EDITED COPY 

ITU‑T JCA‑AHF

    9 MAY 2012 
   7:30‑10:35 A.M. CST 
 
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This text is being provided in a rough draft format.  Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) is provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings. 
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(hi, Kathy here).
>> Yeah, I got it.
>> Just to test the captioning.  Okay.  I haven't got it on mine.  What's going on?  Oh, we got it.  Okay.  I'm going to start the meeting.  And I think we have a time delay.  Look at the captioning and what I'm saying.  Okay.  I'm going to have to slow down because it looks like we have a 30‑second delay with the captioning.  I don't know why that is.
>> Kathy:  Because I am relying on the audio from Adobe Connect because the phone is on mute.
>> ANDREA SAKS: Welcome.  Is it the eighth or the 7th meeting?  I don't know.  We are the 7th meeting of the Joint Coordination ‑‑ it is the ninth.  And we've done three this year, haven't we?  We've done three meetings of the Joined Coordination Activity of the human factor.  Welcome.  I'm glad to see so many familiar faces.  I'm going to ask all of you to identify yourself first in the room and then on the ‑‑ we have a chat box link.  I know who's on there.  I need to see ‑‑ ah, here we go.  Is it coming there?  Great.  So we will first have people in the room identify themselves.  So I'll start in the front row.  So with my co‑convenor, Christopher Jones, could you please identify yourself for everyone?
>> CHRISTOPHER JONES: Hello, yes, this is Christopher.  I'm the UK delegate to Question 26 to the Group 16 and also the co‑convenor, as Andrea said, of JCA‑AHF.  Thank you.
>> ANDREA SAKS: And we have two sign language interpreters who are interpreting for Christopher.  And we have full captioning.  I'm going to repeat the URL for everybody in just one minute, after I've done the introductions.  I'm going to then go to the second row starting with Alan, would you like to identify yourself?  (French)
>> My name is Alan Victor, and I am the chief architect logistics in ITU.
>> ANDREA SAKS: Okay.  The next person, please?
>> Norifumi Yamaguchi from Radio Communications Bureau, ITU.
>> ANDREA SAKS: Are we okay communication‑wise?  Okay, great.  The next row, please, starting with Leo.
>> Leo Lehman from Study Group 30.
>> ANDREA SAKS: Leo is our representative to Study Group 13, amongst other things.  The next person, please?
>> Asia from Hungary.  I'm the co‑coordinator of the ‑‑
>> ANDREA SAKS: Thank you.
>> (French ‑ translated by Andrea Saks:)  My name is Richard Begeti from Benin and I am the regulator dealing with universal service.  
>> ANDREA SAKS:  The next person, please?
>> Hi, my name is Mia.  I am from Korea, I work for ETRI the Telecommunications Research Institute.  I am very interested.  A newcomer.  Thank you.
>> ANDREA SAKS: Thank you, Mia.  The next person starting with Bill.
>> Thank you.
>> BILL PECHEY: I'm Bill Pechey, I'm Rapporteur of Question 16 which deals with accessibility.  I'm also the Study Group 16 representative to the JCA.  Thank you.
>> ANDREA SAKS: Thank you.  Next person, please?
>> John Lee:  I'm here representing Richard Dumochian, and I'm also currently acting as the liaison between our work here and the ETHI.
>> Hi, my name is Wen Kwan, I'm representing Industry Canada.
>> ANDREA SAKS: Thank you.  Now I'm going to go to the remote participants on Adobe.  And I believe everybody is on Adobe even though we have some of them on the chat box on the captioning.  Beat Kleeb from Switzerland.  Would you like to identify yourself, please?
[Silence.]
You can type if you wish.  He is typing, so give him a minute here. 
>> Beat Kleeb here.  I am representing the World Federation of the Deaf.  Hello to everyone.  
>> ANDREA SAKS:  Thank you, Beat.  
Cynthia Waddell, would you identify yourself, please?  Whether by typing or speaking, whichever you wish.
Is Cynthia Waddell on the line, please?  Cynthia, can you hear us?  Okay.  Grant is typing.  Hold on, Kate.  Cynthia, are you there?  I can see you, but I can't hear you.  Well, Cynthia, I'm going to come back to you if you're having a problem in turning on Adobe.  You can always write to me in the chat box in the captioning if Adobe Connect is not working for you.  I know you were having trouble with it earlier.
The next person I would like to recognize online is Kate Grant, please.  Will you identify yourself?  Ah, I've got Cynthia.  Cynthia is in the chat box.  Kate, can you hold it for a second?
>> Cynthia:  Yes, my name is Cynthia Waddell and I work in the field of accessibility from the International Center for Disability Resources on the Internet.  
>> ANDREA SAKS:  Okay.  Kate, are you there?  Oh, yes, I see you typed.  But go ahead, Kate.
>> Kate:  Yes, I'm here.  I represent JCA‑AHF on the JTAG for a vision of guide 71.  Sorry, this line is awful, I think I better type in the future.
>> ANDREA SAKS: Okay, if you like to, but I still like you to speak.  I can hear you very well.  But as you wish.  We're monitoring everything.  We've got two chat boxes going, everybody.  So hang in there.  Then we've got Kathy, who is our captioner.  
And Mia Ahlgren is on from the focus group.  Mia, would you like to identify yourself?  Mia is also typing.  You can all see that up there, that's great.
>> MIA:  Hi, my name is Mia Ahlgren from the Swedish Disability Federation.
>> ANDREA SAKS: Thank you.  Thank you.  That's all we have online.  Is Gerry on the line?  Gerry Ellis?
>> GERRY ELLIS:  Andrea, can you hear me?
>> ANDREA SAKS: You betcha.  Go ahead.
>> GERRY ELLIS:  Gerry Ellis in Dublin, Ireland.  And I'm a software engineer for around 30 years and a consultant in the area of usability and accessibility.
>> ANDREA SAKS: One thing I'm going to do if somebody wants to use captioning on is I'm going to read out so people can see in the captioning box here the URL for captioning.  It's http://streamtext.net/player?event=ITU.
And just explain to everybody is an accessible ‑‑ we're trying to do an accessible remote participation.  It will take time for different people to communicate.  You do have ‑‑ you can see what people are typing on Adobe Connect, but I will also read it out so that it goes into the captioning record; they are not connected.  So if it seems a bit redundant, we want to have a complete record of what everybody needs.  And you have a communication problem?
>> I think there's been an omission.  It should be:  Www‑‑
>> ANDREA SAKS: No, the other one will work, as well.  It doesn't need the www.  That's all right, Christopher.  I'm fine.  I'm glad that you pointed it out so we're 100 percent sure.  So you don't need the www.  But you do need the http.  But thank you very much.
Okay.  With that, before I begin, I just want to also introduce Alexandra Gaspari, who is not only the Secretariat ‑‑ but all for audiovisual accessibility and also the Secretariat for the Dynamic Coalition on Accessibility and Disability for the Internet Governance Forum, which we abbreviate as IGF DICAD.  So she's assisting me here monitoring all this equipment so we can give everyone a chance to speak.  So we'll just have to take this in turn.  We'll be monitoring everything we can.  So if you have a question, be patient.  I will get to you.
Christopher Vogler said he would arrive from Gallaudet University on the remote participation 45 minutes after we start because he was traveling to work and was already up at the crack of dawn talking to Question 26.
Also, we have another gentleman who's just entered the room, and we're still in introductions, so as soon as he sits down, we'll allow him to tell us who he is.  And then we will proceed.  Would you like to identify yourself ‑‑ would you like to identify yourself, sir?  We don't give you any time to breathe.  Thank you.  One moment.
>> My name is Mupang from Chad.
>> ANDREA SAKS: Could you tell us who you represent besides Chad?  What company?
>> The official of the telecommunications.  
>> ANDREA SAKS:  And you are part of the regulator, is that correct?  Thank you very much.  Okay.
We are through the introductions and go through the approval of the agenda.  That is Document 1.8.6.  Those of you, presumably have got it online.  And if you are looking online, and if you don't have it in front of you, you go to the home page of the ITU.  You go then to the T sector.  You then click on accessibility, which will take you to a page which says the joined coordination activity on accessibility and disability.  You go down to the meeting that is for today on the 9th, click on that, and go to documents.  So we do have it up there on the board.  So if those of you at home who are not connected to the an doc he connect wish to get the document, it is documented 1.8.6.  Do I have any changes that need to be made in the agenda?  And I'll wait for everybody to say something.  Okay.  I'm just going to give one more minute to see if we have anybody saying anything.  I don't see anybody typing.  Do we see anybody typing?  Give I just lost my Adobe.  Give me one minute.  I have to get my Adobe back.  One moment.  We just are going to adjust the screens, I'm sorry.
Okay.  So now we can't see the people in the chat, can we?  Can we split the screen?  Because, Ray, we have to be able to see who's on the chat as well as the document.  Thank you.  Sorry.  We're having a small technical difficulty.  We have to go switching back and forth.  Okay.  We're going to have to do switching back and forth which again will take more time.  All right.  I don't see anybody saying they want to add something.  So can I have everybody's approval of the agenda as it is?  Just double‑checking.  We will have to go back and forth.  That's fine.  I'm going to tell Cynthia to go ahead and use the other box.  Cynthia, go ahead and use the captioning chat box since you're right next to me.  So that will work.  Okay.  All right.  Now we're going to go to document 187.  And document 187 is the report from the last meeting that we had on the 22nd of March in Study Group 12.  Now, some of you were there.  And have already experienced this to some extent.  But a lot of people have not.  I'm not going to go into great detail.  Basically we had liaisons from driver distraction, some of which were covered in Question 26 today.  We had liaison to smart grid on accessibility of user interfaces.  We replied to the liaison with the drivers with disabilities.  And basically the results that we had were basically very positive.  We are getting the cooperation of the focus groups.  And then we basically had a liaison to ETSI ERM radio microphones, cordless audio and audio links.  And the technical characteristics much wireless links for people operating in VHF and UHF.  We will be talking about this later, but we sent a liaison to them and we'll come back to that subject later.
We also sent a liaison to the focus group of audiovisual accessibility to ask that we get regular reports from them, which we are getting.
And then number 5, the relevant activities related to the JCA since the meeting of the 24th of November.  There was a workshop on the telecommunications relay services for persons with disabilities, which was very, very good.  It was organized by Mr. Bill Pechey of Question 26 of the 16 rapporteur.  He basically organized that.  And we have put the link in the document so you can look at who gave the presentations.  But it was a very successful workshop.  We had a massive attendance.  The only problem was:  It was on Thanksgiving.  But we didn't figure that out on time, so we didn't have any U.S. representation.  However, since then, we've gotten a lot of active participation from the U.S. regarding the relay service document that has been discussed in the meeting of Question 26, which we will ask Bill Pechey to just do a quick report on a little bit later because of the fact that we have just finished working on a lot of that document in the meeting just preceding.  Now, we had the kaleidoscope meeting.  And we have Mr. Leo Lehman in the room.  He won an award.  He shared the third prison his paper on accessibility support for persons with disabilities by total conversation.  And then he donated the money to the ITU so Alexandra could go to an event in India which focus group for audiovisual accessibility.  So a big round of applause for Leo.
[Applause.]
How much time do we have, Peter?  I have just gotten a note.  You have to leave at what time?  You want to go right now.  Okay.  I'm going to stop that report and go ‑‑ jump the resolution and go to Peter major, he identified himself as one of the co‑convenors of the dynamic coalition and he's going to give a report on the DICAD that we're organizing.  Go ahead, Peter.  I didn't realize the time had flown.
>> Peter:  Thank you, Andrea.  Very briefly.  ICAN has been very active in IGF, the previous one.  We hope to be very active in this one, as well.  DICAD submitted the one workshop on its own and ‑‑ foundation.  The workshop we have submitted is coordinated by ‑‑ probably can give us brief description of the workshop itself.  As for the other workshop which we are participating, which has been extremely popular due to DICAD, partially to DICAD activity.  Caption has been introduced in most of the workshops for the IGF, I think it is a major achievement the activities and understandable that we are participate.  So basically that is what I wanted to tell.
We are going to have a multistakeholder group meeting next week when we are going to discuss the workshop for the IGF, and I hope that both workshops will be, in fact, included in the upcoming IGF in November.
>> ANDREA SAKS: Peter, do you have one minute to just discuss what the DICAD does in relation to the IGF?  You don't?  I'll do that.  I'm sorry we didn't get to you soon enough.  Thank you very much for stopping by.  And we'll keep you posted on the DICAD thing, thank you.  Just elaborate a little bit.  The dynamic coalition is ‑‑ has been given the mandate to advise the IGF on accessibility for their meetings as well as dealing with the actual subject of Internet governance.  And Peter is very active in the fact that he attends all the MAG meetings and all the IGF meetings and has been providing a profile of persons with disabilities out in the open so that we are aren't forgotten.  We've had some good experiences and some bad experiences the last meeting was a problem because it was not in an accessible physical environment, and lots of mistakes were made, whereas in the past some of these mistakes had been overcome.  So our biggest challenge is to do remote participation for a lot of our speakers because we don't have the funds to send them.  And, secondly, we also feel that remote participation opens up the door for many persons with disabilities all over the world who cannot go to Bacu.  And we will be working with the DiploFoundation, who basically are experts in remote participation.  And their title is Reality in Principles. 
So we have a lot of work to do.  We meet ‑‑ if you want to follow it on the same web page that you saw, the JCA, the DICAD is there, also.  If you are interested in joining, follow that page and you can come to the meetings or email us and join our reflecter.  Because we have captioned meetings by telephone where we use the same captioning that you see, but we also have a chat box there.  So if a person cannot communicate other than by text, they can still participate.  So if you want to follow that, you can follow that.
So we've done that.  Are there any questions on the dynamic coalition from anyone?  Okay.  That's fine.  I think that's okay.  So that we've done.
So next time what I need to do is go back to the report, yes.  Got it right here.  So we've Donnelly oh.
Now the other thing that happened, which some of ‑‑  so we've done Leo.
Now the other thing that happened, which some of you were not there.  I give a report to study group 16 but because of time constraints we decided I would continue here.  The ‑‑ that was by GC‑ICT ‑‑ which is part of GADE in the UN in the Federal Communications Commission of the United States did a two‑day workshop and symposium on mobile accessibility for persons with disabilities.  Now, I actually have Gerry Ellis on the line.  I'm going to let Gerry tell us, instead of listening to my voice all the time, Gerry, would you like to give an explanation of your experience and what happened?  Because you were participating quite heavily in that particular endeavor.  Is that possible?
>> Gerry:  Thank you, Andrea.  Yes.  Andrea was there and Susan shore was there, who is associated with ITU.  And Cynthia who is on the line and myself.  So various people were there.
What this was was a group of academics, industry, business and people with disabilities and organizations of people with disabilities from, if memory serves me, over 70 countries.  We all came together to look at the impact of mobile devices in the modern world because particularly in developing worlds, a lot of people have bypassed desktop PCs now using mobile devices.  So two important issues.  One, how can we ensure that they don't get lost out?  But the other thing was that mobile devices are increasingly used in the area of cloud computing.  So DCA is particularly interested in execution.  So that what will happen in the future is people will have small, cheap devices in their hands, and a lot of the processing, a lot of the information will be handled on the cloud.
So we are looking at people who are poor and people who are in developing countries, but we're also looking at the sharp edge of modern computing.
We started with the FCC.  And we talked about the video accessibility act, whose name escapes me just at this moment.  Andrea, you'd have the name of that offhand?
>> ANDREA SAKS: I'm sorry.  What did you just say?
>> Gerry:  The 21st Century video accessibility act?
>> ANDREA SAKS: Yes, that's correct.  We call it the CVAA.  Yes, go ahead.
>> Gerry:  Yeah, the 21st Century video communications act.  And we discussed that at the FCC and its importance.  And then we returned to the Gaylord Convention Center and spent two days talking amongst the different groups that I've already mentioned and the importance was that the world from different areas of industry, education and so on as I mentioned.
And then the following day there was a further meeting with the FCC, which was looking at the importance of broadband and broadband penetration and how people with disabilities have less access to broadband than society in general and ways of improving on that.  And I think I'll leave that for now, Andrea.
>> ANDREA SAKS: Thank you very, very much.  We do have the report from Gerry Ellis and Cynthia Waddell on the website, on our website.  I also, in this report, have listed the other website of www.m‑enabling.com and also for GC.ICT.org.  So that is actually in the actual document.  Alan, do you have a time constraint?  Are you okay?
The next meeting that we had that is of relevance is the TSAG meeting in Geneva.  Basically TSAG was trying to change some of the ways that we work.  It's the telecommunications standards advisory group, which advises all of the study groups in the ITU.  And the problem is that we're coming up to WTSA.  This is the end of the study meeting, Study Group meetings section.  We only go every four years.  And the biggest issue for accessibility is A.7 because the ITU‑T is not allowed to give any monies for focus groups.  And at the moment, there is a conflict between resolute PPT resolution 175, which is the accessibility resolution for all of the ITU and A7, which cannot fund focus groups.  But we are obliged and are required to be able to provide accessibility for persons with disabilities.  So we have, we're working on that.  It will also decide which study groups are available.  And somebody is breathing into the phone.  Can you mute your mic?  Thank you very much.  Thank you very much.  I haven't had a heavy breathing call in quite sometime.  Anyway.  So that's that.
Then we have the focus group on audiovisual accessibility that we had in Barcelona and we had one also in India.  Mr. John Lee is here.  Can you give me a synopsis, please, for those people who were not in Question 26, who might like to have an update on those two meetings, please?
And in the report, you'll see the links for further information.  Carry on, John.
>> Of course John Lee:  Thank you, Madame Chair.  The document presents the meetings that occurred on January 19th and on February ‑‑ March 13‑15.  We did some progress.  We had some contributions related to the areas as listed within the report, mainly audio video description, spoken captioning, visual signing and sign language.  Emerging access services, participation digital media, mobile hand‑held devices and access to working procedures.
The work that we are working on had a lot of discussions ‑‑ we had a lot of discussions around those various specific topics.  And we have made some progress within creating the output documents that will be submitted once the meeting ends.  There is future activity plans of having a meeting in Tokyo this month, by the end of this month and another one in September in Canada, 25‑27 tentatively.
The work is progressing relatively quickly although the participation has been slow.  And it's picking up pace.  We're hoping to get a lot more done.
There is within the report a possible request for an extension of the lifetime of 12 months, and that is something that needs to be discussed at a later time.
There are a number of different views on how to proceed, but if there are any questions at this point, I would be glad to answer them.
>> ANDREA SAKS: Thank you, John.  I just want to point out one thing here, and that is the event for the focus group, which is on the 29th of May, is that correct?  In Tokyo is being supported and hosted by the Nippon Hoso Kyokai Company, which is abbreviated NHO.
Hoso and Kyokai.  So that is one thing.  And also you didn't say that your company, RIM, which makes the BlackBerry, will be hosting the event in September on the 25th through the 27th in Toronto, Canada.  So thank you very much.  And they are also ‑‑ they are getting good training here on how to run accessible meetings.  So I'm not worried about that.  I'm not worried about either one of them because we keep learning how to do accessible meetings remotely and in the room.
Actually that's cut out a couple of other points that we were going to put in slightly different areas.  So we covered the focus group on that moment.  So now we're back to this.  Okay.  We're down here.
Now, I do want to say that Christian Vogler from Gallaudet has entered.  And he is online in the chat box.  So we've got Christian from Gallaudet from the United States.  So he is on.  And also I forgot to give the apology for Floris van Nes who is the rapporteur for question 4 in study group 2.  And basically he has ‑‑ we have a report on his work there, too, a bit later, which I will be presenting.  There was some work done regarding a document that was passed.  And actually I might bring up at this point, document C139 from BT.  And from France, there is talk we put a contribution in to Study Group 2 asking that question 4 be merged with Question 26.  Now, they are two different study groups.  One is human factors is and one is accessibility.  They felt that the work could be concentrated.  And since the JCA's parent group, this JCA is in Study Group 2 and coordinates the work between the two, that they felt it might be better to put them together.  We have the link of the document.  We are not allowed to give it to you because of the fact that we have been refused permission by the author of both ‑‑ (noise) and in BT in England bus they cannot be here to present the document.  Now, they wish that to be done.  They feel it would be more effective.  As speaking of the convener of the JCA, I'm totally against the idea because I want to see things expand.  We don't know if question 4 would be a separate question in Study Group 16.  It would be decided at WTSA.  If it was joined with Question 26, we would lose the time.  And that we feel is not appropriate and it is not real e haven't that I have one answer, too, because the mandate of the JCA has been expanded to include ITU‑D, ITU‑R, all the study groups within ‑‑ in the ITU‑T and also follows in what's going on in making ITU totally accessible.  So we feel this is not really ‑‑ it's counterproductive from the work.  It takes time away from what we need to do in doing the real work of accessibility.
Are there any comments regarding this?  And if you want to look at that document, you have to have a TIES account.  But it is listed.  Do we have any questions or comments regarding that?
I don't see any so we are going back to this.  Now Question 26.  Now, do we have Question 26 elsewhere in the thing?  I'm going to reserve Question 26 for a little bit later because that's ‑‑ we did Bill Pechey had introduced some documents regarding.  But it's updated up to the point.  So we'll give Bill the floor a little later.  And the focus group we've covered.
We have also had meetings with ITU‑D and Mr. Yamaguchi of now Reformi is the representative from BR.  And they did have the world radio conference.  And we did send liaisons from the JCA last time to try and illuminate the problem that most people perceive for ‑‑ which was discussed in 26 this past week regarding the fact that we would love to have interference‑free hearing aids and also to be able to take advantage of public announcements.  And the road is very complicated to get there.  We do have collaboration now between Gallaudet University and NASA.  And that liaison was sent to working group 5 A and Study Group 6, is that correct?  Do we have an update on that?
>> Thank you, Madame Chair.  With regard to the recent statement of working party 5 A, we have meeting on the 22nd of May.  We don't have the meeting yet.  So real cutting issues in working party 6 B.  They have a meeting on 25th‑30 April.  They have reviewed recent document.  And those broadcasting issues have been given back to the focus group audiovisual.  This group [Inaudible] results.  Establishing working party 6 B.  To use this issue, broadcasting.  Thank you, Madame.
>> ANDREA SAKS: Thank you very much.  I think what I would like to do is to write Study Group 6 a liaison saying "could you kindly copy us, please, on anything to do with this since we sent a liaison, which they have not acknowledged.  Because we informed the rest of the ITU community on what's going on with persons with disabilities.  So I wondered if anyone would mind if we decided to do that.  Do we have a problem with that?  Because I'd like to do a liaison to them to say thank you for sending it to the focus group as reported by Mr. Norifumi, but we also would like to be copied on future correspondence.  Is that okay?  Great.
Now, Kate, do you have a time problem?  I have just been told that you might have.  Is that correct?
>> Kate:  I do have to duck out before the end.  It would be about 3:45 UK time which is 4:45 your time.
>> ANDREA SAKS: Okay.  We're going to change the agenda again and we're going to stop at that point.  Thank you, by the way, Mr. Norifumi, for that information, and go straight into document 189.  And, Kate, would you like to comment on the revision of Guide 71, please?  This is Kate Grant of nine tiles.
>> Kate:  Right.  Well I attended the meeting to represent ITU.  And Gerry Ellis was also there.  I have given you a short report with the attendees.  The output of reports and the taskforces.  And I think the most important thing is the realization that it's not going to be completed instantly.  They had hoped to have just three meetings.  But we already now know there will be an extra meeting.  So the output of the taskforces was too immature to make a first working draft of the document.  That will now be done in Dublin in October.  After review and a further meeting in January, they hope to have an internal ballot in the JTAG.  And then a four‑month technical inquiry ballot.
Now, most of the discussions that I was involved with related to the principles which are based very much on some of the user needs that have been identified.
The other major work item was to do with the large section on exactly what it means and whether we should be adding things like anthropometry; i.e, whether or not you have a standard person. 
And we were shown how different organizations use different standard people, their height, their weight, their life is totally different.  And yet when you are looking at accessibility across all areas, not just ICT, but whether you can get a wheelchair to a bank machine or through a ticket barrier, clearly reach and the ability of someone to reach controls is really important. 
And it's quite important that we reflect the different sizes across the global population and the change in demographics that we're having, which also means more and more people need some of the additional facilities, if you like, easier usage of things, better accessibility.
And JTAG, the principles are intended to apply to all fields, whether it's buildings or ICT.  So they are couched in very general terms.
Gerry, would you like to add anything?
>> ANDREA SAKS: Yes, Gerry, be my guest.  (laughing).
>> Gerry Ellis:  No.  You've done an excellent job in reporting what's going on.  But a document has resulted and has been published by some of the attend ants.  I don't know if that's available to the JCA.  Maybe we should find out and we could recirculate that?
>> ANDREA SAKS: That would be interesting.
>> Kate:  Yes.  I will certainly see if I can download it and send it to Andrea.
>> ANDREA SAKS: That would be fabulous.  But we'll have to get permission to post it.  But Alexandra has taken a note of that.  When we get it, we'll check it.
I want to just go through for you the third meeting is on October 23rd‑25th in Dublin.  The fourth meeting does not have a location, but that will be the 15th‑17th 2013th.  And the second month ballot internal to the JTAG followed buy a four‑month technical inquiry ballot.  Now, I don't really understand what that means.  Can you just reiterate that for me?
>> Kate:  As I understand it, it means when in January a document has been agreed as a result of that meeting, it will be reviewed for a two‑month informal ballot within the JTAG.  And assuming that everyone is happy with it and it's only minor editorial corrections, it will then go out for a four‑month technical inquiry ballot.
I suppose there is always the possibility that no one will like the output and there will have to be yet further delay.
>> ANDREA SAKS: Thank you for that explanation.  I think this is great.  Thank you very much.
One question for Gerry.  Since you are in Dublin, are you planning to go?  Or would you like to go, as well, and observe for the dynamic coalition?
>> Gerry:  If I can get my hands on the document in advance and do a bit reading up because I'm quite new to this area.  So between now and then because I don't think Kate can go, is that correct?
>> Kate:  At the moment, I believe I have a conflict with another meeting.  I shall find out about that when I'm in the States next week.  But, Gerry, as long as you remind me, I can always get you the documents.
>> Gerry:  Yes, I'd be happy to go.  But I'm fairly new to the area and it is quite high powered to be honest.
>> ANDREA SAKS: Thank you both.  You are great.  You are working together.  And I'm extremely grateful.  If I can remind you to keep Alexandra and myself informed as to what's happening because we want to make sure the JCA stays in touch and also the DICAD, too.  Thank you very, very much Kate and Gerry on that report.  I really appreciate that.
I'm now going to turn this over to Alan Mutua who is the chief architect.  And he's going to do it in French?  Right.  I'm going to have a request.  Just hold on a second.  Alexandra, your French is better than mine.  Can you do so much, and then signal to Alexandra, who will then translate in English?  One second.  We're just checking everybody.  We're going to get the document up.
Just as an introduction, Alan has been trying to make the ITU accessible to persons with disabilities on a physical level as well as on a visual level.  And he gives us a progress report when he can.  He was not able to do it in the meeting of the 22nd.  So he is going to do that as soon as Alexandra gets up the document.  Are we ready?  Alan, could you please carry on?
>> Alan:  (in French).
Thank you very much.  The last time that I was here, I gave you an overview of the study that was being set up to make it the building and the bureaus more accessible.
What realized is really the implementing for individuals have been a relevant one, which we didn't realize when we first did this setup.
During the first overview, in my service we are trying to solve the problem that we already encountered and the other problems were made, that some people made us aware of.
I can mention among the three main projects that we are starting or we already started, it's the new system for ‑‑ the signal sits system all over ITU in terms of visibility give an up date.  The second is the renovation of the Xroom B which is now called Popov.  And third main project is the renovation of project Valembe No. 2.
>> I'll try to do my best so I'm not an expert here.  Among the main things that were put in place were ‑‑ we follow some mainstream line criterias like uniformity of all signals for all public.  We have inserted Braille wherever possible in the lists.  And then the texts.  We tried to use the same texts all over to make more visible and simple for everybody.
Concerning the project No. 2, which is the renovation of room, of Popov room, it was a bit harder because the room was already set up.  So for us, for the things to make again something, not for new, but something that has already been done is much more harder.  And we tried to make very much accessibility for persons with physical disabilities, including the podium.
And I'm going to mention gradually as soon as they become clear.
And the third big chapter, the third big project is the renovation of the building called ‑‑ which is the radio building, recycling, there will be a complete renovation of the building.  And well follow for this the Swiss regulations number 50 and 5 which are the rule for, I guess for accessibility, for persons with disabilities if I'm not wrong.
Going back to the signals, we really tried to improve the ‑‑ even the simple signals which were completely missing before.  And we tried to put color signal to all over the three buildings so a person can really orient himself on how to get lost.  We improve the visibility of windows, of doors and windows so people cannot get the nose break.  And visibility of stairs, which was so very much important.
So going back to the signal, we really made sure to make secure the buildings, stairs in particular where it is very slippery, I know by experience, I have to say.  So this is band were added to each stair, as well as other signal were added to the windows, the door that they open in this way so people really could not break again whatever.  Okay.  So to improve the visibility of signals, we have started with the tower building and the Varembe building by adding a uniform character font, the same font, we of course avoid some font for blind users like the red and we have added pictograms which are universal pictograms.
And we've also added comers so people can identify easily where to go.  And this color will be the same in Varembe in Montbrilliant.  If somebody is in Montbrilliant often and has to go to the tower instead of getting lost, he can follow the color and get to the tower easily.
ITU has adopted a policy.  And so the policy is also to reduce the closets all over as possible.
Going back again to the big project, like the popup room, we have installed different features, for instance like ramps to make the podium and the room accessible for people with physical disabilities, so for wheelchairs and this includes, as well, the booths for interpretations.
So going back to ‑‑ not here and the problem is that to adapt something from existing, it is much harder than to make things from scratch.  But we have made room K accessible to wheelchairs by adding a ramp.
And we had also had agreements from our ‑‑ today to add a newer accessible bathrooms at the tower.  So level ‑2, which is already in service.
But the biggest problem overall is to have in order to budget to have this readaptation of these features, which it's really the biggest challenge of adding not only for this.  But I would like to thank you, to thank Andrea Saks for having support these ideas.  And we look forward to have other updates to tell you.  Thank you very much.
>> ANDREA SAKS: Merci Beaucoup.  (French) we've had many chats, but we need another one, because there are some problems that are not perfect, as he knows.  And we have made progress.  Le progres est clear.  There is a problem in the Popov room, we have one ramp on one side of the podium, in other words, we divide the Popov room into two rooms, the other side, so there are mistakes or oversights.  There are faux pas.  I'm not on the mic?  There are these areas that Alan knows and if there's any questions, I would like to first ask Gerry Ellis, who is blind and comes with a guide, if he has any questions for Alan regarding the renovation of the ITU physically.  Gerry?
(comments in chat, too).
>> Gerry:  Thank you, Andrea.  One question I have about blind people.  In this part of Europe, one innate males are colorblind in the red/green spectrum.  So have you taken into account that you don't just give information by having colors?  You must do different things than just have different colors to indicate something.  And I wonder was that taken into account?  (Alexandra translating into French the question).
>> Alain:  (in French).
>> Alexandra:  Gerry, did you hear?  For everybody.  They have used ‑‑ they were aware of this.  And for the color as well as for the font, they used like black text on white backgrounds so the colorblind was taken into account.
>> ANDREA SAKS: Need to go through to the building.
>> The colors are identified to where like the buildings are.  So Verembet has a color.  The tower is a color.  Montbrilliant is a color.  So for the real signaling, the text has been chosen black into a white background.
>> ANDREA SAKS: (question in French) (one building is orange, one is green, one is blue).
(there will be a problem with green) (.
I believe that what you're saying, according to the Swiss requirements, that is the color that is legally chosen, is that correct?  To have as a definition to be able to go through.  Is the contrast?  (French, the contrast of green, blue, orange.
Andrea, there's no red, Gerry.  The contrast is sufficient so that a person doesn't really have to see it as green.  He will be able to distinguish its difference.  So he will be able to follow that color.  He may not know it's green, but he will be able to follow that color in the direction he wishes to go.  Have I got that right, Alain?  Not quite.  Okay.  I will speak in French.
(translating into French).
So it's possible for the person to follow the green even though he can't see the green.
>> Gerry:  [Inaudible]
>> ANDREA SAKS: One more comment from Alain.  And I want to tell Beat I've seen his comments.  I will jump to him in just a minute, don't worry.  Just letting you know that I've seen him.  Go ahead.
>> Alain:  (in French).
You have a pictogram for Verembet, so we know that's for that place.  A pictogram for Montbrilliant and the pictogram for the color, the same color that matches the orange, the blue and the green, got it.
Now, the next question I have is do we have Braille to be able to get if the person ‑‑ for somebody like Gerry?
>> ANDREA SAKS: (translating in French).
I'm asking if there's a way you can navigate.  Go ahead.
>> Gerry:  I understand the French.
>> ANDREA SAKS: You're so good.  I'm glad.  Go ahead.
>> Alain:  (in French).
(translated by Alexandra).
We are trying to prevent the service together with IS here in ITU to make ‑‑ for persons to make visible on their iPod or phone or whatever, their PC to say exactly where they are.  So they are trying to implement, to put in place this new tool in cooperation with the IF.
>> ANDREA SAKS: (French).
(not translated in English).
>> Alain:  (French).
>> ANDREA SAKS: Basically the tone will be able to signal to the blind person where he is in some audible way, is that correct?  (Alexandra translating into French).
>> Alain:  (French) (Alexandra translating into English:) as well as for hearing impairments, as well as for visual impairments.  So it will be complimentary feature for everybody, to include everybody.
>> ANDREA SAKS: Now, I'm going to go to the Beat.  Can you take me to the top?  Beat, are you following?  I'm going to start with you.
>> Beat:  SIA505 is correct.  That's the law that was mentioned.  I am missing any comments about lighting.
>> ANDREA SAKS: (translating into French).
>> Beat:  Lighting is important for deaf people.  We need clear lighting of faces, of persons speaking without being blinded by back light and the like.
Also, lighting for sign language interpreters must be taken into account.  I'll translate back into French for Alain.  (French).
To beat, for instance on the first floor, if you want to work on the ground floor, the lighting is not good.  So we have a problem for persons with disabilities if this is not rectified.  And also in places like the tower, the place to work ‑‑ (French).
>> Alain:  (French).
(translating by Alexandra) so the issue for persons with disabilities or hearing impairments speaking at the podium, for instance, we know that they need direct light, both for interpreters and for the person talking.  If for instance for the reason we are in a room and the lights are switched down to have focus on the screen, we are aware that direct light is needed for the sign language interpreters as well as for the person looking, if the person needs sign language interpretation.
>> Gerry:  Alexandra.  Just to say that question about the quality of life is very, very important for visually impaired people.  It's not that there is a lot of light because a person who is poor sight could very easily be blinded if the light is too brilliant.  And the term that is usually used is lux.
So you have to look at the lux of the color and the lux of the light to determine that it is not going to be an overpowering reflection.  So just to repeat, the word was lux.  (Alexandra translating into French).
(Alexandra getting clarification on wording look versus lux).
>> Gerry:  (French).
>> This has been taken into account and Alain is aware.
>> Alain:  (translated:  And the light is not being Flashed against the person where the person cannot see anything.  Adapted light.
>> ANDREA SAKS: I'm going to move on because I think we've interrogated Alain.  (French) in other words, if you have something else that you wanted to ask that you think of later and you want to talk or have an answer from Alain, he's very happy to o receive these comments by email.  And well make sure that his email is available or you can write to Alexandra or myself.  Thank you very, very much.  Merci Beaucoup Alain, and we're very happy that you came to see us.  The document is 179 from the last meeting because Alain was unable to attend.  So it is in French.  And we will translate it at some point?  It's already done.  There is a French translation and an English translation.
>> Alain:  (French) I will send you the updated version.
>> ANDREA SAKS: Fantastic.  Merci Beaucoup.  Are we having a coffee break I think for a few minutes?  I think everybody needs one.  And I think what we'll do is we'll come back at 20 past.  We'll have a short one.  Is that right?  She's not going to let you have 20.  Alexandra is the boss.  15.  If I say 15, you'll be back in 20.  Okay.  See you in a minute.  Thank you very much.
>> ANDREA SAKS: Gerry, are you still there, hopefully?  Gerry, are you still there?  Yes, he is.  Okay.  That's fine.
I just want to check that the captioner is back, please.  People are coming in.  Can you type for me?  Thank you, Kathy, we'll be right with you in just a minute.
>> ANDREA SAKS: Okay.  We're going to start in just a minute.  I guess everyone's here.  Okay.  I'm now opening the meeting to start again.  An we have jumped a little bit around on the agenda du to people's time constraints an my inability to follow à agenda.
I would now like to go to 7.1.1 and ask Alexandra Gaspari, who is the secretariat for the JCA to explain what has been happening with the ITU.  ITU‑Y accessibility taskforce.  Alexandra?
>> ALEXANDRA GASPARI: Thank you, Madame Chair.  So ITU, as you all know, adopted à ITU‑wide resolution, which is resolution 175 at the PP10 telepotentiary conference, potentiary conference, I'm sorry.
Previously some sectors already approved the resolutions, and the first one of it all was the P sector with the resolution, the 08 resolution 70.  So this high‑level text so‑called give ITU the ability to work at the sector level an also at the organization level like the other UN agency or reducing a while.
So our corporate manager decided to establish this disability taskforce which is composed by staff of different levels of different sectors and to put together what is going on in all the sectors and in which capabilities.
So the taskforce was created a while ago, but it didn't start, let's say, really until 10 des ago when we had really another meeting.  Led by Bogdan.  An I participated to it, as well, as my supervisor Young, an the deputy director.  So it was around 15 persons participated.  And we went over all through the product content of what ITU is doing in the sectors as well as facilities, as well as publications, et cetera.  And we realized that the expertise.  U.S. has expertise but is not shared properly up to now.  So this taskforce, we really try to organize who does what in order for any of the sector to say this sector is doing what the main conference are doing, et cetera.  And this will make our agency as an UN agency up to speed toward other UN agencies are doing.  There will be another meeting soon I guess for the summer.  But we were really glad that, it was really a frank really pragmatic meeting, so that may allow us to progress.  And I hope that whenever we will have a deliverable, something that we can share publicly with delegates, we will do it.
>> ANDREA SAKS: Thank you.  Thank you, Alexandra.  To clarify who Doreen Bogdan is ‑‑ Doreen Bogdan is No. 3 in the ITU.  She answers directly to the Secretary‑General Hamadoun Touré and to the Deputy Secretary‑General Houlin Zhao.  So she is responsible for coordinating all events; in other words, they ask her to do all this stuff and the buck stops with her.  I'm delighted that she has decided to chair this meeting because she and I talk quite a bit and she's very cognizant of what has to be done and is very supportive.  
One of the things that Alexandra and I have discussed ‑‑ and we had a meeting not too long ago with a company that is training their staff as they are hired and if and when they are in there on accessibility.  It becomes part of their indoctrination to be a part of this company and I think that's one of the things we would like to do.  Alexandra, would you like to carry on?
>> ALEXANDRA GASPARI: The training aspect was an important one.  And the meeting agreed to eye that you should provide training for the staff or provide training at least for some staff to be able to train other staff.  So that was the main point.  So the level awareness will increase all over and in a cross level, as well, which is very important.
>> ANDREA SAKS: Also, there are plans afoot to have a policy designed and written.  And if you note, we are a guinea pig accessibility meeting.  We hope we're showing people today that we are running a meeting with all sorts of people, with all sorts of capabilities on all sorts of platforms.  Can I see who is on chat, please?  So that people can come along.
I've just seen that Christian Vogler is going to drop off the call in 25 minutes about running accessible meetings by remote participation.  I suppose we could jump to that now.  Bill, do you mind if I jump to accessible meetings because you're going to say something about that.  Yes, let's do that.  Because this is what we're doing.  I'll just get there in a second.
So the thing is:  The problem that we have is that the right hand didn't know what the left hand was doing.  The JCA was coordinating and giving all the information, and we're a tiny little committee, as you can see.  We have a good following of people, but we do a lot of experiments.  I mean we've tried many different kinds of platforms and tools to do that.  And Alexandra and I have been running accessible meetings with DICAD even when we've just had the telephone and just the captioning.  You can't see in the room the chat box on the URL on the captioning that's in the room, but if you had it on your computer, you could see there was a chat box.  And you would be able to communicate with not only with the captioner to correct the spelling of your name, but also to some of the people there.  And you'd be able to speak to them privately.  And sometimes that's all we have.  And we have been able to function.  And guess what?  Wow, we just found out that Kathy can speak French, our captioner.  Wow.  I didn't realize that.  Do you see that?  Yeah, okay.  Anyway.  Now, Christian wants to talk about some of the things that happened regarding accessible meetings because some of the meetings that we've been on together, Christian and I have had a very long conversation and not just one.  Christian, would you like to say something about ‑‑ and then I'm going to go to Christopher and then I'm going to go to Gerry.  But since Christian has to drop off, Christian, would you like to say something about accessible meetings?  Since I would be grateful for your comments.  Thank you.
>> Christian:  Can you hear me?
>> ANDREA SAKS: Yes, we can, Christian, go right ahead.
>> Christian:  All right.  Actually accessible meetings where more participation is a pretty big topic.  I'd like to go on about this for, I don't know, maybe an hour.  But maybe we should just talk about where to go from here.  So accessible, as well as people without disabilities, my group at Gallaudet University has asked me to do research into this area.  We have a focus group.  And we're in the process of getting more information on the accessibility issues and what can be done to fix them.  So maybe one way to move forward to ‑‑ and the outcome of this meeting to you.  What do you think?
>> ANDREA SAKS: I think there's going to be a lot more discussion in the focus group.  We have Mia Ahlgren, along with mark, oh forgive me, how do you say that?  Magenne, are working in the focus group about accessible meetings.  And I hope that Mia has been watching how we do this, because we have had a lot of practice at running accessible meetings, Alexandra and I.  So I think that what we need to do is write these things down.  And we're learning as we've gone.
I want to also have Christopher Jones speak and then Gerry Ellis.  And then I would like Bill Pechey from the point of view of the chairman to speak about being a chairman trying to chair accessible meetings.  Christopher, would you like to go over your points, please, on accessible meetings on persons with disabilities, especially the people with hearing disabilities.  And that's document 193, Christopher prepared something.  So we'll have that up in just a minute.
But go ahead, Christopher and start telling us about that.
>> CHRISTOPHER JONES: First of all, this is only a very rough draft.  It's a starter document, in a sense.  And hopefully it's a deaf‑centric document which will focus on the needs of deaf and hard‑of‑hearing people and deaf blind people in terms of access to physical meetings such as the one we have today where I'm physically present here in the building.  So I haven't really begun talking about remote participation.  That's going to be developed later.
And also want to do other people with other disabilities and think about their needs and how we can incorporate theirs, as well.  So we'll eventually develop into a much bigger document that will focus on all the different needs of people he different people with disabilities.  But for the moment, I'm going to focus just about some of the physical requirements.
Now, when a deaf person is in the meeting, like in Geneva, it is necessary to follow procedures that aims to support the communication needs of the client.
Now, deaf people comprise of a heterogenous group, so we're very diverse.  There's lots of different communication needs.  And we have to choose the most appropriate communication support to meet their respective needs.
Now, there are three main communication supports available for deaf people.  One is speech‑to‑text transcription such as the one that's provided by a captioner, which is appropriate for those who have the written language as a first language.
Another is sign language interpreters are used by deaf people who prefer sign language as a first language.  And then you have deaf‑blind people and deaf‑blind people will use ‑‑ well, they'll have their own communication guides who understand their specific needs.  Not just in terms of actual communication but also support with the physical environment and navigating that, as well.
The quality of communication is very important.  It's of paramount importance to both deaf people, and also the rest of the hearing participants, as well.  It's important to use a high quality service captioner.  The sign language interpreters, it's important that they're fully qualified and accredited with their registered body.  And they need to be able to provide proof of their accreditation at the time of the booking.  And maybe it's also advisable to ask the deaf participants if they have a preferred interpreter.
Booking in advance is imperative to secure the availability of a sign language interpreter because of the chronic shortage.  And as a general rule, we should try to book them about six weeks in advance and less than two weeks' notice makes it much more difficult to secure their availability.
For remote captioning, and sign language interpreters require background materials to be able to prepare themselves for the task that they're required to undertake.  And it's important that those materials can be provided seven days in advance because failure to do that will result in less accuracy and difficulties during meetings.
It would be prudent to assign a staff member of ITU to be responsible for communicating with the deaf participants to ascertain what their preferred communication support is and also check on the accreditation of the communication support providers.  And also communicate with each Chair and Convener to make sure that we can kind of gather the information that we need to be able to provide those on to the people who are providing communication support.
And also to inform deaf participants who their communication support providers are.  Perhaps we can give out assessment sheets, as well to the relevant parties, both deaf and hearing, and then we can collect them at the end.  And that will be able to pro shied a sure report to someone more senior in ITU.  Thank you very much (provide).
>> ANDREA SAKS: Thank you, Christopher.  That was wonderful.  I'm going to read some of the comments that have been coming in.  First of all, Mia came in with ‑‑ Mia Ahlgren is on the focus group on audiovisual accessible and is responsible for developing guidelines for accessible meetings along with Mark Magennes.  And she said.
>> Mia:  Checklist for chairman is one of the most important issues where I think we can learn a lot.
>> ANDREA SAKS: That's what Mia said.  Can you go back down to?  We have another one where ‑‑ another one that says ‑‑ Christian said.  Can you go to where Christian Vogler?
>> Christian:  I have some starter material on remote accessibility.  And many lessons learned from the FCC activities.
>> ANDREA SAKS: Now the FCC is really, really good, and I've talked to Karen Peltz Strauss who we will hear from a little bit later who is at the FCC for consumer affairs especially about timing issues when we do remote participation that we have a sufficient time to communicate with the people who are in remote situations who have to be able to communicate with their sign language interpreters or read what's going on.  It takes time.  And we try to give people that time in our meetings.
So Christian Vogler has said "so I could write these up in some form." I just need to know how to submit them.
>> Alexandra:  Christian has a suggestion.
>> ANDREA SAKS: Since this is the secretariat for the focus group.
>> ALEXANDRA GASPARI: The working group K, Mia Ahlgren is attending this meeting, you could write to the Secretariat, that's Alexandra, as a contribution from Gallaudet University.  The deadline for the contribution is the 16th of May if I am not mistaken.  This could be an effective way to gain visibility and for the focus group to receive contributions and progress the work in working group K, which is Mia's Swedish disability organization and Mark Maggenis, who is the National Council for the Blind in Ireland.
What would you say to this?  The focus group is open for non‑ITU group is open for ‑‑ even though I am speaking for her.  I would suggest that Christopher submit this document to the focus group, also.  Because then it would be on record.  And I'm getting a yes nod from Christopher.  So Alexandra will take this and put them into form for you.
And we've got another ‑‑ no, that's Sasha.  Oh, Christian.
>> Christian:  Mia, can you tell me what address to send this to?  Or I need to sign up for an email list?
>> ANDREA SAKS: Christian, you already are on this list because Alexandra is the secretariat.  She will communicate directly with you.  And it will be done.  And we will hook you ‑‑ we will do it, don't worry.  And you send the contribution to Alexandra.  And Alexandra will make sure that it's in the right format and sent on to the focus group.  Alexandra can forward it, says Mia.
So we've just gotten two contributions right there.
Now, what I would like to do at this point is go to Gerry Ellis, who has lots of things to say, because he has entered meetings where he has had to use captioning to be able to follow it and not been able to respond to what's been going on.  Gerry, would you like to give us a few words on your experiences and what you think is important to take into consideration for accessible meetings for remote participants?
>> JERRY: Okay.  Thank you, Andrea.  Andrea, can you hear me?
>> GERRY ELLIS: Can you hear me?
>> ANDREA SAKS: Yes, we can hear you, Gerry.
>> Gerry, carry on.
>> ANDREA SAKS: Gerry, have we lost you?
>> GERRY ELLIS: Can you hear me now?
>> ANDREA SAKS: Yes, we can.  Go ahead, Gerry.
>> GERRY ELLIS: Okay.  Mark and Mia are ex proximate earth in this area. ‑‑
[Silence.]
Sorry, Andrea.
>> ANDREA SAKS: We're listening to you.  Just go right ahead.
>> JERRY: I was out but I'm back now.
>> GERRY ELLIS: Mark and Mia are the great experts in this area.  But Andrea and Christopher asked me to put on a few thoughts in relation to accessibility for visually impaired people.  So I have a few thoughts off the top of my head.
First thing I said is that accessibility requirements don't start the moment you walk into a room and don't finish when you move out of the room after a meeting.  So I tried to break it down into different times when you need accessibility.
First there's preparation.  First you need to know what the options are that are available in advance and maybe to advise the people who are hosting the meeting because someone like myself or Christopher or whoever would have a lot of experience and could maybe help them rather than have them reinvent the wheel every time.  So there needs to be an option there in advance where you can contact.  And that obviously means that somebody must be nominated as the responsible person.
That has to be taken into account early in the development stage of the planning of the meeting.
Okay.  A big way that we usually work in advance of the meeting is via websites.  So we need to ensure that the websites which are used for registering and for finding out what hotels are available and so on, so on, are developed according to the World Wide Web consortium, WDAG 2.0.
And particular attention is required to ensure that PDF document are accessible as they often are returned.  So they need to be available in alternative formats in advance of the meeting.
Okay.  Transport.  This is often ignored in relation to visually impaired people.  Using public transport system is often a nightmare for visually impaired people, be it going through airports or trying to use buses or trains or whatever.  And having to use taxis all the time is extraordinarily expensive.  So this immediately is one of the main reasons why a blind person might need a personal assistant with them.  And I'll come at that issue.
Then you get to the venue and the environs of the venue before ‑‑ itself.
So traveling, if a person has to attend several meetings, for instance, at the IGF, where if it's a meeting in one room, then another meeting in another room, then another meeting in another room, moving around those can be extremely difficult.
And also, of course, then the meetings often change.  So you find ‑‑ and change to room 150, that information is often put on pieces of paper or whatever on a wall so a blind person cannot access that information.
And even the idea of finding restaurants, finding stuff like that, finding the information desk can be really difficult for a blind person.
These some of the reasons for the need for a PA for persons.
Even if you're only attending one meeting in one room, a blind person still needs to know where is the restaurant in the area?  The venue, et cetera, or when you're in the restaurant, one of the things I find is that it's often you can't use a white cane and carry your tray at the same time.  These are all points that will be done by a PA, if necessary.
As for the meeting itself, as for the things that might be required to turn the actual meeting itself, are the PowerPoint presentations accessible?  Do the presenters know to explain the PowerPoint?  Are documents accessible?  Particularly those in PDF format, are they accessible?  And that all assumes that those documents so on were made available in advance or in electronic form for meetings.
So what often happens ‑‑ so all those issues matter.
What about if a blind person is a speaker?  Is it safe for a blind person to get onto the stage?  It often isn't.
[Inaudible] accessible like how to give a PowerPoint presentation should be set up that is accessible.
And the interesting things that are often inaccessible, where do you go to get a bus to go to and from the forum, if it is a venue, where do you go if there's a meal or whatever?  How does a blind person access that information?  That might seem to be obligatory but is very important because that's where you often meet people and where the real conversations are at the eating, the restaurants, at the bars.  So those are just points.
And the other one that I wrote down is are the emergency evacuation processes accessible?  Is that information accessible?
Okay.  The meeting's over.  You've gone home.  But it's not over yet.  Are the reimbursement activities accessible?  So you need to make sure are the documents accessible?  Is the website accessible?  All of that sort of stuff.  And then the other last issue that I've mentioned are the reports, the other documents that come out, are they accessible?
So you see there are things that come up again and again and again.  And they all very often need a support person for assistance.
And then the one that we discussed is cost.  So there is the problem of cost.  Okay.  Thank you.
>> ANDREA SAKS: Gerry, that was brilliant.  What I want to suggest, if you will agree, is that we have this down in captioning.  With a little tidying up with the um's and the Ah's removed, we would like to have you consider submitting what you have just said in the same way Christian, who has a document, to the focus group, that the deadline is the 13th.  We are the 9th.  Would you consider allowing Alexandra to help you put it into the correct format and having it submitted as a document to Mia's department?  Because we think what you've just said is very important.  A lot of the things aren't covered, like cost.  I know Pia Algreason, will really like that.  I can't think of Pia's last name.  Pia.  No, I'm talking about pillar.  Pillar loves to talk about cost.  It's not done in relationship to that enough.  So would you consider that?
>> GERRY ELLIS: Most happy to.
>> ANDREA SAKS: So we have two contributions that will go to Mia by the 13th.  And Alexandra and I will help you with that.  And that will be great.
Now, we have a message from Kate Grant who is leaving and saying cheers.  Thank you, Kate, I really appreciate your ability to just come in and do it and go there.  And I know you and Gerry will work together to get, you know, representation.
Kate:  I also need the o go.  I agree with a lot of what Gerry says.  It also applies to the physically handicapped.  I have seen someone carried up three flights of stairs in a wheelchair because the dinner was one floor down was not accessible and the washroom was one floor down from the entrance.  That's an important thought, as well, too.
And also, Cynthia Waddell did a marvelous report on the inaccessibility of the IGF meeting that we had in Nairobi.
So we have a lot of documentation that needs to be dealt with.
One of the things, also, I want to drag somebody in on is the Chairman who is sitting here at the back, our rapporteur, Bill Pechey, who has had a very interesting experience both running a rapporteur's meeting remotely in London and also having me badger him to death for the last three days at Question 26.
As a chairman, I think it's important ‑‑ we're not getting is the captioner able to follow me?  Yes.  There is an echo.  I can hear it.  Just a minute.
(it happened when Gerry came on).
I haven't changed anything.  We have an echo.  We'll try and fight through it.  We'll see if Bill has it.
Bill, would you like to comment on your experience as a Chairman and how things can help you in the future?
>> BILL PECHEY: Thank you, Madame Chairman.  Yes, it's rather interesting chairing these meetings.  It's quite a mental exercise to sit up at the front, display the documents, watch what's happening on the various chat boxes.  We've had two separate chat boxes in these recent meetings, which is quite confusing.  I think it will be nice if we just had one in the future.  That would help.
And taking Notes at the same time for the report.  It's quite a difficult task to do for one person.  And I think that I'm beginning to reach the conclusion that Chairing these remotely accessible meetings is ‑‑ requires two people on the podium to maintain all the communication channels.
We've had some difficulty, some technical difficulties.  And we're still having technical difficulties in this meeting with a bit of echo.  I think I would recommend that we do much more testing ahead of the beginning of the meeting than we have in the past.
I think I would also say that so far, there is no perfect meeting tool.  We've tried several ones, and some are better in some regards and some are better in others.  But as I say, there is no perfect one yet.  And we're hoping that something will emerge and perhaps we can lobby the manufacturers of these things so that they do incorporate the features that we need.
In the meeting room here, we have the same information that is displayed on Adobe Connect projected onto the screen on the wall.  That's fine.  But it would be nice if we had several screens.  We have two here.  We have one which is showing the captioning.  But I think there's a need possibly for three screens to do one of these meetings properly.  It would certainly make it easier.
When I was sitting up at the front, I was looking at three different computers to see what was going on.  And I was beginning to get used to it.  But I was hoping that I didn't have to get used to it and it would be easier in the future.
So I don't know.  I think there's still a lot of work to do.  And I hope that people who take part in these meetings will bear with us while we improve it and get it to a totally acceptable format which I don't think it quite is yet.  Thank you.
>> ANDREA SAKS: Thank you, Bill.  I'm very grateful for your view because Alexandra and I make a pretty good team when we do this because we've done this for such a long time.  And we keep learning.  And Mia was really sweet.  She said I do not see myself as an expert as Gerry says.  There is much more experience and expertise in this group.  So thank you for all the contributions.
And I think it's important to know that we all have pieces that we do well and that we know well and that we keep learning.  And we haven't written it down.  And it needs to be written down.  And Alexandra doesn't even realize she's one of the best experts in remote meetings because we've done a lot, haven't we?  She says no.  But she's not telling the truth.  She's very good.  And the thing is:  Without her, I could not run this meeting.
And poor Bill didn't realize that I was trying to help him.  Because I knew he was having difficulty.  And the same thing applied to when we were watching the remote meeting and watching the fact that, again, there has to be a checklist, as Mia said, for chairman.  And there's going to be resistance to that because they have been doing it a long time and nobody likes to be told that they have to change.  So I'm hoping that we can leave this for the time being and know that maybe one time we might be able to get a training program for chairman and it's put in the agenda for a reason.  Because when people come and are new chairpersons or new vice chairs, the ITU does give a small indoctrination period to help them learn how to chair a meeting if they have not had any experience.  And I think that this could be added to that.
Okay.  The next thing we have exactly a half an hour to finish.  I know we've lost a few people.  But I think the people were here for the bits that they needed to be for.
I would like to actually ask Bill to speak again about what happened in Question 26 just recently.  And I've highlighted the presentation made by Mrs. Karen Peltz Strauss of the FCC and also the highlight of the fact that the relay service document has progressed.
So, Bill, I'm going to give you the floor again, please.  Thank you.
>> BILL PECHEY: Thank you, Madame Chairman.  Yeah.  Question 26 has been quite busy since your last meeting.  We had a meeting in London the day after your last meeting on the 23rd of March.  And this was the sole aim of this meeting was to advance our technical paper on relay services.
Just to remind people, the purpose of this it's twofold.  One is to provide guidance for people or countries who wish to implement relay services for deaf and speech‑impaired people.  And we're getting to quite a good state with that document now.  If anybody wants to see the draft, just let me know and I'll make it available.
We've probably got another meeting's worth of work before we finish that, or at least publish it properly.
The second purpose of that document is to provide guidance to ourselves mainly on what we need to standardize about relay services.  This is not a standard.  It's not a recommendation.  It's just a guidance document.
It's become clear that there is a definite need for standardization in relay services.  The users are particularly keen to have performance parameters standardized so that they know they'll get a good service from every relay service.
And the operators of these relay services want to be able to work properly with a wide range of terminals and do so with other relay services of other networks.  So we may have some work to do in that area.
We're open to suggestions on what other aspects need to be standardized.  So that's where we are with that.  There are a few other minor items which I won't bother to bore you with.
But at the meeting we had yesterday, we had a presentation from Karen Peltz Strauss, who I said was a Commissioner of the FCC.  She's not actually.  She's one layer down from that as she pointed down to me.  And that was about the regulations in the USA and the legal framework for accessibility.  It was very interesting.  And that document is available.  It has also been presented to another part of the ITU in the development sector.
I think it may even be referenced in the JCA material.  If it's not, I expect it will be later on.  There will be a link to it or something.  That's well word a look.
And that's probably all I have to say at the moment.  If anyone wants to know anything else, just ask.  Thank you.
>> ANDREA SAKS: Thank you, Bill.  We have permission from Karen Peltz Strauss to put her PowerPoint on the JCA.  I just have to send it to Alexandra.
One of the things I just want to mention very briefly since we're talking about relay services, though Christian has left, there is a document, 190, I'm really jumping all over this agenda, but there you go.  This article, Video Relay Service Practices and Policies around the World.  And the authors are Christian Vogler, Jeff McWhinney, P. Harper, A. Raike, and Hellström and Vanderheiden.  And the article can be found online and the document gives the link. 
I think that's kind of an important document that I just wanted to had I light that goes along with what Bill was talking about.
The document has really progressed a lot.  And I'm very hopeful that when Bill does his editing, that we'll really have something pretty spectacular.  How far it will go well we don't know, do we?  There's just a lot going on.  Bill, do you want to comment on what your projection is for the relay service document, please?
>> BILL PECHEY: Thank you, Madame Chairman.  I'd said I hoped it would be done with one more meeting.  And that I think is probably the case.
>> ANDREA SAKS: Thank you.  I'm sorry I missed that.  Now I've got that.  So I've mentioned the article.
Now, we've pretty well covered a lot of the ‑‑ the things.  I just want to point out we've got some dates for TSAG which are the 2nd and 4th of July.  And that's going to be dealing with the A7 issue to try and get that restriction removed so the ITU‑T can give funds from its own sources to the focus group, which would stop this dichotomy from not enabling them to contribute to persons with disabilities.  Because even though PP10/175 does supersede, we could have different Member States objecting to that, so we have to get that in writing.  And it will not be decided at TSAG; it will go to WTSA, because it's really going to have to be decided by the Member States.  And that meeting will be in Dubai.  It is going to be quite a long meeting from the 20th to the 29th. 
The next thing I'm going to do is kind of do some highlights of what's been happening.  I think we're pretty well through ‑‑ we might even finish earlier.
The agenda of the conference of G3ict global initiative for inclusive ICTs and OCAD, which is designing ‑‑ what does OCAD stand for?  It's a Canadian.  Sorry?  It's a university.  I'm sorry.  We should have written that out.  We didn't.  But we'll fix that.  Designing, enabling economies and policies with regards to persons with disabilities.  That's going to be the 23rd through the 25th of May in Toronto.  You might want to take note of that.
The website is ‑‑ can we put it ‑‑ would you like to read it out so it goes into the captioning, please?  The website for that?
>> ALEXANDRA GASPARI: Http://g3ict.org/events/schedule/event_agenda/t/eventid_279/id_agenda.
There is the hyperlink in the agenda.  This is the hyperlink, too.  So if you click on the agenda, the website of the OCAD event will come up.
>> ANDREA SAKS: In fact, Alexandra has hyper linked a lot of documents in the agenda, so it is possible for you to go directly to some of these places.  But we will be sending the captioning out, or actually we'll be posting it on the website so you can take a look at what's going on.
Also, the invitation to the conference of reach 112, the project final conference 21st Century telecommunications equality and the next generation of 112 accessibility in Santiago, Spain, on the 28th and 29th of June, 2012.
I would like to send a liaison to the focus group announcing this specifically, because I think that, for instance, Pilar is from Spain, so can we make a note of that?  So that the focus group is aware.  Because I think it's important.  Sorry?  The focus group is aware already?  Oh, I already sent a liaison.  Sorry.  I have such great ideas, I want to do them twice.  Oh, you did.  Okay.  I've done it.  Okay.  She keeps me straight.  Apparently this is already done.
Okay.  Then we have an invitation mentioned here of e‑summit of the Commonwealth, 29‑31 August 2012 in London.  Our Director of the ITU‑T, Mr. Malcolm Johnson, is a great advocate of accessibility.  And, in fact, the minute he arrived, he began supporting that.  He created the job for Alexandra so that we had actually ‑‑ Secretariat job.  Actually she is an Officer of Accessibility for the ITU‑T.  And she basically is ‑‑ would not have been here unless we had Malcolm.  And Malcolm will be doing a speech there.  And we are just taking note of that.
That information, how does anybody access that if they wanted to attend?  Do we have a way? 
We will put something later once we find something out, but we haven't got that.  Once we're allowed to send something out, we will do so on the reflecter, how's that?  Okay, good.
Now, the Vodaphone Foundation smart accessibility award, which is done by the institute on disability in public policy, that's document 191.  And is that right?  No.  Where's the document on that one?  Is there one?  There's no document.  You know more about this than I do.  Can you speak about that?  Thank you.
>> ALEXANDRA GASPARI: The Vodaphone Foundation have provided some awards for every year.  And they have just called for the new for 2012.  And some members known at the, by the ITU like especially the dynamic coalition on accessibility disability have submitted their projects to the award.  That's why we mention it because some members of the DICAD have sent, have presented to the Vodaphone foundation.  And hopefully they will be awarded.
>> ANDREA SAKS: One of them is Aaron Metta, who has come to many workshops for us.  He is responsible for the software that was created for Steven Hawkins.  He also has created software that enables autistic children to write their own software and their parents to write their own software to progress their communication with human beings through machines.  So we just wanted to take note of that.
We have the world first Master's degree in disability.  Now, this is something that ‑‑ there may be fellowships available.  And it was brought to our attention.  The document is 191, The Institute on Disability in Public Policy.  They want people to apply because it is possible that somebody in this room might like to go or knows somebody who might like to apply because it's virtual, isn't it?  It's online.  I believe it is, the American University for ‑‑ Fellowship for Students with Disabilities.  If a person has a disability, they would get a fellowship if they qualify to get a master's degree.  There are 15 fellowships, Alexandra told me.  So we thought we'd put that out there.
The other thing that happened, this is something that I attended in New York.  And that was ‑‑ here it is.  It's document 192.  I went to the girl's ‑‑ the launch of the ITU's new global campaign, tech meets girls.  Girls in ICT on the 26th of April in New York.  It was an amazing event because all these women who have been in ITT, including the commissioner of the FCC, who is a woman, was there.  Many women I had never met before who were absolutely high powered, high level women in the industry.  And the stories they told of discrimination.  The stories they told about how they managed to stick with it.  And the fact that nods are actually encouraged to go to schools to be engineers, it was extraordinary.
And there is a portal for that.  There was one big booboo.  And I'll tell you about that at the end.
There was a speech given by miss Joanne O' Riordan.  I won't repeat the speech.  But she's absolutely amazing.  She had no arms and no legs and had the best sense of humor I've ever heard in anyone.  She was absolutely amazing.  And she has, I think the quote that you'd like is this and I'll read this "as you can see, I was born without my limbs, but my motto in life is:  No limbs, no limit."
I really enjoyed talking to her.
And then of course the spies in Ireland saw that I was actually there and thought that I had organized the whole thing, but I hadn't.  I was just invited to be there because I'm now being identified as their adviser to the ITU, which is I'm glad of that considering I'm not really viewed myself that way, I tend to cause trouble.  And I did cause trouble.  They forgot my girls.  They forgot deaf girls.  Because ‑‑ and this is why we have to have the taskforce become more active, why we have to have tutorials for staff, so that these little omissions do not occur again.  But it was not captioned.  They had it webcast and everything else.  And even at the highest level, these sorts of things happen.  But it was still a fabulous event.  It will be retrospectively captioned, not just with Google captions where you have to click on the CC.  Because I tried to do that and I could not get that CC fast enough to put the captions there.  So when I wrote to Amadun, I said we have to have permanent captioning.  Because I couldn't do it.  Could someone like Joanne O' Riordan, if she was deaf, as well, could she with a stick in her mouth be able to get those captions?
So awareness and everything else is what this is about.  And when we do awareness things, we often make mistakes because we can't remember everything.  And that's why guidelines are really important.
If you have time, I think it would be wonderful if you read this speech because if you think you've got a problem in life, I can't believe how cheerful and how wonderful.  And she really ought to be on the tonight show.  She was the funniest thing.  She was such a good comedian and also gave such great information about how technology changed her life.  Like Steven Hawkins.  But she held the biscuit.  She was the most amazing thing.  And only 16 years old.  Yes, Gerry, go ahead.  You want to make a comment.
>> GERRY ELLIS: Just to make a comment that that lady, I heard her interviewed on Irish radio and she's amazing.  Such a cheerful wonderful woman.  But what Andrea didn't tell the participants there at the meeting is that Andrea peered on Irish television because a picture of this lady was taken with Andrea in the background.  And I have the picture.
[Laughter]
>> ANDREA SAKS: Oh no.
>> GERRY ELLIS: I have a still of that from an Irish newspaper and I'll get it to you if you're interested.
>> ANDREA SAKS: Well thank you very much.  Maybe we should post it or make a dart board out of it, I don't know which.  Thank you, Gerry, that was really funny because I got an email from Gerry saying the spies are everywhere.
Kevin, Gerry's guide who takes him places and stuff, saw it and phoned up Gerry.  So you can imagine Gerry, who can't see a thing, told me that I was on television in Ireland.  It was quite nice.  I really did enjoy that.  But I had to confess the captioning wasn't there.  But that actually changed the dynamic in the ITU.  And the taskforce met the next week.  And headed by Doreen Bogdan, who was there.  But she was the only one I told at the time.  It was wonderful except you forgot the captioning.  And she went oh my God.
So true mistakes and errors and everything else, I think we move forward.
Now let's just recap.  Have I covered everything, Alexandra?  Or have I left something out that we need to talk about?  Does anybody want to say anything?  Sorry?  Yes.  I think if anybody has a question about something or whatever, is there anybody who would like to say anything?  I think we've managed to cover everything.  So I wanted to give a shout out for anything.  Christopher, please go ahead.
>> CHRISTOPHER JONES: Just a very quick comment because of the deadline of May the 13th.  I just want to remind everybody that the sign language interpreters are not only for me to have access at the meetings but also to enable me to network, as well, outside during the coffee breaks, lunchtimes, evening meals, possible meetings in the evenings.  And that's really important to include that in the document.  Thank you.
>> ANDREA SAKS: And may I take this opportunity to thank Russell and Joanne for their expert interpretation not only during the meeting but also we've had many side meetings and having lunch.  And they've been absolutely fabulous.  And we love having them here.  And to say thank you very much for their expertise, their excellent expertise in sign and their sunny natures, as well, because we have a laugh, as well.  And also I want to thank Kathy very much for her wonderful captioning.  And we've got Beat who wants to say something.
>> Beat:  I just want to say that I prefer the Adobe software over the go to meeting thing.  Thanks to all for making this meeting accessible.
>> ANDREA SAKS: Well, Beat, thank you for saying that.  We really worked hard to improve what we have done in the past.  And I really appreciate ‑‑ can you type a little more about what I'm saying since I don't have control.  Or, Beat, you're reading the captioning, are you?  Are you reading the captioning, Beat, so you can read?  Well, of course you are.  I wanted to say thank you.  Beat is a wonderful supporter of what we do here.  He is part of the relay service program in Switzerland.  He has worked with us many times.  He is a good fighter when we need to have certain changes made at the ITU.  So, Beat, thank you for being there.  And I want you to make sure that you follow what's going on with the relay service document that we have progressed.  And I'm sure Bill will help you do that.  I don't know if you have a TIES account, but we'll make sure you have that information because I know that you'll want to look that over.
Does anyone else want to say anything before we close?  Okay.  Christopher, please.
>> CHRISTOPHER JONES: I just want to say I'd like one of you to reply to Beat about why he prefers the Adobe Connect software over the go to meeting.  Maybe we need some more analysis for the reason for his preference.
>> ANDREA SAKS: Okay.  Beat has also said thanks for the flowers.  And we'll follow‑up for the larger lunch back to you.  Will follow‑up on the relay paper.
Beat, can you follow‑up on why you prefer Adobe to GoToMeeting? 
Beat's typing.
>> Beat:  More clear on the screen.
>> ANDREA SAKS: Okay.  So you can read it better.  So there's also a visual situation.  That's very interesting.  We'll take note of that.  Thank you.  I appreciate that information.
I want to thank everybody else who has contributed.  I want to thank ‑‑ beat as more.
>> Beat:  More possibilities to link into the camera post if I want to say something else.
>> ANDREA SAKS: Okay.  Anything else coming?  Okay.
I want to thank everyone who contributed.  To John Lee, to Bill Pechey, to Alani Mutwettor, Mr. Yamaguchi Norifumi ‑‑ I'm never going to say it right ‑‑ and to Christopher Jones and to Alexandra for helping me and for the boys who do the AV, to Kevin Quinto and to Mark Antoine Venut, because without the AV department and the guys putting it together, we wouldn't have the accessible meeting.  And to Christian, who contributed and to Kate Grant, to Gerry Ellis, anybody I've left out?  I think we had a lot of contributors.  We've done very well.  Gerry, any parting comments before we leave?
>> GERRY ELLIS: No, Andrea.  Thanks very much for making sure that thus who are doing the remote participation were fully included.  It's been really good.
>> ANDREA SAKS: Well, okay, great.  Thank you very much.  And we actually, Alexandra, thank you very much for helping me.  Without you, I couldn't do it.  Alexandra, do you want to have a parting shot?  Go ahead.
>> ALEXANDRA GASPARI: This was the last meeting of the JCA‑AHF before the UTSA 12 in Dubai.  Thanks, all, for contributing to this.  It's always a challenge.  Maybe it doesn't look like from your perspective.  But it is indeed a challenge to organize a meeting with remote participants, with remote with different abilities.  And we are trying and we are committed to this as a job.  Thank you, everybody.
>> ANDREA SAKS: Thank you very much.
[Silence.]
(end of meeting) 

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This text is being provided in a rough draft format.  Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) is provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings. 
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