[Reader-list] CIS Workshop on Web Accessibility

[taraprakash]

Thanks Pranesh for this list of the trainers. I know half of them and they 
have lot of knowledge and experience of accessibility related issues, 
arising out of visual disability. I think that addresses my concern. But as 
I said in my previous mail on this thread, it is always useful for the 
target audience if you could define in what sense you are using the term 
"disability". Gora and many others will take it to mean accessibility based 
on language. There can be other issues like gender, social and economic 
status etc that make web not accessible to many.

Thanks
TaraPrakash
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Pranesh Prakash" <pranesh at cis-india.org>
To: "Gora Mohanty" <gora at sarai.net>
Cc: "indiaegov" <indiaegov at yahoo.com>; "ICT for Development Community" 
<se-ictd at solutionexchange-un.net.in>; "Reader List" <reader-list at sarai.net>; 
<india-gii at lists.cpsr.org>; <bytesforall_readers at yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Thursday, January 29, 2009 11:52 PM
Subject: Re: [Reader-list] CIS Workshop on Web Accessibility


> Dear Gora,
>
> On Thu, Jan 29, 2009 at 22:20, Gora Mohanty <gora at sarai.net> wrote:
>> On Thu, 29 Jan 2009 12:04:23 +0530
>> Pranesh Prakash <pranesh at cis-india.org> wrote:
>>
>>> Dear All,
>>> Greetings from CIS.  We are organising a "Workshop for Web Developers
>>> on Web Accessibility" in New Delhi from February 16th-18th, 2009. The
>>> workshop will have seven trainers from Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore who
>>> are experienced in web accessibility issues and WCAG 2.0. The workshop
>>> aims to bring together participants from government departments, NIC
>>> and web developers from organisations from the private sector
>> [...]
>>
>> Could you provide us with more details here? Who are these
>> trainer, what are their qualifications, etc.
>
> These are the trainers:
> * Mr. Dipendra Manocha (Developing Countries Coordinator with the
> DAISY Consortium, and President of DAISY Forum of India)
> * Mr. Prashant Ranjan Verma (Manager DU-NTPC Foundation ICT Training
> Centre, formerly head of NAB's Technology Training Center, Digital
> Library & Braille Press, and awardee of Nat'l Award for Empowerment of
> Persons with Disabilities 2007)
> * Mr. Manish Agrawal (Technology Manager, Sapient Corporation)
> * Mr. Pranav Lal (Accessibility Technology Consultant
> <http://techesoterica.wordpress.com/category/concepts/accessibility/>)
> * Mr. Krishnakant Mane (Accessibility Specialist and Free Software
> Advocate, Project Fellow of Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education
> at TIFR on the SELF portal, and Chief Resource person for the Insight
> project)
> * Ms. Anusha Kadambala (Structured Accessibility Design specialist,
> resource person for the Insight project, and the True Vision project
> in ELCOT).
> * Mr. Rahul Gonsalves (Accessibility Evangelist and Web Designer,
> <http://rahulgonsalves.com/projects/> and
> <http://www.barrierbreak.com/events-conference/techshare_presentations2008.php#track3>)
>
>> I hate to seem negative about people making at least a real
>> effort at bringing about change, but in my opinion, talk about
>> accessibility is a joke when many sites in India whether in
>> the government, or in the private sector, cannot even handle
>> basic standards, and Indian languages correctly. A poor start
>> at identifying such offenders is at
>> http://wiki.linux-delhi.org/cgi-bin/twiki/view/Main/HallOfShame
>
> I'm glad that you're skeptical.  However, much of the problems with
> web standards and web accessibility standards are actually not too
> disparate.  If open standards are properly used in the development of
> web content, then many accessibility issues will also go away.  Proper
> usage of CSS and ALT-tags, for instance, are part of both web
> standards and web accessibility standards.  Many things that are part
> of accessibility standards seem to be just plain common sense.  Well,
> there's that old cliche about how uncommon such a thing is.  Following
> web accessibility standards improves usability for people without
> disabilities too.  Older people, people with lower fluency with
> languages, people with lower bandwidth, people who are new to the web
> -- all these people also benefit greatly.  So, web standards and web
> accessibility standards aren't that very disjunct by nature.
>
>> Regards,
>> Gora
>
> Regards,
> Pranesh
> _________________________________________
> reader-list: an open discussion list on media and the city.
> Critiques & Collaborations
> To subscribe: send an email to reader-list-request at sarai.net with 
> subscribe in the subject header.
> To unsubscribe: https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-list
> List archive: &lt;https://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/>