Global Resources and Promising Practices for Building and Refining Accessible and Inclusive Smart Cities from Darren Bates LLC.
One billion people in the world today live with a disability, both in visible or invisible form. They are amongst the most vulnerable and marginalised in the world. How can we design a truly inclusive world that recognises the value and worth of people living with a disability? Source: http://www.weforum.org/
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Hannes J. Lagrelius, WBU Programme Officer for Accessibility in Smart Cities Initiative sums up key highlights of the UN Habitat Assembly with reference to persons with disabilities. The Assembly was held on 27-31 May 2019, at the headquarters of UN-Habitat in Nairobi, Kenya.
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Sidewalk Labs CEO Dan Doctoroff at CityLab Detroit Sidewalk Labs is building a prototype for the urban future on Toronto’s Eastern Waterfront. This project asks us to re-think relationships between governments, the private sector, and residents. Dan Doctoroff, Founder and CEO, Sidewalk Labs joins Jennifer Bradley, The Aspen Institute at CityLab Detroit. Timed Transcript: Please see video option. Transcript: (Archived…
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Watch the Video! In our third public talk, author and community organizer Jane Farrow will moderate a conversation with three accessibility experts who are challenging cities to incorporate principles for inclusive design and ensure accessibility for all: Luke Anderson – Founder & Executive Director – StopGap Foundation; Consultant – AccessAbility Advantage Darren Bates – Founder – Smart Cities Library™;…
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Researchers at EPFL developed a system that combines virtual reality with artificial tactile sensations to help amputees feel their prosthetics as if they are a part of their body. Source MASHABLE: Researchers at EPFL developed a system that combines virtual reality with artificial tactile sensations to help amputees feel their prosthetics as if they are a part of their…
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Michael is a deaf and native American Sign Language speaker working as a creative designer for Amazon. Throughout his career, Michael’s visual/conceptual way of thinking and problem solving have served him both as an asset and a challenge. He finds solutions around his disability through Universal Design. Michael Allen Nesmith, a Chicago native, was born into a deaf-culture family using…
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The Deaf communication specialist Eva Westerhof talks about inclusion by imagination: “We can fly through space. We can walk on the moon. But we cannot make or own world accessible? Accessibility does not affect a few people. It involves billions of people. It affects everyone. Sooner or later. Take accessibility in your mind with everything you do. Make sure…
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Ever wondered how to make your presentation inclusive and accessible to everyone…including us cool folks with disabilities. Check out this new 2 minute video that walks through quick easy steps to make magic happen.
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What Is Inclusion from the Inclusion Imperative: Inclusion is a beacon and symbol for what is possible in our lives. Inclusion is not an answer to a problem but an initiative that is an opportunity. Inclusion Imperative Published on Apr 13, 2015 Find out more at http://www.inclusionimperative.com/
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slider container SmartPGH was conceived to reconnect displaced communities to jobs, education and essential services. Through the USDOT Smart City Challenge grant and others like it, we’ll use technology to develop the kind of safe, reliable transit all Pittsburghers deserve. We’re on the cusp of a new revolution in transportation and information technology that has the potential to change the…
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At Digital Services Georgia, we believe we have a social responsibility to make government content readily available to everyone. Our platform, used by over 75 state agencies in Georgia, features code, structure, and designs that are optimized for accessibility. Partnering with subject matter experts from the AMAC Accessibility Solutions and Research Center and the state’s ADA Coordinator’s Office, we make…
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Sidewalk Toronto is a joint effort by Waterfront Toronto and Alphabet’s Sidewalk Labs to create a new kind of mixed-use, complete community on Toronto’s Eastern Waterfront, beginning with the creation of Quayside. Sidewalk Toronto will combine forward-thinking urban design and new digital technology to create people-centered neighborhoods that achieve precedent-setting levels of sustainability, affordability, mobility, and economic opportunity. Transcript ________________…
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The WeDC Campaign is Washington, DC’s initiative to showcase SmarterDC as the “Capital of Inclusive Innovation” at SXSW. As one of the top digital campaigns at SXSW, DC’s community of innovators and leaders share what makes DC the #1 place to do business. Transcript 0:03 that working in DC it’s very natural 0:06 energy about itself everywhere else 0:08 thank…
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Tiffany Yu, founder of Diversability, talks about how exclusion is more disabling to a person than an actual disability and why employers should hire people with disabilities because of their strengths, not to meet a quota.
The #InequalityIs campaign by the Ford Foundation is a yearlong conversation about inequality in all its forms.
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“When you book a hotel and want an accessible room, you need to really know what that means and if it will meet your needs,” Wandke said.
But the travel industry is not set up to do this. Not only are websites often ill-equipped to allow people to select rooms that meet specific physical requirements, even when customers call, hotel staff frequently don’t know what their facility has to offer or they might provide misinformation.
Wandke and Flint are hoping to solve this problem. They’re working on a website called AbiliTrek that allows travelers to find and book rooms that meet specific needs for mobility, hearing or visual challenges. They’re using crowdsourcing to build a database of reviews focused on accessibility. AbiliTrek will also call hotels to help people find suitable rooms….
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This article aims to educate and challenge current thought leadership and emerging policies concerning the development of our Smart Cities, and the design and deployment of digital technologies and their impact on citizen wellbeing. We want to ensure that future Infrastructure and Smart City solutions serve the needs of all sectors of society; including people living with sensory loss, older people, people with physical disability, and people with learning disabilities. These sectors of society are so often forgotten and have struggled for years in a world defined by a legacy of Victorian infrastructure; as we move to the next great era of technology innovation, our policies and standards for city design and infrastructure investment need to proactively champion inclusivity for everyone.
Inclusion for all sectors of society surely has to be an important metric to attain ‘Smart City’ status….
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As we’ve previously reported, making our cities smarter and more inclusive will become increasingly important in the next decades.
“Current projections are that two-thirds of the world’s population will live in cities by 2050, and with an ageing population comes higher levels of ill-health, impairment and disability.
“Futurists, tech visionaries and urban stakeholders have been talking about ‘smart cities’ for a number of years …and they could transform the lives of those with disabilities,” said Robin Christopherson, AbilityNet’s head of digital inclusion.
But, at a Smart Cities NYC conference in New York last month, there was concern that mobile apps, government services and other smart city tools aren’t properly incorporating the needs of disabled people.
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20th September, Barcelona – Under the theme, Empower Cities, Empower people, the 2017 edition of Smart City Expo World Congress (#SCEWC17) took place this month in Barcelona. UN-Habitat signed an agreement with the event organizers through which the programme will become a strategic partner in this and future editions of the global event.
For UN-Habitat, this partnership is an opportunity to promote urbanization as a tool for development in the framework of the New Urban Agenda and the Agenda 2030. The 2017 edition of the Congress, held from 14th – 16th November, attracted over 18,000 participants with 700 cities representatives and 420 international experts….
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Barcelona is acclaimed as one of the leading Smart Cities in the world, with studies such as those by Juniper Research, as well as the Hong Kong government, corroborating this statement. However, it begs the question – how did Barcelona manage to do this, and can their methods be replicated in other cities or locales, such as Malaysia?
In pursuit of these answers, the SITEC Media team managed to catch Maria Sisternas, CEO of Mediaurban, a Barcelona-based content creation agency that specialises in urban and smart technology solutions to answer these questions.
According to Sisternas, Barcelona believes strongly in citizen engagement, as well as cooperation between the private and public sector — the city is investing a large amount of money towards finding out what their citizens think about their projects….
15 per cent of the world’s population lives with a disability. This represents about 1 billion people globally. Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), such as mobile phones, satellites or the Internet, are a unique infrastructure that expand access to key public services, promoting digital inclusion. Throughout the world, persons living with disabilities are already benefitting from the advantages of ICT-enabled applications. But…
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