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December 12, 2007 Washington, D.C. — The American Association of People with Disabilities (AAPD) is delighted that the United Nations Global Initiative for Inclusive Information and Communication Technologies (G3ICT) included discussions focused on accessibility for persons with disabilities at its Digital Cities Convention December 11-12, 2007 in Washington, D.C. AAPD’s Senior Director for Technology and Telecommunications Policy, Jenifer Simpson, led a panel on the second day that focused on “New Mandates for Accessible Wireless Emergency Services” with demonstrations of new digital technologies and an in-depth discussion on accessibility for people with disabilities. “As new wireless technologies expand locally, the accessibility and usability needs of people with disabilities must bee addressed,” said Simpson. “Too often, people with disabilities are left out and left behind when local initiatives are undertaken resulting in later costly add-ons and work-arounds.” She adds, “When there are emergencies, this becomes even more critical, or people with disabilities end up abandoned or worse.” “Since the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities includes provisions for inclusive technology, we must involve the perspectives of people with disabilities at each and every opportunity,” said Axel Leblois, Executive Director of the G3ICT initiative for inclusive information and communications technology and co-chair of the accessibility panel. “It’s important to remember the history of telecommunications inclusion for people who are deaf and hard of hearing,” stated Karen Peltz Strauss, a policy consultant at Gallaudet University’s Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center on Telecommunications Access, and speaker on AAPD’s panel. “Although we already have mandates for TTY and hearing aid access to wireline and wireless telephone services, we now encounter new barriers when IP (Internet Protocol) technologies are used.” “There are no best practices yet in using broadband wireless technologies when trying to reach people with disabilities during emergency situations,” said Neil McDevitt, Program Director, Community Emergency Preparedness Information Network (CEPIN), a Department of Homeland Security project administered by Telecommunications for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, Inc. (TDI), and another AAPD panelist. “Broadband wireless is simply too new a field to say what works well all the time for people with disabilities.” AAPD is committed to ensuring that barriers to usability and availability in any technology should be removed for people with disabilities and that all technologies should incorporate accessibility and usability in design, development, production and dissemination, with the intention of making new technologies available to all persons regardless of disability. AAPD is the largest national independent nonprofit cross-disability member organization in the United States, dedicated to ensuring economic self-sufficiency and political empowerment for the more than 50 million Americans with disabilities. AAPD works in coalition with other disability organizations for the full implementation and enforcement of disability nondiscrimination laws, particularly the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990 and the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. More information at http://www.aapd.com Information on the G3ICT initiative
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