. And we are fortunate to have Dr. Derrick Cogburn join us online who is an academic and a researcher in disability and internet governance. Dr. Derrick Cogburn I have a couple of questions for you as well and while you are making your intervention we can deep dive while in the question answer session but I would want you to focus on the evidence that are out there that how people are disabilities are participating in the leadership corridors of the internet governance and how can research and data from your experience, would you like to enlighten us that it can guide us and internet governance spaces to make these spaces accessible for people with disabilities. Dr. Derrick, floor is yours.
>> DERRICK COGBURN: Thank you very much, Dr. Shabbir I appreciate that. I thank you for your leadership of the DCAD and I want to thank all of my fellow panelists and moderators as well. I want to congratulate the DCAD on this panel and the 20th anniversary of IGF. I attended the initial IGF and it is wonderful to see this continued progress and I also want to acknowledge the 20th anniversary of gig ga net as well, the global internet governance academic network which was founded in at the beginning of IGF.
As a community of researchers, to be able to focus on interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary aspects of internet governance it's a nice partnership to have our discussion in this panel also link with gig ga net. I am a little under the weather and there's another event here in Washington and it's focused on cyber hard problems and I know our fellow panelists vicinity Cerf is also involved in that convenient it shows when we are involved in digital policy leadership, there are so many overlapping venues and spaces and locations where we need to continue to insert disability inclusive ideas.
And this is helpful for me as you know I wear multiple hats at American university I'm a professor in information technology and analytics and also environment and health. And I also codirect our internet governance lab and serve as executive director of our institute on disability and public policy so that allows me to bring these multiple areas together as we think about how do we identify data, build datasets, conduct research projects that shed light on these questions. And one of the things that we found is that there has been a range of disability inclusive leadership in internet governance spaces and in some of the broader disability inclusive development strategies related to the SDGs, the digital compact and other areas. If you remember some of you in my book published by Macmillan in 2018 we translated the advocacy networks in society. Partners are puns. And one of the things we foesed on in that book is the way that the advocacy network consist bring advocates together in an issue area to influence these global spaces.
And a chapter in that book highlighted the dynamic coalition on accessibility and disability. This is one of many transnational advocacy networks for the disability community that are active in the SDGs that, are active in disaster risk reduction. And a number of other spaces there are about seven transnational advocacy networks focused on inclusive development and a variety of perspectives. You also may remember my book published by MIT Press on researching internet governance and we looked at there all of the text we analyzed the text coming from the captions from the IGF going back to the beginning of the IGF. So text analytics has been a very powerful way for us to think about how do we analyze what is actually happening in these spaces and who is participating and engaging and shaping ideas in these spaces? And a chapter in that book that looks at the internet governance transcripts showed that the DCAD language and the language of accessibility and disability is one of the earliest and seemingly of the most die nam from the first IGF and maintaining those concepts in IGF transcripts and in IGF language going forward.
And I was quite surprised to see that level of sustained reference to accessibility language and it is a testament to the impact that the DCAD has had in this space. So these approaches for us are very important, so being able to use text mining and natural language processing and now using generative AI tools, helps us to take advantage of the kind of data that is available to us. So this kind of large‑scale text analytics really lets us understand what kind of impact our ideas are having in these global policy spaces so two weeks ago my team organized a side event in New York at the U.N. for the 18th Conference of States Parties. This side event was entitled enhancing community engagement and monitoring CRPD implementation through AI, text mining, economic data and accessibility mapping. So one of the things that this side event showed is that when we use various ways of... various forms of da. So ‑‑ data so we looked at how progress is made in implementing the CRPD around the world and by regions.
But some of the other projects looked at data that comes from the Washington group short said that has been able to influence very national census data so we can do statistical analysis and also use data that's called mapping data for accessibility. So there are a number of programs on a mapping accessibility in locations around the world. So for us, this approach gives us lots of opportunity and hope for being able to continue to monitor progress on disability inclusion around the world in different policy spaces now most of this data is open data. So all of the text data that I'm talking about can usually be done loaded from websites, all the transcripts from the IGF for example that we downloaded, state reports, side reports, alternative reports and we have two good sources of disability data. One is called the disability data initiative which is led by Fordham University and the disability data hub led by the World Bank. Both of these datasets as well as the text data provides tremendous data for us to be able to analyze how persons with disabilities are fairing in this current period but also how do we understand who is involved in each of these areas? Now this requires us to be able to focus on continuous capacity development in research capacity. So even though this data is free and open and we have tremendous open source data analytics tools like Python and R which are open sourced programming languages, that let us analyze this kind of data, we still need to focus on capacity building in these areas and making sure people are trained to be able to use these tools. Now we believe that the generative AI tools will help to enhance multistakeholder participation by those that are not trained in programming and we have a paper that is just coming out in data and policy which compares our traditional NLP approach with the generative AI approach. But I think that focusing on capacity building for research is going to be an important area for us going forward.
>> MUHAMMAD SHABBIR: Thank you very much Dr. Derrick for sharing the datasets that are available that are used to advance the cause of disability leadership in intergovernance and other spaces. Let's hear about the disability and leadership and barriers from another online speaker. Dr. Nirmita Narasimhan, I'm sorry if I'm pronouncing your name wrong she's one of the experts on accessibility and Dr. Nirmita I would want you to focus on the barriers if there are any in the way of persons with disabilities and their leadership in the internet governance spaces and how those barriers can be removed. What your experience is, Dr. Nirmita, floor is yours.
>> NIRMITA NARASIMHAN: Thank you Dr. Shabbir. Let me approach this from a perspective of somebody who would want to be at the IGF. There are barriers at every level and the first barrier is that people don't know about it. About IGF, especially disability advocates working in different countries. There is not enough outreach to them about IGF and the issues which are discussed and also that many of them are quite relevant to what the technologies that we use, the content that we access and the engagement and interaction that we have with the internet. So the first barrier for me would be that there is probably a handful of people in a country, hundreds and hundreds of disability advocates who actually know about the IGF and what is there. And the fact that they can contribute to it. Once you cross that barrier, how to engage with the IGF if you want to get there, where do you get the support to get there? There would be logistic issues maybe that you know, people may need to take somebody along with them to help them navigate the system or to help them communicate so where do you get the funding from? What are the organisations you need to be in touch with? And yeah, and also other issues maybe language, maybe technology issues. But once you get there I think one of the chief problems which I feel as a person having been in association with the IGF from 2008, I feel that people with disabilities do not have enough exposure to other issues which are getting discussed at the IGF so right now it's probably the only thing they know about is accessibility and disability and the topic they're covering or they're talking about but meaningful participation goes beyond this. You need to engage with other forum. You need to be able to observe other discussions which are going on and see how you can contribute and it works both ways you need to be able to participate in other discussions. Which are also very important. I mean, A I, for example, is a critical technology for persons with disabilities these days, right?
And there's so much which you are not, if you talk to people with disabilities, there is so much that can, they can contribute to the way the internet is shaping in terms of AI, in terms of literacy, in terms of safety, and that representation is not coming across and not on both sides.
So I think one needs to pay some more thought to how this people with disabilities and other people can work together for them to contribute to different discussions. I think these are primarily the kind of barriers one encounters and finally after that what? So remote participation is really helped persons with disabilities be part of the forum. But visibility is also important and continuity is important so what happens from one forum to the other in once you go back, so what? Do you get support and motivation or do you have the connects to work on these issues when you go back to your country? At the end of the day it's not a one time thing, right? It's something you need to continue, you need to work at to be able to participate meaningfully. So continuity is again, an issue. Both in terms of being able to work in your country, and move beyond just the other kind of projects which you are working on and the support internationally to continue to work with different members at the IGF. These are some of the barriers which I see effect meaningful participation of persons with disabilities.
>> MUHAMMAD SHABBIR: Thank you very much for highlighting these barriers and I think we can explore how to, how, what and, what are the strategies and how those barriers can be removed. Before I ask some more questions to the panelist I want to see if there are any comments or questions from the audience in‑person or online.
>> Yes, we do have a comment from the online and it's from oh Emmanuel from Uganda who is one of our online fellows.
And his question is addressed to the foundation and he asks will you share success stories with practical examples of specific projects or initiatives? For people, person persons with disabilities and how does one join them?
>> SARAH ARMSTRONG: Okay I would say the work that they've been doing just to include more and to do more towards persons can disabilities is an opportunity for people to find ISOC and the foundation more accessible. So the fact that we have the mandate and that we are following through on it means that more people can be involved in the types of things that the internet society and the foundation are doing.
In addition I can give some examples of our chapters. Beyond the net, the Puerto Rico chapter's organizing conferences with the University of Puerto Rico around technology for students with disabilities. So there's an opportunity there. Bosnia chapters have a project to train sightless journalists. The Kyrgyzstan chapter is working with people with disabilities and a woman who is visually impaired and working on things that they can do in those different countries.
We are working on incorporating screen readers and some of our programs for connecting the unconnected and our skills program through Coda, they are encrypting women with disabilities with opportunities. So these are just further examples of the types of things that are happening as a result of our commitment to expanding accessibility. And in terms of being able to access information specifically on the foundation, because of what we're doing with the website, we are making it easier for people with disabilities to be much more informed about the programs that we offer so I hope that helps answer the question.
>> Yeah, thanks so much. I'm wondering do we have any questions from the audience in‑person? We do. Yes, please come to the mic and state your name and your organisation you're with.
>> AUDIENCE: I'm from Malawi. I'm a youth ambassador on internet governance and also in the digital inclusion alliance. First of all, let me thank you all for hosting this session especially on disability inclusion leadership. However, as somebody who advocates for digital inclusion I was a bit worried because when I was coming to participate into this conversation I anticipated to have a high level of this target group participating for this particular event but the participation is low and that is also giving me some sort of, like, a consent because we cannot advocate for inclusion while excluding the voice we claim to empower so representation must not be symbolic but it must be standard in intentional. And I also want to extend that true inclusion must mean more than just inviting people into the room but also preparing the room for them. With that being said, I was look throughout the room for people providing sign language interpretation also I looked for the tech assistive tools that helps people with disability issues but it's not there and also the environment where everybody can participate like the people that we are trying to empower these people. So my question is what steps have we put as the organizers or partners to make sure that we have a high level of participation from the people that are living with disabilities and to equip them and support them to be equal contributors especially in high level forums like IGF in the future event? Thank you very much.
>> Thank you so much for your question. For, to touch on the sign language issue we did ask our DCAD members who will be coming online if they wanted, if they needed international sign. But we didn't hear back from them. Currently the event here has human captioning and we also do have several of our disability fellows in the audience and here the question is we did promote the event but there are other events that are pulling people away and since they can't go to an event live they watch the replay of it in their time because there's so many events that they cannot go to and they cannot split themselves into many different peoples so ‑‑ so that is one of the reasons.
This is on the YouTube channels too. But it's always a question of how do we get people here and that's the age old question for everyone.
>> MUHAMMAD SHABBIR: Yes and in addition to what Judith has said I acknowledge your point and that's where the exact title of the... of this session states. We need to move beyond tokenism. We need the leadership, or the IGF spaces. We all do much to make persons with disabilities a part of these discussions. Now having said that there has, as Gunela said that bringing persons with disabilities to these spaces requires a lot of effort and finances. And this in its limited capacity tries to fulfill that gap and I know that that, what we are doing is not enough. We need to do more. Your point is well acknowledged. We do have two persons with disabilities in‑person attending this IGF. Supported by the DCAD and one online. So and this is good to see of our first speaker Vint Cerf and his organisation.
More organisations can come forward to contribute to discuss but as Judith said, with regards to participation in these sessions but the other participants we are competing with other sessions and priorities that the participating people would have. So it's the priorities and the priorities of the people of where they want to attend. Thank you, your point is very well taken. Any other points?
>> JUDITH HELLERSTEIN: We do have another question here if you want to go to the mic.
>> AUDIENCE: Hi, I'm Nigel, and in our work around the Caribbean when we do events at least annually we tend to have some workshops in ICT for persons with disabilities. Our focus though is more on the local community and I guess helping disabilities in the local community to understand the value or the power of ICTs maybe to make their life easier. We have not actually had persons, even advocates from the disabled community expressing a level of interest in things like these international events or whatever. And I'm wondering how might one try to develop such an ambition, you know ? In the persons with disabilities and see how you can make life better for maybe the wider society and make an influence in the world. I'm wondering if there's any experience people have had or if it's just up to the individual ambition of persons with disabilities to do something like that.
Thanks.
>> MUHAMMAD SHABBIR: Yes, thank you very much. Does any of the panelists want to respond to this comment?
>> GUNELA ASTBRINK: There is limited knowledge in some communities about internet governance and often there's a struggle to even get people with disabilities online and build digital literacy but we can work on that and I'm going to mention some work that we have done in South Asia to build disability leaders in internet governance and that is through support of the Asia Pacific School of Internet Governance and local chapter in Bangladesh and other supporters.
To run train the trainer workshops in internet governance and digital leadership and digital rights. And that was bringing people from South Asian countries, Sri Lanka, Nepal, to Bangladesh and they are experienced advocates but not necessarily experienced in internet governance but bringing those people together to learn by doing by interacting about the internet governance discussions, the various internet groups and how they connect with disability and accessibility and global instruments and so forth. So the idea then was for those advocates to go back to their own countries and run workshops and that has happened over past three years. And we would like that to have possibilities in other regions of the world. It is very important that people who participate in that can continue the work in their communities. And that might be through advocacy to their governments, to the private sector, when it comes to policy implementation in IT. And it could also be working with committees, for example, the local chapter and it could be working with DCAD for example. Going on committee to assist in building workshops on this topic in a particular country or region so there's a lot of work to be done and we need to make it sustainable and we are starting and there's a lot of work to be done. We do have an online course which Sarah has mentioned and that is a prerequisite for any of these type of face‑to‑face workshops. We're trying to align with, for example, DCAD and in the fellowships that are provided each year where you have a remote participant. We just heard a question from him. Emmanuel, and also from our participants here in the room and that is Sarah. You may want to put your hands up.
>> MUHAMMAD SHABBIR: Thank you very much but before we take another question I think Professor Derrick wants to contribute to the question. So Professor Derrick, the floor is yours but if you can be brief we can take more questions.
>> DERRICK COGBURN: Thank you for reminding me to be brief. That's a great question and what I want to say in my answer is tying in something that the doctor already said. This require an engaged committed set of activities and it's hard to do that unless that individual works for an organisation that is able to fund their participation in multiple meetings that are overlanguage and related meetings and so forth.
That's why I have found that it's these networks, these transnational advocacy networks that are so important so they allow you in your local community to connect with a group of local advocates who are aware of these issues and ready to get involved but they are participating in a larger network of like‑minded activists around the world. So that the dynamic coalition on disability is one example where the advances in this kind of remote participation technology allows the DCAD to have regular meetings and have people prepare for the IGF to participate in the IGF and then to follow up on the IGF all using these tools. And combining those people who will be remote with those people who will be in‑person. When we first started the IGF and WSIS these kinds of remote participation processes were not existent and slowly came on board over the years and we need to be able to take advantage of the fact that they are so robust now and allow people to participate effectively remotely so to the original. My question is to find others that are focused on inclusion and start participating in those networks trying to help raise money and encourage fellow participants to engage in those kinds of transnational advocacy networks.
>> MUHAMMAD SHABBIR: Thank you very much Professor Derrick for your insights. And Gunela. Gentlemen, you can introduce and ask your question, please.
>> AUDIENCE: My name is Frances. Looks like I'm very tool. All right, comfortable now. I'm from Ghana. I've been in an executive member of the chapter for the past ten years and I am an inclusion advocate and a digital literacy now. It's a wonderful conversation and looks interesting but my question is we've been having this conversation over the years what. Is the end goal? I believe we're trying to build capacity for persons with disabilities.
So they can participate in the digital inclusion we're talking about. Do we have a policy plan or a framework for them to take up the leadership role or employment gain? Because at the end goal we want to see them at the top. Do we have certain policy which is going to enforce that if probably the various positions and ICANN when we are employing they are a certain percentage, let's say, 5% persons with disabilities if we are employing so at least once we empower them to be part of this conversation we can also let them be a source. Once they make themselves sufficient those two become dependent on people at the end of the day we will be bringing them and trying to empower them but without a clear goal it will not solve the problem so my question is is there a clear plan to end this? Thank you.
>> MUHAMMAD SHABBIR: This is a very interesting question. And who of the speaker want to respond to this?
>> SARAH ARMSTRONG: I can say it's a journey but it is a commitment that we've made that we backed up with a resolution from the board of trustees. That we will continue to find ways to include more people with disabilities. And it's, you know, the work that we're doing to try to make it so that work that we do is accessible. That is a journey that we're taking and that we're making real progress on as I mentioned our website is considered really stellar for people to be able to access information and then in terms of, you know, bringing on more staff, I think is a question that you were asking, whether or not we can have that just something that we are again examining. This is something, again, to which we're committed and we're looking ahead at the different ways that we can do that.
>> MUHAMMAD SHABBIR: Thank you, Sarah my online moderator wants to say something.
>> JUDITH HELLERSTEIN: Yes, thank you so much, that's an important question. What we have been doing is advocating for persons with disabilities and also of disability fellows in advocating in their own countries. What they've been doing is they've been advocating for online forum, for forms to be accessible online, we work with different other organisations. To make sure that they are aware about not only WCAG but also they may be aware and make the websites accessible. But the lastly are not necessarily aware how to make accessible documents. How to make infographics accessible, how to make all that, so it's a work in progress, and what we can do is work on advocacy and work to enable other governments. We have governments that put in the WCAG guidelines in their legislation. So we can do a lot in advocacy. It is up to the others to actually make the next step.
>> MUHAMMAD SHABBIR: Thank you very much Judith but if you ask me what's the end goal as the org organizer as this panel I would say in an ideal world we would not be having this discussion but persons with disabilities would not have to ask for certain facilities.
Services to be made accessible, websites to be accessible. But they would already be given to them without asking. But I know we don't live in an ideal world. So we are moving towards that goal. I know that maybe called idealistic, not visible or something, some other connotations, but I say that we, if we don't have that goal in the side, we won't be leading anywhere as you said. Internet society, what Sarah has said, it has started by making the organisation itself accessible. That's the first step. DCAD is trying to make persons with disabilities participate in these discussions and make these meetings accessible for people with disabilities. That's another step. There is a whole internet governance ecosystem. There needs to be other organisations who would work towards this end goal.
So I hope to some extent we were able to answer your question. Are there any other comments or questions before I go to the speakers?
>> NIRMITA NARASIMHAN: May I contribute to this discussion?
>> JUDITH HELLERSTEIN: Yes, Nirmita.
>> NIRMITA NARASIMHAN: The way I see it, making things accessible and getting people there in leadership positions is just what you need to do to have the end goal of being able to contribute to the discussion and shape the way the internet is emerging and the technologies are emerging so I don't see it necessarily as a shift in goal. And we are trying to move beyond the policy and implement things. So for me, I would say the end goal is still what you can contribute to the discussions, what was in there from your experience and being accessible, being user‑friendly, being present, these are all just things we need to do to get there.
>> MUHAMMAD SHABBIR: Thank you very much Nirmita, I would give 30 seconds to each of my speakers if they have any wrap up thought to share those with us, otherwise I will go towards the wrap up. I will start with Sarah.
>> SARAH ARMSTRONG: Oh, okay. Wrap up. Again, thank you very much for including me in this important discussion. I mentioned when I made my remarks about the importance of the commitment. And we really feel like we have an opportunity at the internet society and internet society foundation to lead by example.
To drive equity by investing in accessibility and leadership. Because we, again, are very committed to our mission and our vision that the internet is for everyone and that needs to continue and that means to be inclusive. Those are the things I would like to reinforce on the importance of that and we are setting an example and we feel very strongly about the progress that we're making.
>> MUHAMMAD SHABBIR: Thank you very much, Sarah, Professor Derrick.
>> DERRICK COGBURN: In response to the last question for three years we led a master's program for persons with disabilities in Southeast Asia and I think that kind of program is something that is really helpful in making sure more advocates are trained in this space.
And I would encourage everyone to use the data that's available in some of these transnational networks.
>> MUHAMMAD SHABBIR: Thank you very much Professor Derrick. Dr. Mh Nirmita.
>> NIRMITA NARASIMHAN: I won't take up more time. What I would like to see going forward is not more sessions across accessibility but more accessibility in sessions and let's see how we can take it forward. Thank you.
>> MUHAMMAD SHABBIR: Thank you. Dr. Nirmita. Now we are moving towards the wrap up of this session and I would request the, my co‑organizer Gunela Astbrink to give us the key takeaways and and actionable points.
That she has listed. And also use her 30 seconds for her wrap up thoughts if there are any. Gunela over to you.
>> GUNELA ASTBRINK: Thank you very much Dr. Shabbir. There are a lot of key takeaways and I think the question about the end goals we just need to keep that in mind all the time. And also we heard about transnational networks and how to link across those. We just need to look at disability inclusive leadership that is central to equitable digital governance and we talked about that in a variety of ways. Global frameworks must move from principles to practice and we'll be looking at particular strategies to do that in these very pivotal times at the moment. And we now about the lived experience. When we as persons with disabilities can talk about our experiences and what difference that makes if we are able to live in that ideal accessible world. So then we have calls to action. Shall I go on Dr. Shabbir? So, well, just to follow up again that let's try and join up with some transnational advocacy networks. Identify them. And work with them. Because the more we work together, the more we can achieve. But it's integrating accessibility and disability inclusion in internet governance structures and that is coming together. That's that coming together in various ways. We need to invest in leadership pipelines for persons with disabilities. And that includes a range of stakeholders including regulators because we are working in a multistakeholder mechanism. And finally, institutionalize accountability for inclusion. And that can be through a lot of benchmarking, metrics and we've heard a lot about the particular work that Derrick Coburn's team has been doing. So I think that's enough from me so thank you very much.
>> MUHAMMAD SHABBIR: Thank you very much Gunela and this brings me to thank everyone, the speakers Gunela Astbrink, Dr. Derrick, my co‑moderator Judith Heller sixteen and also the captioners, the participants and the wonderful staff here in this room.
For joining us in this session we shall meet in some other session. Until then, bye‑bye.