ÆGIS 1 st PAN EUROPEAN USER FORUM & WORKSHOP 4-5 JUNE 2009 RESEARCH IN MOTION UK LTD, SLOUGH, BERKSHIRE, UNITED KINGDOM

MISSION MEMBERS 1.Mr. Sawang Srisom, Assistant Regional Development Officer 2.Ms. Worapan Buranasilpin, Independent Living Project Coordinator 3.Mr. Wansao Chaiyakul, Webmaster

ÆGIS 1st Pan-European User Forum ‘Accessibility for All: Open Source-based Generalised Accessibility Support for Mainstream ICT Devices/Applications’ 4th June 2009, London, UK

14.00 – ÆGIS Project at a Glance By Dr. Evangelos Bekiaris (CERTH-HIT) Summary (1) Cell phones, PDA’s are not accessible to many users. Many of them are “closed”; embedding accessibility support directly is the only feasible option. Some level of generalized accessibility support is available in current desktop environments; but not yet widely adopted by most t ICT products for those environments; thus only somewhat adopted by AT. Beyond the critical need for better built ‐ in support for accessibility and AT, there is also the need for mainstream ICT applications that are specifically geared to disability use.

ÆGIS Project at a Glance Summary (2) Even on the desktop, (considered the most accessible ICT environment), there is a major economic barrier to e ‐ Inclusion; expensive 3 rd party AT solutions, which are unaffordable, since most of persons with disabilities are unemployed and the majority of the EU member states do not have programs to purchase such aids to their citizens.

ÆGIS Project at a glance Summary (3) AIM: ÆGIS aims, through user research and prototype development with current and next ‐ generation ICT, to develop and validate the necessary infrastructure and accessibility frameworks needed for deeply embedding accessibility into the desktop, cell phone, PDA, and rich Internet applications.

ÆGIS Project at a Glance Summary (4) ÆGIS USERS : 1) Developers of ICT infrastructure, applications and services 2) End ‐ users; people with disabilities & elderly, experiencing one or more of the following mild to severe impairments Blind and low ‐ vision users Motor impairment users Cognitive impairment users/learning difficulties Hearing impairment users Speech / Communication impairment users

ÆGIS Project at a Glance Summary (5) ÆGIS USERS : 3) Indirectly, stakeholders who are engaged with the well-being of people with disabilities are involved, i.e.: Care ‐ givers Teachers // tutors// trainers Family members Public / private social security service providers Insurance companies Health care and emergency support service providers

ÆGIS Project at a Glance Summary (6) TARGET DOMAINS : Desktop and mobile user agents and web browsers Web applications (with emphasis on rich Internet applications such as accessible applications, browsers, charts, drag ‐ and ‐ drop functionalities, etc.) Mobile applications and devices (e.g. smart phones, PDAs, etc.) Developer's tools Document authoring applications Communications products

ÆGIS Project at a Glance Summary (7) THE INNOVATION : Open Accessibility Framework Open magnification architecture Real ‐ time ‐ text solutions across desktop & mobile devices Accessibility testing regression harness for developers Accessible document production accessibility support Document creation accessibility support

ÆGIS Project at a Glance Summary (8) PILOT DEMONSTRATORS : Four distinct pilots are planned in Belgium, Spain, Sweden, and the UK. Each pilot will undertake evaluation in 3 phases – trials and mock ‐ ups;p; – early prototypes; – and final prototypes. The pilots aim to involve vision, mobility, cognitive, hearing and speech impaired people, as well as experts in the field, tutors and other facilitators and developers. All feedback received from each of the 3 evaluation. All evaluation phases will be fed back into the development process that will take place in the project period following each evaluation phase.

Time: – ÆGIS Technical Presentation By Mr. Peter Korn (Sun Microsystems) Summary (1) Urgency In every second… 4 babies are born 36 cell phones are activated 411 web pages are created 1.3 billion cell phones were sold in billion new web pages appeared in 2008 Google: indexes over 1 trillion web pages. How many are accessible? How many in 2009? 2012?

ÆGIS Technical Presentation By Mr. Peter Korn (Sun Microsystems) Summary (2) 1st Generation Accessibility: late 1960s, 1970s, early 1980s Blind access with speech, Optacon Low vision access via special hardware Early Braille printers Talking calculators

ÆGIS Technical Presentation By Mr. Peter Korn (Sun Microsystems) Summary (3) 1 st Generation Limitations Options expensive, difficult to use (like Optacon) Computing limits restricted what users could do – only job access Only web, no online books Very few disabilities were served

ÆGIS Technical Presentation By Mr. Peter Korn (Sun Microsystems) Summary (4) 2 nd Generation Accessibility:late 1980s, 1990s, early 2000s Software TTS (Text to Speech), access to the GUI (Graphic User Interface), scripting Software magnification Voice recognition, OCR (Optical Character Recognition, etc.) WYNN, TextHelp, other LD products

ÆGIS Technical Presentation By Mr. Peter Korn (Sun Microsystems) Summary (5) 3rd Generation Accessibility: 1997 and onward Access by Contract: “Engineered Accessibility” Every UI element implements it Everything needed by all AT provided Rich, extensible, flexible, powerful

ÆGIS Technical Presentation By Mr. Peter Korn (Sun Microsystems) Summary (5) 3rd Generation Accessibility: 1997 and onward Access by Contract: “Engineered Accessibility” Every UI element implements it Everything needed by all AT provided Rich, extensible, flexible, powerful

ÆGIS Technical Presentation By Mr. Peter Korn (Sun Microsystems) Summary (6) Open Accessibility Framework “Framework” → approach to the problem Answers “what needs to be done, when, & how?” Contextualizes those answers to existing ICT environments (desktop, web, mobile) Builds upon knowledge we have today (in desktop, web) & that we build in ÆGIS As much as possible implemented open source (to aid in dissemination, affordability, etc.) Will be developed in AEGIS, proven in AEGIS

ÆGIS 1st Pan-European Workshop ‘Accessibility for All: Open Source-based Generalised Accessibility Support for Mainstream ICT Devices/Applications’ 5th June 2009, London, UK

Time: 9:10 – 9:35 EU Policies on eINCLUSION By Mr. Miguel Gonzalez-Sancho (European Commission, ICT for Inclusion, Information Society & Media Directorate General)

EU Policies on eINCLUSION By Mr. Miguel Gonzalez-Sancho Summary (1) project ended in the beginning of It was set up to support Information Society policy-making in the European Union by: initiating a Europe-wide dialogue among those working for an accessible and inclusive Information Society establishing a knowledge base that will provide a resource on key eInclusion and eAccessibility policies and practice. Against this background, the focus was on three eInclusion themes as follows: eAccessibility as a component of eInclusion eInclusion in relation to work and employment eInclusion in relation to online services. Read more from

Time: – Kick off of Open Accessibility Everywhere Group (OAEG) By Dr. Evangelos Bekiaris (CERTH-HIT) Summary (1) What is OAEG? “OAEG” stands for Open Accessibility Everywhere Group. It is a web ‐ based attempt of our project to communicate and exchange views with you. On which issues? Everything that deals with Open Source Accessibility and beyond worldwide…

Time: – Kick off of Open Accessibility Everywhere Group (OAEG) By Dr. Evangelos Bekiaris (CERTH-HIT) Summary (2) Mission Statement The Open Accessibility Everywhere Group (OAEG) is a coordinated effort of the AEGIS Consortium, which aims to bring together all open source accessibility communities, as well as the techniques and approaches they use. Thus, the OAEG anticipates to be “the community of the communities” in the open accessibility world.