[laptop-accessibility] Accessbility and IBM

[Hemant Goyal]

Hi Harrie,

Adding Peter Korn, Accessibility Expert at Sun Microsystems, on CC and Eben
Eliason, Lead UI, OLPC.

I think it is definitely worth it to explore all possibilities and options
that we have for improving the accessibility of the laptop. However at this
stage I think what is required is a focus on elaborating requirements of the
laptop from the accessibility point of view. For this, we will have to
involve many experts and get their views on how (existing) accessibility
tools can be adapted for the Sugar environment.

So I think, our line of action should be first to elicit all our
requirements for accessibility in a structured manner for the OLPC and then
move forward by looking for solutions that can be used to implement what we
need.

I am also CCing this to the accessibility list, to initiate some kind of
discussion that can help start off this process of listing some definitive
(both short and long term) goals wrt accessibility.

Best,
Hemant

On Sun, Mar 23, 2008 at 12:23 PM, Harrie V. <harrievo at chello.nl> wrote:
> > Hi guys,
> >
> > I recently talked to IBM and one of the subjects they are working on is
> > accessibility for elderly people, disabled and visual impaired people.
> > Because of their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) statement they
> pay a
> > lot of attention to this subject here in the Netherlands, but I noticed
> also
> > in other countries:
> > http://www.ibm.com/ibm/ibmgives/grant/helping/seniornet.shtml E.g. they
> work
> > together with the National Center for Learning Disabilities in NY.
> >
> > What I downloaded from the IBM website is a screen magnifier only
> focusing
> > on web-browsing. But it seems there are also other possibilities to work
> on
> > this subject together with IBM.  The Dutch CSR director of IBM  told me
> they
> > can deliver hard-/software, expertise and grants in exchange for an
> > evaluation report and knowledge. I asked  if they are also willing to
> spend
> > time on Orca on Sugar etc. No response yet. Wouldn't it be an idea to
> see if
> > we can use the expertise of IBM to speed up the process and combine the
> > efforts we do?
> >
> > For me it's hard to determine from here the value of their solution,
> their
> > expertise and the possibilities of combining these two because I noticed
> > most of the work is done in the US and the communication line between
> IBM
> > The Netherlands and IBM US is long….
> >
> > But I'm very curious what your opinion is. Is this a way we need to
> explore
> > further or not?
>
> Hi Harrie,
>
> I certainly think that much more should be happening in OLPC related
> to accessibility and everybody is welcome to join and use OLPC as a
> mean for improving access to education regardless of any disability.
> You will find more people with the same interest in the accessibility
> mailing list.
>
> Myself will try to answer any technical questions about Sugar in the
> corresponding ml.
>
> Good luck,
>
> Tomeu
>
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