A Different Perspective
2005.10.26
It’s been almost a month since WE05, and this post is almost too late.
Doug Bowman speaking (Presentation slides | Podcast):
…I really want to talk about the future of accessibility, and I think there are some questions in your mind right now like, “what’s he going to say about accessibility?” because I really don’t want to talk about what other people are going to talk about in terms of accessibility. I want to talk about accessibility from another perspective, from more of the world perspective.
I think if we truly believe that accessibility, if we truly believe that the axiom is “access for all”, then there’s a large group of people we’ve been ignoring; one that far outnumbers any one of us who might have a disability, the total number of people that might be blind in the world, and it’s the people who are poor and disadvantaged. How do we bring the web to people like that? Can we bring the web to people like that? Do they not have the right to access the web in the same way we have the right to access it? And that brings up all kinds of complicating questions, and the fact that someone in Somalia couldn’t even afford a mouse and the mouse pad that it sits on let alone an entire computer system or a device that could connect to the web and would they respect the whole computer lab system.
It brings up all kinds of interesting challenges but, if we just look at some statistics of people in developing nations, specifically children, and it’s this one right here that I want to focus on: 300 million children, no access to information what so ever. Can we imagine what life would be like if this boy right here had a blog? What would he say? What would we be able to learn from it? What would he be able to benefit by having a blog? Could he benefit by connecting to children in his own country, in his own village that he might not see all the time, in the world? Could children like this learn to take advantage of their own resources in their own country to make their country a better place? It’s an interesting question; I don’t have the answers but it’s something that we really want to start thinking about.
What an eye opener.
And so is this project. I think that boy in Somalia could make a whole lot of difference if he has the opportunity.
2 Comments
Comments Feed
Mat
October 26th, 2005 at 8:46 am
You haven’t posted in over a monts and now you think you can get away with doodling a couple of sentences?
But seriously, it’s a very relevant issue. Not only would it be of their (developing nations) benefit to have this technology more widely available, but it would surely offer others greater insight into their unique situations.
Prabhath
October 26th, 2005 at 5:53 pm
Oops. Guess I didn’t fool anyone :D There was also a problem with the Nidahas feed, and recently we changed hosts. Hopefully we’ll be able to keep things fresh now onwards.
While it’s difficult for us to answer the problem at large, it’s always refreshing, and indeed, inspiring to see how small communities of determined people work towards reaching their goals. I admire the spirit of those kids of the Horizon Village.