Access to Information for Knowledge a DAISY=EPUB perspective

1. 4th International Congress of Avapes on Rehabilitation and Inclusion Access to Information for Knowledgea DAISY=EPUB perspective Hiroshi Kawamura President, DAISY Consortium http://www.daisy.org hkawa@atdo.jp

2. World Report on Disability 2011 • Published by World Health Organization & World Bank • 15% of the total population has some sort of disability • Evidence based approach for implementation of CRPD is stressed • Good practices

3. Accessible ICT Standards WHO/World Bank, World Report on Disability, 2011. p214 (http://www.who.int/disabilities/world_report/2011/report/en/ ) “Two important developers of technical standards for accessible ICT products and services are the W3C Web Accessibility Initiative and the DAISY Consortium.” DAISY Standards: http://www.daisy.org/ Web Accessibility Guidelines: http://http://www.w3.org/WAI/

4. Editions of the World Report AMIS or Dorina Reader is required for playback. Both free of charge.

5. DAISY: New paradigm of knowledge sharing • cf. “Accessible multimedia” in CRPD art.2

6. National adoption of DAISY • US National Instructional Materials Accessibility Standard for K-12 txtbooks. • DAISY is adopted as standard for alternative Digital Talking Books world wide • EPUB3, brand new e-book industry standard, adopts DAISY accessibility technology. • DAISY4 which is merged with EPUB and conversion tools guarantees one source solution for accessible publications including braille and synchronized sign languages

7. DAISY multimedia manual for Tsunami Evacuation • Go straight to the point • Tell what to do rather than what should not be done • Use favorite or familiar • characters • pictures • drawings • voices • favorites • places • tastes • Music, rhythms • Understanding by brain and by body both

8. Urakawa Bethel’s House • Individuals with severe psychiatry disability conduct evacuation training in winter at night every year to prepare for Tsunami. • With 4 evacuation training sessions, they maintain knowledge and ability to evacuate in time; higher than 10 m within 4 minutes. • They maintain evacuation manuals in DAISY multimedia format by themselves. cf. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JRjiZzflt_g

9. International Conferences on Disaster Preparedness of Persons with Disabilities in Phuket • Jointly hosted by DAISY Consortium, Government of Thailand, ITU, State of Phuket（http://www.dinf.ne.jp/doc/japanese/prompt/ws_tunami.html） Meeting at Rawai Community

10. Sharing common understanding on Tsunami in Urakawa Town Urakawa Town

11. Magnitude 9.0 earthquake hit Ishinomaki on 11 March 2011 at 14:46

12. Okawa Elementary School, a case study Ookawa Elementary School was hit by Tsunami on 11 March 2011. Only 34 students out of 108, and 3 teachers out of 13 survived. photo: http://photo.sankei.jp.msn.com/panorama/data/2011/0324ookawa01/ BFMTV: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wpNk374GLCs&feature=related

13. What happened on 11 March 2011 • 14:46 Magnitude 9.0 earthquake • 15:26 8.6+m Tsunami hit Ishinomaki • 15:30? Okawa Elementary School students hit by the Tsunami • Wikipedia: • Killed 15,782+ • Missing 4,086+ • 650,000 houses

14. Facts • The school lost • 74 students out of 108 • 10 Teachers out of 13 • The school was designated as a shelter • Students stayed in the school for half an hour after grade 7 earthquake happened • The warning on great tsunami was heard by everybody in the school • We must listen to the unheard voices of victims

15. Lessons we learned • Why they did not evacuate as soon as possible? • What made a difference between those evacuated and those who did not evacuate when they received a Tsunami Warning? • How did the Tsunami Warning trigger evacuation? Preparedness determines the reaction when the alarming is received

16. Who are Vulnerable? • Those who are not able to: • Understand the situation • Communicate • Locate the evacuation route • Evacuate • Participate in the community based preparedness development • Those who are • Isolated from the community • small children, travelers, pregnant, requiring medical treatment, etc.

17. Empowering those Vulnerables • Why? Rescues may not come at the critical moment, for the first half an hour. Self-help in combination with community support is the key factor for survival. • How? sharing knowledge = changing mindset, not just knowledge • Decision making to react the warning • Collaboration with neighbors • Community support development

18. Everybody has role to play at disasters • Revisiting existing the local Disaster Risk Reduction, DRR, plan • by all community members including diversity of persons with disabilities and other vulnerable people • to change the mindset of relying on rescue team • and put DRR priority on preparedness of vulnerable people=> everybody will find different vulnerability

19. Largest and Deadliest Earthquakes by Year, 2000-2011 http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eqarchives/year/byyear.php

20. The DAISY Consortium has been collaborating with disability community in Urakawa to develop use cases for accessible multimedia with special consideration on Tsunami disasters. The new technology developed based on Urakawa model has been launched as EPUB3, accessible e-book standard. Conference at NRCD

21. Use of accessible ICT – a good practice • In Urakawa Town, Japan, where 2.8 m Tsunami hit on 11th March 2011, a group of psycho-social disabilities conducted a showcase evacuation. • The group has been active to develop each member’s ability for Tsunami evacuation through Social Skill Training and development of their own evacuation manual in the format of Digital Accessible Information System, DAISY. • DAISY Consortium has been developing use cases for DAISY Standards to address requirements of persons with disabilities to share knowledge based on successful Tsunami evacuation requirements of all community members in Urakawa Town.

22. Lifesaving Information in DAISY format Japan DAISY Consortium has been providing life-saving information in DAISY format bundled with with Easy Reader Express supported by donations from DAISY Community around the world http://www.dinf.ne.jp/doc/daisy/jdc/index.html DAISY multimedia resource manual on HIV/AIDS in 4 South African Languages is available by free downloading at: http://www.normanet.ne.jp/~atdo/english.html#download

23. DAISY FOR ALL SOUTH AFRICA South African National Council for the Blind South African Library for the Blind Blind South Africa (Braille Services) Tape Aids for the Blind Pioneer Printers (Braille Production) Arthur Blaxall School for the Blind DeafBlind South Africa Deaf South Africa Disabled People South Africa Quadriplegic and Paraplegic Association of South Africa National Council for Persons with Physical Disabilities Association for Persons with Cerebral Palsy Down Syndrome Association of South Africa Autism South Africa Dyslexia South Africa South African Federation for Mental Health Contact: Shakila Maharaj, DFA SA Coordinator

24. Accessible Open Standards for knowledge sharing raise the floor for everybody • Open = anybody may make use of • Non-proprietary • Inter-operable = cross-platform • With proven track record of accessibility • Accepted by main stream industry: Web, Publications, Broadcasting and mobile phones • (Free of charge)

25. Conclusions • Digital Inclusion to share knowledge is the most realistic approach for inclusion and ultimately for saving lives of people who are most vulnerable at disasters • Promotion of use of accessible ICT standards such as DAISY and W3C Web Accessibility Guidelines is the best measure to raise the floor to include those who have been excluded from the society including persons with disabilities • Inter-operability of information infrastructure, devices and contents format is critical to guarantee inclusion of persons with disabilities • Implementation of Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and WSIS Plan of Actions need to be accelerated by adoption of accessible ICT open standards

26. Information Sources for further readings • World Summit on the Information Society Geneva 2003-Tunis 2005 and Follow-up Activities • (http://www.dinf.ne.jp/doc/english/prompt/wsisindex.html) • A comprehensive information source on disability in the context of the World Summit on the Information Society and its follow up activities including 2 international conferences on disaster preparedness of persons with disabilities held in Phuket in 2007 and 2009. • DAISY Consortium official website (http://www.daisy.org/) • The DAISY Consortium has been developing standards for global knowledge sharing. Disaster preparedness and other basic life-saving information need to be shared in an accessible format for every individual regardless of disabilities and language. New DAISY4 standard aims at addressing accessibility requirements of everybody at emergency as well as at disaster preparedness development stage. Urakawa SDK of the DAISY Consortium has been addressing accessibility requirements of lifesaving information based on disaster preparedness case studies being conducted in Urakawa. • International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF) website on EPUB (http://idpf.org/) • World Wide Web Consortium Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) website (http://http://www.w3.org/WAI/) • United Nations Enable (http://www.un.org/disabilities/) • Hyogo Framework for Action (http://www.unisdr.org/we/coordinate/hfa)