Joyojeet Pal
ABSTRACT
In recent years, ICTD (Information Communications Technology and Development) has grown in significance as an area of engineering research that has focused on low-cost appropriate technologies for the needs of a developing world largely underserved by the dominant modes of technology design. Assistive Technologies (AT) used by people with disabilities facilitate greater equity in the social and economic public sphere. However, by and large such technologies are designed in the industrialized world, for people living in those countries. This is especially true in the case of AT for people with vision impairments -- market-prevalent technologies are both very expensive and are built to support the language and infrastructure typical in the industrialized world. While the community of researchers in the Web Accessibility space have made significant strides, the operational concerns of networks in the developing world, as well as challenges in support for new languages and contexts raises a new set of challenges for technologists in this space. We discuss the state of various technologies in the context of the developing world and propose directions in scientific and community-contributed efforts to increase the relevance and access to AT and accessibility in the developing world.
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Index Terms
- Assistive technology for vision-impairments: anagenda for the ICTD community
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