国連世界情報社会サミット(World Summit on the Information Society : WSIS)

“Ubiquitous Network”: the matter of means and end
An opening statement on behalf of the civil society

Monthian Buntan
President, Thailand Association of the Blind

Excellencies, distinguished guests and all participants of this historic event:

It is such a great honor for me to be given the opportunity to deliver the openingstatement of this thematic conference on ubiquitous network, not only on behalf of my 600,000,000 brothers and sisters with disabilities around the world most of whom have been living in isolation and severe poverty in all aspects of life, but also for the entire civil society representing the whole spectrum of differences and diversity, interms of problems, needs, requirements and interests. I hope that this voice, which comes from the poorest of the poor groups of people, will echo the loudest and most powerful united force for inclusive, universally-accessible, partnership and rightsbased information society for all.

When we think, with our common vision and commitment, of the 21st century as the century of inclusive information society, it should not be beyond our imagination to design, create and nerture the information society in which we can all live with dignity, equality, security and solidarity. It should not be beyond our imagination and intelligence to broaden our heart and soul to embrace our entire human race beyond just physical broadband connections. It should not be beyond our imagination, intelligence and capacity to start sharing, rather than just competing for, technological achievement alone when the majority of people in the world are still suffering from hunger and poverty (including information poverty), all forms of human rights violation and unjust discrimination, on and off line crimes and violence against women, children, indigenous people, persons with disabilities and other disadvantaged groups, who are often marginalized, practices of slave labor and growing digital divide and digital exclusion. It should not also be beyond our imagination, intelligence, capacity and guts to strive for and achieve the information society with harmony between freedom of expression and stability/security, publicaccessibility rights and intellectual property rights of content creator, sophisticated technological advancement and the right to sustainable development for all.

Let us take the spirit of this conference to help Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger. Let us build the ubiquitous network which will, at least, help us achieve universal primary education for all. Let us ensure that such network, as a core part of information society, will promote gender equality and empower women. Let us make hard effort to create the information society which will be strong and healthy enough to Reduce child mortality,Improve maternal health and combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases. And let us, individually and collectively, make all attempts to achieve our information society which will ensure environmental sustainability and improve a global partnership for development.

We, in the civil society, believe that ubiquitous network, as the new dimention of communication in the inclusive information society, must embrace the concept of universality in broadest aspects of life if it were to become reality. Ubiquitous network must respect and accommodate diversity of needs, problems and requirements. Ubiquitous network must ensure full and equal participation of all stakeholders, especially civil society which is traditionally prevented from being part of the active decision-making mechanism, through open, participatory, transparent and democratic process. Ubiquitous network will not succeed if it fails to protect and promote human rights and fundamental freedoms for all. And most importantly, ubiquitous network must move beyond conventional concept and even beyond what many of us can imagine so as to cover all dimentions, including but not limited to geographical, economic, social, political, cultural, linguistic physical, sensory and cognitive aspects.

In conclusion, I would like to bring to the attention of this historic conference that all of us within the civil society believe that we have a lot to contribute to this process of building ubiquitous network. To The goal of having ubiquitous network is too common for all of us to exclude any one as we have no one to waiste. In order to achieve such goal, disability communities and our supporters around the world have offered Universal Design principle and assistive technologies as one mechanism, and I believe communities within the civil society, governments, private bodies and international organizations are capable and willing to contribute to this process to bring our hopes and dreams into reality in the information society where no one will be left behind. Finally, I thank the organizers and all for making this conference happen for giving us this opportunity to communicate the voices and wishes of the people, from bottom up, the voices and wishes, which I believe, will be heard.

As part of the civil society, disability communities believe that ubiquitous network can only be achieved by genuinely following the concept of universality in all stages of development, particularly designing stage. We believe that our proposed concept of “universal design” and the use of “assistive technologies” cannot be excluded from ubiquitous network.