>> Good afternoon. A very warm welcome to everybody. My name is Swaran Ravindra. With me, I have Ms. Gunela. So we're going to chair the Internet Societies accessibility standing group. And I'm also very privileged to be part of the leadership with accessibility standing group.
I will work in academic at Fiji facial university. So we really -- we are quite privileged to be here, to be talking to our esteemed panelist today.
Just before I go on to our topics, I would like to request Gunela if she could very quickly introduce our esteemed panelist today.
>> Good afternoon, everyone. I'm Gunela Astbrink, chair of Internet Society accessibility standing group. And I'm delighted we've got this opportunity to present this important topic today about inclusion of persons with disabilities in the ICT job sector because it's something that there's a great need, and we will explore in this session about how we can make changes, how we can have all persons with disabilities become active as employees within the job sector.
I'm delighted with the speakers we have. We have on the list here in front Silva Cadena who is with the APNIC Foundation manager. And Silva's been working with the APNIC foundation for many years. And also the ISCEF foundation in working on expanding the opportunities in network operations, et cetera, in the region.
Then we are very pleased to have Philip Smith who -- Philpi Smith who is the chair of APRICOT. So APRICOT is technology oriented.
And then Georgina Naigulevu -- Naigulevu. And she can't be with us in person but is participating remotely. She has a company called Tetra Tech on digital and health information and she's based in Fiji.
Ma unique Gunaratne is with the employer federation of Ceylon. So we're looking forward with their expertise in the panel. This is going to be a very interactive panel and that's what we're looking for, sharing ideas and how we can make a difference for employments for persons with disabilities.
>> Thank you, Gunela. So as Gunela already mentioned, this is going to be an interactive session. We want you to speak to us. We want us to engage in meaningful conversation. So please feel free to you know raise your voice on any issue that you would like to put into the topics of course. We do not have any PowerPoints today perhaps that's good news.
So we are sticking to just meaningful conversation, okay?
So let me tell you a little bit about initially our proposal. So session 4, inclusion of persons with disabilities in the ICT job sector. So with more people actively participating in the digital economy, it is vital to acknowledge the fact that persons with disabilities still face a number of disparities in the digital spaces with -- which greatly inhibit their ability to practice their digital rights.
A people centric Internet is where people from all parts of the community, including persons with disabilities, can be actively engaged. This means not only safely, using accessible Internet but also being successfully being employed in the sector. This session fashions on how we as a community can work together to create an accessible environment to train and employ more tech people with disabilities. In a nutshell what we're trying to say here is being in the ICT sector, being in the cakes landscape as well, we see there's a huge disparity between tech jobs available, even the gaps in the tech jobs, right, the tech job sector and the population density of persons with disabilities.
So we here today to just -- getting engaged in meaningful dialogue which will perhaps be able to yield some solutions together. So a very warm welcome to everybody who has joined us online. Hi, Gina, it's good to see you.
So without further ado, let's go to our first topic of discussion. What are some of the gaps between the current ICT job market versus the population density of persons with disabilities? Secondly, how do we think this can be improved?
>> Yes. The gaps, because in the ICT sector, when it's come to employment, there are very big gaps. One, the main reason is persons with disabilities in most of the countries they come from the very grass root level. So their education level is low because they don't have facilities for education. And therefore due to lack of education, no vocation or training and therefore employment is very low. So why these IT-related jobs and there is a gap because the divide that person persons with disabilities use -- devices that persons with disabilities use is high cost. So most of the persons with disabilities cannot afford these disability, especially in IT-relateded devices is because, for example, for an hearing impaired person, for a sighted perp, all of you can get a piece of paper and pen and write something wherever you are. You can do it. But for a vision impaired person, he or she cannot do that. It has been to in technology, either a smartphone or laptop.
So these devices, the screen readers and other devices not for vision impaired person, low vision, and hearing impaired and people have difficulty with finger movement as well who cannot type, the software and the assistive devices are of high cost.
And also in most of the developing countries, the education is not targeted on devices and on technology. So therefore, when people with disabilities are not trained in technology, then when they go for employment, it's very difficult for them and it's very difficult to find employment.
On the other hand, employer are also not sensitized. Whatsoever a job a person with a disability can do. And persons with disabilities have to develop their skills according the job report. Because in companies, there are specific job roles that you have to play. Though the skills of persons with disabilities should match. Proper job match is very important. So the companies, the awareness among companies is very important because sometimes they think -- the employer think it's very high cost to recruit a person with a disability. No, it is not. Most of these people with disabilities, especially with hearing impaired person, they already have their screen reared software. The employer, what they should do is the platforms and all those platforms and the systems they have, they should make accessible for people with disability.
It's a working environment that should be accessible, especially there should be inclusive workplace. When the workplace is inclusive, persons with disabilities will not have any difficulty in finding employment and doing the job without any difficulty. But there should be proper devices, software, and it should be accessible. If the company system or the computer system is not accessible, a persons with disabilities, especially a vision impaired person, cannot access the system or do not workload. So it's persons with disabilities have to develop their skills and on the other hand employer should be sensitivityize to make this system accessible for persons with disabilities.
>> Thank you.
I can see Gina smiling away because I remember we having this form of conversation so many times, Gina, about the fact that it's certainly a huge disparity between the technical jobs in the market and the persons with disabilities when not actually able to get ahold of those jobs. So we have definitely spoken about this many times, even in the Pacific front.
Philip, would you like to say something?
>>, I mean, it's -- I think your initial comment about there being a gap between the two sides, I don't even see there's a gap. It's a massive chasm. I think through my 25, 30 years of working in this now, it's -- I'm trying to think through the opportunities for people with whatever disability they have. I can barely think of anybody in my career that I've met. And I think many of point of that as well.
Anybody with a disability, whatever it is, has to prove themselves 100% better than any other abled bodied candidate. Employer will look at the person as a whole, not the skill set they're actually hiring for. You should hire people for their ability, not the perfect picture that you have in your mind. And that will go a long way to try to make things better. This is talking from a developing country speculate. It's a lot worse where the funding and support isn't available.
>> Okay. I actually agree with you because there's certainly this underlying hidden biases that is not so visible, so there's a lot of basis. When -- I've actually been part of some panels where we do recruitment and you can see it happening as one of the panelist sitting on the other side of the table. But then of course there's lots of governance issues there to which we can talk about shortly.
Silva, would you like to elaborate?
>> Thank you. First of all, I would like to just make a comment about to be able to identify whatever gap is between the able -- is that the correct way of saying it, right? -- the able-bodied people and people with disabilities. In the technology or the technology sector, we first need to know what is the gap in general for what that workforce is. And one of the biggest issues that we have at the moment, for example, to be able to see if the force of a pinnacle foundation on capacity building are actually making any sense or any dent in the needs of the community is that all the inventories around, how many networking engineers exist to be able to maintain and operate the infrastructure in the Asia Pacific as those defective doesn't exist.
There's no inventory that tells us how network engineer are required to maintain the networks because networking engineering is all combined as part of this family of careers. So we get that with all the auto engineering. So civil engineering, et cetera, is all in one big bucket on how they identify who is studying for engineer. Ing. And there's no way to know if this person is a computer science engineer that is going to work on maintaining infrastructure, for example.
Is we don't even know. We know from the UN how many doctors are out there, how many nurses are out there to be able to -- how many firsts of nurses you need to cope with a particular population. We don't even how many engineers we need in every country in the region to be able to know if we are solving the needs of that particular economy.
So to start to define what there is, the biggest chance is we don't know the size of the networks and what is in need of network engineers to maintain those networks let alone if they are women or men. If there are members of the technical community, if they have disabilities, if they -- what is special or different about them and how can we better support them.
So one of the biggest challenges we have to be able to address that issue is that technology has been kind of taken a little bit of after stab at that, incorporating a little bit of automation and network management remotely. So economies where there is no local technical capacity to operate a particular network, they can hire some software automation from New Zealand and then they run the network remotely, right?
So the technology sometimes limit to the extent to what you can know what the local capacity actually is to be able to maintain networks, networks in the hospital, networks of university. So I would kind of go back to the question of how are we going to find that gap? How are we going to toe -- are we going to do something to know how many network engineers are needed in the Asia Pacific to cope with the needs of the Internet that grows in the Asia Pacific? To find out how many of those could be from the community persons with disabilities. We don't have that information. And I think that makes it very difficult for the foundation, for any training exercises that we have. To actually know if what you doing is a drop in the ocean or is the big bucket because you don't know how big need is.
I hope that doesn't derail the conversation.
>>, no, no. That's actually fine.
>> I don't think we have that information.
>> I think that's a very valid point. Because I can give you one perspective from the Asia Pacific region. So personally I work for -- for Fiji national universities, training and productive center which is the national productivity organization that is mandated to do skills assessment in the country. So we have to give this report where we basically tell the region that we have these many medicals in the country and this is the skill set. This is what the market currently elects.
But we are not doing the sail thing in terms of inclusion -- same thing in terms of inclusion. So thank you for highlighting that. I feel this is something that most countries have been ignoring for a very long time. And I'll definitely bring it up. Maybe we need to have another perspective one inclusion. We're certainly adding a lot in terms of skill set assessment, trade jobs, network engineers, but then of course infrastructure need is a very important perspective of this conversation. Thank you, Silva.
Let's move on to the next part, which is perhaps something that Philip would like to start elaborating on.
How can the technical community address these gaps?
>> Well, I mean, I don't want to say all the technical communities haven't been doing lots of things. But if I share what APRICOT's been running of many, many years, we run fellowship program to try and compare and assist and, you know, put it bluntly disadvantaged folks from less fortunate parts of the region to come to the event, take part in an event, whether it's technical workshops or come to that short conference week. So, I mean, those workshops are a training, hands-on training, five-day's work.
But of course the problem is, people have to know that we're actually doing this. And the challenges are always switching out from everybody. And I don't know whether there's a view of a lot of people that, oh, you know, it's hard to apply because 500 people applied and there's only 25 seats and so on. What are all the criteria. Because, you know, we do look for candidates who would be the most effective for not only just whoever they're working for but for the local community as well.
And so that program is certainly there. I'm not saying it's going to solve the problems that we're discussing here, but, you know, we've tried over the years to focus on women, women take part in this pause because we have the -- because we have a program where this is lots of man turnup. We're counting women in 1 or 2 hands if we're lucky.
And, you know, I mean, I think we could end up going down the rat hole about quote assistance and all the rest. We did try to do that a little bit. But, again, the problem is reaching out so that enough people are aware that they can apply and that they actually have a chance. Because the review committee is looking for people who are -- can be most effective.
And there are a lot of talented people out there who say, if I would have known, I would have come along. So taking that program, you know, we're only limited by the funding we have from the sponsors of the training, of the fellowship program. So the more funding we have, the more people we can get to come along to it.
So that's APRICOT's perspective. But the natural operator groups and the technical community have started following that model as well. So some of the country and the region are now doing the same thing. Small fellowship, again, to try to get people from the rural parts -- you know, that's one model. But that model can be used for every other less disadvantage part. I don't want to say disadvantage but less advantage. Those in the big cities always seem to get everything whereas those in the rural, you know, they've got just as big if not more challenges. So we've been trying to focus to try and bring Internet connectivity and ability for as many as possible without having that the big cities always getting everything.
So that is certainly there, but I'm all ears about how we can improve what we can do to get more opportunity for those with disabilities, especially.
>> Thank you, Philip.
Let's cut across to Gina. You just heard what Philip said. I think it takes me back to one of the times when we were talking about fellowship programs. And there was a time when we systematically fighting with the main stakeholders. Hey, we're in the Pacific, we have people in the disability. There's one.2 people in the south Pacific island that have disabilities.
Right now we're not even cognizant of what the gaps are, right? So Gina, if you could tell us a little bit about your experience. Asking you a question straight out. Was it very difficult to get into that scholarship program, the fellowship program, I'm sorry.
>> Well, yes. The APRICOT, I attended that fellowship and had the opportunity. The questions were quite the unique because it really looked at the engineering siding of things. But I guess I've been brave enough to apply to APRICOT and try to sit through a heck and you're learning -- you're coming interest a software development -- from a software development background and you're sitting in there with a roomful of guys who are actually from a networking perspective. It was a really enjoyable event. It inspired the Pacific concept note that I had done.
But I think this is something where I witness and did go down to persons with disabilities who are in the ICT sector that would be interested in doing networking and understanding the IP addresses and how these devices work.
Kernly I currently I work in the digital health space, and this knowledge that we gain from the APRICOT was really instrumental in the current work that I do because airfield I needed to understand how the modalities talk to different networks. But it's certainly something that the technical community provides as fellowship opportunities for persons with disability throw into those spaces.
I guess thank you for asking me that question. And I know that a lot of the speakers have spoken about employment. I'm also keen to understand how we could become employer, as persons with disability that could be challenge as well and the type of business model that we have to work in to create a digital entrepreneurship. So apart from those, there must be different opportunities as well to encourage persons with disabilities to become digital entrepreneurs and then perhaps they can go into the accessibility website and learn how to teach others as well on making a website differently for person that's reading the website.
So I hope that answers the question, but back to you, Swaran.
>> Thank you, Gina.
Yes, certainly I have had some students in the past who have very staff of disabilities. They have graduated with a diploma in networking and some of them don't have jobs. And these are students who aced the unit. I've had a student who had close to several level cerebral palsy. Of course, in Fiji, we know we're limited in technology.
So you can only imagine the challenges that he may have had to overcome but he still doesn't have a job.
And talking about he wereship he's trying -- entrepreneurship, he wants to get into his business but people don't take him seriously and that is ashamed.
>> Can I just interrupt you and just say for those people who are participating remotely, we look forward to your comments and questions. So we are including everyone here. And so I'll be monitoring this as we go long.
And I just also wanted to note that there are, in some countries, support programs. For example, n Australia, there's something called Australiian network on disability, AND, that is there to educate employer in whatever field it might be but that happens to be a number of technology companies who are members and get resources and get support to understand what's involved with employing persons with disability.
And I believe there's both sort of the organizations in other countries as well. And, you know, we've got the employers federation of Ceylon here. So it's a matter of -- of moving that chasm to become closer together somehow.
Swaran.
>> Okay. Thank you.
So let's move on to the next topic of discussion. So a number of us come from the field of academia and of course training -- vocational training as well. So a question to the panel.
How can training organizations become more inclusive of persons with disability. Manique, would you like to take that question?
>> Yes. Especially trainings are very important for persons with disabilities because the school curriculum, they would just have academy qualifications when they pass out. But they need to have the proficient qualifications plus to work capable as a person with a nondisability in organization.
For example, for a vision impaired person, if he or she doesn't have the ideal skills, he or she cannot work in an organization equal capable. So that's how we bridge the gap. So I discuss -- he or she must have other qualification but I have to prepare your documents and communicate with the e-mails because in organization, there will be nobody to give it in any other formats.
So the IT skill is very important. That's why long time ago from our organization and our training center, we thought about it and started -- especially the specialized training and disability center -- where we train -- we construct 24 courses -- conduct 24 courses for persons with disabilities which includes Cisco technology and also other various courses to develop the employer skills of people with disabilities.
Because we are developing job seeking skills and job keeping skills, what are equally important. Retaining jobs are important. And also the skills are required because most of -- I'm working at the employers federation of Ceylon where we have about 700 plus member companies in our membership and we are inform employer network on disability to promote employment opportunities for people with disabilities.
So one hand we are developing the skills of persons with disabilities. Specially we have realize that the IT skills, soft skills and the language skills are lacking in persons with disabilities in the grassroots level. When it comes to IT job, definitely you need to have the level of English. Most of these persons with disabilities come from the grass root and they're studying local language, so the level of English is low. That's why sometimes we find it difficult to place them in IT related jobs and office types, executive jobs.
So developing the skills is also important and how to look for employment. Who are the employer that they can't contact. And also we have a database for people with disabilities. And when the companies request, we do the proper job match. Because for the employer, it's important that they get the right candidate and on the other hand, persons with disabilities should get the proper job. Otherwise, both parts will be frustrated and therefore they will not retain the job.
And for employers, we are doing a lot of sensitizing program with the proper job match. And also making awareness on how to make an inclusive employment. Training on disability, accessibility. We do disability accessibility. And give them recommendation and also how to provide reasonable accommodation for people with disability in working environment.
Sometimes it's not a big cost for employer to provide a reasonable recommendation. For a vision impaired person just to provide a screen reading software will do. Also for the low vision impaired person, just have an extra table would do a good word for them.
We of course must have accessibility. Also, if it is a hearing impaired person, just train two staff members on sign language. Because companies spend a lot of money on staff training on various trainings, various skills. Why not in -- train them to at least two persons is more than enough in sign language. So impaired persons can also be included in the workforce.
So it is the training have very important and also -- is very important. And also we have done the eLearning facilities online training because even three, four years where the Covid-19 pandemic, we never thought of this sort of pandemic will come, but we have trained university students, job seekers and also people who are already employed on how to work on various software.
So then it was easy for them to get adjusted to the new system, especially the new students because all the lectures were online and the companies, the working home concept came. So all this trainings were useful for people with disabilities because we thought about these things long time ago not because of the pandemic. Because people with disabilities face difficulties. They have transportation difficulties, no accommodation in -- in -- to come to areas because they're from the grass root level. And there's nobody -- no support services not available. So therefore we try to promote our nine services, especially on software and assistive devices.
But on the other hand, I must say that persons with disabilities face difficulties in getting these assistive devices because they're very high. And also when it comes to training, most of the vocational trainings may be training -- the training programs that they conduct are outdated. They don't go with the job market. That's the different with the training that we have. We get it through the job market and train persons with disabilities to develop their skills according the job market.
So specially, government training does it in their training center should be upgraded to have courses to suit the job market. And, also, it's -- persons with disabilities must, you know, change their attitudes and not go into traditional jobs. Seek new employment. Think in a different way.
Because -- to give you a slight example, I'm not a person who was born blind. I became vision impaired in my light late 20s. I was in society and then I became vision impaired and then I thought to myself what I should do, how I can be employed again and integrated into society. That's why I came to the idea.
Because that's the only way a persons with disabilities, especially a region impaired person can work, equally work sighted people like you. That's how I developed my skin and made me what I am today, the computer, the screen readers and everything.
So it's very important that they realize -- think in a different way. And also when it come to training, I would have just learn this thing to develop my skills, but I thought of it. So that's why we started the training center and started training other people with disabilities because it's very important for them also to come up and learn, to independent. Because we should be able to be independent so that the people with disabilities can be economically stable and also professionally qualified.
>> Thank you very much. There's a lot of learning from what Manique has outlined. A lot.
And we have a question, a remote question, from Jolie McFee. The question is, I'm told blind people can make excellent captioners. Perhaps because they have exceptional oral comprehension. Are there 0 ICT jobs for persons with disability excel at.
So possibly Gina might be able to answer that and Manique. I'll leave it both to you to answer that one. Thank you.
>> If I may. I don't know that persons with disabilities, especially the sight or social disability for the those with autism they're really good with spacial data. I was born with limited mobility, so I -- in terms of software development. But recently moving more into the digital health space, I also have come across others as well that have spinal injury that are very good graphic artist. But, yes, that's some of the examples but I'm sure that there are more.
I'll hand it over to you, Manique, as you may have a lot more.
>> Yes. Adding on to her. Actually for persons with disabilities it's the environment, the barriers created by their environment that makes them unable to perform a specific task. Right?
I'll give you a simple example. Now if this program -- now this program -- say I log in on the 10th floor 11th floor. If I switch off the lift, none of you will bother to come walk the stairs. Then all of you could be people with physical disabilities. And if I switch off all the lights here, all of you will be vision impaired and only I will be talking, right? And if I speak here without the mic, only through the breathing, y'all will not understand anything and all of you will be hearing impaired person. Then what is disability?
Disabilities are barriers created by the environment. If these barriers are remote, I think people with disability can do any sort of job, but come to especially high related job, why can't the persons with disabilities perform those IT related jobs, those platforms, websites, or the system are not created to suit people with disabilities.
Before this websites and platforms are created in to guidelines, then all of us can say perform any task. How many of you can came to this -- came today in the morning in a wheelchair? Just tell me. Yes or no? No? Nobody came? Right.
Now, you all said no. If all of you said yes, none of you reached out, you would say, here's a wheelchair. But all of you came in a chair, a nice comfortable chair with four wheels, right? Train so many wheels. Right? Nice, comfortable chairs we turn on wheels. So what is disability? The barriers created by the environment.
So if people -- all of people like all of you who are without disabilities, if you create a barrier-free environment and specially IT related, I'm begging you. Whatever you make the web, the website, the platforms, or any other thing, software, all these softwares, please make them accessible. It's -- we also have the right to access all what you see.
I cannot say -- all of you can see me, but I cannot see any of you. When we go to online, when we go to Internet, there are so many graphics, animations, we tell the screen reading or not reading. At least say that there's graphic and what that graphic is description is. Like you see from your eyes, we have to hear from our screen reader and do the same task.
Thank you.
>> Thank you, Manique.
[Applause]
>> We couldn't have said it in a better way. Even as simple as captioning a picture in a Microsoft Word document. And the system is telling you would you like to caption this picture and we ignore it. Thank you for highlight that, Manique.
Let's talk about inclusive legislations. So what all do you think that legislation have increasing training and employment prospects? And what are your thoughts on job quotas for persons with disabilities.
So in 2018 the national employment policy specifically stated that 2% of the workforce of any organization in Fiji needs to be reserved for persons with disabilities. But realistically speaking, I can Gina and anyone here online who is from the Pacific would perhaps know that this is far from reality.
Gina would -- Gina is a professional programmer, someone who lives with disability and she's a fine programmer. She's also very instrumental in digitalization of medical records in Fiji at the moment which is something that we have been struggling for for the past seven years and finally the -- the suggestions have been taken on board. So very proud to be working with her.
So, Gina, if you can comment on the effect that though we have legislation but we don't see our people with disabilities in the workforce. Where are the 2%?
>> Well, just to touch briefly on that historic legislation that happened in 2018. Prior to that, the census for 2017 we have the statistics of 13.7% of our population of persons with disabilities that were in the national census data. But that legislation establishment of the rights of a national council for persons with disabilities in setting our rights to include that work in employment for the 2%, it's the monitoring and evaluating and learning on the stats that we try to take from that -- from the Fiji disability federation that I am with as a board member.
One of the thing is to make sure that we are profiling and creating a database to help us monitor that -- to monitor this legislation and its impact to our community.
One of the key things I think as well is around whether we are doing enough in encourage and increasing those numbers. Are we learning from the data that we have collected to push and include and advocate for more training and making sure that everyone has that accessibility to employment. Personally, one thing that I've seen in our country that has changed since this legislation was shared was that a lot of employer started advertising a lot more in the papers on equality and including persons with disability. But how many of those ads actually eventuate into the statistics of that 2% is something that we don't have much visibility on. And I think that's something that we need to challenge and try and capture that data so that we -- we're able to measure that impact of that legislation.
But certainly, in terms of small changes they're happening. I hope that helps you and answers the question.
>> Thank you, Gina.
Okay. So let's have some questions now. There's been a question from the audience.
>> I have a question to any of the panelist, or all of the panelists. Is there in your country any legislation which for bids discrimination against employing people on grounds of so-called disability? Have you gotten legislation that actively defends people against discrimination?
>> In Sri Lanka we have -- government gets notification saying that 3% of government reservation should be for people with disabilities. But it doesn't say anything about the private sector. But since I work at the employer federation of Ceylon, we have a huge membership. We promote employment with persons with disabilities. But in the government sector, if discriminated or when it comes to implementation there are gaps. But what we do is if there is a discrimination or the employment opportunity is not given, so we can always call that the notification and find some solutions.
And there are cases we should able to gain employment through that process. And also these days we are drafting the disability rights. That's all we have included several articles on that so maybe when we are able to pass that in parliament, which will be better place. But anyway, when it's come to implementation there are gaps.
>> I just -- we have our people director in the back that I was just texting before the session if Louise could answer the framework of Australia, of what Australia is doing with persons with disabilities. I have absolutely ignorance on that subject, but if Louise.
>> Sure. Craig's probably better in a position to answer the legality of this. But I guess we're lucky that we do live in a country where we have protections in place for any form of discrimination. So that would include disability. What happens though in reality, obviously, is -- is not always the same as what's legislated. So it really is up to each of us to make sure that that's enacted the way it should be.
>> Thank you, Louise.
On that note -- wait, we have also our legal counsel here that can add to the conversation.
>> It's Craig APNIC general counsel. You have a huge passion for the disability sector. People know me know that I volunteer in that space.
To me, legislation and mandatory requirement doesn't work as effectively as enabling legislation. So in Australia, for example, all buildings have to be disability friendly. So, you know, you can't have a building without -- with steps that people can't access. You need to have ramps and things like that. So that creates a situation where offices are accessible by people with disability.
But more to the point, I think rather than talking about it is the mine sit of employer and that's where I come from. I think that employer that embraces inclue sift and diversity and -- I'm very proud that APNIC and the foundation fully embrace that is concept. And when you have that concept, then you look at the ability of the people, not focused on the disability of the people. You look at the skills that they can perform and not, you know, the disability that they might have that might not affect the work that they can do.
So I think I feel strongly that it's about the mindset of the employers that we need to change. And no amount of legislation -- legislation and cot quota that would get through if they're not minded that way. Thank you.
>> And on that note, I want to the wrap up the APNIC contribution by saying that the one thing that I do believe that legislation could real make big push is on encouraging in a very strong way that organizations put their content and their services accessible online and use the standards to publish information online in that all of these platforms that we are getting licenses for to create, that it working environment in the IT sector actually run grate in an sible -- integrate in an accessible manner.
One of the big challenges is that persons with disabilities have is to proudly work in an organization like APNIC organization is that we're multiplatform organization and platform do not integrate with accessibility in mind. So it could be that our website is accessible, but then its lack on the website is not. So is that part of the integration between platforms and how the standards are enforced where legislation could be making a big push? Because as Manique mentioned, the disabilities are -- are the barriers in the environment. And if the environment where you're supposed to work is just a platform and those platform don't let you do your work, then that's where the problem is and that is something that in the UK, for example, has been looked at very heavily on what websites and platforms and systems have to be a fully accessible not only for the visual impaired but for people with more than one disability. And that's very, very hard to do.
It's very interesting to say that something is accessible, not necessarily, you know, easy to implement.
And then other bit is that there are very limited capacity locally in the Asia Pacific to do accessibility of websites locally because of the language in linguistics difficulty. The technology that are implemented to do the accessibility are in English. So it doesn't apply for websites developed in characters that deal with.
So that's a big challenge for websites in languages other than English to be fully accessible with the dig that they say are fully accessible. So there's a lot of work to do in modeling inability to be able to get there
>> I would add an important thing. When you have the top to bottom approach it's very easy for people -- people with disabilities to get employment. Because if the top management is sent ties and is willingly to -- I think most of you is in the decisionmaking process in your organization, just we're not asking to recruit 100% or 10%. Just at least start from 1%. So down the line in the years to come, all of this will make place in the proper manner.
>> Thank you. And I just like to make a couple of comments in regard to accessible website, accessible platforms, and checking to make sure that they are accessible. And certainly, there's much more testing happening in English language websites. And maybe this is a job opportunity for persons with disability in a number of economies with other languages. Certainly, in India there are a number of companies that do web checking, web accessibility checking, and that could be expanded. It's just an idea.
And also in Europe -- and I know we -- a number of companies export services to Europe and they are more and -- there are more and more strict accessibility directed out of Europe going to European national countries. So that is something also be aware of that can mean for opportunities for persons with disabilities in this space.
So I think that -- that's probably all I wanted to say. Is -- I think -- did Philip have any more comments before we close?
>> Just the input to the last one but I think everybody else and Craig have pretty much said what I was going to say. And I'll come back to a point I said at the start that Craig reiterated is we need to stop looking at the physical being and look at the skill set. And that's my biggest frustration for many, many years of so many hiring decisions that have been made by looking at the individual and not the skill set that they bring. And, you know, this applies to disability, it applies to whether their male, female, whatever it is.
So -- but we need to stop looking at that. Look at the skill sets. There are some fantastic people. One of my heroes is Steven Hawkins, he was not exactly the most able-bodied person but what an amazing physicist. That should be something -- not like -- we should all be looking at somebody like that. That's one person. There's many others. But somebody like that taken separation. See what he was able to achieve. We should be giving people like that opportunities as well, whenever we can.
And, you know, it's -- as point out to me over several years, APRICOT cob doing more. I totally agree. But I want to know what we could be doing in the technical community and the operations community to give more opportunities for the technical training we do, for the people who come, for our organizations that we touch. You know, I want to know because honestly I don't know. And being able to improve that, I love to know.
>> Do you have any closing remarks from any of the panelist? No?
So I'm going to quickly sum up this session. I think we could have gone on for another hour and it still wouldn't be completion right?
So as Philip and even Silva we don't know what the gap is. Maybe we're not doing much to find out. Maybe we're working in silos. I definitely know many people who are working in the space of systemic technology, but maybe we're not talking to each other as much as we should. And I myself am witness to the fact that there have been times when we have -- we're not looking at the specific at all. How about training us? And it happened. We P se APNIC training where this is a requirement that there has to be a woman in the training. I get tired of it. I have to be present at every training so my male colleagues can have a chance.
Again, there's definitely there's a gap. The fact that there's a gap, you know that the gap is there but you don't know what it consist of, right? And then there's obviously a -- if we look at the amendment to bills where even in the Pacific it has definitely happened. So there are X that specifically state that you need to start creating the provisions for inclusion. So in technology terms, it could be an advocacy, it could also be fact that we need to start introducing assistive technology.
And then the quota for a persons with disabilities as for the moment act and then the identification of persons with disabilities who are they, where are they. The preliminary MQR, minimum qualification requirement, for ICT drops versus the needed for early intervention for inclusion. That's also a huge, huge challenge and a very important perspective for us to be mindful of. And there's an focus group offer. All in all, our closing statement here is there is a dire need for multistakeholder and there is a core value of us.
With that, we would like to thank each and every one of you for being part of the conversation. It defective end here. Meese add us in LinkedIn. Say hello. Let's see if we can stop working in silos and working together.
>> Yes.
>> One small request from today onwards, change your attitude from sympathy to empathy, dependence to independent, hidden to open, subrogation to integration, exclusion to inclusion to create a better environment with dignity and justice for all because we are part of you. Thank you.
[Applause]
>> Thank you to all of with your panelist and everyone who has joined us online from all over the world and in person. Please do continue the conversations. It and as Philip very aptly stated, we wouldn't know so much about the universe, about quantum physics, all those dangerous algorithms, we wouldn't know about all that if it wasn't for professor Steven Hawkins. Kudos for still being inspired and let's continue the conversation.
Thank you very much.
>> Thank you.
>> Thank you very much