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Access and Inclusion through Technology

Access Technology - Today and Tomorrow

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December 2019

The year came to close with visits to Malta to participate in Accessible Europe 2019. There was much discussion of shared policy and practice and I sought to encourage the use of open licences to encourage capacity building within communities. The month also saw the publication of the All children Reading toolkit on Accessible Technology and Literacy which can be downloaded from my website.  

I also returned to Bahrain with WHO  for a stakeholder workshop on the draft report and plan for AT capacity in the kingdom. Much more on this to follow in 2020

November 2019

November saw a new project initiate to explore how assistive technologies could be implemented in a large international not for profit based in the US and Europe. Together we have outlined a series of elements that need to be in place and will be investigating how to build a catalogue of assistive technologies for rapid deployment on accessible platforms throughout this year.

I also travelled to Malta to attend the ATF event near Zurich. The event was well attended and saw the launch of anew membership organisation "Digital Assistive Technology - Europe" which I have been advising on during the past year.  

October 2019

October saw the launch of the series of 9 webinars delivered to audiences in Canada in partnership with Distinctability.ca. We took advantage of some great online tools to make the sessions both engaging and interactive using Glisser.com to embed videos, Q and A and polls into the presentations. 

I also retuen to Novi Sad and Zagreb for the second week of the UNICEF AAC training, which was well received stimulating discussion and debate as how to best deliver AAC resources to children in Croatia, Serbia and Montenegro

September 2019

This month was an especially busy one. I was invited to speak on a panel on access and technology at ITU Telecom world in Budapest. The event was well attended by posed the question as to why accessibility was addressed as a discrete topic at the event, when it needed to pervade across themes and discussions. It was especially good to meet with Professor Tim Unwin at the discuss the potential of an unconference in London for next year .

The work in Bahrain continued this month and in Manama I was able to meet with a wide range of stakeholders for interviews related to AT capacity. Interesting issues began to merge to inform teh report, which were very much emphasized at a two day orientation workshop with a range of attendees.

Finally in month I found myself delivering AAC training on behalf of UNICEF in Serbia and Coratia. The online training resources, available under open licence can be found at http://www.training.globalsymbols.com   

August 2019

During August I began work on study of the use of the GARI database and how we can extend reach and impact of the website advising on accessible phones and handsets. I undertook a series of interviews with stakeholders and visited Vienna to work with the GARI team to explore initial findings. At the end of the month I returned to Geneva where I was invited the the WHO GREAT summit where I co-authored two papers, the first on frugal or sustainable innovation for AT and teh second on calculating economic return on investment in AT  

At the end of the month I attended AAATE in Bologna where I was delighted to meet with Jeffrey Jutai amongst others. Over the past year we have been support Professor Jutai by creating www.piads.at as a web repository for all of the materials related to the PIADS scales for measuring the impact of AT 

July 2019

I was delighted to start work on a new project this year for the World Health Organisation in the EMRO region. I will be working closely with the team in Cairo and the national expert in Manama to undertake an analysis of AT capacity in Bahrain leading to recommendations and an associated Action Plan 

June 2019

June saw me travelling to Nairobi in Kenya where I was undertook a series of focus groups and interviews to explore the AT ecosystem and some of the issues that people with disabilities faced. The information shred with me will provide much of the basis of a report to University of Maynooth and the ALL institute exploring some of the underlying barriers to access to technology within the country. Over the coming year I will continue to support one project operating in the slums outside Nairobi that seeks to distribute AT to people in the greatest need.

Later in the month I was in Washington DC where I had the chance to speak at the mEnabling Summit and to meet with colleagues from our work n Digital schools and refugees. During 2019 I have been blogging for G3ICT on assistive and accessible technologies and links the these can be found on teh thoughts page 

May 2019

In May I travelled to Bulgaria for the final dissemination event for Access-Interact. All of the materials designed to support peer interactions between those with and without a disability can be found at access-interact.eu. The English materials are also available from this site and are open licensed for use by all 

April 2019

April was an exciting month as I travelled to Canada to present a series of workshops for Distnctability.ca. These included low cost technologies, emerging technologies and technology supporting mental health. Much of the content was new and will provide the basis of series of online webinars later in the year

I also present at CIES on San Francisco, at the conference I explored the relationship between technology, literacy and young people with a disability in low and medium income countries. The session was based on the work I am undertaking for All Children Reading funded by USAID which will produce a full report later this year  

March 2019

During March I saw a new partnership with Distinctability.ca - together we will be working to deliver training on access and inclusion across their events in Canada. 

February 2019

During February I was in Vienna to support the Zero Project conference, some excellent projects as always that achieved much across the world. Teh database of projects which includes Mada as an award winner durng my time in Qatar can be found at https://zeroproject.org/    

January 2019

At ATIA this year it was great to meet such a lot of colleagues and friends. Two new sessions were presented teh first on emerging technologies and the impact on people with a disability and the second on the growth of self determination in AT decision making. Some great reviews and thanks to all those who took part in the sessions.