G3ict is the Global Initiative for Inclusive ICTs

Providing Education by Bringing Learning Environments to Students (PEBBLES) is an innovative system that combines video conferencing technologies with simple robotics technology to allow a student confined to the hospital or to home to attend his or her regular school. PEBBLES places one of its units inside the classroom and its counterpart in the hospital or home of the student. The system allows the student to maintain both a connection to and a presence in his or her normal learning environment. The overarching goal of pebbles is to create a healthier and less stressful environment for a student who is hospitalized or who has a disability.

RoboBraille is an email-based translation service capable of translating documents to and from contracted Braille and to synthetic speech. The service is available free of charge to all non-commercial users. Users submit documents (e.g., text files, Word documents, HTML pages) as email attachments. The translated results are then returned to the user via email – typically within a matter of minutes. The user can send an e-mail with a document attachment to one of several e-mail accounts used to manage the translation process (e.g., eightdot@robobraille.org for eight-dot Braille translation; sixdot@robobraille.org for six-dot Braille translation). Similarly, localized versions of the e-mail accounts are used to control the language-specific translations, as well as the language of any response sent back to the user. As an example, mail to ottepunkt@robobraille.org will result in Danish eight-dot Braille translation and a user response in Danish, whereas mail to sixdot@robobraille.org will result in English six-dot Braille translation and a user response in English. Additionally, RoboBraille can change text to speech through a similar process which turns a document into an MPE audio file. Users can control the speech rate by inserting plusses or minuses into the subject line of their e-mails, anywhere along the spectrum in which three minuses (---) result in the slowest speech rate and three plusses (+++) result in the fastest speech rate.

Sightsavers International, a NGO based in the UK, is working with the Dolphin Company to provide visually impaired students and individuals in Africa equal access and independence in computer use. The new Sightsavers Dolphin Pen is a small piece of technology providing users with the freedom and flexibility to use any computer without the hassles of finding special software or having to depend on assistance. The product is simple: a pen drive preloaded with a formatted screen reader and magnification software, allowing the user to carry his or her enabling software with him or her for use on any computer.

Partnering with Sightsavers, Dolphin is providing Sightsavers Dolphin Pens to schools all over Africa so that visually impaired students can be educated side-by-side fully-sighted children. Whereas previously there would be approximately one computer for every 30 visually impaired students (drastically slowing their education), now students can use their screen reading software on all computers, giving them equal access to education. In a country plagued by a 45% unemployment rate, giving visually impaired students the ability to learn at the same rate as sighted children secures their prospects, as they enter the job market as adults.

The Royal National Institute for the Blind in the United Kingdom has launched an accessibility resource website concerning the accessibility issues related to software. While most websites devoted to accessibility issues concern the accessibility of online data and websites, this initiative provides information, advice, and guidelines for software developers to design software programs that meet the accessibility guidelines being set in the UK.

The “Software Access Center” provides examples of best practices among software designs, as well as advice on how to easily make the program accessible. Furthermore, information on laws, standards, testing, and evaluation are posted in order to give developers a better understanding of the necessities and expectations for software accessibility. The Royal National Institute for the Blind also provides a list of five key recommendations to help observe first-hand how disabled users will interact with the program.

“Talking Tins” is a recent project of Talking Products Ltd., which specializes in devices for the visually impaired. Talking Tins helps blind persons or those with cognitive disabilities to determine the contents of canned food, as well as identify other household containers, such as bottles, sprays, and storage containers. The product comes in the form of a magnetic cap that sits on top of any sized tin. The cap allows a person to record a short voice message up to ten seconds, which can then be played back at any time with the touch of a button. It can also be strapped onto other containers. The Talking Tin is reusable, as the voice messages are re-recordable.

The National Accessibility Portal (NAP) in South Africa is a five-year initiative aimed at increasing the inclusion of persons with disabilities into mainstream society. The NAP will be a one-stop resource where individuals with a diverse array of disabilities, as well as their caregivers and medical professionals, can seek relevant information, services, and communication specifically focused on the South African community of persons with disabilities.

The NAP provides disability-related information in all South African languages, including information about legislation, available jobs, the use of special equipment, accessibility advice, sports and cultural events, health and rehabilitation issues, medical services and advice, international links, etc. The NAP website provides free online training both on disability products and in the use of ICTs in the workplace. The initiative is also working on the development of new technology solutions to enable persons with disabilities to overcome specific interaction challenges. In addition, the NAP is dedicated to finding statistics related to disabilities and making them available to the government and to the general public, thus enabling new forms of government services, such as improved logistics and the provision of transport to persons with disabilities.

The project’s aim is to help government and society overcome the notion that persons with disabilities have no option but to be dependent on welfare. Instead, with the help of enabling ICTs, persons with disabilities can become active and productive members of society.