The Key to Sustainable Global Prosperity is at the Margins

Jutta TreviranusInclusive Design Research CentreOCAD University

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Digital Exclusion

• access to online systems is no longer an option

• new entranceway to government services, commerce, education, employment, recreation, social engagement, civic engagement....

• powerful potential to address barriers to accessibility

• but current systems failing

• estimated social and economic cost of digital exclusion (55.2 billion annually in the US)

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Bridging the Gap?

• Standard information and communication technology (ICT) developers design for the typical or average user

• Specialized Assistive technology (AT) is intended to bridge the gap to reach anyone that requires alternative access systems

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Technology Gap

• Assistive Technology bridge is inadequate and crumbling

• impossible technical task (interoperate with all applications)

• impossible business conditions (very small customer base)

• only serve some disabilities

• only serve a small part of the world

• Unlike standard ICT, AT is:

• increasing in cost

• Decreasing in availability, functionality, reliability and diversity

• Costs up to 10 times more to “get online”

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Special Services for excluded individuals

• Currently spend more on policing and excluding people from specialized services than on delivering service

• Vicious cycle of increasing administrative overhead:

• certify individuals as qualifying for service

• authorize technology or training as qualifying for funding

• During budget cuts - limit costs by tightening criteria

• squeezed-out groups advocate for new categories

• more spent on administering new categories

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Accessibility Legislation

• Essential for cultural change, but hard to update and keep current

• Blunt and rigid instrument for such a complex and evolving domain as the Web and the internet

• Seen to constrain innovation, flexibility and customization

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We need a new approach

• must be sustainable

• must be integrated

• must take advantage of technical advance rather than trying to catch up

• must include the full spectrum of users who face barriers

• must recognize that people with disabilities are very diverse

• must be available globally

Emerging Approach

• Leveraging global networks and connectivity

• Taking advantage of the flexibility of digital content and applications

• Stretching the trend toward personalization to encompass all potential users

• Addressing the needs of consumers at the margins through the rise of 3D printing

• Crowdsourcing accessibility

• Developing a future-proof economic driver that can engage producers and suppliers at the margins9

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Benefits far more than individuals with disabilities…

Mainstreaming Digital Inclusion

• Recognizes and serves the full spectrum of human diversity

• Reframing as relative

• Disability = a mismatch between the needs of the individual and the service or environment offered

• Accessibility = the ability of the system to match the needs of the individual

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Push to Pull

• Creates powerful pull market that reduces barriers to entry and provides accessible employment opportunities

• In extreme push market

• most of capital spent pushing products, leaving little time for production and innovation

• emerging developers can’t break into market

• compelled to address largest markets and ignore the rest

• Enable pull market

• diversity of requests

• Reduced barriers to entry for new producers and suppliers

• encourage diversity of supply and innovation

Requires Global Cooperation and Participation

• Global infrastructure

• Open standards

• Pooling and sharing of resources across national boundaries

• Connecting demands with supply globally

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Enabling greater diversity of participation and thereby...

• innovation and creativity

• resiliency

• cumulative, collective production, pooling and sharing

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Questions, suggestions....

• http://gpii.net

• http://idrc.ocadu.ca

• http://floeproject.org

• http://cloud4All.info