Recap of International Day of Persons with Disabilities 2012

Greetings on the auspicious occasion of International Day of Persons with Disabilities. Hope you have read my earlier post asking plans to celebrate International Day of Persons with Disabilities and today, I’ll be writing what I have done and some of the events I have noticed.

I am quite happy that lot has been celebrated today that reflect the them for this year Removing barriers to create an inclusive and accessible society for all. To recap:

Hoenstly, I couldn’t plan much at my work as we are planning an event for January to create awareness about disability and accessibility; however, I have sent out a communication explaining about the day and encouraged them to do following activities:

Activity 1:
Let’s use eBay and PayPal without using mouse for half-an-hour.

  1. Go to http://ebay.in or http://ebay.com
  2. Choose a category of your choice and select product
  3. Attempt to use payment options (You don’t really have to buy, you can stop activity at the payment option page)

Activity 2:
You can attempt to use any of your favorite sites like Cleartrip.com redbus.in Incomstaxindia.gov.in without mouse and share your experience.

Tip: Tab key will take you from one element to another element

Activity 3:
Are you a iPhone / iPad / iPod user? Go to Settings -> General -> Accessibility and turn on VoiceOver; Now go to your email / Messages – try and compose.
Tip: Single tap will announce the item you touch and double tap will activate!

Wow, received some amazing experiences especially using the iPhone and iPad with VoiceOver:-)

Post noon, I have participated in the panel discussion organized by Diversity and Inclusion team of HCL Technologies and NASSCOM Foundation – Thank you all for inviting me and it was truly a great initiative (Thanks Srimathi, Chitra, Tad and Raji for all the effort). During the discussion, we have learned about the initiatives run by Wadhwani Foundation, V-Shesh – a company that is striving towards inclusive employment (Nice to meet you Raja!), the amazing work being done by Kalasalingam University – perhaps the first university to offer integrated B-Tech program; Thank you Dr. Kaniappan for joining on the call despite of the busy schedule both at work and personal front; indeed it was a pleasure listening to you and then our good friend Rama Chari of DEOC spoke about the policies and focused on Article 27 – Work and Employment of UNCRPD (Thank you Rama) and then I had a great pleasure of speaking about best practices to offer inclusive environment on the job. Thank you guys for such a wonderful opportunity and thank you all the participants those attended. Please stay tuned for its recording.

Other events I have noticed:

I’m sure, there must be several events going on across the globe and sincere appreciation to everyone and I am glad to be part of the accessibility industry that impacts a lot to the society.

Good luck,

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