The Road to a Fully Accessible Future

[Commentary] For persons with disabilities (PwD), access to information and communication technology (ICT) is vital for their inclusion in modern society, enabling access to key public services such as healthcare and government services, access to the job market, communication and social integration. But this cannot be achieved unless ICTs are accessible. ITU was one of the first international standards organizations to recognize the need to include accessibility requirements in its standards. In 1991, work began on Recommendation ITU-T V.18 which brought two previously incompatible text telephone protocols together. Following on from this success, ITU standardized the raised bump found on key 5 of most landline phones and mobile handsets with a keypad to assist blind and visually impaired people to dial. ITU is learning to become a more accessible organization for staff, delegates and the general public. We have made notable improvements in order to provide better services to persons with disabilities by making our venues, meetings, publications and website more accessible. For example, captioning is now used in most ITU meetings and is well appreciated not only by delegates with hearing disabilities but also those with language difficulties. Although a lot of work still needs to be done, we can say that ITU is on the right path to becoming a fully accessible organization in the near future.

For these reasons, I am proud to commemorate ITU´s longstanding history in promoting an accessible society through ICTs with July’s theme for ITU’s 150th anniversary, ‘accessibility and innovation’. Let´s continue working together to make every single ICT service, device and application fully accessible to ensure the empowerment of persons with disabilities to live an independent life.

[Houlin Zhao was was elected as Secretary-General of ITU at the ITU Plenipotentiary Conference 2014 in Busan, Republic of Korea]