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Transcription of the Message:
Good morning all of you.
My very warm greetings to all the participants of the M-Enabling Summit. Also, my very deep
apologies for not being there personally. Due to certain personal reasons I had to cancel
my trip at the last minute. It 's something that I couldn't help but at the same time
I am very sorry for not being there with you this morning today.
On behalf of the Disabled People's International, DPI, I would like to extend my warmest greetings
to all of you at this very very important summit.
Disabled People's International, as you are aware was set up in 1981, on the simple premise
or the simple slogan 'Nothing About Us, Without Us'. The disabled people were saying that
now we want to be in control of our lives, we do not want decisions to be taken by parents
or professionals and that it is the disabled people who should be in the leadership positions,
who should be in the policy making, decision making positions. And you can imagine as to
how powerful that idea was for it to spread across the world into 130 countries as we
speak, over 5 continents.
And today, DPI is the world's only cross-disability disabled people's organization, which speaks
I can say on behalf of the 1 billion disabled people on planet Earth. Particularly the disabled
people of the global South.
Now, as you know according to WHO there are as many as 1 billion people with disabilities
on the planet today, and that theory or that figure perhaps can be debated but what cannot
be debated is that 80% of those people with disabilities belong to the global South. To
countries in Asia, Pacific, Africa, Latin America. Places which are poor, places which
are challenged, places or countries which are still developing. And in any discourse
on disability we should not forget that 80% of that population belongs to such countries
with such challenges.
Mobile technologies represent one of the most important breakthroughs for all of the mankind
and I would say particularly for people with disabilities. Mobiles cover all the regions,
they reach out to the poorest, to the most disenfranchised, particularly in countries
or areas where connectivity was either not there or was totally missing.
Mobile solutions can break isolation; improve personal safety, orient and guide, give access
to digital content and you can imagine how important that is for people who are print
impaired, for people who are blind, for people who are visually impaired; help communicate,
which again one can only imagine as to how important that is for people who are deaf
or people who are hearing impaired; support m-health; support in m-education. And the
most fascinating aspect of this advent of technology one can say is that its anytime,
anywhere and at a fraction of a cost of what used to be before.
However, inspite of all these promises, the users with disabilities remain largely under-served.
Its because of the lack of awareness and also because of the lack of accessibility. But
the other very important factor to underline and to flag is the economics of it all. So
a phone which is only 100 dollars or an application or an assistive device which is only a 100
dollars may be hardly worth a thought for someone in Europe or someone in North America,
thanks also to your policies and thanks also to your social security systems, etc, which
exists, but when you convert that 100 dollars into local currency in a place like India,
Bangladesh, countries of West Africa, countries in the ex-Soviet nations it's a lot of money
and not many people are able to afford that.
So affordability, awareness and the accessibility of the technology are challenges that we need
to address.
The M-Enabling Summit being organized by G3ict, as I said is happening at a very very opportune
time. I think the organizers, all my friends at G3ict, particularly my very good friend
Axel deserve our congratulations right at the very outset. And we at DPI, at Disabled
People's International place great hopes that the work that you all will undertake at this
Summit will promote new solutions and will also explore the lowering of the costs.
I think it is also important to build a consensus among policy makers and decision makers, particularly
the telecom regulatory authorities and those of you who are from the so called developed
world and those of you who have made advances I think need to take this discourse to the
other parts of the globe where perhaps the policies and the laws either don't exist or
are very poor or are not implemented.
So to my mind that is the objective and to my mind that is the challenge. And if I was
to put it in one sentence I would say that the challenge for you at the Summit is to
address the needs of the poorest persons with disabilities around the world.
I deeply regret not being there with you this morning, I wish I was there in person. And
I can say it with absolute sincerity that even though I am not there my heart, my mind
I can go to the extent of saying my soul is there with you this morning today.
I wish all of you the very best, I wish all my colleagues at G3ict the very best and I
once again extend my personal greetings to Axel to whom all of us are owe a debt for
organizing this Summit. And I hope that all of you have a good time, that you have a productive
Summit, and I look forward to hearing from all of you as to what the results were.
Thank you very much for giving me this opportunity. All the very best.