 international sign language, and Portuguese sign language interpretation. Throughout the session, the audience will be able to ask their questions by using the Q&A function in Zoom. And I would like to remind the audience to put the view mode as side by side view. Thank you very much and have a pleasant event. Thank you very much for this announcement and facilitating of our work during these discussions and now it's my great pleasure and honor and to invite, to take the floor and moderator of the next session, focusing on the accessibility standards for products and services and who will be at the Immaculada Placencia for RERA. Ima, the floor is yours. Okay, thank you very much, Jaroslav. I think we have a very interesting day ahead of us as we had also yesterday. And we will enrich our knowledge today with additional issues as you have mentioned. And this first session is really going to bring us a lot of information and support for the development of ICT accessibility. With this session on standards for products and services, we will know what is available, what's in the pipeline because there are new standards coming and how this work operates so that we can enhance the participation of all stakeholders into the process. We are going to have a global and a European perspective, from the work at the ITU and the European Externalization Organizations. We're going to have also the global view on the web and the users perspective. I think these different developments through different organizations are well-complementing each other and are really fitting into the needs that are being expressed by the policies and legislation that are being more and more developed in Europe for, in the European region, for accessibility of ICT. So we will start by having the perspective of ITU, then the perspective of the working group on IAE accessibility sensor and ELEC and Etsy. Then the web accessibility, the W3C perspective, and finally, AbilityNet, which is an organization for users devoted to ICT accessibility. Our first speaker is Mr. Simao Scampo. He's a counselor of the Telecommunications and Standardization Budo in ITU. And he heads the Secretariat of ITU Study Group 16 on multimedia standards, including audio and video coding, accessibility human factors and digital health. And he's been working on this area since 1989. So he participates in other international organizations like IEEE and he has really an extensive experience in this standardization work. So I, we will start with his views. And I would like to ask Simao whether you can tell us why international standardization is so important and in particular, why this is the case for ICT accessibility. Thank you, Ima. Thank you all the organizers for inviting me to present here. I think that the standardization is fundamental. I would like maybe to start first with the implementer's perspective. Just to mention in 2016, BSI had an interesting survey in UK, BSI is the British Standards Institute. And they found that the most innovative and most efficient companies are where goals that were fully committed to implementing standards. And also, so it is very good for a company, Ima, to be dealing and then applying and developing standards for their within their companies. For those participating standardization processes is very important in terms of network opportunities, especially for creating new opportunities, developing new strategies, exchanging trends and information. For an implementer, if you have a standard to follow, it is much easier to demonstrate compliance to regulatory requirements. So it is in particular good for SMEs and smaller new entrants to an opening the door so that they can somehow assert that their products meet the expected performance for when there is a particular regulation in place. Standards also help document what are the best practices. So in that way, to make it easier to implement a product is not exactly what you have to do and that you are doing something that is recognized in the industry and by the community, is where it's going to be used as the best way forward. A very good example in the accessibility areas, the W3C WCAG that provides this very, very practical guidance on how to provide the web accessibility. So standards make it easier to implement, verify and to assess against regulatory requirements. It also helps people focus on what's maybe important or more realistic. We have a lot of hype and fads that come to the market and that may distract people in which directions they should be going. For example, the use of AI in accessibility is at this point in time, we'll have some reality, some uses that are growing that are interesting to observe but the marketing language behind it is much stronger than reality. So we have to be cautious. So I think having standards and best practices documenting what is very good way forward in the moment is good. From the user's perspective, I would say that one of the things, the basic things that standards provide is interoperability for products in particular. So you avoid vendor locking and also provides a certain harmonization of features and interfaces which for some users is a major issue limiting how they can effectively use these products. For example, if you think of a television set and accessibility for a television set, it is very complicated today because you don't have many standards in that direction. How a user with a certain disability would be able to access the configuration of the device for them to be able to fully use, easily use the product. And if you go from one device to another device as we frequently have today, you'd have to, let's say, face different interfaces. And so I think, and also the difference, the interoperability on the basic services that you can use the same app for, for example, for indoor navigation applications. Today, we do have an anti-standard from that, but the lack of adoption results in people having going to a certain place where they are lucky to have an app that will allow them to navigate there, but then they go to another place, there is another app and then another app and then they have to learn how to use that app and different applications, different complex code. I think interoperability also works in that context, that if the basic services they use the same APIs, they could be implemented in a way that is much better for the user. Standards also facilitate the wider availability of solutions. So instead of having specific ways of doing things, you could have it more readily available. And that also facilitates the mainstreaming and promotion of the universal design concept. I think it's a very important aspect that you could have as many products serving as large as possible base of users from the start rather than trying to retrofit them. Usually that doesn't work. That also would also allow more energy to be focused on providing certain specialized users. The disabilities are a spectrum. So you're not expected with universal design concept to cover all the design needs. However, by focusing on providing a widest possible base for the product to begin with, allows that the customization that certain users will require will be easier to be implemented. So just as a final comment, it's not exactly the importance of ICFP accessibility, but the importance of inclusion of persons with disabilities in the ICMD standard development process. I think this is something very important. We try as much as possible to include persons with disabilities in our standardization working like you. And it's a message that I would like to send to all that this is something that's important to pursue. With that, I'll give the floor back to you. Thank you. No, it's a mistake. I'm going to give you one step. It will be interesting to see how the different types of companies can have and should have in order to facilitate the use of products for all consumers, including persons with disabilities. I pass now to the second speaker of this morning, which is Mr. Fernando Machicado. He's an architect and he has been, he's working in UNED, a Spanish standardization organization, and he holds the Secretary of the Sentinel-Ecanetsi joint working group on E-accessibility. He has been also working in quite another number of accessibility standardization processes as managing the drafting of the first international standard, European standard and accessibility of the built environment, which is EN17210 and under mandate for 20. He has also been working, as I said, in the joint working group where he was also supporting the development of the first European standard for accessibility of ICT products and services, EN301549, which was the result of a European Commission on Monday 376 and then later on amended at 554. And many other projects in relation to standardization also in the area of active aging. So Fernando, we would like to know what is the added value of having a European standard in the area of ICT? We know that there are widely international recognized standards like WCAG in all the different versions and ITU is also producing. So why should we have a European level of standards and why in the technical bodies that we have? Thank you very much. Well, there are several reasons why it's important to our standards provide added values. Of course, we always had in mind when the European Commission launched in 2025, the first mandate to produce the first European standard on the accessibility of ICT products and services, of all ICT products and services, the scope was broader than the scope of WCAG. And WCAG was one of the main documents and one of the main recognized standards on the accessibility of what I said is there. He was big later on that. So, in fact, it evolved quite soon from being limited to public procurement of ICT products and services to be applicable regardless who bought it, the public administration and a private company or an individual. In fact, the title of the standard involved from accessibility requirements suitable to public procurement of ICT products and services to the current one, which is accessibility requirements for ICT products and services. But why a European standard? Why is the European Commission betting for the development of European standards and producing mandates to do that, such as the mandate or the accessibility of the environment, 420, the mandate on design for all products and services, which is 473, or the two mandates or the accessibility of ICT products and services. Because the European standards mean that you are required to assure very demanding consensus levels. That means mainly assuring that both industry and users feel that their interests are covered appropriately. For example, EDF and NANEC have participated in the HCSTAF and also in the Sensor and Legacy J-Working Group, as well as other accessibility experts participating in the other national delegations. The industry had a key role, participating in SCE members and also as part of the relevant national neurocommittees. But being a European standard, also having to pass clear demanding approval procedures, mainly the approval of the three European standardization organizations, which are San San Econetzi, San Esim or Non-Electrical, San Econelectrical, Anetzi, mainly on delegations and also transparency. So consensus, demanding approval process, procedures, transparency, of course, all the stakeholders had a clear idea, which was that the European standard had to be 100% compatible with the WACA. This is the reason why the WFC was asked to participate to assure consistency. Sadi has been working with us from the very beginning and on the five current versions, the last ones are consistent with WACA 2.1 and were indeed developed in parallel to WACA 2.1. So the 2018 version of EN-C01-549 drafted due to mandate 554 of the European Commission provides presented a conformity with the essential requirements of the weather accessibility directive. The WACA covers most of the relevant parts of the standard, there were some issues that were beyond WACA. For example, close nine on webs is a constant reference to WACA 2.1 success criteria on all the Ethereum and also most of close 10 on non-web documents, as it can take up the positioning and other speed of timing. But when we go to close 11 on software, it provides many requirements that cannot be found in other documents on documented accessibility usage, on user preferences, on answering tools, on the interpretability with assistive technology. And if we go to the other closes related to requirements which are five general requirements, six on ICT with two way voice communication, seven with video capabilities, eight hardware, 12 documentation support services and 13 on ICT providing relay or emergency service access, those closest five to 13 focus on the accessibility requirements. Besides we have close 14 which displays the conformance and XC that provides the tools to perform the assessment of those requirements. And other features that go beyond what the state of the art at the moment were NSA that displays how to fulfill the web accessibility directive because this is a harmonized standard and therefore you need to be aware that you are full and be sure that you are fulfilling the web accessibility directive and if you are a user or you are a client or you are a procurer, you need to make sure that what you are buying or what your user is going to answer to your needs. So in annex A it explains how you fulfill with the web accessibility directive and that's another annex that provides really important information which is why do you need those requirements? What's the link between the requirements and the user needs? Besides going deeper on the consensus issue, the European Commission with Disorders Consulors, W3C as developers of WCAG to WCAG, EDF and Annex as representatives of users and consumers and other stakeholders have participated very actively such as the U.S. Access Board because we always search for consistency resetting 508 and of course, ITU. So yes, the EN is a great necessary tool that complements WCAG 2.1, having a broader scope and a standard to help manufacturers, service providers, buyers and consumers to fulfill and know if the product or service fulfills the requirements of the web accessibility directive. Ema, I think you're muted. Ema, you're muted. I'm sorry, yeah, now he's unmuted. Sorry. Yes, I was saying that Fernando, thank you. Very good explanation and in fact, you provide us the link, very good link to the next speaker. Our next speaker is Mr. Shari Abuzara. He is a specialist on accessibility, strategy and technology at W3C web accessibility initiative. Why? In Europe, in fact, he's being the leading person in Europe on web accessibility for many, many years. And he's coordinating the priorities on W3C strategy team and many international promotion, coordination and organization of web accessibility standards. But as I say, he's been really instrumental in Europe to advance on web accessibility and the application of the way guidelines and WCAG and the...