Summary of presentation

• Through the WSIS process, disability community around the world could reach a common view on potential digital opportunities for disaster preparedness of persons with disabilities and other vulnerable people in the society.
• This paper firstly deals with the initiatives contributed to WSIS to raise awareness on current digital divide of persons with disabilities and to encourage development of assistive technology and universal design concept.
• Secondly, Indian Ocean Tsunami Disasters in 2005 is discussed from knowledge and information perspectives.
• Thirdly, requirements for successful Tsunami evacuation planning and training learned from on-site research in Urakawa, Hokkaido, Japan.
• The paper concludes that the Tsunami disaster is preventable and manageable as long as human lives is concerned. All that we need is commitment of everybody to share knowledge, timely information, evacuation scenario and collaborative actions.