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Text of World Telecommunication and Information Society Day Award Acceptance Speech

Hiroshi Kawamura, President of the DAISY Consortium
15 May 2008 in Cairo, Egypt

The International Telecommunications Union (ITU), the leading United Nations agency for information and communication technology issues, awarded its World Telecommunications and Information Society Award 2008 to the DAISY Consortium at a ceremony in Cairo, Egypt, the site of ITU TELECOM AFRICA.

The DAISY Consortium was selected for its ongoing efforts to implement the principles of the World Summit on the Information Society.

Since the conclusion of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in November 2005, the World Day has been marked by a high-profile ceremony that includes the presentation of the ITU World Telecommunication and Information Society Award to distinguished laureates for their contribution towards building an inclusive and more equitable Information Society.

This year, the awards focus on eminent personalities for their work in providing ICT opportunities for persons with disabilities, the theme of the celebrations for 2008. Also receiving honors today were Mrs. Suzanne Mubarak, Egypt's first Lady, President and Founder of the Suzanne Mubarak Women's International Peace Movement and Andrea Saks, coordinator of the Internet Governance Forum's Dynamic Coalition on Accessibility and Disability.
Video of the Ceremony is available http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=zERQTS4N0pk
Text of World Telecommunication and Information Society Day Award Acceptance Speech delivered by Hiroshi Kawamura, President of the DAISY Consortium on 15 May 2008 in Cairo, Egypt.

Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen.

It is a great honor for the DAISY Consortium to receive the prestigious award, in particular, at this occasion when ITU has chosen the theme for this year, "Connecting People with Disabilities". That is what we have been seeking from the starting point of the World Summit on the Information Society process.

Probably you are curious about what is DAISY. DAISY is not a name of a flower. It is, in this context, abbreviation of Digital Accessible Information System which allows equal opportunities for access to information of print disabled people as well as people at large. DAISY is not a hardware product or software product. DAISY is a set of knowledge to make publication accessible for everybody, which is called standard.

DAISY Consortium is responsible for development of a standard which will enable people with print disabilities and other community members, for the first time, access to information at the same time without any extra cost or time. We have just finalized a week long workshop in Johannesburg for DAISY production for 27 trainees from all over South Africa. Among 27 trainees, we had 6 blind trainees, 2 quadriplegic trainees, 1 deaf trainee and representatives from autism community, mental health community, and dyslexic community and participants from special schools for students with multiple disabilities. Why we had such variety of participant for week long training. It is an enormous investment to attend a full week very intensive training of production of accessible multi media.This fact illustrates what is really necessary to move forward to realize the dream of DAISY. People who attended were very happy when they have achieved to produce fully accessible multimedia contents of HIV/AIDS training manual originally published by the Disabled People South Africa. This training course was organized by the DAISY Consortium generously funded by the Nippon Foundation and Swedish SIDA.

The World Summit on the Information Society Plan of Action has beautiful synergy with the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. As ITU Secretary General told us, in the article 2 of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, there is very precise definition of "reasonable accommodation" as well as "universal design to be associated with assistive technologies". Universal design concept must be ever first introduced to UN Summit by the World Summit on the Information Society in Geneva and Tunis. Assistive technologies have been developed in many ways, but combination of those two concepts may really implement the dream of promoting full participation of people with disabilities in all aspects of social activities, in particular, in education, training and employment, with sharing knowledge and information at the same time.

DAISY has been striving for meeting the special requirements of people who are unable to read printed publications. As we have seen Mr. Diamante have manipulated beautifully equipments by his limited mobility that can be done. DAISY is going to provide him with a whole range of library materials to read. That is one of our objectives. We are going to build a library network across the world which will be shared by people with all types of disabilities as well as people who are living with minority languages in the society, who are living with indigenous language without any written script but with rich culture and people who are illiterate. Those are target groups of DAISY Consortium and we have been collaborating with them by extending our reach to run trainings seminars and meetings in developing countries. I wish we are going to realize our dream to see Daisy everywhere for everybody at anytime regardless of region of the world and disabled or non-disabled.

In conclusion, I would like to call upon a joint action of governments, industry and civil society. Government documents need to be published in accessible format. It will be done if a government has decided to do so. DAISY Consortium is ready to provide necessary standards and base-line software tools that are free of charge and open sourced. Industry may collaborate with us. For example, the Microsoft is beautifully collaborating with DAISY Consortium. We have just jointly announced an add-on tool for Microsoft Word to translate into DAISY with one click. This is an open source softer tool called "Save as DAISY Translator". By development of this softer tool, your original document created by the Microsoft Word will become DAISY contents by a clicking; one click to "Save as Daisy". This opens up a great opportunity for everybody to provide print disabled people with accessible contents. Of course civil society has a lot to do in order to implement DAISY everywhere. DAISY Consortium is very happy to collaborate with all those sectors. We have just stepped forward a few steps. I take this prestigious award as an encouragement for further development on our work to realize our dream.

Thank you very much.

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