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Kicki Nordstrom
World blind Union(WBU)
http://www.v2020.org/members/wbu.asp

Thanks for giving me the opportunity to address the subject on the need of Universal design for persons with disabilities in the ICT world.

There are at least 600 Million persons with disabilities in the world and we have the same needs and desires as everybody else.

We believe that the Internet's value is created to serve all people in the world. The Internet is global and persons with disabilities are part of that global system. Unfortunately we are left aside due to lack of unified standards and design.

Lack of a unified standard system for ICT's has lead to the development of applications and adaptation programs which are expensive and insufficient to meet the immediate needs for persons with disabilities.

It is not acceptable in the long run that we go on and design separate ICT's in a way which creates a need for separate applications and adaptation for use by persons with disabilities separately.

The ISO, International Standardization Organization, has, for some years now, worked on a Universal Design concept in order to find solutions for a usable standard for all persons, without a need for extra adaptations or applications for most of us.

However, I will strongly state that universal design will solve many problems for many persons with disabilities in the ICT world, but universal design can not solve all needs which is required by small groups of PWD.

However, applications, such as the screen reading program I use to operate my computer, is double or three times as expensive as my laptop. Now it is only Persons with disabilities who are required to pay this extra high cost, not anyone else.

This program could easily be built in as a standard in every software offered in the market and be used by everyone. I am sure that many more than blind people would appreciate it, like children who can not read properly yet , people in developing countries who have not been fully trained in reading or writing, and elderly who need to get an extra check of what have been typed, for instance.

It is in this forum that governments must commit themselves to adopt and support the Universal design concept and It is the responsibility for governments and the producers of ICT to commit themselves to make sure that all commercial soft ware are designed in a way that it does not raise new barriers for the users.

The Global Disability Forum asks the governments to express their firm commitment in the final Tunis document and to secure our full and equal participation by reaffirming that "ICT should be appropriate, accessible and affordable for all and applied to the universal designed concept".

Kicki Nordström