The UK Government co-hosted the first ever Global Disability Summit with the International Disability Alliance and the Government of Kenya in London on 24 July, 2018. Innovation Policy Specialist of UNDP Mr. Benjamin Kumpf wrote an article on the key messages on the Global Disability Summit, titled “Agency, ability, access: Co-designing for inclusion”.
Mr. Benjamin Kumpf wrote, “In recent years, UNDP has complemented its work for and with people with disabilities by embracing technology and inclusive design.
Emerging technologies, from mobile phones to self-driving cars, have great potential to advance inclusivity and access in our societies. To unfold this potential, however, the front and back end components of technologies need to be designed inclusively.
In Bangladesh, UNDP, the access2information lab and the organization ‘Young Power in Social Action’ joined forces to design DAISY- accessible reading materials. DAISY are open source books, designed to make education accessible to students who are blind, partially sighted, or have low vision from class 1 to 10. These multimedia books were designed with the users of this technology at the helm. An impact study has shown improvement in school results, with over 55 percent success rate. The open source technology allows easy reproduction of the full-text and full-audio multimedia books, Braille books, accessible e-books and other materials.”
Read the full article here https://medium.com/@UNDP/agency-ability-access-co-designing-for-inclusion-ad2cb2fc98ed
It is worthy to mention here that Multimedia Talking Book project was one out of six disability related projects by YPSA and Access to Information Program (a2i), Information and Communication Technology Division (ICT), Bangladesh.
