 I hope we all get a good lunch break and ready for the second part of the day. So I would like to pass the floor to Christina Buetti that already here with us. So Christina, the floor is yours, it's a leading decision. Thank you. Thank you very much and well, first of all, good day to all of you wherever you are. Welcome to session six of the Accessible Europe event. My name is Christina Buetti and I'm currently the ITU FOGO point on environment as Mars Sustainable Cities, which also includes the work of the United Nations Initiative, EUPERSSC. I have also the pleasure as Vice-Councillor of ITT Study 20, which is actually a study group that is tasked to develop standards on ITN and smart cities. And, you know, in many years of experience, working at the ITU, two of the foremost characteristics that have served both core values in and that has ultimate goals of ITU's work are accessibility and inclusivity. So no matter what the core focus of our individual projects is, we develop them with an understanding of how profoundly technology affects the way that billions of people all over the world communicate, learn and think. It has been always clear that simply put, technology is integral to every fabric of society and will always continue to help shape its quality and direction. And I think that all of us, we can agree that, you know, especially with the COVID-19 pandemic, one of the things that indeed the pandemic itself, as I like it, is the need to ensure that information and communication technologies meet the needs of all members of society. So for all members of society, you know, we need to ensure that we've reached the digital divide by creating a culture of inclusion and accessibility. So without any further ado, as I know that we have a distinguished list of speakers today, I'm very pleased actually to introduce to all of you, Ms. Tanya Marcus. She is the vice chairman of the ITT study group 20, as well as of the United First Master's Sustainable TV Initiative. We have also with us Ms. Monica Planobeck, an architect and project team leader of the expert group of the European Commission standardization Monday and slash 420. And then Mr. Federico Batista, a policy officer at the United Cities and Local Government, UCLG and Ms. Rita Jacinto, Program Manager Division for the Pedestrian Accessibility from beautiful Lisbon in Portugal. So first of all, welcome. Welcome to all the speakers to this session and welcome also to all the participants. We do hope that you will enjoy the session and please feel free to ask any questions. If you all agree, I will ask all speakers, sorry, each speaker to start. And then we can take actually the questions if there will be any at the end of the session. So would that be acceptable to all of you? Maybe we can try also, I would ask the speakers to speak briefly, just to at least check if everything works on your hand. So let us start with Tanya. So Tanya, I hope that you can hear us. Okay, while we wait for Tanya eventually to connect, let me quickly introduce to you Ms. Monica Planobeck, and I hope that that pronunciation is not that bad. So Monica after several years working as a certified architect on different projects, she started a new professional career as a standardization manager within the Austrian Standard Institute, responsible for the general result of building construction standards in national, European and international standardization. Since 2003, she has been delegated by the Austrian Consumer Council as a standardization expert in Austrian standardization committees related accessible building and building construction. And in 2006, she founded and was chairperson until 2014 of the association design for all. So clearly as we can see, Monica has really a great expertise and experience. So I'd like maybe Monica to share with us some initial thoughts and then tell us a bit what is the specific goal of mandate of M420 and reach out the deliverables and group accessibility in the built environment. Monica, over to you. Thank you so much for your nice introduction. I'm happy to be here now and tell you about maybe a final point of this mandate for M420 which started already in 2009, as a long ago where we had different phases to focus on this important issue, how to support a European accessibility requirement for public procurement for planners and architects in the built environment. And the first phase of this mandate was involved in 2009, as I already said, about inventory, about analyzes and feasibility of European and international accessibility standards in the built environment, which are working on the market already to find a general approach and the recommendation how we can proceed in phase two. There were two project teams in this phase one. The one focusing on technical requirements on building regulations and also on technical specifications and standards. And the second group was dealing with conformity assessment. Then we finalized our work in 2011 with a large comprehensive report of 500 pages. And we made also a recommendation how it would be best to continue. And we recommended to have three deliverables and only one European standard, but not with technical requirement, with functional requirements only. What this was, in our view, the easiest way to find a harmonized approach between the different member states. And we found out that the majority of the member states have building regulations, but several of them, also I think seven of them have also since long-term national standards, which they don't want to delete, of course. So this approach with their functional requirements was in our view the most functional way to work on the subject. It has also a so-called deductive approach to train also public procurers and architects a bit more about this issue as it is not part of the normal education of architects to learn a lot of accessibility. And secondly, we developed two technical reports. The one focusing on the technical performance criteria and specifications, how the EN can be fulfilled. And secondly, the technical report on conformity assessment. The numbers are CENTR 17621 and 17622. They are just now for approval vote. And the EN has already been published in January. I think BS has already published a national EN on this, but all the other countries which need other languages have a little bit to wait. I think until July, each country in Europe should have published the EN 17210. Maybe this is for the first round or should I add something more about the sources, the scope, what your interest is doing. Sorry, I think Monica, I think for the first round I suggest that we stop here. Certainly, I think the participants are enjoying the wealth of information that you already shared and clearly you are a very knowledgeable person. So there'll be a second round for you, I have no doubt. So why we wait for Tanya to connect? Again, I would like now to move to Federico. Federico is another great expert. He's the accessibility policy officer at the USCLG and he's also an international policy expert and advisor on implementation of UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. So Federico, what do you think about the role of ICDs in building smart and accessible cities? Well, thank you for the question and I try to be really short with this one, even though I think it's a big question because I think first we're thinking about what is actually smart and at least for me personally and also at UCLG, which is the acronym for United Cities and Local Government, just shortly it's the largest network of local and regional governments in the world. It's looking at smart not being based in technology but smart being based on what makes us smart, which is people and the diversity of the people that are engaged in the development, not only of cities, but in technology, in care, in different services that we all appreciate and need to equitably engage. So I look at ICT as an enabler for especially looking at the pandemic now, you really see that ICT can be an enabler for equity, really bridging those gaps, not only in socioeconomic inclusion, but really the change of mentality that you mentioned earlier, that we really need that shift that looks at the person rather than their situation and taking that person as innovation. So ICT moving forward and taking all the learnings that we saw from the pandemic where suddenly overnight all of the accessibility requirements that we've been advocating for years, suddenly became something that was readily available, whether it was being your doctor or physician online, whether it was accessing educational opportunities, which not only for persons with disabilities, but also looking at gender, that's a big equity marker for a lot of women and other gender non-conforming persons around the world. So this is kind of a huge shift in seeing ICT at building inclusivity, so moving from integration to inclusion and then changing also the resilience of our city. So when there's a pandemic, how can we keep going and do what essentially is human by adapting? So to be sure, because I know we have a lot of other things, that's the role ICT and ICT that great enabler and we have a key moment now to ensure that ICT doesn't create a gap that will happen in the built environment before that we take that moment now to really push forward and ensure things are universal and for everyone. Yeah, thank you Federico, that is definitely true. I think that as you said, the pandemic has really gave us also great opportunity. It was not only a challenge, but also great opportunity. And all I believe the key concept and tools that have been campaigning for many years, then they became practice all of a sudden, from night to day and late night. So I'd like now to go back actually to what it was, our first speaker, so Ms. Tanya Marcus. So welcome Tanya, good day to you. So Tanya, for those of you, I'm sure that many of you already know her, but allow me to introduce her again. She's the end of these mass sustainable cities at the Spanish Association for Standardization and she's also the vice chairman of the ICT State of 20 on Internet of Things and Massities and Communities. And she has been recently appointed as vice chairman also of the United for Mass Sustainability Initiative, which is like UN initiatives. From more than a decade that she was responsible for promoting accessibility in all standardization fields, breaking from traditional focus on assisting technologies and expanding to include requirements for universal accessibility and design for all in any product or services. So I think we restart from even preventing the problem and just developing products and standards that already have accessibility requirements included. So Tanya, tell us a bit, what are the objectives of the UFRC and how does the inclusion of persons with disabilities can be considered in initiatives at Vogue as it works? Thank you very much, Christina. And thank you for waiting for me. It's good to see that I know the speaker from my back experience in standardization for the European mandates on public procurement, accessible public procurement. And it's good to see that the outcome is finally here. I'm very happy to tell you about the United for Mass Sustainable Cities. It's an initiative of 17 UN bodies that is co-lead by the International Telecommunications Union, the ITU, and the UN Economic Commission for Europe that is UNICEF and the UN Abitat. And we collaborate also with European stakeholders like Senfene, like Etsy Sector Forum on the Smart Sustainable Cities and Communities and the European Technical Committee for that. And the goal of the UFRC initiative is to promote the Smart Sustainable City approaches that support the implementation of the 2030 agenda and help to achieve its sustainable development goals and especially focused on SDG 11 that is to make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable. And it supports the cities and the countries to develop their capacities for implementing this innovative urban solutions and mechanisms. This helps foster standardization and that's the connection. And to improve the integration and interoperability of the digital technologies within cities to make them smart and sustainable. We provide an international platform for information exchange and knowledge sharing and partnership building and partners implement the projects and well, they improve business opportunities for SMEs also and promote job creation that is so important for the people with disabilities and also very important is support the engagement of public and private and third sector organizations in delivering smart and sustainable urban solutions. We also support the evaluation of the city's performance using key performance indicators for smart cities and communities smart sustainable cities that are based on the ITU standards and well, the work is developed within different thematic groups with representatives of national and local governments the private sector, civil society and academia and produce the liberables that can be found in the U4SSC website. And we say smart cities because thanks to the use of the ICT and other means the different public services and infrastructure in a city like water, energy, waste management and all this lighting and mobility can be monitored and city managers can make decisions based on the data they receive improving by the quality of life, the efficiency of urban operations and the competitiveness. But we also say sustainable cities because we are covering all aspects that are economic, the social, the environmental and as well as cultural. So the transition to smart sustainable cities requires a mandatory addressing accessibility because citizens may have varying degrees of physical, visual, auditory or speech and cognitive abilities. And the city leaders need to ensure access to quality basic services and public spaces for all and enhancing safety and security and favoring social and intergenerational interaction and the appreciation of diversity because I'm smart sustainable city they shall leave no one behind. So mainly I could stand more but I... Thank you, thank you, Tanya. I think that that is really, that is really important. I think that that's crucial not to leave no one behind. And now with this, let's say last comment I'd like actually to introduce our last speaker last but not least, Rita. Rita is a program manager in the division for the pedestrian accessibility in Lisbon municipality in Portugal. She's been working in the city since 2016 and has collaborated on a variety of projects and public policy initiative. Rita has also recently joined the box for Lisbon project working on how to use digital data and technology to improve disabled people, mobility experience and opportunities. And she also undertook an emceasing human factors for inclusive design at local university in the UK. So Rita, maybe you can tell us a bit, you know, what are the efforts that are being made by the Lisbon Council so that technology and available data can contribute to a more accessible city, especially to vulnerable groups. Hi everyone, very happy to be here and thank you for the introduction. So Christine, as you mentioned, I work for the division for pedestrian accessibility which is a challenge in a city like Lisbon. So I will speak from my experience at Lisbon Council so at at local level having worked in the field of accessibility for some years now. I'll share some reflections on the two projects that we are currently working on. The first one is called Trips. So it is focused on the co-creation and the co-design of transport solutions for disabled people and with other European partners. And the second one is called Voxpop. It has some similarities. It's a Lisbon based project and with European funds and it addresses several mobility challenges in Lisbon by using technology and available data to respond to these issues. So when Lisbon is like the mobility smart city project. So my team together with all the transport companies from Lisbon is working specifically on how we can use technology and data to improve the experiences and mobility opportunities for disabled people for a more inclusive smart city. So from my experience and in particular these projects I want to focus on three reflections here. So a lot of the data that we need is not available yet. The context and the city is very important and that's one of the reasons why the data is not available yet or we haven't been able to gather it. And the third one, it's not new but still always important to stress disabled people need to be and we're trying that it happens in this project need to be a part of the process in every step. So there is a common thread here. In many ways, technological systems and data follow unfortunately similar patterns of old style data. What does that mean? So same old paradigm of thinking about cities and cities in a way that leaves disabled people behind and leaves them to a second plan. It kind of happened in a way that the digital data was planned to be gathered. So I think maybe a bit related to what Federico was saying that happened in the built environment. Okay, I see him nodding, yes. So we noticed that that was happening in this digital data and the way it was being gathered. So to clarify, I'll give an example in this project and before as well in the work from my team we speak to disabled people on how do they use public transport? What apps do they use? What sort of digital services do they access and to get the information they need? And for instance, if a wheelchair user needs to know if the lift on the tube station is working there's no way to know and the data is not available yet. But that's one of the things that always come up when we do focus groups and we interview disabled people or they're part of the project. Or if the bus that's approaching the bus station the ramp is working or other facilities are working or it has sound information for instance or if it has information that is being written on digital boards. So you have all this information about the times and the schedules but a lot of information that is very useful for disabled people improve their opportunities and more comfort for their experiences hasn't really been thought of. And even at the same mobility app that is available in several cities does not have the same information available in different cities because the city doesn't have the data available. So we started in one of the projects that's okay, there's a lot of available data let's just see how we can make it available to the right customer and user. But then we had to take a step back and think wait the data is really not available. So it is a complex process because there's a lot of in the area of mobility there's a lot of transport operators there's a lot of companies. So cooperation is really key here and we're really working to see what data we're gonna focus on and how we can gather the data then second phase make it available. So I think those were the most important reflections and the work we're doing at the moment. Well, I think that's great. And I think that, as you said, it's really important to get through projects and to have especially disabled people part of the project that cannot be, I believe, really a project that is successful without their input. And I think, that really opens up for us the opportunity for a second round of questions. So I'd like actually to also ask Pania, for example, giving a role as vice chairman of the UFRC. I mean, we understood that, for example, the UFRC developed a set of key performance indicators for most sustainable TVs. So how, for example, that city in Europe responding to this KBI is taking into consideration that accessibility is also one of the key KBI's that has to be addressed. Thank you. Thank you, Christina. Yes, one of the things that Pablo mentioned is that the concept of smart sustainable cities are a bit ambiguous yet. And what does it mean? And who can claim to be fully accessible and who can claim to be sustainable and who can claim to be smart just because of the investment on ICTs? What you need is to design to really know your diagnosis, what you look like and to bring to your mind the future. How do you see yourself as a city in the mid or long term? And this is very important and that is also something important to standardize. If we have clear the requirements and they are open and fully available, then everybody will understand better that relationship between the city managers and the service providers and the community they are serving. All the demands of the city fence should be put first. Many cities, unfortunately, are investing in things that at the end, they may collect a lot of data but they are not sure on what to do with them and they are not improving the quality of life of their city fence. On this sense, the U4SCC is developing, it's supported by this KPI standard and we are working in operating this index for cities as well. But the most important thing is that from one side you need to trust in these ICTs that should be accessible and Europe is a global leader in ICT accessibility with their four directives and will be stronger with the incoming European Accessibility Act. So I think we have done a very good work for the last 20 years. But we also need standardization not only in the technology that it's a tool but also in giving help to the cities to manage all these other issues. They need to coordinate with different departments and establish a good communication because we are not talking about urban planning by architects but we have to think that city planners and designers need to collaborate with the specialists from very diverse fields and not only engineers because of the IACPs but we also need the sociologists and to study the demand, the real demand of the citizens. When you see the surveys, maybe people with disabilities have not been able to participate in those inquiries. So really we have to break with that tendency and take the voice. The voice of consumers in Europe is very strong for example in standardization and the voice of the European Disability Forum is also the one to be heard in the cities. And all these should combine. We talk about involving psychologists and therapists and even lawyers for the ethics in the HPTL intelligence and we need the private sectors and of course these representatives of people with disabilities and all the vulnerable collectives because when you talk for example about smart transportation we are having now the cities are increasingly embarking on their respective smart city journeys because it's a journey, it's not the end point. And they for example try to do the effort in bikes and electric scooters and things like those but that may not be the solution for a part of the population and not only people with disabilities. We are talking about families with little children that can't use that transportation. We are talking about the elderly people that neither can use that transportation. We also need clear regulation in Europe where to park all those elements that are so bad for people with low vision and blind person and also the traffic regulation. We had a lot of injuries to elderly people because of this. So when you promote this solution you have to think about the rest of the population as well. So this is something that any city must take into account. And saying this there's a lot of things that can be done and that ahead we are talking about the smart buildings that connect data to the cities for all the people that live alone may have an increasing demand for example for telecare and telecare not only in the building but through the city and all these are feasible solutions and we need to let the city managers to know that and include them in their policies. So I really think we can in a few years see more and more of good experience of these works. And by the way, I would like to invite everybody to participate in the standardization. If the requirements are clear they will support the regulations. And if there is no regulation it will promote it. And so... Thank you. Thank you, Tanya. And indeed that brings me to actually my second question to Monika. Indeed we're talking about standards. Maybe Monika you can share with us. Now for example the EN17 210 standard can contribute to smart accessible cities. So maybe you can tell us a bit about the standards and again the important role of standards. Yeah, I think the standards in the built environment I don't know any standard in the different countries who has covered such a broad area of application. And as we had it now in this EN17 210 that is really a new approach not only the functional requirements but even these functional requirements made it easier for regulators or for planners and for architects to understand what is standing behind and what is the real solution what we need to apply. That is some unique thing. Usually we are working with technical standards and technical content. And what is also unique in the standard that at the beginning of each clause of the subject we have a so-called rationale explaining what are the problems here, what you have to consider. They include no requirements. There's only an explanation about the issue. And what we have therefore also included many figures to make it more visible. Also showing non-appropriate solutions which make us sometimes more aware about oh, this I should avoid. And what is also interesting that we have not covered only the basic requirements on accessibility and all the important elements that we have covered therein are also urban spaces. We have covered in for instance pedestrian crossings. Also showing different solutions in some countries which are not quite the same everywhere. We have also showed how a shared space should be designed. And we have included emergency evacuation. And beaches for instance also playground outdoor areas. So this shows and finally also the transport facilities a large chapter at the end on transport facilities. Of course their ICT the information is the most very important issue. But if the facility is not accessible this is the basic for everybody. And in previous queries it was already mentioned by the person with disabilities that this is the major point when they cannot enter a building or have some steps to overcome or have not sufficient markings on the glass doors and so on and so on. So I think the standard will really help on the one side also the regulators to understand the issue and see where the problems are. We have also in the beginning a large section about the user needs and description what they need, what kind of different design elements they need to understand the building on different levels in way finding and all the things. This is based on the sense and a leg guide six for instance. And then we summarized also in the beginning the legal background on the whole subject which is much more we heard today a lot of things mentioning sustainability and smart cities and so on. So the outdoor area should be equally accessible than the building of course and how to adapt the building. So the scope of this standard is really covering all the minimum functional requirements and of course also recommendations to make it even better for an accessible and usable built environment where we follow the design for all approach and the universal design approach how it is in the UN convention described which is in principle the same. And also covering the facilities that they have to be equitable and safe use of course for the wide range of users but including also persons with disabilities but it should be the social approach and not the medical one where you will mention all the different kind of disabilities. So it's really a design for all standard and it's applicable across the full spectrum of the built environment with this division on the basic requirements and then also on special use buildings. We have included accommodation or all this stuff. Also adaptable housing which is really a unique approach to make each residential house adaptable. Also when you are living there until you're a very old age and you need some more space using a wheelchair. So this concept is also covered in this standard and I think this will improve a lot also the quality of residential houses. But this is not widely adapted in the standards which are existing at the moment. There are only a few countries looking on it. And we have a big group on cultural, leisure and sport buildings. Also sport facilities in swimming pools, restaurants all this stuff and a group of administrative service and employment buildings and a special chapter on out store and urban areas describing also gardens, parks and beaches. And finally the transport facilities are really going from the taxi from bus and coach stations to metro, tram, airport, port and cable car and also service stations for when you get your fuel for the cars of course. So you'll see what a broad approach this standard is covering and even with this deductive approach and explaining why these solutions have to be considered. I think this makes it very unique. Of course, another question will be what sources we have used to collect all this information and the main source of this requirements is based on the ISO standard 21-542 but of course is overwhelming this as I already mentioned. And I think it's really contributing also to a more clear introduction and consideration of the railway application standards in infrastructure that was our second level. The first one was the ISO requirements. The second one was the infrastructure of the railways applications. Why was this considered? As many countries have already applied them also for let's say other buildings not only on railway station. They found it very useful and they applied it already in their building regulations. So I think this is another harmonization approach what we have tried to consider in this work and at the later stage we have been considered specifically and standards on products or on smaller design subjects. And then when we found nothing in all these three what I mentioned then we looked on national standards and good guidance documents. So it is a very comprehensive state of the art collection what you need as a town planner what you need also as an architect of a special building and it provides a lot of guidance on this and so it can contribute really to harmonization among also the different member states of course to see what is the functional requirements about. It's not contradicting now to the building regulators of course and not contradicting international standards but it is helping to support awareness raising to knowledge also on this huge area and it's really a good guidance document I think and the TR this TR 17 621 is now describing with the same structure as the end. So you have to read both documents in parallel the TR 1 is not readable alone. That is very important. So you must always see what is the functional requirement and this is added by the TR 17 to 621 or this is long number and this can indeed thank you Monique I think that this is really is super relevant and you know I like really the importance of standards and I mean the standards that you described I think that's really fantastic to put it in the context now because we don't have much time and I would like also to give the opportunity to the to the other speakers. I would if it is possible would like to give the floor also to Federico and perhaps Federico you can highlight another important aspect which is also the role of especially inclusive partnerships with local and regional governments and their networks in order to breach the equity gap for a person with disabilities you know share us with your thoughts please. Yeah and thank you and always feel free to cut me off whenever you need and I also hope everybody's enjoying this time coming from my window here in Barcelona which is very nice. So I mean this is a really big point and a lot of the way we've been formulating our work around accessibility and has been a very one of the things that were mentioned earlier is like missing the missing data which actually informed inclusive policies and also that coordination that that local authorities need to do and a lot of the times the part of the disability is leading on accessibility or disability inclusion tends to be the one with the most muted voice so they need to be well coordinated with a lot of different agencies so that that can be more mainstream right accessibility more as a pillar rather than a side issue whether it's in mobility whether it's in education so part of that was really looking at the base so before we get into the design and training really at that policy level looking at how inclusive that process is so initially we started formulating a policy for our own members with civil society and particularly organizations of persons with disabilities and older persons so that was the baseline really looking at the challenges the opportunities and the clear way forward so we discussed that with civil society the mayors also international bodies and mechanisms like the special envoy the UN special envoy on disability and accessibility and together approved that document in a central space really looking at what are clear ways that we can move forward you know if we're saying that we want to achieve human rights if we're saying we want to change achieve SDGs what does that really mean and like looking at accessibility as that accelerator and looking at that decade of action to really identify tangible things that after 10 years we can really measure and understand that policy was effective so that not only having that discussion there and bringing leaders with disabilities showing that by having a label and environment really brings out that diversity in the city that discussion was really essential and also proud that we were able to coordinate with some of our partners like World Enables and the World Blind Union to make those documents available in the accessible format to show our members also at the policy level you need and if you want to include the perspective of persons with disabilities and also other groups such as children I said those documents and plans need to be in accessible format so we're working on even creating more but our policy documents on accessibility are available in audio format in English, Spanish and French as well as the audio English, Spanish and French and you need to read so we're continuing that and highlighting to our members kind of some key steps that they can even take even in low resource settings and how we can support them through that capacity building so this inclusive partnership is really creating that format at the base and although we know we have lots of responsibilities we also know that we can do it alone and and part of that is you know working with with civil society organization that blended connection through financing mechanisms and also dialogues with national government to the international community so we're also feeding into that system because we are on the day-to-day base implementing the sustainable development goals and localizing human rights and the principles of accessibility and also connecting with civil society to fill in those data gaps so although there are those data gaps we you know I think at the heart of it the way that we connect with people was the original data format right that's how you start hearing in all the information and by having those platforms be equitable having your communications and building those partnerships for everybody that the decision-making table is so essential and one of those outcomes from the document and what key strategy that we're developing not only ensure that this work is implemented but there's also a political backing behind it is both through this community of practice and the global compact on inclusive and accessible cities so this community of practice is really a sore in which we can look tangibly at training and look at specific topic areas that we can address together and with civil society so they're not only involved in that process of the policy-making but now in the design of how we're understanding and really building out those services and products and also giving the capacity for our local authorities to not only communicate with the global community but also do that in trade and decoordination that is really the key when you look at cities like New York or like Punjab-Masteem their ability to really communicate with other sectors in their municipality then allows that work to be way more resilient and creates that internalized change that is really the understanding of how accessibility is not only although as important for the 25% of the population that it really directly affects which are persons with disabilities and older persons but also broad range you know whether you have a temporary situation or a permanent disability so that idea that the city is a city for the whole lifetime so when you're 10 years old to when you're a new father or mother or to when you're 80 years old and watching your grandkids that that city is a place where you can be and live and feel a part of and also be in that decision making so those tools looking at policy getting leaders behind that and leaders championing within their own municipalities intersex or open communication on accessibility really creates that institutional change and then that change in mindset and for example one of those change in mindset that leads to something tangible is not only people with disabilities and society organizations being involved but also that representation of people with disabilities in the municipality in decision making roles and that's also something we're fostering through the community of practice to show cities those leaders elected officials as well for example we have a counselor from La Paz in Bolivia and she's the one of the only women with disabilities to have this role in the president of the council and her role there ensures that those budgets and those thoughts around those budgets are changing and if you look at Chicago as well hiring the first commissioner for the office of disability that's deaf that changes the style of how you communicate and then that also changes the way you communicate to the public so a lot of those things at the basis when you have that it starts to create that change and then we talk about the standards and all those other things that are important and that's the biggest barrier as time is the lack of awareness of those tools that are there so in terms of these inclusive partnerships it sounds so silly but bringing people to the table to dialogue and connect actually leads into all those standards and changes of leadership and institutional transformation and the essential part just to close off is just to really bring together those different stakeholders and talk about how we go from that legal framework to the localization and how do we connect this multi-level governance national government talking to local government being effectively involved in the decision making table civil society involved and the private sector really effectively institutionalized that change Thank you Federico and indeed I think I believe that as you said it is extremely important to bring all stakeholders on the table and really I love your expression of the city as a lifetime and you know in order to be able to live through the various phases from when we are kids to when we hope that we will be you know grandfathers or grandmothers and enjoying actually life through time and that brings me actually to a question that I would like to ask to Rita as she is actually a representative a direct representative from a city so what are the main challenges I have for Lisbon and also if you can chat you know based on your experience on other cities on the path for city to become more accessible so more you know definitely smarter more sustainable Thank you so I was attentively listening to Federico I don't know if I was nodding but in my head I was nodding because he touched on a lot of points talking about municipalities and engaging with other organizations and not just having disabled people's organizations coming in but having disabled people being part of the organization of the city council of whatever and company we're talking about so I'll be very brief because I see we only have a few minutes but one of the biggest challenges we have is how do we cooperate and this can have so many levels and it's so complex but between the private sector how do companies cooperate and how do companies share data because data is very valuable so to have a smart city that's really smart for people you have to have that data sharing between the public sector because it's it's not just one big public sector there's a lot of different authorities several levels of the public sector and between the public sector and the private sector so this is very different from country to country but it's complex everywhere and you have to set the norms and you need to have in two ways you need to conquer people in the way that they see this makes sense this is good this is the direction but you also need to have norms established you really need because some companies are not going to do it just because this is the right thing to do that you need to have those those norms and on a very brief point international projects like the one I mentioned and that we participate that we learn from cities experiences this is crucial because a city council or particularly in a capital it can be a very big body you can have thousands of people so I can do I can be part of a project and have no idea that somewhere in the same city council as I is participating in the same one so we need to cooperate as a it doesn't matter if we're talking about a small city or if we're talking about other projects we need to cooperate even within so one of the the challenges and I think one of the way one good way forward is learning from other cities experiences or from other organization experiences it's really the right thing to do because we learn in technical in technical ways we learn we learn in terms of policy and either we like it or not this organization organizations are run by politicians so it is very important that we show them look what other cities are doing not to say they are better than us because politicians never like that but as inspiration and not just look what they're doing but look how they are doing it public sector can be a heavy body to change and to people to train and to learn new ways and to change paradigms but we need inspiration and we need politicians oh I also want to be a city that's looking out for their citizens and doing the services and we need to think about that we can't forget that so yes I would focus on these two just to close and we have two minutes so that's it thank you thank you Rida and I think building you know our probably the motto our session of having really a city of a lifetime which is also inspirational because definitely I think that is a crucial point and maybe if I can we won't have time to respond to our questions but maybe if I can take just the last one and combine it with another one that we received a question to all of you so very briefly how we know that gathering data and monitoring also the quality of data is not easy data comes from different sources and you know most of the time they are not even harmonized so especially when we are talking about complex networks so we are being asked to buy Sergio shouldn't be talking about interoperable smart data that allow a full inclusive journey to all citizens prior to smart cities so a question to all of you maybe with some reflection Rida you go fast this time sorry could you could you I was getting questions here sorry could you repeat the question I apologize yeah no worries I was saying I was just asking repeating sorry a question that we were asked and about you know the fact that that we received that the city receives data from multiple sources and they are often not harmonized especially thanks to the situation that they come from different complex networks so Sergio is asking us shouldn't be talking about interoperable smart data that allow a fully inclusive journey to all citizens prior to smart cities yes the answer is yes we should be talking about that that is part of the big umbrella smart city and having a city thinking about its citizens and a quality of life yes that's a challenge we face every day and in our city council from various various sectors data comes in in different ways I'm not a technology expert but even just the geolocation that comes in different formats and you can't integrate everything so yeah the city really needs to invest in that on people that are very good at it and on the services and getting companies to provide us data that are already compatible so that we don't have to do this extra work every time yes that's very very true and maybe you know a last question for Federico from your experience which would be the role model from the existing city were built with accessibility requirements in mind and all the cities which are to consider accessible for all the more inclusive we don't want you to put in that difficult situation you know I'm just if you can mention to you I think that I will be fine I know I know it will sound very diplomatic but I actually really believe this it's not I'm not only saying this to save my face but I think every city and this is what I'm a little bit with Rita mentioned because of the context that they have really strong things about them whether some cities are good on on technology which look at cities like but you also have cities like panjama theme or cities like La Paz which that community building which is missing in some of those other cities that are so focused it helps that change that mindset and leads to that accessibility so there's not to be diplomatic at all I would say it's just very much I think the key part is like what why we need that dialogue is because we're all doing so many good things and because we're also culturally different we can learn a lot about where our strengths and weaknesses are missing so this kind of sister cities or 20 cities I think is a really key process for example Barcelona and Amman are doing this they're cooperating between each other to learn about accessibility and their location and Amman has some of that more social aspect and built environment where Barcelona is kind of leading in the the digital accessibility land and I wanted to go back to the other question really shortly in terms of interoperability I think it's so important and back to what Rita was saying that we have to show that to the leaders how it works and for example civil society organizations have been leading this with cities making an accessibility cloud although it doesn't get every data but it gets a lot of different data on accessibility and I think taking that two-year city leaders and showing them you know how those different partners are working together and how useful that data can be and to inform and build upon but it's not just the the standard but we can really build upon that and encourage that interagency interoperability it will be so important and be sure Thank you Thank you Federica maybe you know because we are talking about standards which I know is a subject to deal to the arts of the last two excellent speakers that we had on this panel so maybe Monica one last consideration and then we'll keep the the floor to Tanya for some you know closing thoughts Thank you so much I think one of the most important things that we create a basic training for technicians and architects we have the real big lack of knowledge and to make them more aware about it and maybe also to introduce the role of a certified access consultant which can help to consult cities or architects in this field in this area and finally I think there's a good data collection available from the European Access City Award I remember I was in this sherry two times and they were very creative approaches and solutions in different cities to be found but this knowledge should be exchanged a little bit more that would be my recommendation Thank you Thank you Monica Tanya over to you Thank you linking with what Monica said yes this award this European award is very good but again you have that bias that it is assigned to European cities that are over 50,000 inhabitants and it's a paradox because you may have the tourist destinations with lots of visitors and it may be a great tourist destination and accessible to be accessible but smaller than that size and then you can't concur to that and that happened for example with Benidor and my message is please don't reinvent the wheel there are plenty of standards don't hesitate contact ITUT ST20 for interoperability for smart city platforms for the platforms for IOT for everything trust me just at a national level in Spain you have over 33,000 standards covering all fields and many address to the cities challenges and don't forget also this is small municipalities and rural areas please because city fans are all over the world and size matters thank you thank you so much Tania and I'd like to thank the opportunity to thank all the I think great speakers I would like also to thank the Bastille events and apologies to those that were not able to respond their questions but we are reachable so you can you can drop us an email I'm sure that the organizer will be delighted to put you in touch with any of the speakers and well conclude with saying once again that it is extremely important and then probably a call to policy makers that you know, disabled people need to be part of their strategies of their projects of you know that's clear you know has Federico told us we need a city that is a city for the lifetime and as Rita mentioned you know it has to be inspirational and then you know once again I think to join what Tania and Monica said that's really great work going on especially in terms of standards and so try to you know reach out and you know will be more delighted to help so thank you very much to all of you and I wish you you know a successful continuation of this you know great event thank you thank you so much Christina and all speakers it's a really delightful discussion that we have today so now we will have a short break we have eight minutes break where we can relax a bit, grab a coffee and we will come back at 1415 it's our last concluding session it will be also interesting session we will discuss what is the way the advancing implementation of ICT accessibility across Europe so please stay with us and now we will come back in 1415 thank you making online job application and recruitment systems accessible for all over one billion people in the world live with a disability about 80% of them are of working age persons with disabilities may face inequalities to access and use ICTs at work therefore guaranteeing that ICT tools meet the necessary requirements is critical for persons with disabilities to enter the labor market but many online application recruitment systems are inaccessible for users with disabilities preventing them to apply for jobs in conditions of equality to support the development of inclusive digital societies ITU and ILO have developed a project that will provide guidance and strengthen the capacity of policymakers from governments UN agencies and other stakeholders to ensure disability inclusion throughout the recruitment process ITU is committed to support the creation of accessible online job application and recruitment systems for the benefit of all including persons with disabilities thus creating more inclusive societies by reducing inequalities and supporting their social economic development with the ever-growing share of digital solutions in the world of work it is a priority to address digital barriers to getting into employment online recruitment systems are a key factor in this their accessibility is essential for promoting decent work for persons with disabilities ITU and ILO provide a set of guidelines to ensure that recruitment systems are accessible strengthening knowledge in digital accessibility requirements and international standards and inspiring policymakers and stakeholders to lead by example on disability inclusion join us in this global commitment to ensure that employment opportunities are accessible to everyone In this video we will introduce the Global Accessibility Reporting Initiative or GAARI for short the reality is that sooner or later we all will develop at least some limitation in vision, hearing, dexterity or learning to help overcome this and to help us find a wireless device that best suits our needs the Mobile and Wireless Forum created at GAARI GAARI is an online database of the accessibility features that various wireless devices have built into them So to give you an idea of how it might be useful let's say you have one of the many eye conditions that might cause you to experience blurred vision or even partially blurred vision this can make reading the text on the screen difficult for those conditions you could use some of the speech functions that will have the device read out the text for you Almost one in five with the world's population lives with some kind of recognised disability Likewise if your eyesight is getting worse and you find that the text on the screen too small you can use various functions increase the size of the font if your eyesight is extremely poor or if you are blind then you can have the device speak out all of the content on the device There are also many features for those with various hearing impairments and if you are experiencing movement challenges in fact many of the features that we use each day we don't even think of as accessibility features a voice assistant is extremely useful in the large number of scenarios but for those who have vision impairment it can make a huge difference There are a lot of these features built into devices today and Garry helps you to identify which device has which features It also lets you look for apps that might extend the usefulness of your device even further and Garry is not just dealing with phones it includes tablets and wearables smart TVs It doesn't cost anything to use Garry It's also available on a range of languages and covers products available around the world So why not visit the Garry website www.garry.info and have a look for yourself Access to an inclusive education changes lives By providing an educational experience that is both equal and effective we create opportunities to take part in society and ultimately grow as people Not providing the chance to learn alongside others in their local communities Particularly in the early years of school life can have a profound and lifelong effect At the European Agency for Special Needs and Inclusive Education we work with over 30 member countries throughout Europe to provide meaningful and high quality educational opportunities that make sure every learner feels included in their local school alongside their friends and peers From early childhood education through to teacher education and financing we provide information and guidance in all areas of inclusive education By identifying needs and raising the achievements of all learners we can recognize and build on their knowledge and talents to effectively meet their individual learning requirements To make our shared vision a reality each country must commit to including every learner no matter what their needs An inclusive education system is the shared responsibility of all educators, leaders and decision makers and so legislation and policy must clearly reflect this vision The impact of an inclusive educational experience has far-reaching and positive benefits for everyone So the earlier this begins the better Working together throughout Europe we know we can achieve high quality equitable educational opportunities for everyone Thank you so much for coming a little late Hello Hello everyone, let's see Ah, gallery that's much better Perfect I see Susanna I see Sarah Where am I? I think Jesus might have used my link to login That's why for the moment we have two Sabina Right Too much happiness Can you hear me? Yes, we hear you And can you see me? Not yet Not yet because I am inside you Oh yes, I see you You still have the label of Sabina Loebnik If that makes you happy you can stay Okay, so I don't I can't find the link that you told me Ratie, would you be able to help Jesus? Hi, yes, Ari So if you could rename yourself Ah, rename myself Okay, perfect Yes, so I think that's the best way forward for now So there's three dots Valley, okay On your name then you can change it So yeah, we see three Sabina Loebnik here, that's correct I think it's fair to give Jesus his name Ratie, sorry, you can't see here I can't see myself I don't know why Can you see me? At the new place, that here? Yes, I'm here Ah, excellent Perfect Perfect That is So, I am here It's my face It's my body It's my name Yes, perfect Perfect Okay, thank you very much for helping No, that's perfect I think we just demonstrated that ICT is fantastic when it works and painful when it doesn't work Although here we clearly had human error because I sent Jesus the wrong link this morning So I take one thing Yeah, this is my my first time that happened to me to be in the body of a woman Oh, no I think it's not the first time Excellent I will give the floor to yours to start the session Thank you Perfect, thank you very much Great So let's kick it off We are at almost the end of the second day So usually you only have really the hardcore convinced and passionate people staying for the second half of the second day So I think we are in very good company and we still, I saw, we still have 90 people in the call plus the people that follow the webcast which I also did yesterday the whole day This is a good audience and it's a really good topic because our topic while our session title is advancing the implementation of ICT accessibility across Europe We heard a lot about ICT accessibility from the policy side from the user side from different aspects doing those two days and I think it's the perfect time in this session to close the circle I also think that we reflect in our panel that really both accessibility and ICT are touching upon every single aspect of our life I will not dive into the detailed background of our speakers because that would fill the full session I do invite everyone to check out their bias it's fascinating to read but we do cover transport, regional policy e-health students, education standards, tourism all under the angle of accessibility so you see it covers basically every aspect of social life end of economic life A quick introduction of myself I'm not sure how many saw the video maybe in the break before many thanks to ITU for the appropriate timing I work for the mobile and wireless forum and we are the association of the manufacturers of ICT devices so mostly mobile phones, tablets, smart TVs and we have been working on the accessibility of the devices for over 13 years or for 13 years now and if you want to check it out I will put it into the link into the chat our main outcome of this work on accessibility is on one hand the advancement of accessibility features on the other hand a focus on informing consumers about accessibility solutions in the market today so if you go to the gallery website you can either see if you can find or identify a device for specific access need or you can play around and check out the accessibility features of your own device that sometimes can be quite surprising good enough about me I would like to switch to my first speaker to Susanna Raskowska and I ask every speaker to correct my pronunciation of the names when it's their turn Susanna is the Deputy Director and the Ministry of Funds and Regional Policy in Poland and she's also responsible for the transposition of the EAA in Poland so that's that of course we have a nice difficult question for Susanna I think you will be up for it so the question is how to create a national ecosystem for accessibility and what specifically are the lessons learned from the Polish perspective you have 5 minutes Susanna go ahead thank you Sabin thank you for introducing me it was almost perfect but you can try with the word the stamp mesh which means accessibility in Polish so try with this and you'll be the perfect one so yes I'm really very happy to share with you a few examples of what we do for accessibility in my country in Poland because the last few years were really intense and I think we've made quite a good progress so coming directly to your question about the ecosystem of accessibility and now I'm talking about the national level at the last session we heard about the cities and accessible cities it's also a very interesting topic for example one of the accessible cities is Warsaw who won the prize of the EU prize on accessible cities so you can follow this example as well but I think for the ecosystem there is a couple of important elements and let's say foundations and I think they are quite similar to what we heard already today at this conference so first of all you have to have thorough diagnosis then good strategy effective law addressing changes in societies and technologies strong coordination of different actors different activities and strong partnership and as for the strategy we talked already a bit about this conference about European accessibility which is my great domain as well and I also start with this because it's really a huge step in the accessibility landscape and one of my stakeholders last time called it a revolution so I think it's really a big thing and very much connected with and reliant on digital accessibility but building a whole ecosystem is of course a much longer story more complex story from my national perspective the turning point was putting the accessibility on the top of government agenda and it happened at the end of 2017 when accessibility was included in the key strategic document for programs and then things gained momentum a few months later the governmental program called Accessibility Plus was adopted with its cross-sectoral perspective and I won't go deep into that program because it's a very complex one but it has just to say it has two dimensions first one it's permanent inclusion of the accessibility issue into all public policies and the second one is includes investments in age areas defined in the program the digitization area as well but we have also architecture transport education healthcare and so on and another key element of the system it's a law on accessibility we talk about importance of awareness but to my mind while building awareness it's kind of beginning of path towards accessibility I think the law is also a key tool in achieving it and according to our analysis that we have during our transposition of the European Accessibility Act it's still the compliance which is one of the main factors of implementing accessibility standards so whatever we think about it we need law to motivate people so we have the Web Accessibility Directive already we have the European Accessibility Act both extremely important but what distinguishes our Polish ecosystem is a very important role of our own act and it's called Act on Ensuring Accessibility for People with specific needs and this came into force in 2019 and this is the very first and horizontal Act on Accessibility in Polish Law System with and we hope it will start really a huge change in our public space so this is all very new, very living and giving hope for a real change I mentioned partnership I won't repeat what was said before as previous sessions but one example from Poland we have a kind of joint venture called Partnership for Accessibility which is a commitment of private sector local governments, TPO's and GO's to act in the line of the Accessibility Plus program so it's quite important for us and I cannot forget about funding because I work in the ministry managing the EU funds so this is the message to my EU colleagues I should underline the role of these funds because they are the main source of financing our accessibility goals and they force full accessibility in thousands of bigger and smaller projects and the next financial perspective that begins just right now this year we give even more impact in developing the accessibility area it will give greater range of activities and maybe the last point because I could talk hours I think but the last point to show you it's not always an easy road a few challenges we face so it is still too little awareness of accessibility, knowledge about it but also too little involvement of business local authorities but also other ministries we have to work with other ministries and even if there was great enthusiasm at the beginning of preparing the program of implementing it this enthusiasm is a bit declining so this is a challenge for us to maintain but as I said the story is long and we write chapter after chapter and we still initiate new projects and we take lessons from less successful stories and we engage all parties to go in the same direction thanks wonderful thank you very much Susana that's a really good insight in what's happening in Poland that's of course in particular interesting for us that don't speak the Polish language so otherwise it's very difficult to understand what's going on so thank you for the overview and we see it's quite high level still because you mentioned it's difficult to get the municipalities and the companies the smaller ones to engage so let's switch to Portugal with Sara Carras-Caro if I'm right she is a member of the Board of Directors in Portugal's Administration Modernization Agency so I'm very interested to hear how you engage in accessibility how that plays a role in the modernization of administration and then maybe you can also tell us if you have the same experience as Susana that it stays quite high level and that the trickle down effect might not be there yet Flo is yours first of all greetings from Lisbon to all participants it's been wonderful to collaborate with the International Telecommunication Union and the European Commission to host Accessibility Europe 2021 well it's a pity not to have in Lisbon as we planned a year ago due to the Covid-19 pandemic but anyway the event has been running wonderfully so regarding your question well yes we have quite the same experience maybe or similar experience than Susana at national level so I would say that the digital accessibility is placed at a very high priority in Portugal's strategies for quite some time as a matter of fact Portugal was the first European country having the W3C accessibility requirements for websites in legislation back in 1999 so digital accessibility and also usability are since then two pillars present in the main Portuguese public administration strategies as key components of our digital government services and solutions we have since 2011 a national regulation for digital interoperability created by law which applies to government ICT systems and establishes the adoption of open standards and defines technical specification and digital formats to be adopted by public administration and it covers web interface technologies including accessibility ergonomics among other issues so this regulation was revised in 2018 introducing a new standard for web accessibility W3C 2.1 level of conformance A and NA which is equivalent to the European standard 301 540 349 so I may say that we have this issue of raising awareness for accessibility by law as Suzanne has mentioned it's important to grant it by law for more than 20 years presently the main Portuguese public administration strategies namely the innovation and modernization strategy for the state and public administration in 2023 and the digital transformation of public administration 2023 covers several issues related with accessibility like citizens participation in the development of public policies and innovative public services promotion of interoperability, integration and inclusion in service delivery also the digital accessibility defining ambitious goals namely to have 90% of our public sector websites rewarded with a national seal of excellence inaccessibility and usability which is quite challenging goal on the other hand our public administration digital transformation strategy relies in the government framework led by the prime minister delegated in our minister of the state modernization and public administration and comprises an ICT council with representatives of all governmental areas like Suzanne as told us before it is quite important to involve all areas in this question related to digital transformation and digital accessibility so through this through this governance body and through this our strategy we share common goals if we articulate AIMA is the agency that coordinates this strategy and that coordinates these initiatives that aim to develop and to spread common methodologies and development of new digital services which comply with several requirements naming interoperability security and of course accessibility and usability so since 2018 AIMA is the national competent authority for the development and monitoring of conformity assessment with the accessibility of digital public services provided either by websites or by applications aligned with European directives and since then we have established a team a digital experience team which made online ecosystems that combines both accessibility and usability competencies and that is helping public entities to cope with these challenges so our ecosystem includes websites such accessibility.gov.gov.pt visibility.gov.pt the seal.gov.pt and these sites provide information to developers and also several tools naming an automatic web accessibility validator which evaluates the web accessibility of web pages and generate the report according to the W3C guidelines criteria and attributes to the score from 1 to 10 in which 10 equals to the double A level of conformance it also includes an online generator that enables automatically to create the declaration of accessibility and usability required by the European directives and the set of manual and practical documents and checklists that help all providers of digital services to comply with digital accessibility requirements also to promote sorry maybe one minute to conclude and we would need to switch to the next panel I'm already finishing so to recognize the reports of the public bodies we also have this initiative creating an seal of excellence of accessibility and visibility which has three levels and the maximum level, the goal level implies to test the systems with users with disability before going alive. We are also providing several initiatives promoting the public servants with training programs learning sessions, micro learning mocks, webinars and route tables in order to get all public servants involved with digital services development with the skills that are needed. So to conclude these are some of the concrete steps that we are in our path through promoting the digital accessibility of public services and we are fully committed to provide safe, accessible and inclusive digital public services in Portugal. Wonderful, thank you Sarah. That shows that you really have a lot of different moving parts and it's all necessary that in the end we do get comprehensive accessibility so congratulations on that and in particular to keeping the overview on all of that and coordinating it. Now we switch back to Slovenia to Lukka Michailowska she is a member of the Serbian Alliance for Accessibility and also member of the Parliament of the Serbian Republic. So you have two heads of the user perspective and of the policy person who then needs to make it happen. I'm very much looking forward to hearing your perspective and the very easy question I have for you is concrete steps on how to achieve ICT accessibility. So what do we need to do? Thank you very much. When you said we switch I just correct you switch to Serbia and also when you said we switch to Portugal and Serbia I thought that maybe we are on Eurovision and maybe I should start to sing but we are not. Well actually I want to thank the organizers for the invitation it's a great honor to be here with all those wonderful people and I will try to share the experience and examples of my country trying to answer the question how to achieve ICT accessibility and accessibility in general. Serbia signed the CRPD in 2007 Serbia was one of the first countries who did it but as in many countries challenges appeared in harmonizing treaty with national legislation and national practices. As we heard yesterday and today many times the implementation of CRPD or any standards adopted national or international is crucial but to do that there are some preconditions which are necessary and the first one is as my previous colleague mentioned political determination. Progress is not possible if government officials do not send a clear political message on a particular issue. You can adopt whatever you want you can also be pushed a little bit by let's say European progress report or UN committee recommendation but if government is not committed to deal with the issue the steps will be very small. So also the second thing is when you decide to do you think you start to do something even if you don't know exactly what you are doing just start dealing with the issue. Serbia became firmly committed to working on accessibility to be honest a few years ago in fact our prime minister that you had the ability to heard yesterday her speech she and I met at an event and she proposed to me let's start working on improving accessibility. After that the government established a working group for improving accessibility and as you also heard yesterday with significant support by ITU we have been working on baseline study on ICT accessibility in Serbia. This study will be published very soon and it will contain key recommendations for further actions. In fact the most important is to take a strategic approach because we have examples in our local municipalities that I don't know you have a barrier free health services but you don't have a very free educational facilities or services. So the most important is to take a strategic approach conduct a baseline study make a strategic plan for improving accessibility and moving barriers prioritize fields and do the things systematically. That's really important as I said we have a good example in the past but they are not we don't have exact data why some entity decided to do something. There is no research there is no strategy but before all we should have clear picture why we should work on it. We heard a lot about statistic about numbers there is almost no any public event related to people with disabilities where the numbers or percentages are not mentioned. We should think is the accessibility issue about statistics or about people. Does it mean that there is there is sense to do something for improving independence of ten people but not to do the same thing just for one person. Is the letter P in word people the same as in the word percentage did humanity counted best for example as 0.0009% or as one person one unique composer whose achievement is wonderful. What about one of my favorite Portuguese writers isn't he unique? What about all the wonderful people through history and nowadays could we imagine how many people will never have a chance to show their capability because of lack of accessibility. It's not about percentages. It's about the purpose of each human. I will finish here. Thank you. Thank you Lupe. That's a very beautiful closing of your first intervention and it also goes back I think what I heard in the discussion today and yesterday that's about human centric, right? It doesn't matter if we make a wonderful system, if the human doesn't get acknowledged accordingly. Wonderful. Thank you so much. Now we switch to Jesus Hernandez Galan from Onze and I think everyone who works in accessibility in Europe knows what Onze is doing and has heard about your wonderful work and I love your title, your directive and your universal accessibility. So I'm very interested in hearing what you will tell us about the European Accessibility Act and also if you think that it will improve the accessibility of technology of those technologies that might already be accessible or if it will rather focus on those technologies that are not yet accessible. So where do you see this going in implementation? Thank you very much. I would like to talk from two points of view. First thinking about the citizens and thinking about the countries at the moment until 2019 we don't have an accessibility law in Europe but now next year all the European countries has to adopt this law this legislation for that European Union the same legislation about the accessibility for that at this moment the accessibility meaning the same thing for all European citizens all around Europe and I think this is a very, very good news. The EAA is very focused on technology we would like to talk about building environment accessibility but at the moment the European Accessibility Act is very focused on technology and I think this is a good news too because thinking from the point of view of the industry thinking from the point of view of the manufacturers if they want to sell their products and their services in Europe they have to introduce the accessibility from the beginning and I think this is very important not just for the European citizens it's very important for the citizens all around the world because now the industry, the technology industry is very global it's from where they develop or they manufacture their products or services they sell all around the world and they have if they want to sell here in Europe as I told before they have to introduce the accessibility from the beginning and that impact in all the citizens for that I think the European Accessibility Act improved the accessibility to the technology in the world for example working in Europe the accessibility from the countries have to for example make accessible the emergency system, the one-one-two this is a very important step because every people, depending on their capabilities or disabilities all of us can interact with the emergency systems with accessibility for example banking transportation we can use the electronic system of banking accessible for example transportation or talk about some of the areas of the of the European Accessibility for that to conclude I think the EAP is an European law with global, universal, international impact thank you very much perfect Jesus that's a really good global view on things and that helps me to bring it back to Susanna because Jesus just told us the EAA makes the technology globally better because accessibility needs to be considered from the beginning but what do you expect will that mean on the grounds in Poland when the EAA is transposed and also how do you expect to involve the private sector into that yes to be engaged in private sector is now my big task really big challenge while implementing European accessibility act and you know I wouldn't like to be the one who is bringing bad news or burdens, costs and problems related to accessibility so I have to be imaginative enough to talk about accessibility in a positive way to convince the business that it could be an opportunity and not only the cost and that there are already many successful stories to follow but to be honest it's not that easy as I noticed already during my meetings with stakeholders I hear for example when I'm trying to describe the bright side of accessibility or to show that there is so huge disability market and when I try to present accessibility as a source of innovation and growth so I hear for example madam you are too optimistic so it's like this so definitely I have to work more on my communication skills but for example last week I talked to the biggest e-commerce platform in Poland and I met there are so many passionate people sensitive to the topic of accessibility bottom up initiators of change and they said me they said the EAA will organize and structure their accessibility activities it will take time and money but we will cope with that however we speak also in the name of small enterprises and it's not so obvious that they will be able to follow all these accessibility roles because of lack of knowledge human and financial resources lack of time and sometimes I notice another point of concern like this what an unreasonable idea that all products and services web pages must be accessible and I do not need an accessible telephone and they don't know they have already an accessible telephone and they don't know they stay longer on the web page and they are more loyal with the online shop that are accessible because they are more usable more friendly to all consumers and well I'm telling you something obvious obvious for us at this conference but when I talk to people now while in my consultations during the transposition of the EAA it's not obvious at all and I really I don't take offence at this lack of enthusiasm on the contrary it's a message for the important message during my works but we have to go outside with our message outside our conferences our webinars because sometimes I feel like we talk to each other all the time you know we try to convince those who are already convinced and so the big challenge for me is to fight proper language to convince private sector to open business to different perspectives of accessibility and so we have to convince private sectors from on the one hand for the sake of its own commercial success and on the other side on the other hand for the sake of our own freedom to choose what and where we want to buy whatever is our ability because sooner or later each of us would be somehow disabled and another challenge I see is to make a good law on accessibility I talked already about it I find in the in the context of the EAA it's to find right balance between precision of rules and their flexibility to adjust to changing technologies and standards and the good law means also taking into consideration the idea thinks more first and give maybe SMEs a bit more time to adapt to new rules give possibility to your legal safeguards and we have these legal safeguards in the European actor however I fear that these safeguards also risk that the new law on accessibility would not be widespread enough and not be effective enough to make real change but personally I think these safeguards will be used only as a transitional measures and even micro enterprises which are released from the EAA duties will be systematically introducing accessibility solutions understanding that they can give them a competitive advantage in a market that will be more and more accessible and well the last point supporting private companies as I said during my first round we can offer a lot of ways to engage companies through different development funds, preferential loans, grants for innovation R&D and we can give opportunities to learn but I think we also need open-minded business leaders and their vision and readiness to put accessibility on their business agenda so thank you Ray thank you Susanna and I think you touched another very important point is the awareness and also the knowledge about accessibility and to make it concrete instead of this fluffy term that then everyone hears but doesn't understand and to get also the information to the consumer and I think that's one of the beauty full-sides of the EAA that you also have a strong component on information to the consumer and that will help not only the consumers but also the companies to see the business value definitely but I think that's one of the things that we have a lot of work to do for all of us and I think the message that I got from you is that after this conference we go out and are the ambassadors for this instead of talking to each other a message received we will do that now I switch to Sarah and actually that's the perfect segue again because we heard okay we have a lot of in particular you outlined a lot of questions but how do you engage with private the private sector and how do you make them understand the importance of ICT accessibility and because Hive is running I would have to ask you to speak to four minutes I apologize okay Sabine I will try it very quickly as a matter of fact I share a lot of the visions that Susanna told us and it's quite important to go outside public administration and talk to society and talk to entrepreneurs about the importance of the digital inclusion of society on a new digital world so Portugal has to suppose the directive on the accessibility of the websites and mobile apps through a decreed law and that law already sets accessibility as mandatory for some private sector groups and companies like NGOs in the field of disability higher education institutions public and private schools and preschool establishments so we already have that by law that obligation to comply with digital accessibility in some private sector also the matter of the Portuguese presidency of the Council of the European Unit is time to deliver a fair green and digital recovery so this reflects the central role that digital policies take place in our presidency and we are prioritizing several initiatives to accelerate the digital transition as a driver for economic recovery in Europe and to ensure that we have a leadership in digital innovation across the world so we have in Portugal we have a digital transition strategy which is led by the minister of economy and digital transition which is called Portugal Digital which comprises three pillars one dedicated to people and to fully engage people in digital transition education capacity inclusion focus on several initiatives on that matters and other two dedicated to business to fasten digital commerce and digital competences around business and the third about the digitalization of public administration so we have several initiatives aimed at promoting digital business and help small and medium sized enterprise in this way one of them which we are planning with our colleagues of economy and digital transition is to adapt and expand the seal of excellence in usability and accessibility in order to recognize the best practice in the private sector and encourage the private sector to adapt these principles boost digital inclusion and adoption of e-commerce banking in books, e-learning et cetera so to conclude we also believe that the digital accessibility is a whole of society issue we are actively promoting the engagement of several actors not only our ICT providers our public ICT providers through ICT procurement and enforcing digital accessibility in the digital government ICT solutions but also enlarging and building awareness and building skills in all societies toward this aspect to conclude I would like also to highlight digital digital the Berlin declaration which was a declaration signed by the ministers of the European Union on the development digital governments that reaffirms strong commitment to develop digital government at a human centric approach at an inclusive human centric approach and I'm sure that digital government initiatives in all over the member states will have digital accessibility concern on top of their agenda in the next years so I believe I was quite short perfect timing you mentioned several times the seal of excellence for accessibility and usability would you happen to have a link to that so that people can understand what requirements to be fulfilled to get the seal yes of course we have through our our portal which is the accessibility.gov.pt accessibility.gov.pt and we have several materials helping to comply with this film wonderful great because that sounds like a really good example that other countries might want to look at perfect then we will go back to Serbia because we had now with Poland that Poland is sometimes having a difficulty engaging with the private sector and that also in Portugal there are initiatives going on how does it look like in Serbia do you have an easy time communicating with private sector good examples for that well my experience is a little bit different than experience that my colleague had because in our country the private sector is more cooperative actually than public sector and I always emphasize them as good examples because they are actually profit oriented and it's obvious that their goal will be to attract more customers and the only way to do is to make the services available to as many people as it possible so if you visit Serbia I hope that it will happen one day you will see that examples of good practices are most often related to the private sectors like gas stations, shopping malls hotels, restaurants they are aware that accessibility will attract more people and I always try to convince our public sector that this is not just cost, this is investment because they probably business sector wouldn't put a lot of money in accessibility is that is not cost effective and I have a good example of a private and public cooperation that was one of the question actually last year a coalition of business representatives and civil society organizations launched an annual barrier free campaign in Serbia to attract the private sector to raise money for opening a national relay service for deaf people that should be available 24 hours per day and one large company confirmed that they will cover the cost of the relay service for salaries equipment and everything that need for the first year but with the government's confirmation that service will be recognized through the state budget in the future and as I'm properly informed it will soon start with and it is really great example of cooperation we also kept a lot of examples of banks and other industries developing accessible ICTs such as applications and websites especially for blind people QR code using QR codes during paying their bills and everything and finally I would really want because it's really important for me to emphasize this at the end because we don't have enough time we must be careful even in the state NGOs private sector public sector not to fall into the trap of replacing accessibility with social exclusion freedom of choice must not be put into question digitalization of services and products must not become an excuse for the physical barriers that exist in buildings and public spaces online shopping online food ordering working from home especially during the COVID crisis the provision of online services are no alternative to free movement they are just an additional option because for example when I was a student my professor used to tell me when we have a practical work in public in the building which is not accessible for wheelchair user used to tell me okay you don't have to come to the to your practical work I will give you I will give you points like you were present but that's not inclusion so it can be a little bit tricky we didn't talk about that during these two days that maybe employers can tell to people with disability okay stay at home and work from home because you have all features but people should have the ability to choose how they want to live that's the key point thank you wonderful look at two fantastic points I love that Serbia demonstrates we can have a bottom up approach of accessibility we're actually the civil society and the private sector convince the public sector to move ahead that's fantastic and then also this point is really a really good one that what did you say that online is only an option and should not replace the option of free movement that's fantastic and I think that brings us back to the point that no law written in stone will help us with accessibility it's about the mindset and understanding the idea and then translating the idea and that will always be pitfalls we will always have another problem at hand but if you have understood what we want to achieve we will go ahead but I love that you pointed that out very clearly that's really good and I think helps us in particular myself when we have very technology focused to put things in perspective but speaking about technology I switch back to Jesus and I will ask you a difficult one because you're very tech savvy and so I won't hesitate to put you on the spot here because in the EAA we talk about you know the I would almost say the usual technology the mobile phones the tablets the smart TVs all that is in the EAA and if we stick to the EAA it will be accessible or is accessible how do you see the disruptive technologies or what kind of disruptive technologies do you see coming and how would you see the accessibility around that is it an issue or is it an opportunity or a mixture of both yeah it could be an issue it could be I shoot it will be an opportunity first of all from the theorem or social concept we take care about the technology how they are growing we are monitoring and surveillance how the technology are growing with or without accessibility because it's possible many technology don't take it into account the accessibility and exclude the people we have seen now with the telework and the conference the video conference many of the people are excluded because the accessibility of these tools are not wanting for example last year no it's a reality but last year we start with we have to stay at home the subtitles didn't ingredient in these tools or we have problem with the sign language to put the sign language in the video conference for example for that we now we are working in a project a European Commission project called Accessibility Deck which is a manual a technological virtual and automatic tool to analyze which technology are growing up and which is helping people with these technologies we will have a lot of opportunity for example with artificial intelligence we have to take care about the and the exclusion through the algorithm because the design of the algorithm don't take into account the diversity maybe it's possible and we know yet because it happened this algorithm is excluded for example we are using near now the artificial intelligence for example to analyze pictures and decide the picture of the building for example is accessible or not accessible the building we are training with machine learning tool to analyze the accessibility for example it's a project it's very premature but we have to develop this kind of solution for example we are working with artificial intelligence tool and image recognizing in a translator of sign language in the next future we will have an automatic translator as we have now in the oral language and we are working in this in this project for example social robots how a social robot can help assistance robots can help people with disability for example to move in a big buildings for example a station, train station airport how you can move in these big spaces for example a social robot or assistance robot and help you to give information in an accessible way and a company a companion tool you to move into this project for example we are working in 3D printing for develop products to help people in not expensive in not expensive way for example we are developing this kind of solution to provide assistance products to people with disability for that the new technology in the future in the very very close future we will have it will enhance our capability to be more independent so for that we are working on that the surveillance looking at the new technology how they are growing accessibility and developing new products and services for help people with disability perfect Jesus and I think that again with what Lutka said beforehand it shows that however we take that technology will even improve the accessibility or become if we don't take care another exclusion factor so it's good to know that Onze has an eye on that we are fully confident you will push them in the right direction so that's really good and also the things that you pointed out the algorithms, the sign language translation, the robots, the surveillance all very important things to keep in mind so I'm very aware that we only have 3 minutes left but someone from the audience just saved my panelist from a very difficult last question that I had prepared for you but from the audience we have a question about Portugal so I will just read the question to you and then you jump in because I think it's about the numbers and the statistics in general so in Portugal around 20% have some kind of special need or disability this percentage is aligned with global numbers so do you think it's a marketing and communication issue since the numbers should be monetized or monetized for private sector as market or target so is that communication issue that we don't reach companies with the argument that 20% of customers they would reach better if they were accessible what do you think I believe that we must improve our communication around these issues of course not only for the private sector but also for the public that the public sector is quite ahead in this challenge I believe I agree that we should communicate and engage better it's what we're trying to do so we discussed during this session we discussed common laws common requirements strategic approaches disruptive technologies that can help us but we highlighted this issue that is a long way ahead and we must work together citizens, business governments, public servants ICT providers we hold everyone as a role to play in building better digital equal, fair and inclusive society for tomorrow I believe communication and engagement must be before our heads for the future wonderful thank you Sarah and I would love to hear the other speakers on that unfortunately we have barely one minute left of this session so I will use that to conclude I will also reveal what my difficult question is I invite you to share the answer on twitter under the hashtag accessible Europe I have been following the twitter stream there have been some good quotes engagement on the hashtag so my question to the speakers as well as to the attendees what do you see as concrete next step that needs to happen to move forward in ICT accessibility so do you think that the companies need to move that the government needs to move and the civil society needs to move and if yes who has to do what concretely as a next step so I will be looking at the twitter stream I hope to see some good inspiration there I think all the panelists I loved listening to you the examples from Serbia Poland, Spain, Portugal I know I learned a lot I hope the panelists amongst each other learn a lot the attendees as well and a big thank you to ITU for the job of the geographical and expertise spread in this panel big thank you to you and I had a wonderful two days and I'm looking forward to the closing session today thank you very much thank you so much Sabine and all speakers it's such an inspiring discussion and really stimulating and now we are finished with the session step and as mentioned by Sabine we will move to the main conclusion and closing of the forum part of the accessible Europe it's not end yet but this is only the forum part so I would like to first invite Mr Yaroslav Ponder he's the head of ITU office for Europe to give his concluding remarks Yaroslav the floor is yours thank you very much Rati and dear ladies and gentlemen thank you very much on behalf of the ITU for being with us to these last moments of this accessible Europe which is an important milestone in the implementation of the regional priorities where the accessibility is on the top of the agenda of so many countries we have definitely learned during these two days that Europe is leading from the accessible European international comparison but still several things have to be fixed and a lot has to be done we started with the great speeches yesterday in the morning where the Her Excellency Laito Litao from Portugal emphasized the need to foster cooperation towards the more transparent participatory and accessible public administrations and underlining that the digital inclusion cannot be thought of as abstract but as a concrete as we work to achieve the SDGs our director Doreen Bogdan also emphasized the need to create digital inclusion solutions not for but with the people who are engaging to use them therefore we are so happy that during these two days we are joined also by the innovators and by so many stakeholders who are working on advancing accessibility on the for the for the Europe accessible ICTs open pathways to greater social and economic inclusion and self empowerment of all people as a key enabler for rights and participation digital accessibility instrumental is instrumental in ensuring the achievement of the SDGs by 2030 states civil societies and private sector partners have a collective responsibility to challenge the digital inclusion gap creating a world where everyone has equal digital opportunity but this cannot be done without quick fixes through the quick fixes accessibility needs to be placed at the center of innovation and to create long term sustainable change this starts with the understanding accessibility as the default. Accessibility cannot be separated from other factors of the digital divide multi-stakeholder engagement is key to ensure availability affordability and accessibility of ICT products and services. It is vital to include persons with disabilities in the standardization process we have learned today in the morning and engage in constant inter organizational dialogue COVID-19 has highlighted the key role of the digital tools and platforms fostering education as distance learning has become the new normal for all students and all levels inclusive digital education represents a cross sectoral priority resulting from enhanced cooperation between teachers, local authorities, public and private schools and the ICT professionals developing smart cities requires not only application of technologies and ICT solutions for infrastructure development rather also their implementation as enablers of enhanced diversity and fostered inclusiveness therefore a change of mentality is required central focus should shift on people's needs priorities and recommendation as a source of innovation and growth so having said that I would like to thank very much the European Commission and the Government of Portugal and so many stakeholders who have supported us in this endeavour of making this dream happens and advancing the discussion on all these topics which we addressed during these two days let me also thank the ITU team from represented by so many colleagues from all sectors of the ITU who have presented and supported us in shaping the agenda from the developmental point of view but also standards point of view and radio communication point of view. Thank you very much for this and lastly I would like to thank also my team the team of the Europe office who was passionately working on this endeavour Rati, Mashal, Stephen Julian, Anna Marina and I would name many many more who are with us today but we are still not finishing this journey tomorrow we will be also getting together in order to further strengthen the two important components of the journey on the accessible Europe. One and capacity development where we need to prove that we are able and to advance with the proper preparation for doing the change at the regional level and the second point on the preparation and creating the new partnerships which are so essential for the future action on the ground and this is a particular reason why I would like to invite all of you to join us tomorrow from 10 o'clock to from 10 o'clock to 1 o'clock in order to address these two instrumental items. Lastly, and as I will not be taking the floor any longer, let me thank also to our technical support and the captioners and interpreters. Without you, this event would not be inclusive as we would like to have and also captioning service made it's an additional special. So thank you very much to all of those who made this happen and also thank you to those whom I didn't mention what sometimes happens but please don't be angry with us. So thank you very much one more time and I'm handing over back to you Rati for the next steps. Thank you so much for the great summary of the events. For the next, as Yaroslav mentioned, we've been organizing this forum for the third time now with the European Commission I would like to invite in Makuleda, senior expert of disability inclusion unit for the G4M social affairs and inclusion of the European Commission. So Ima, the floor is yours. Okay, thank you very much Rati for passing me the floor. I would like to start by adhering my thanks to the ones already expressed by Yaroslav to thank all his team all the members of ITU and also to thank the Portuguese presidency. This is indeed the third time that we work together in the preparation of these accessible Europe events and I think every time becomes really more rich and more interesting. We see really the evolution of accessibility through the different sessions that we have followed these two days and it's really been a pleasure to work together and to organize the content of this event because all the merit of the practical organization is both with the Portuguese presidency and ITU and I think it's important to recognize. Let me just share with you a couple of reflections. I mean we started with really a very high level panel which showed very much the interest and the increasing relevance that accessibility is having and ICT accessibility in particular is having on our policies and impacting the lives of so many people. The welcoming and opening ceremony really showed the commitment of the commission ITU, also the presidency and the member states in general to this topic. In the first session I think that we saw also how policies done at European level and put together with legislation and practices for implementing accessibility are really going hand in hand and allowing to advance but we were also reminded of the need of paying attention to research of new technologies and this is something that we cannot forget. We have seen also how important it is to pay attention to let's say the more traditional telecommunications infrastructures and solutions because the technology there is also evolving and we need to embed accessibility there. The pandemic and the recovery from the pandemic has been present and I hope that next year we will be able to be physically together also to have this confidence accompanied by more networking and exchanges of impressions and enjoy the being together. We have seen that this recovery is something that is boiling now at local regional, national and international level and we see more and more the importance to be disability inclusive and involve persons with disabilities in this process so that as said in the SDGs we don't forget nobody is forgotten. Let me congratulate also those that won yesterday where they award the ceremony it was really a great initiative as well as it was a great initiative to have all those many videos that were shown sharing practices and different initiatives that we did not have the time to put in the sessions but by that is not that we are less important on the contrary I think following each of them they contributed to give us some additional information and show how active the sector, the SD sector is in advancing on accessibility. Today we started with a session on standards and I see with this session that the world of ICT accessibility is getting more mature we are passing the phase of having to define the policies into the implementation of those policies and the standards play really an important role and this has been shown in the different practical applications that have been reflected in sessions like in education we see the barriers that still remain and the opportunities to access ICT accessibility can bring the same the warning about the future and the already current smart cities that need to be accessible was really very pertinent and had the practical solutions and challenges and the need to involve the private sector more is a message that I take also with me so I see that really this event is more and more rich that we are now having better tools and skills to advance on accessibility and the need and the advantage of working together will be shown in the coming years when we implement European legislation for example like the accessibility act and just to finish my last word to Jaroslav and to Rosana to say that let's do it again next year I think we have a lot to win with this incredible partnership thank you very much for your attention thank you Iman for your reflections reminding us on the way forward and the message that we can take from this forum also this event would not be possible we had a great support of our Portuguese government colleagues which made this event also possible to being held within the context of Portuguese presidency of the EU so without further ado I would like to invite Ms. Maria de Fatima Fonseca she is the secretary of state of the innovation at administrative modernization of Portugal so to Ms. Maria the floor is yours thank you dear head of ITU office for Europe Mr. Jaroslav Ponder your representative from the DG for employment, social affairs and inclusion my colleague secretary of state for the inclusion of persons with disabilities speakers and participants who have joined us online since we unfortunately couldn't receive you here in Portugal as we would like to let me begin with a special thanks to ITU and European commission for the opportunity to host a fantastic event in such a challenging time for the last two days we had the chance to discuss, to hear and to learn from each other's experience about the role of international players national governments, public administration and civil society in building more inclusive and cohesive communities we debated how strongly our team impacted our lives and how to proceed towards recovery in this joint path for digital inclusion and accessibility that we must and will follow together in Europe the same Europe where about 80 million people have some disability or special need and if we focus on Portugal as previously said there are about 2 million in a population around 10 million that is one fifth of our population we cannot ignore these numbers for it is our duty as governments and public services to lead by example and to ensure that we share the same vision regarding the development of the skills necessary for the future of work to foster job opportunities as well as access to information and public services for all in this digital age the COVID-19 pandemic forced us to deal with big challenges but also as shown us that technology can play an important role by removing barriers promoting autonomy and integration of those with some kind of disability once more it's up to us to raise the potential of a human centric digital transformation ensuring that appropriate legal and technical framework and that public services are not only born digital simple and secure but also accessible to all allowing a better digital experience for all citizens in Portugal we chose this path quite some time ago when in 1999 we were the first member state of the European Union to adopt accessibility requirements for contents and services provided by public administration on the internet two decades later in 2018 we introduced on the Portuguese law the European directive on accessibility of the public sectors websites and mobile applications covering administrative and legal services universities libraries and hospitals to reinforce its values and to encourage best practices and full application we created a usability and accessibility seal with bronze, silver and gold levels of recognition according to regulatory compliance last year with the approval of the Portuguese strategy for innovation and modernization of the state and public administration we assumed that by 2023 90% of the websites will have this usability and accessibility seal but we want and we must go further and I'm sure that these two days of work will bring us some valuable insights for the incoming initiatives such as the transposition of the directive on accessibility requirements for products and services that my colleague Anna-Sophia is leading or the future Portuguese strategy planned for the end of this year and aiming to foster the development of smart and integrated territories providing human centric, inclusive and sustainable services where accessibility is naturally a concern and a goal these lines of action take us directly to the model of the Portuguese presidency of the European Council time to deliver a fair and digital recovery a model that embraces the European pillar of social rights aiming to make a real difference in citizens' lives especially if we consider that digital and social Europe are two main priorities for this semester and that both shape the public sector transformation that we envision we will have the opportunity to deepen the consensus around a very important set of principles clearly stated in the Berlin declaration such as to promote fundamental rights and democratic values in the digital sphere to improve social participation and inclusion or to foster digital empowerment and literacy in the digital world principles that remind us that people, all people are at the core of all our actions and in this event we reinforced something that seems obvious but that we continue to have difficulty to do involving users in the early stages of product and service development we must involve users not only to measure the quality of the solutions we implement but to make accessibility and usability vectors of innovation for the solutions that we are developing we also emphasized that standards are not legislation this is the reason why WCAG 2.1 and the European standard EN 301549 are part since 2018 of our national digital interoperability regulation applicable to all public administration and which establishes a wide set of standards to the digital we also learned that good solutions which solve problems in people's daily lives are not synonymous of large projects with large amounts of funds the regional competition for an accessible Europe shows us that congratulations to all the winners this is a model that should be encouraged and extended more than ever we need a creative mindset with accessibility and usability as core values this is why believing that we all share the same values we want to proceed and bring all our partners towards a meaningful transformation of public services contributing to full digital citizenship regardless of physical or cognitive disabilities using technology to overcome barriers and to blur inequalities this is a commitment that I believe we all share and embrace with enthusiasm a commitment that will continue to foster a more cohesive Europe thank you thank you miss maria for your remark it's highlighting the commitment and concrete steps for to go has to advance accessibility implementation in the country and this could be a great example for other countries in the region and also spread the optimism for a more accessible and inclusive Europe so for the next I would like to invite miss Anna Sofia Antunes the secretary of state of the inclusion of disabilities of portugal to give her concluding remarks for miss Sofia for miss Anna Sofia the four is yours good afternoon dear head of ITU office for Europe Mr. Yaroslav Ponder dear senior advisor of the disability and inclusion unit of digital employment miss is dear colleague secretary of state for innovation and administrative modernization Fatima Fonseca dear colleagues of conference and your friends well let me begin by congratulating all the staff of this event all this fantastic organization and let me thank through the European commission and the ITU all the staff for the preparation of this fantastic forum I'd like to thank you especially because you gave us the opportunity to brought all together share and reflect about accessibility in our society as you know in our society we still the frequent notion that accessibility is a question related only to built environments physical thing perceptible or a palpable thing but however we know that accessibility is a broad concerns to take into account so I in Portugal we had sought to develop awareness that access to information is fundamental especially in increasing digital society it's fundamental to guarantee the effective inclusion the rights of persons with disabilities and to guarantee a full citizenship in this moment unfortunately or we cannot say that is left behind but we are proud to say that the Portuguese government assumes the questions of accessibility as one of his highest priorities, political priorities established in his governmental program so we can say that in fact we are in the forefront of this fight well we cannot talk about accessibility or inclusion without recalling the United Nations convention on the rights of people with disabilities of course that is the fundamental document that Portugal has ratified in 2009 it was it was up to us to improve our vision and our paradigm of inclusion because it shows us that every person is a subject of rights and had to be able to require to the society to adapt to involve to include them and we cannot also talk about accessibility and inclusion without referring the directive the important directive 2019 80 882 the accessibility act and I can share with you that in Portugal we have constitute our internal working group to transpose this directive that is really motivated with this function and we really believe that the results of this work will be of course more inclusive products with more in a more autonomous formats but I'd like to focus my presentation on my ending points to talk a little bit about our national strategy on the rights for inclusion of people with disabilities we are in the final stages of legal approval we think we will have this document approved in last month April it is a document that aims to establish proactive vision of inclusion and while consolidates the improvements made so far let me share with you some measures that we have in this proposal of strategy important in this area of digital accessibility for example the increase of numbers of websites public websites with digital total digital accessibility the improvement of the content and of the programs in the television we intend to legislate in this area the creation of multi-annual programs to contribute to accessibility of a transport system to give answer to problems such as ticketing, schedule or websites or the creation of a website to share experience and guidelines and good practices in the area of information and communication for culture for tourism or leisure our national strategy of course as counted with the many contributions of the civil society and the representatives from persons with disabilities during a public and private process it's also so aligned with the European strategy on the rights of persons with disabilities we also have we also have put it some measures in this area in our recovery and resilience plan for example the creation of the plus access platform where we intend to join many tools in development new tools to promote more digital access for persons with disability finally I'd like to reinforce the strictly commitment of Portugal as the Portuguese presidency of the Council of the European Union with a digital green accessible and inclusive Europe in this concern I'd like to share with you that we will organize an international conference and a high level meeting in 1920s of April to discuss and evaluate this new European strategy on disability we also working in some conclusions that we'd like to adopt with the ministers representatives of this area in the EPSCO Council in June to endorse this European strategy let me end it thanking once again for this opportunity to share pathways, experiences results and solutions I really believe in a Europe in the model of Europe where everyone can be welcome and can feel really included thank you all very much for this event for this fantastic organization for the quality of this three days program and I'd like to reiterate our redness to exchange resources and solutions to create a real accessibility policy in Europe thank you very much thank you Ms Anna Sofia for your kind words and remarks I recommend you to put the link of the international conference that you just mentioned on our chat box for all our participants to see and able to follow before closing this meeting I will hand the floor to Yaroslav to say a few closing words thank you very much thank you very much Excellencies and also European Commission for this kind words directed towards the ITU as we mentioned already Accessible Europe is the event where we should also develop and further develop our knowledge in the field of accessibility this is the reason why we will be meeting at 10 o'clock and we'll have the great honor to meet also in person with Roxana Vidmariliescu our leader on the accessibility issues and I would like to thank her for her curation of the preparations of these events thank you very much Roxana and also Ima for being with us at every step in doing the preparations for this meeting so I would like to encourage also all of you and not to wait until tomorrow and to take necessary steps in order to enroll already to the special training which is prepared for the proposals of this special event which is providing some highlights of the ICT accessibility but also is testing our knowledge so those who are interested in receiving a special recognition of the knowledge I would kindly invite them to already take the necessary steps before tomorrow but tomorrow we'll learn more at 10 o'clock with our leader in this field so we are looking forward to this and also we encourage all of the stakeholders who are interested in further advancing the proper implementation of accessibility at the regional level and to join us for the project laboratory we will be discussing several items related to the implementation and the curation program but also particular proposals for this which we could do together and there is not what can be done together so with this I would like to thank one more time to all of you and we look forward to see implementers tomorrow and those who would not be joining us tomorrow for this working sessions we wanted to thank you very much and we look forward to see you at the latest at the next milestone of the Accessible Europe initiative of the ITU and the European Commission next year but we hope to see you and collaborate with you in the meantime so thank you very much and with this we can declare the part of the forum of Accessible Europe as closed, thank you very much and wish you pleasant day