SV: [governance] Main sessions @ IGF

[Norbert Bollow]

Kicki Nordström <kino at iris.se> wrote:

> I agree on this, but need to add that 650 Millions of Persons with
> disabilities also belong to the target group  of need of ICT!

Yes.  I'm not sure how much awareness of this point there was when
the theme "Internet Governance for Development" was chosen for the
IGF, but I'd strongly advocate to interpret the IGF's theme so that
it involves everything that can reasonably be done to bridge all
kinds of digital divides, as well as preventing the creation of new
digital divides (e.g. if it should happen that DRM systems become an
integral component of office software, and text documents of business
correspondence are often DRM-"protected", that'd create huge problems
for persons with visual disabilities.)

That said, I think the biggest threat to the success of the IGF isn't
the risk of important concerns being overlooked.  I've been getting
the impression that there's a much greater risk in that the IGF could
become co-opted into allowing most of the attention to go to pursuing
various kinds of internet governance discussions without paying any
real attention to the IGF's stated theme.

If the IGF doesn't go significantly beyond merely paying lip-service
to the needs of people with disabilities, people in developing
countries, etc, I will consider the IGF a dismal failure no matter
how pleasant an experience the conference might otherwise be.


David Goldstein <goldstein_david at yahoo.com.au> replied to Kicki

> Thanks for raising the issue Kicki, as it's a very important one,
> and a very ignored one.

At least there's a worshop abou this topic (organized by W3C):

"Equal Access on the Web" (11:30-13:00 on Wednesday, Workshop Room III)
http://info.intgovforum.org/yoppy.php?poj=69

Greetings,
Norbert.


-- 
Norbert Bollow <nb at bollow.ch>                       http://Norbert.ch
President of the Swiss Internet User Group SIUG        http://SIUG.ch
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