Even Grounds Participates in the ICT Accessibility Seminar and Workshop in Malaysia

The ICT Accessibility Seminar and Workshop 2009 was held from September 30 to October 3, 2009 in Penang, Malaysia. This event was organized by the National Council For The Blind, Malaysia (NCBM), Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM), and St. Nicholas’ Home. The Universiti Sains Malaysia was the main venue for the seminar and workshop.

Around 150 participants attended this event. Attendees consisted of government officials, legal experts, professors and students from USM, and speakers from different countries. One of the speakers was Julius Charles Serrano, the research director of Even Grounds, a Washington-based accessibility consulting company. Other speakers included blind and visually impaired accessibility experts trained by Even Grounds in its web accessibility course in 2008.

The first two days of the event consisted of presentations regarding assistive technology and web accessibility. The legal aspect of accessibility and its significance in Malaysia’s laws were also discussed. At the second day, Julius Charles Serrano discussed major accessibility methods and useful accessibility-related documents such as the WCAG 2.0 and resources provided by Even Grounds.

At the third and fourth day, participants had a workshop consisting of hands-on modules centered on assistive devices and web accessibility. The participants of this two-day workshop consisted of IT professors and students. Everyone had the chance to experience how to use the computer through a screen reader such as JAWS. At the workshop, Serrano discussed about the steps to identify accessibility issues in web pages. He also discussed the processes involved in creating recommendations and solutions for making technology accessible.