The 15th session of the Conference of States Parties to the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) will take place June 14-16, 2022, at the United Nations Headquarters in New York. This year’s over-arching theme is “Building disability-inclusive and participatory societies in the COVID context and beyond.”
As part of this online conference, “Scaling Up the Availability of and Access to Assistive Technology Software” will be offered on Thursday, June 16, from 11:30 AM to 12:45 PM Eastern time. This event will explore examples of large organizations supportive of persons who have reading disabilities. They successfully scale up free distribution, maintenance, training, and support of screen readers with a national or organization-wide license, ensuring the technology is available to all who need it. Although text-to-speech applications are often integrated into computer operating systems and mobile devices, completing personal, educational, or work tasks in software such as Microsoft Office or web-based applications requires advanced screen reader technology.
This session is a side event sponsored by G3ict, which stands for the Global Initiative for Inclusive Information and Communication Technologies. This initiative was launched in December 2006 by the United Nations (UN) Global Alliance for Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) and Development—in collaboration with the Secretariat for the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities at the UN Department of Economics and Social Affairs (DESA). G3ict promotes initiatives that improve education and employment opportunities through access to inclusive technologies.
Register for this side event and join panelists for a comprehensive discussion of these initiatives. Panelists include Matt Ater, Vice President, Corporate Business Development, Vispero; Trevor Prevatt, Director, Stakeholder Engagement, Caribbean Telecommunications Union (CTU); Carmen Millán, Director, Centre of Assistive Technology and Innovation (CTI), ONCE (National Organization of Spanish blind people); and Tania Athanasia Kalaitzidis, Manager, Media Accessibility Project, CUNY Assistive Technology Services, City University of New York Live. Captioning and Spanish interpretation will be provided.