Webinar Series

The DARE Academy Webinar Series is G3ict's initiative dedicated to contributing to the documentation process of countries’ policies and best practices for ensuring the availability of a reliable and comprehensive source of educational references and awareness raising tools in the arena of digital accessibility and inclusive ICTs.

We value your opinion! We invite interested persons to complete a short questionnaire to help us gather input and ensure that the webinar series meets expectations and responds to interests regarding issues of digital inclusion. Take the survey today and help shape the DARE Academy Webinar Series.

Background

Extensive research conducted by G3ict in partnership with Organizations of Persons with Disabilities and advocates in 137 countries shows that, while States Parties to the Convention on the Right of Persons with Disabilities are committed to implementing its dispositions on digital accessibility and assistive technologies, gaps remain in their legislative and regulatory frameworks and capacity to implement. As a result, global progress in making digital products, contents, and services accessible and available to Persons with Disabilities, including web sites and virtual platforms, is severely lagging. This impacts their equal access to education, employment, daily transactions, and citizen services despite the availability of proven solutions for most digital products, contents, and services implemented in various parts of the world.

Objectives

The objective of the DARE Academy is to foster an open peer-to-peer sharing of effective policies and practices enriched by a dialogue among stakeholders including representatives of Organizations of Persons with Disabilities, policy makers and the private sector. In addition, this series of webinars will be dedicated to contributing to the documentation process of countries’ best practices for ensuring the availability of a reliable and comprehensive source of educational references and awareness raising tools in the arena of digital accessibility and inclusive ICTs.

Who should enroll?

Leaders of Organizations of Persons with Disabilities, legislators, regulators, policy makers, academics or experts acting as advisors in matters of accessibility policy and implementation, private sector participants involved in the delivery of digital products, contents, or services.

Methodology and delivery

Based on the results of the DARE Index, and for each of the 20 variables monitored by G3ict, relevant stakeholders from countries with proven track record of good implementation in a specific area are asked to share their experience with others. Program is delivered in the form of 12 monthly webinars in English with live captioning. Each webinar registrant gets access to a folder with presentations, references and supporting documentation.

Program

Webinar 1: CRPD Digital Accessibility Country Commitments. Essential legislative and regulatory dispositions and frameworks.
Webinar 2: Country Capacity to Implement. Essential success factors for countries to deploy policies and programs effectively.
Webinar 3: Television and video programming. Accessibility policies and their implementation for television and video programming, captioning, sign language, audio description, television equipment and programs, remote controls.
Webinar 4: Web accessibility. International standards, government policies for public web sites, support, incentives, and regulations for private sector web sites. Legal implications of nonconformance, jurisprudence.
Webinar 5: Digital accessibility in Education. Demographics of students with disabilities, policies for assessment and access to assistive solutions, training of faculty and administrators, IT products and application development accessibility standards, procurement guidelines.
Webinar 6: e-Books. Standards, distribution mechanisms and copyrights management under Marrakech Treaty, legislative implementation, logistics and trusted intermediaries.
Webinar 7: Digital accessibility for Employment. Implementing policies to promote solutions for most prevalent barriers. Reasonable accommodation for digital work environments.
Webinar 8: e-Government and Smart Cities. e-Government accessibility for Persons with Disabilities at national and local levels; solutions adopted for web sites, public databases, electronic documents, participation processes including voting.
Webinar 9: Digital accessibility and assistive solutions for Independent Living. Innovative approaches for government support of assistive technologies and the development of effective support eco-systems.
Webinar 10: Promotion of Internet usage by Persons with Disabilities. Implementation of programs to promote the availability, affordability and accessibility of Internet services and user devices and relevant apps and services for Persons with Disabilities.
Webinar 11: Leveraging mobile technology and services for Persons with Disabilities. Benefits of mobile technologies, applications, and services for Persons with Disabilities; supporting policies and programs.
Webinar 12: Public Procurement. Rationale, good practices, standards for the inclusion of accessibility as compulsory criteria for the public procurement of IT products and services.

For any questions or further clarifications, please email us at dareacademy@g3ict.org