Centre for Internet and Society

Round Table on Assessing the Efficacy of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) for Public Initiatives: A Report

sachia — 2011-08-20T22:28:55Z

Zainab Bawa reports on the Round Table on Assessing the Efficacy of Information and Communication Technologies for Public Initiatives, hosted by the Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore, on 17 June 2009, in collaboration with the Liberty Institute, New Delhi.

In recent times, there has been an upsurge in the use of ICTs to provide information to people and to elicit participation. Individuals, corporate organisations, NGOs, civil society organisations, collectives, municipalities, political parties and politicians have been using the internet and other mediums to communicate with people. The round table was organised primarily to discuss two issues:

What is the effectiveness of the initiatives introduced in recent times?
How do we move forward in terms of partnerships/collaborations in the areas of data gathering, sharing, dissemination and architecture of information?

Given the constraints of time, however, we were only able to discuss a few issues with respect to efficacy of initiatives, rather than come up with a concrete action plan on how to measure effectiveness of many of the existing initiatives. This remains an agenda for subsequent meetings.

This round table was the first meeting of its kind. It brought together participants from diverse backgrounds to discuss key issues involved in leveraging ICTs towards various ends, and to collaborate with each other on ongoing initiatives. Participants included researchers, persons who have developed information platforms and databases, individuals working in the area of leveraging technology for streamlining processes in society and people who have been studying usage patterns of social media tools. Most of the participants were using ICTs to improve information access related to health issues, education, budgets, development of rural areas and recently, elections and governance. In the subsequent sections, I will briefly elaborate on some of the key themes around which discussions took place during the round table.

Building on Ideas: In the morning and pre-lunch sessions, one issue that featured prominently was the importance of developing ideas rather than trying to work out a perfect model that we believe will solve what we perceive to be people’s problems. Two of the participants explained that they started implementing ideas as they came to them, rather than trying to come up with a framework that they thought would work for the masses. They worked towards evolving their ideas, exploring what works and what does not. One of them further pointed out that such evolution cannot be observed as it happens; it only becomes apparent in hindsight. Hence, discussions such as the current round table are useful.

It is also important to note that we are still in a nascent stage of understanding how ICTs can impact people’s lives and deploying them accordingly. As a result, many efforts are likely to be in the stage of trial and error.

Key areas of interest and concern: Based on the input from participants in the morning session, we arrived at a list of areas that require more understanding and discussion.

Information gathering, dissemination, access – including information architecture, technology design: Here, three issues were discussed:

Who are we talking about when we refer to information access? It was pointed out that information is crucial particularly for people who do not have computers and for whom internet is not a priority. The intensity with which they seek information is remarkable. One of the participants argued that we undervalue the potential of information to make a difference to people’s lives.
How do we deliver information? Providing information is not enough.
Representativeness of the information for those who it is provided for.

Another issue that was referred to was whether language is a problem, i.e., most information is available only in English. One of the participants suggested that this is not the case because Google has found that a very small percentage of the population actually refers to material on the web in languages other than English.

Community mobilization: During the deliberations, we referred to the problem of replication of initiatives. Two observers of social media pointed out that replication happens because people are trying to create their own unique communities around their initiatives. This is an important insight for future efforts and also indicates the need to share databases and information that individuals and organisations have compiled. They also suggested that it is important to discover existing communities and spaces where conversations around issues of governance, education, health and development are taking place. This helps to plug into existing resource pools and to extend outreach.

Citizens’ participation: Initiatives that work and why they succeed - We briefly discussed the Jaagore campaign and India Vote Report, which were launched before the 2009 national elections in India to enable people to register on the electoral rolls and to report irregularities during elections respectively. Some people found it difficult to register themselves on the Jaagore website and some had difficulties in finding the local offices where they needed to follow-up with the process. It was also pointed out that Vote Report did not connect with the end user because it would have been easier to report irregularities and anomalies via SMS rather than trying to report them by logging on to the site. If one looks at the case of the Online Complaint Management System (OCMS) developed by Praja, the availability of the telephone hotline service through which citizens could register their complaints helped in widening usage. Thus, it appears that two issues are pertinent:

Whether the initiative connects with the people who are likely to use it;
Simplicity of design/system that enables more users.

Target Audience: One of the participants pointed out that some initiatives do not work because they are targeted towards the wrong audiences. For example, when it comes to voting and elections, poor groups are the ones who go out and vote in large numbers. Hence, information systems need to be tailored to provide them with the data that they need most. Access also has to be configured accordingly. In some instances, the target is too broad to reach out effectively.

It appears that there is a need to develop strategies on how platforms and databases that have been created to enhance access to information can be made known among the masses and how people can be made aware to use them. It is equally important to understand what constitutes ‘information’ and for whom. Here, the other issue to explore is how information links back to the people for who it is provided.

Technology: In this area, a key concern was the high costs involved in developing technologies and whether we could learn from each other’s experience of developing technologies instead of reinventing the wheel. We also discussed whether open source software helps to reduce costs of development. The other issue with respect to open source is whether there is enough assistance and support available to resolve problems that may crop up during use of technology from time to time.

Sharing of Data: Discussions also veered around the issue of whether appropriate technology and applications could be created to help with sharing existing databases and information pools. We did not discuss this issue in depth, but it remains relevant for subsequent meetings.

Back end integration: According to some of the participants, one of major problems is the interface between government and citizens, which remains weak. Technology can be used to enhance the interactions. Participants also pointed out the difficulty in obtaining data from government bodies that is important to create the interface between government and citizens. A participant involved with the Jaagore campaign referred to the problem of back-end integration during their efforts to help citizens register themselves with the election commission (EC) offices. A participant from Google similarly reported that they faced problems in obtaining election results from the EC’s offices as a result of which, they had to rely on their partners for this information. Here too, we could not deliberate on how to resolve this problem, but this could be a major theme for a subsequent meeting.

Performance (monitoring, evaluation): One of the themes that participants zeroed in on was the evaluation of the performance of elected representatives and making this evaluation available for people to see. Here, the debate was around the problem of evaluation being carried out according to the criteria we set which may not seem relevant to other sections of society. One of the suggestions that came up was to develop a matrix for evaluation and put out information accordingly. People can then use it to make their own judgments.

In the post-lunch session, some of the participants shared their experiences with implementation and also the work they and their organisations are currently engaged with. Towards the end of the round table, each one of the participants explained their respective projects and how they may wish to collaborate with other participants (who were present) in their initiatives. An e-group called “CIS-Info-Access” has been created to take these conversations and collaborations further.

Evaluation of the Round Table and Way Forward:

When invitations were sent out to people to participate in the round table, many of the invitees expressed a genuine and enthusiastic interest in being part of this effort. As mentioned above, one of the reasons for this enthusiasm was because this was the first meeting of its kind, bringing together individuals from the fields of technology, research and implementation. We invited a total of 35 people out of which 27 finally attended the meeting. The diversity of the participants was an asset in that a variety of issues were brought to the table. The drawback was that there was not enough time to discuss some of the pertinent issues in depth. Future meetings can be tailored to discuss one or two specific themes such as back-end integration and sharing of information, technology issues, ideas for mobilising citizens and communities, etc.

The possibilities of collaboration between participants in this meeting are immense and we hope that some of the synergies will materialise into concrete outcomes. Further, a few participants have expressed an interest in organising similar meetings in their cities/towns, perhaps focusing on a few issues instead of bringing people together under a broad theme. Of some of the issues discussed, participants have indicated that back-end integration with government and ideating on different ways of disseminating data can be further deliberated on in future. One of the participants also suggested that there is a need to make ‘data’ more relevant to people’s lives.

While the meeting was fruitful in many respects, one issue needs to be underlined. This concerns the imagination of internet and ICTs as mediums that can resolve all existing problems with respect to citizen-government interface, streamlining of processes and provision of information. Such an overarching imagination of technology overlooks the cultural, economic, social and political specificities of communities and contexts. Technology can also have negative implications in some circumstances. It also needs to be reinforced that technology is embedded in society and culture. Therefore we need to view technology as one of the avenues among others available which will facilitate interactions between people and their governments and the state. Democratisation is more likely to be realised through such a perspective.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/events/event-blogs/round-table-assessing-efficacy

Bookshare.org Seminar

sachia — 2011-08-31T10:49:34Z

A demonstration of Bookshare.org, an online digital library for people with print disabilities

Books without Barriers

Bookshare.org is an online digital library with over 7,500 books in English in accessible formats for people with print disabilities. Members can read books using any assistive technology such as DAISY, BRF and text file for only Rs. 400 per year.

Publishers and Authors in our Collection:

We have books from East West publications, Seasons Publishing, Orient Blackswan and authors such as Charles Dickens, Shakespeare, Ashokamitran and many more.

Watch a Demonstration and Try Bookshare!

If you have a visual impairment, physical disability, such as cerebral palsy, or a learning disability, such as dyslexia, you can become a member and access our library! Come and see the many books available for you on 1 July 2009 at the CIS office.

Time and Date

Wednesday, 1 July, 2009; 11.00 am-1.00 pm

Venue

Centre for Internet and Society, No. D2, 3rd Floor, Shariff Chambers (Wockhardt Hospital building), 14, Cunningham Road, Bangalore - 560052

Map

For a map, please click here.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/events/bookshare.org-seminar

Using Social Media for Mobilisation: Discussion with Dina Mehta and Peter Griffin

sachia — 2011-08-20T22:28:42Z

Zainab Bawa reports on the discussion with Peter Griffin and Dina Mehta, hosted at CIS on 19 June 2009, on 'Using Social Media for Mobilisation'.

Iran Elections and the Twitter Revolution …

Memes – how and why do some memes become popular on Twitter?

FaceBook – privacy, community, locality, socializing?

Blogs – once, we thought they would revolutionize the world, but how are blogs now placed vis-à-vis twitter and facebook?

Many questions abound concerning the phenomenon called 'social media', particularly in the wake of the protests taking place in Iran and the ways in which information has reached out to the world about what is going on in the country. The panel discussion on social media, organised by the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) on 19 June 2009, aimed to understand how mobilisations take place through social media and how memes are engineered and spread across communities. We invited Dina Mehta and Peter Griffin to join us as panellists at the event and share their experiences.

Dina and Peter set up the tsunami help blog in December 2004 (http://tsunamihelp.blogspot.com) which for the first time demonstrated the importance of social media tools in coordinating local efforts and disseminating information in the region. What caused them to become involved through this medium? Both Dina and Peter used discussion forums and email during the formative years of the internet in India. 'The sheer miracle of chat', as Peter puts it, also allowed them to connect with people. When the tsunami struck, they became nodes through which action was mobilised and information was spread. It still remains to be explored how nodes develop in different circumstances, how spaces of conversations develop and what causes some individuals to enter the space of social media and inhabit them in significant ways, to the extent of becoming nodes for coordination and mobilisation.

So, what is social media? Dina says she does not like the term. But, since it is used so commonly, she follows the tide. For Dina and Peter, social media is a set of tools which can be mobilised for various purposes – for a call to action, response to a crisis, and persuading people to support a cause, among many other things. What is curious however is that the use of social media becomes more marked and prominent during moments of crisis. This observation led one audience member to ask whether social media is mirroring some of the behaviours of mainstream media. Dina pointed out that social media does not exist in opposition to mainstream media – both complement each other. Social media becomes more powerful during moments of crisis due to some of the following factors:

Powerful search functions;
Tools for aggregating content which helps in picking up the noise;
Hash (#) tags which make it easy to search and to connect and contribute to ongoing conversations and mobilizations.

These help to amplify what is going on. Dina also referred to the simplicity of social media tools which enables diverse individuals to participate in their own ways. She cited the recent example of showing solidarity with the Iranian revolutionaries by adding the colour green to one’s Twitter image. 'I only had to click to indicate whether I wanted to show support in this way and a program automatically applied the green colour to my twitter image without my having to do anything. I don’t have to write code to participate in this medium. I can be anyone,' she added.

What is also unique is that unlike newspapers and early television, interactions via social media tend to be two-way. For instance, blogs have made it possible for individuals to become publishers of their own materials whether it is diary-like entries or filter blogging. Moreover, in the case of the protests following the Iran elections, people used their mobile phones to capture images, make videos and post these on the internet for others to see.

Individuals from the audience raised questions about how they and their organisations could use social media tools effectively to raise funds and to communicate their causes/issues to other people. To this, both Dina and Peter suggested that it is important to find the spaces where conversations about issues are already taking place and to participate in them. They also stated that credibility is built over time through acts of giving to different communities that develop around various issues. Dina also emphasised the need to recognise target audiences, identify the mediums they use regularly and accordingly develop strategies concerning the use of social media. If the outreach group is more tuned into radio, it is more effective to reach out to them in this way. Dina mentioned that the mobile phone is a powerful medium that is often neglected because of the publicity that the internet tends to receive. She said that in South East Asian countries, people have better mobile phone connectivity, and often, political activism has taken place by spreading messages through mobile phones. One of the participants questioned the feasibility of moving from an existing yahoogroup to start a new discussion group; to which another audience member responded that it is preferable to stay with existing mediums used rather than to switch. Discussion forums require more participation and if the goal is only to send out announcements, a yahoogroup serves the purpose.

The issue of arm-chair activism was also raised – whether social media is in fact leading people to participate in issues only through clicking ‘yes’ or ‘no’. Peter stated that this is true, but the ease of transmitting information to others enhances the possibility of moving beyond arm-chair activism. 'For instance, I am concerned about eve teasing and harassment of women in public spaces, but I may not have the time to participate in an intervention or gathering on a particular day. However, I forward the email/invitation to my friends who are concerned similarly and they may choose to participate on-site,' he explained.

The lack of connectivity to the internet and therefore to social media was referred to in the discussions. An audience member pointed out that according to a recent study, only 10% of the people in India are connected to the internet. Peter immediately remarked that the figure of 10% translated into 10 million people which is still a large number that can be reached out to. Similarly, it was pointed out that English is still the predominant language of the web and therefore social media can be exclusive. In this respect, the issues are developing technologies for facilitating the use of scripts, the extent to which the masses use languages other than English on the internet and also whether people in fact use the internet and other communication technologies as a means to learn English. In this context, a participant drew our attention to a twitter community of approximately 800 people who tweet regularly in Malayalam.

The discussion brought up some interesting nuanced perspectives on social media that users and novices may not have thought about. Questions still remain about the efficacy of social media, the nature and characteristics of communities that are formed around use of social media, distinctions between networks and communities, etc. Over time, these questions will be answered as usage increases and trends are studied in all their complex aspects.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/events/event-blogs/using-social-media-for-mobilisation-discussion-with-dina-mehta-and-peter-griffin

Measuring the effectiveness of online activism

sachia — 2011-04-02T15:56:15Z

Article by Sruthi Krishnan in The Hindu, 21 June 2009

There are forms of social activism, which are not looked upon favourably

After the Iran elections, social networking sites are used by supporters of Opposition candidate

For the success of an online campaign, the power of the message also counts

CHENNAI: Sit-ins and police arrests. Placards hoisted high and slogans rippling through the crowds. Pamphlets distributed at the dead of night. It was called activism and is still called that — just that the cat and mouse game with the Big Brother has a binary code underlying it.

Social activism in the world of Web 2.0 follows most of the rules of the real world. But the nature of the medium does have an impact on the message, and the jury is still out on how effective activism is online.

After the Iran elections, social networking sites are being used extensively by supporters of Mir Hossein Mousavi, who has challenged the validity of the elections. As the Iranian government has placed restrictions on the traditional media, the supporters have sought refuge in the electronic world.

If you search for #IranElection, which is the tag on Twitter, a messaging service, for any update related to the Iran elections, there are minute-by-minute posts by users around the globe. The effects of this decentralised campaign are manifold.

“This raises the awareness of the issues among the people who may not have been exposed to these issues because of the space constraints of traditional media,” says Sunil Abraham, director-policy, Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore. “It encourages activists on the ground in Iran because it clearly demonstrates global solidarity.” The increased transparency also has a pre-emptive effect by making it more difficult for states and corporations to engage in repressive activities without attracting international condemnation.

But there are forms of social activism online, which are not looked upon favourably.

Campaigns urging you to ‘Click on this link and eradicate world hunger’ lead to an oxymoronic state of sedentary activism or ‘slacktivism.’ Evgeny Morozov, a fellow at the Open Society Institute at New York, has coined this term to describe “feel-good online activism” that has no political or social impact. On the one hand, it will be easy to dismiss the click-to-participate campaigns as being useless. But they could attract people who would have normally not bothered with the issue. Mr. Morozov concludes that the only way to resolve the debate is by surveying campaigns to analyse impact.

“As far as I know, there are no such studies. But there is anecdotal evidence that clicks on a Web 2.0 system can lead to deeper engagement with social campaigns,” says Mr. Abraham. He cites the example of Michael Geist of the University of Ottawa, who was able to get some members of the Fair Copyright for Canada Facebook group (with over 90,000 members) to raise questions during open houses called by Canadian Members of Parliament. Thanks to this campaign, the government backed down from legislating anti-consumer intellectual property laws, he says.

For the success of an online campaign, the power of the message also counts. Here, Mr. Abraham refers to the Pink Chaddi campaign. “It did not directly respond to the arguments of the Ram Sene. It used humour to mock the fundamentalists into irrelevance.”

Though there is no clear path to an effective online campaign, the successes have demonstrated the potential of the medium that promises to connect millions with a click. But just as a message can grow stronger as it reaches more people, it can also be spread wafer-thin and lose significance.

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To read the original article on the website of The Hindu, please click here.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/measuring-the-effectiveness-of-online-activism

Report on Second National Workshop on Web Accessibility, 5-7 June 2009

sachia — 2013-02-04T05:52:05Z

Nirmita Narsimhan reports on the second National Workshop on Web Accessibility for web developers, hosted by CIS in Bangalore from 5 to 7 June 2009, and attended by 15 participants.

The second National Workshop on Web Accessibility for web developers was held at the CIS office in Bangalore, 5-7 June 2009. Although this was intended to be more a city-based workshop, we still got participants from other states such as Kerala, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh. There were in all 15 participants predominantly from the web development and web designing backgrounds, college students and even a person from the academic field and 3 trainers. There were also some who had already prior knowledge of accessibility and this helped to raise the level of issues which were being discussed from a basic level to a more advanced level. Overall, the workshop was extremely well received and many of the participants expressed their willingness to participate in more such workshops in the future.

The workshop was structured differently from the last one--the sessions were more practical-oriented and the trainers stressed a lot on group work. There were sessions on understanding disability, WCAG 2.0 principles and group exercises of designing accessible pages. This workshop featured some additional topics such as Flash accessibility, accessibility in documents and role play exercises for problem solving for different disabilities. For instance, in one of the sessions, the participants were asked to prepare a caption for a one minute video. One of the participants, already working on accessibility, demonstrated Orca for Linux.

Specific Outcomes

1. The participants understood the importance of creating accessible web pages and learnt about various techniques, tools and resources for accessibility.
2. All the presentations and lectures were video documented.
3. The participants filled up feed back forms and action points to be undertaken after the workshop. CIS distributed T-Shirts and certificates to all the participants.

To download a complete report on the workshop in pdf format, please click here.

Video

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/second-national-workshop

Follow-up Letter in Support of WIPO Treaty for Reading Disabled

sachia — 2011-08-25T08:43:42Z

CIS has sent another letter to the Department of Higher Education, Ministry for Human Resource Development, petitioning it to support the WIPO Treaty for the reading disabled.

In November last year, CIS launched a nation wide signature campaign to support the treaty for the blind, visually impaired and other reading disabled proposed by the World Blind Union to the WIPO. Since then, the list of signatories was updated. In May 2009, WIPO's Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR) held another meeting, and in light of this, the endorsement of the treaty and appeal to the government to support it was resubmitted, by an increased number of signatories, including members of the DAISY Forum of India.

The letter and list of signatories is available below.

Mr. R. P. Aggarwal
Secretary

Department of Higher Education
Ministry of Human Resource Development
‘C’ Wing, Shastri Bhavan
New Delhi-110001

Dear Sir,

Re: Letter of support for the proposed Treaty for the blind and visually impaired submitted by the World Blind Union.

We were extremely gratified that the Government took note of our letter in November, 2008, containing endorsements of 16 organisations urging the government to support the Treaty for the Blind, which was proposed by the World Blind Union in the WIPO SCCR meeting from Nov 1^st-6^th,2008. In light of the fact that there is another SCCR meeting scheduled from May 25^th-29^th, where this issue is to be taken up, we are resubmitting our endorsement and urgent plea to the Government to actively support this treaty, since it will be extremely beneficial to all blind, visually challenged and print disabled persons in India. The list of endorsers has expanded to include about 50 more organizations. There are many more who have verbally expressed support. We look forward to an active response from the Government on this. Thanking you,

Yours Faithfully,

Nirmita Narasimhan
Programme Manager
(Centre for Internet and Society)

Sr. No	Name of Organization	Contact Person
1	Akhil Bharatiya Drishtiheen Kalyan Sangh,	Mr. Ajay M. Joshi
2	Amulya Sahara	Sh. Ashok Kumar Goyal
3	Andhjan Kalyan Trust,	Mr. Praful N. Vyas
4	Arushi	Sh. Anil Mudgal
5	Astha	Ms Radhika M. Alkazi,
6	Atmajyoti Vikas Samitee	Mrs. Priti Yadav
7	Blind People's Association (Ahmedabad)	Mr. R.P. Soni
8	Blind Person's Association (Kolkata)	Mr. Amiyo Biswas
9	Blind Welfare Council	Sh. Yusuf Kapadiya
10	Centre For Internet And Society	Sunil Abraham,
11	Devnar Foundation for the Blind	Dr. A. Saibaba Goud
12	Discipleship Centre	Mr. John A
13	Farook College	Prof. K. Kuttialikutty
14	Hans Raj Mahila Maha Vidyalaya	Ms. Prabha Puran Sharma
15	Human Development Institute	Ms. R.C. Meena
16	Indian Association for the Blind	Mr. S.M.A. Jinnah,
17	Indira Mahila Mandal Hudco New Nandeds	Sh. Nagnath Ramji Kadam
18	Jamia Millia Islamia	Prof. Zubair Meenal,
19	Janta Adarsh Andh Vidyalaya	Mrs. Kalpana Sharma
20	Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya	Rajesh Gupta
21	Jyoti Sroat School	Bertha G. Dkhar
22	L.V. Prasad Eye Institute	Mr./Ms. Beula Christy
23	Lakshmi Bai College	Dr. Nalini Govind
24	Maulana AzadLibrary(AligarhMuslim Universit)	Mr. Shakeel Ahmad Khan Mr. Shakeel Ahmad Khan
25	Mitra Jyothi	Ms. Madhu Singhal
26	Montfort Centre For Education	Mr. Michael Mathew
27	National Association for the Blind, Delhi
28	NAB-Phiroze &NoshirMerwanjiRehabilitationCentre for the Blind (Mount Abu)	Sh. Vimal Kumar Dengla
29	National Association for the Blind (Uttarakhand)	Mr. Shyam Dhanak,
30	National Association for the Blind (Chandigarh)	Sh. Vinod Chadha
31	National Association for the Blind (H.)	Ms. Shalini Vats Kimta
32	National Association for the Blind (India)	Sh. Suhas V. Karnik
33	National Association for the Blind(Jharkhand)	Sh. Ar. Sahay
34	National Association for the Blind(Junagad)	Ms. Rinaben V. Jasani
35	National Association for the Blind (Karnataka),	(Mrs.) Saroja Ramachandra
36	National Association for the Blind (Kerala)	Sh. Manoj Kurian
37	National Association for the Blind (Sikkim Branch)	Mr. Rajesh Verma
38	National Association for the Blind(West Bengal)	Sh. Arup Chakroborty
39	National Federation of the Blind (Guwahati)	Mohd. Imran Ali
40	North Ex. Blind Welfare & Educational Society	Sh. Subhash Garg
41	Orissa Association for the Blind	Sh. Bihari Nayak
42	Rajasthan Netraheen Kalyan Sangh	Sh. Jitendra Bhargava
43	Ramakrishna Mission Blind Boys' Academy	Sh. Sunilbaran Pattanayak
44	Saksham	Ms. Deepika Sood,
45	Salwan Public School	Mrs. Vandana Puri
46	Samarthanam Trust for the Disabled	Sh. Ganesh
47	Samrita Trust	Sh. Seetarama Sastry Nori
48	School for the Deaf Mutes Society	Dr. Homiyar Mobedji
49	Score Foundation,	George Abraham
50	Shikshit Yuva Sewa Samiti Basti	Mr. Gopal Krishna Agarwal
51	Shree Andhjan Vividhlaxi Talim Kendra,	Sh. Prakash Mankodi
52	Shri Navchetan Andhjan Mandal,	Sh. Himanshu Sampura
53	Shri Venkateswara College	Ayesha Maliwal
54	Shri Vrajlal Durlabhji Parekh Andh Mahila Vikas Grah,	Sh. P.J. Mankodi
55	Shruti Information Centre of Yashoda Charitable Trust	Ms. Sonal Sena
56	Shubham	Dr. Sangeeta Agarwal
57	Springdales School	Ms. Sonali Bose
58	St. Mary's School
59	Tagore International School,	Ms. Aparna Sharma
60	The Blind Relief Association (Delhi)	Sh. Kailash Chandra Pande
61	University of Hyderabad	Dr. Madhireddy Anjaneyulu
62	Venu Eye Institute & Research Centre	Ms. Tanuja Joshi
63	Victoria Memorial School for the Blind	Mrs. Radha Subrahmanian
64	Welfare Centre For Visually Handicapped,	Mr. Profulla Kumar Rout
65	Welfare Society for the Blind,	Smt. Jharna Sur
66	Xavier's Resource Centre for the Visually Challenged (XRCVC)	Dr. Sam Taraporevala
67	Sense International (India)	Akhil Paul
68	N. Krishnaswamy Barrier Break Technologies (Mumbai)	Shilpi Kapoor
69	National Association for the Blind (NAB) Bangalore	Mr. Pruthviraj
70	National Federation for the Blind (Delhi)	S.K.Rungta
71	Mitrajyoti (Bangalore)	Madhu Singhal
72	Accessability (New Delhi)	Vikas Sharma
73	Alternative Law Forum (Bangalore)	Lawrence Liang
74	Acrodelon Technologies Pvt Ltd(Chennai)	Rahul Cherian
75	Enable India	Shanthi Raghavan
76	College Students and Graduates Association of the Blind(Chennai)	Ponmudi
77	Indian Association for the Blind(Chennai)	S.M.A. Jinnah
78	Prayatna(Chennai & Bangalore)	Aruna Sankaranarayanan
79	Worth Trust, Katpadi (TN)	Venki/Mike

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/follow-up-letter-in-support-of-wipo-treaty-for-reading-disabled

Using Social Media for Mobilisation

sachia — 2011-04-05T04:33:30Z

Panel discussion with Dina Mehta and Peter Griffin

For some time now, blogs, facebook and other forms of social media have been used extensively for rallying people around an issue or a cause. However, what makes some of these campaigns more successful than others? Does the workability of social media for mobilisation depend on the manner in which information is designed and/or disseminated?

This panel brings together two well-known names from the world of social media, Dina Mehta and Peter Griffin, to explore "meme engineering" and understand what makes some forms of use of social media more effective than others.

Speakers

Dina Mehta is a founder and Managing Director of Mosoci India. She has spent twenty years specializing in qualitative research and ethnography. She is at the forefront of technology trend research in India and works with a global portfolio of companies; including learning journeys, and immersions for innovation teams. She brings her unique perspective to understanding the emerging social aspects of new technology and the impact of new media on youth and mobility. Her work has led her to study the impact of technology in rural markets, follow trend-setting youth in urban settings, dig deep into motivations and possible triggers across a wide range of demographic and psychographic groups, explore and identify underlying value propositions and key drivers/barriers in several categories.

Peter Griffin is a well-known blogger and has been involved with a number of collaborative projects, including the South-East Asia Earthquake and Tsunami blog (also known as TsunamiHelp), MumbaiHelp, Think Bombay, and the WorldWideHelp group and its associated projects. All of these project have been concerned with bringing together the web and free tools on one hand, and concerned web natives and public goodwill on the other, to assist in disaster relief. Peter is also the co-founder, joint editor and co-moderator of the writing community, Caferati. He is currently associated with a national business magazine in the capacity of editor, special features.

Time and Date

Friday, 19 June, 2009; 6.30-8.00 pm

Venue

Centre for Internet and Society, No. D2, 3rd Floor, Sheriff Chambers, 14, Cunningham Road, Bangalore - 560052

Map

For a map, please click here.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/events/using-social-media-for-mobilisation

Art and Augmented Reality

sachia — 2011-04-05T04:33:55Z

Talk by Jose David Cuartas Correa

The Centre for Internet and Society and the Free Software Users' Group, Bangalore, invite you to a talk by Jose David Cuartas Correa on his project on Augmented Reality (with Sologico Libre Foundation, with the support of Caldas University, CEMA (Center of Experimental Media Arts) and Srishti School of Art, Design and Technology). In this presentation, Jose David will discuss the concept of Augmented Reality (fusion of the real world with the virtual objects and data), and demonstrate how it can be used as an alternative model of manipulation, integration and interaction for media and information. This new technology gives us new ways to create and think; Graphical Interfaces and options for the construction of new worlds, environments and alternative spaces. Augmented Reality is thus a useful tool that can be used by artists, designers and expert users.

The presentation will also analyse the metaphors used in the development of previous, present and next-generation Graphical User Interfaces (GUI) and look some examples of interaction interfaces developed by different research groups around the world.

Finally, Jose David will demonstrate the ATOMIC Authoring Tool, software initially developed to create Augmented Reality applications and mind maps, created under the GPL licence.

Speaker

Jose David Cuartas Correa is a student of visual design at the Caldas University in Manizales, Colombia, South America. He is at present an exchange student in the Advanced Diploma in Experimental Media Arts at CEMA – Srishti School of Art, Design and Technology, Bangalore, India. He also serves as visiting faculty at Srishti School of Art, Design and Technology, teaching the course “Interaction and Interface Design in the Web” at the foundation level. Jose David is the founder of the Junior Research Group in Free Software for Design, Caldas University, and current president of the SoLógiCo Libre ONG, which promotes the use and development of the free software, free culture and emergent technologies for art, design and entertainment.

Time and Date

Wednesday, 17 June, 2009; 6.00-7.30 pm

Venue

Centre for Internet and Society, No. D2, 3rd Floor, Sheriff Chambers, 14, Cunningham Road, Bangalore - 560052

Map

For a map, please click here.

Augmented Reality

ATOMIC Authoring Tool - September 2008

http://sologicolibre.org/projects/atomic/atomic/en

atSourceforge

http://atomic-project.sourceforge.net

March 2009

Puzzle in Augmented Reality

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4g7nzl5DKI

June 2007

Music Player in Augmented Reality

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=enIN1diZuzA

May 2007

Interactive Sound Mixer in Augmented Reality

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xLHO2c7lMQ

May 2007

Color theory demonstration using Augmented Reality

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srDaBHiFhRs

April 2007

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/events/art-and-augmented-reality

'Internet and Deliberative Democracy': Panel Discussion Featuring Sunil Abraham, Philippe Aigrain and Mario Losano

sachia — 2011-08-04T04:42:20Z

Sunil Abraham, Director (Policy), Centre for Internet and Society, attended the first edition of the Biennale Democrazia in Turin, 22-26 April 2009. He participated in a panel discussion on the topic 'Internet and Deliberative Democracy'. This blog entry links to a video of his contribution to the discussion.

Sunil Abraham, director of the Centre for Internet and Society in Bangalore expresses previously unpublished views on piracy, attribution and the IP regime in a panel discussion on Internet and Deliberative Democracy with Philippe Aigrain (Sopinspace), and Prof. Mario Losano (jurist, Univ. Piemonte Orientale) moderated by J.C. De Martin of NEXA Center for Internet and Society at the premier edition of the Democracy Biennial, Torino May 25 2009.

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Please click here to read the original post on the Cluster website.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/internet-and-deliberative-democracy

Dialogue Systems in Education and Learning

sachia — 2011-04-05T04:35:46Z

A talk on dialogue interfaces for intelligent tutoring systems (ITS)

One-to-one tutoring has been shown to increase learning gain in students because instruction can be adapted to the student's expertise. Intelligent tutoring systems (ITS) are computer programs that adaptively provide students with exercise problems to solve and a detailed feedback once they resolve the problems. However the interface between the student and the system is restricted to GUI and therefore detailed discussion on what went wrong in problem solving cannot be discussed. Dialogue interfaces to tutoring systems resolves this drawback and enables the student to have a conversation on the mistakes he/she committed. In tutorial dialogue systems, the system interacts with the students in natural language either spoken or typed. The system and the student engage in a conversation after the student presents a solution to the problem. In case of an incorrect solution, the system helps the student to solve the problem by engaging the student in a remediation dialogue by asking simpler questions and giving clues. Such systems have been shown to be more effective than its GUI counterparts. Can such systems be used to improve the learning gain amongst students in India?

Speaker

Srinivasan Janarthanam is a third year Ph.D student at the University of Edinburgh, UK. He works in Spoken Dialogue Systems with focus on making user adaptive systems. His Ph.D is supported by UK India Education Research Initiative. Previously, he worked as a research associate in Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetam, Coimbatore on English-Tamil Machine Translation. He did his M.Sc in Intelligent Systems from the University of Sussex, UK and his B.E from Bharathiyar University, Coimbatore. His other interests are Natural Language Processing (NLP) for Indian languages, application of NLP and Artificial Intelligence for education.

Time and Date

Friday, 12 June, 2009; 5.30-6.30 pm

Venue

Centre for Internet and Society, No. D2, 3rd Floor, Sheriff Chambers, 14, Cunningham Road, Bangalore - 560052

Map

For a map, please click here.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/events/dialogue-systems-in-education-and-learning

Seminar on Exceptions and Limitations in Copyright

sachia — 2011-08-17T08:50:52Z

This is a report on a seminar organised by the Department of Higher Education, Ministry of Human Resource Development, and Government of India on 14 and 15 May 2009, in Kochi, Kerala, to look at exceptions and limitations in copyright. Programme Manager Nirmita Narsimhan, of the Centre for Internet and Society, attended the seminar.

CIS Programme Manager Nirmita Narsimhan attended a seminar on exceptions and limitations in copyright, organised by the Department of Higher Education, Ministry of Human Resource Development, and Government of India on 14 and 15 May 2009, in Kochi, Kerala. The seminar was intended to bring up key issues affecting access to knowledge, which are to be taken up by the Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR) at the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) later this month. Resource persons identified for different topics were eminent scholars, academicians and practitioners across India. The seminar covered eight topics. On each topic, a paper was presented by a resource person with commentary by an expert in the field, after which there was an open discussion.

The first day featured, amongst others, a paper presented by Lawrence Liang, Distinguished Fellow, CIS. He spoke at length on the exceptions and limitations for education.

The second day featured a paper by Mr. Madhukar Sinha, former Registrar of Copyright. Mr. Sinha presented on the topic 'Use of works by visually impaired and other miscellaneous exceptions of use of works under Indian Copyright Act: Section 52(1) (q), (r), (s), (t), (u), (v), and (x), (y), (z)'. His paper went into great length on definitions of visual disability and tried to evolve an economic model to support conversion of books into accessible formats for the visually challenged. The paper drew parallels with existing laws and best practices in different countries, made a detailed analysis of exceptions for the blind in the light of the Berne three-step test and the TRIPS agreement, and concluded by recommending that the Copyright Act should be amended to include exceptions and limitations which would permit conversion of books into formats in certain special cases. Mr. Sinha also recommended that India should look at solutions which go beyond the limits of the Copyright Act to solve such problems.

The response to this was prepared by Mr. Rahul Cherian of Indo Juris Law offices. The response paper drew attention to the fact that half of the total blind population of the world is in India and that amounts to a population of more than a crore. In the light of the economic and logistic considerations of our country, the Copyright Act should

Expressly include a limitation to permit conversion of books into accessible formats for visually challenged persons;
Permit conversion by stakeholder organizations as well as interested family members and friends of beneficiaries;
Adopt a functional definition of disability and not a medical one as is currently the case in the Persons with Disabilities Act 1995, and extend the benefit of the exception to all persons, who by reason of any disability are unable to access the work in its original format;and
Not restrict conversion only to those formats which are exclusively for the use of blind persons. Visually challenged persons should be able to make use of available mainstream formats like PDFs or Word as well.

The paper also dealt extensively with the Treaty for Improved access for the Blind, Visually Impaired and Other Reading Disabled, which was proposed by the World Blind Union in WIPO last year and is coming up again for discussion later this month.

Please click here to see the complete text of the paper.

The seminar was extremely productive because there was a strong recommendation and support for the inclusion of a limitation for conversion into accessible formats for persons with disabilities in the Indian Copyright Act. All the members present came to a consensus that the Indian Government should take a supportive stand towards the Treaty for the Blind proposed by the WBU at the SCCR this month. A representative of a leading publishing house committed himself to working towards providing books to certain organizations for the blind, if they could assure him that those books would be circulated only to blind persons and not to others.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/seminar-on-exceptions-and-limitations-in-copyright

The Dark Fibre Files: 'Steal This Film' and the Pirate Bay Trial

sachia — 2011-08-04T04:41:57Z

In this posting, the fifth blog entry on the making of the film 'Dark Fibre' by Jamie King and Peter Mann, Siddharth Chadha discusses the Swedish trial of the Pirate Bay, which brought up some of the debates on intellectual property rights and piracy that were highlighted in 'Steal This Film'.

In August 2006, Jamie King shot Part I of 'Steal This Film' in Sweden, combining found material, propoganda-like slogans and Vox Pops, along with accounts from members of the Pirate Bay, Piratbryan and the Pirate Party. The film critiques the alleged regulatory capture attempt performed by the Hollywood film lobby in order to leverage economic sanctions by the United States government on Sweden through the WTO. The film interviews the Pirate Bay Members Fredrik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm, and Peter Sunde and Piratbryan members Rasmus Fleischer, Johan and Sara Anderson, who recount the search and seizure raid conducted by the Swedish police, with the purpose of disrupting the Pirate Bay's BitTorrent tracker. This raid, according to the Pirate Bay members, was against the Swedish law and conducted under pressure from the Motion Pictures Association of America. The documentary was officially released on filesharing networks on 28 December 2007 and, according to the filmmakers, downloaded 150,000 times in the first three days of distribution. The Pirate Bay encouraged the downloading of 'Steal This Film II', announcing the film's release on its blog. 'Steal This Film II' was also screened by the Pirate Cinema, Copenhagen, in January 2008.

In the post-Napster era of peer to peer networks, the Pirate Bay case has been the media highlight on file sharing. After the police raided 12 different premises in May 2006, confiscating 186 servers and causing the torrent tracker to shut down for three days, the Pirate Bay re-opened to double the number of visitors, as its popularity got a shot in the arm with the extensive media coverage. While the MPAA termed the raids as extremely succesful, the Pirate Bay, which restored its servers in three days, thought otherwise. After a preliminary investigation and interrogation by the police, a four thousand page report was prepared by the prosecutor, in preperation of a trial. The Swedish prosecutors filled charges in January 2008 against four individuals they associated with The Pirate Bay for 'promoting other people's infringement of copyright laws'.

The Swedish prosecution raised a furore in the world of Intellectual Property by suing The Pirate Bay. While the prosecutors contended that millions of people get access to copyrighted materials such as movies, songs, and software programs, which can be downloaded for free by going to The Pirate Bay site, the contentious issue lies in the fact that the Pirate Bay itself does not host any files. Just as Google is an index of links, The Pirate Bay is an index of where those files are located. The original files are located across millions of computers around the world, which may only have a small fragment of the original file, and which share these fragments using BitTorrent. According to CableLabs, an organisation of the North American cable industry, BitTorrent represents 18% of all Broadband traffic. Apart from suing The Pirate Bay, the major Hollywood studios have also tried pressure tactics to contain copyright infringement. HBO in 2005, for example, poisoned torrents of its 'Rome' TV show by providing bad chunks of data to clients. It also sent cease and desist letters to the Internet Service Providers of BitTorrent users. The increased pressure from the Hollywood lobby and persistent lawsuits have resulted in the shutdown of various BitTorrent indexing sites, such as the Supernova.org, Torrentspy, LokiTorrent, Demonoid, Oink.cd and EliteTorrents.org.

The Pirate Bay Trial started on 16th Feburary 2009, with defense lawer Per E. Samuelson, arguing that it is legal to offer a service that can be used both legally and illegally, under the Swedish Law. He compared the Pirate Bay services to making cars that can be driven faster than the speed limit. On the second day of the trial, the prosecution dropped half of the charges against the Pirate Bay, due to shortcomings in evidence. Prosecutor Hakan Roswall dropped all charges related to 'assisting copyright infringement', leaving 'assisting making available' as the remaining charge. The next day of the trial saw an argument by the defense attorney Per Samuelson, which was latter dubbed as the King Kong defense, popularised by the blogs, file sharing news feeds and the media. The defense stated:

EU directive 2000/31/EC says that he who provides an information service is not responsible for the information that is being transferred. In order to be responsible, the service provider must initiate the transfer. But the admins of the Pirate Bay don’t initiate transfers. It’s the users that do and they are physically identifiable people. They call themselves names like King Kong... According to legal procedure, the accusations must be against an individual and there must be a close tie between the perpetrators of a crime and those who are assisting. This tie has not been shown. The prosecutor must show that Carl Lundström personally has interacted with the user King Kong, who may very well be found in the jungles of Cambodia...

The remaining six days of the trial saw questioning of the accused, witness depositions by plaintiffs and conflicting academic research by experts, as the prosecution tried to show that the Pirate Bay was an immensely profitable business that made money by helping others infringe copyright laws. The four operators of the site, Fredrik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm, Peter Sunde and Carl Lundstrom, were convicted by Stockholm district court on 17 April 2009 and sentenced to one year in jail each and a total of 30 million SEK (approximately 3.5 million USD, 2.7 million EUR) in fines and damages. In its verdict the court stated that 'responsibility for assistance can strike someone who has only insignificantly assisted in the principal crime'.

Even while filming of 'Dark Fibre' was on here in Bangalore, Jamie and his crew were filming outside the courtroom in Stockholm, as the the subjects of 'Steal This Film' went on trial and were convicted. The convicted are now preparing to appeal against the sentence and the fine in the higher Swedish court.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/the-dark-fibre-files-steal-this-film-and-the-pirate-bay-trial

National Workshop on Web Accessibility, June 2009

sachia — 2011-08-31T10:51:12Z

A workshop on web accessibility (for web developers only) in Bangalore

The Centre for Internet and Society (www.cis-india.org) and Samarthanam Trust for the Disabled (www.samarthanam.org) are organizing a workshop on web accessibility for web developers from the public and private sector from June 5 to 7, 2009. The workshop will take place at the Centre for Internet and Society office on Cunningham Road, Bangalore, between 09:30-17:30 hours each day.

The workshop seeks to bring together practitioners from the private and public sector from all across the country. The primary aim of this workshop is to demonstrate the importance of creating accessible web sites and to educate the developers of government and private web sites on how to incorporate accessibility features into new as well as existing web sites.

The training will comprise both theory-oriented and practical sessions. The trainers will be specialists in various aspects of web accessibility. The main focus will be on WCAG 2.0 guidelines. The participants will be persons already involved in developing web sites with good knowledge of HTML, XML, CSS, etc.

In addition to training web developers in accessibility, the workshop will also serve as a platform for capacity building by training potential accessibility trainers. Many of the sessions will be documented as lessons on accessibility and put up on the CIS web site. As part of one of the outcomes of the workshop, five inaccessible government web sites will be identified and taken up for retrofitting with accessibility features within the next few months.

Registration

To register, please email Nirmita Narsimhan at nirmita@cis-india.org or call 080-4092-6283. There is no registration fee.

National Policy on Electronic Accessibility

One of the primary endeavors of several disability organizations around the country is to have a national policy which governs electronic accessibility in India. CIS has been a forerunner in advocating for the policy and is actively working with the government in formulating the policy. As part of its advocacy efforts, CIS is also involved in capacity building through organizing workshops and awareness spreading in the private and public sectors.

Trainers

Rahul Gonsalves

Rahul has been building accessible websites since 2005 (sample work at http://rahulgonsalves.com/projects/). He has been actively involved in promoting web and accessibility standards. He spoke at the first international accessibility and technology conference in India, Techshare 2008, where he made a case for accessibility and conducted a workshop on retrofitting accessibility to existing websites, a concern for most large institutions with an existing online presence (slides available at http://www.barrierbreak.com/events-conference/techshare_presentations2008.php#track3)

In September 2008, he presented a paper examining ways in which people with various impairments - both physical and mental – engage with online content, and demonstrated practical ways in which authors can make online content accessible at the National Conference on ICT for Differently Abled People. He is a supporter of the push for having a national policy for governing electronic accessibility in India.

Dinesh Kaushal

Dinesh has been involved in the area of accessibility, specifically product development throughout his career. He started with developing SAFA (Screen Access for All), which is the first Indian language screen reader. He worked independently on this for a year, during which time he got a good understanding of the complete software development life cycle. SAFA was envisioned to facilitate reading and writing in Indian languages at affordable cost, with a view to enabling better jobs and education for persons with blindness and low vision. SAFA is a unique software as it has to interact with other applications to get information and present this information to the users in the format convenient for them. SAFA is currently being used by blind persons in their jobs, for their studies, and even for their exams and is available in 11 iIdian languages for which text to speech synthesizers are available. His subsequent work involved leading a team to develop a Daisy book player. Daisy books are xml based marked-up digital books which provide efficient access to the information for persons with blindness. His responsibilities were team coordination, software requirement specification, design specification, and monitoring testing. He is presently working with Code Factory as Lead Developer (Braille) for screen readers for the windows mobile platform. This software enables persons with blindness to get access to mobile phones and PDAs, making it possible to access information at par with their sighted colleagues. His role is to provide this information via Braille displays. The Braille display allows blind persons to read SMS, work with contacts and documents, navigate with the help of GPS, etc using electronic Braille. This product is available for more than 20 languages and is available all over the world.

Ajay Kolhatkar

Dr. Ajay Kolhatkar co-leads the web usability and accessibility research at the Web 2.0 Research Labs at SETLabs. Presently he manages the evangelization of Web Accessibility Assessment and Remediation product called Infosys iProwe developed by their lab. Ajay has a PhD in technology marketing from IIT Bombay. His research there focused on Consumer's Acceptance of Technology Based Services. The key research problem was modeling the attitude-behaviour linkage for technology acceptance and the critical role played by personality factors and situational factors. The context for the study was Automated Teller Machines. Presently his research interests include usability of self-service channels; technology adoption; consumer behaviour in technology interfaces etc. An electrical engineer from the College of Engineering, Pune and an MBA in Marketing from Symbiosis Institute, Pune, Ajay has over 16 years of industry experience. He can be contacted at Ajay_Kolhatkar@infosys.com

Proposed Sessions

Day 1

09:00-10:00: Introduction of participants, trainers and organisers
10:00-11:30: Session 1

Understanding disability;
Working with disabilities -- The need for an accessible web

This session will familiarise the participants with different types of disabilities and the work arounds, in terms of assistive technologies or simple modifications which will enable them to work effectively using computers.

11:30-11:45: Tea Break
11:45-13:00: Session 2 - Building an Accessible Website

Laying Accessible Foundations
Table-less layouts
Well-structured markup
Valid code

13:00-14:00: Lunch
14:00-15:30: Session 3--Group exercise
Participants will have to identify and use semantic markup to describe different parts of a given layout. They will then have to write basic HTML/CSS code to present the website and validate it using online/desktop tools.
15:30-15:45: Tea break
15:45-17:15: Session 4 - Building an Accessible Website
Participants will have a chance to use a variety of assistive technologies (screen readers/braille displays) and there will be an exercise followed be a group discussion. Sequential Access/Role play will be conducted which will help them understand some of the problems related to electronic accessibility.
17:15-17:30: Summary and winding up

Day 2
09:15-11:00: Session 5 - Building an Accessible Website

Removing Barriers
Principle 1 - Perception
Non-text content
Audio/Visual content
Adaptability
Contrast

11:00-11:15: Tea break

11:15-13:00: Session 6 - Principle 2 - Operable

Keyboard Access
Enough Time
Seizures
Navigable

13:00-14:00: Lunch

14:00-15:30: Group Exercise

Participants will be given online tools to evaluate colour contrast. They will have to evaluate and correct a layout for adequate contrast.
Participants will have to prepare a transcript of a one-minute film.

15:30-15:45: Tea break

15:45:16:15: Session 7 - Accessibility in documents
16:15-17:30: Session 8 - Principle 3 - Understandable, and Principle 4 - Robust

Natural Language
Predictable
Input Assistance
Compatible

Winding up, feedback and clarification

Day 3

09:15 -9:45: Flash accessibility

9:45-11:15: Group Exercise - Putting it all together
Participants will complete building the website(s)

11:15-11:30: Tea Break

11:30-12:45: Accessibility testing

Group Exercise - Testing + Validating using automated testing tools as well as manual testing

The website that has been built will be validated to HTML, CSS and WCAG standards.
All errors identified will have to be corrected in a participatory fashion.

12:45-13:00: Wrapping up

Action points -- The road ahead

13:15- 14:00: Lunch

Videos

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/events/national-workshop-on-web-accessibility-june-2009

International Communication Association Pre-Conference on 'India and Communication Studies'

sachia — 2011-04-02T15:56:35Z

Sunil Abraham, Director-Policy, CIS, is to take part in a panel discussion on 'Media, Technology, and Governance' at the International Communication Association Pre-Conference on 'India and Communication Studies' on 21 May 2009, 1.00-2.15 pm.

PRECONFERENCE #2

Sponsored by the Center for Global Communication Studies, Annenberg School for Communication, University for Pennsylvania, and Centre for Culture, Media & Governance, Jamia Millia Islamia University, New Delhi

Title: India and Communication Studies

Time: Wednesday, May 20, 13:00 – 19:00 and
Thursday, May 21, 8:00 – 17:00

Limit: 50 persons

Cost: $100.00USD (Includes refreshment breaks, lunch and reception)
$50.00USD Students

Organizers:

• Monroe Price, Director, Center for Global Communication Studies, Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania
• Biswajit Das, Director, Centre for Culture, Media & Governance, Jamia Millia Islamia University, New Delhi
• Aswin Punathambekar, Assistant Professor, Communication Studies, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
• Radhika Parameswaran, Associate Professor, School of Journalism, Indiana University, Bloomington

Overview:

India plays an increasingly important role in the processes of globalization, including the global production of culture and the communications technology industry. At the same time, the field of communication studies in India is expanding. Yet there is no Indian Communications Association and little in the way of considered and formal review of contributions to the field.

This pre-conference is an effort to create a new coherence and a new salience for this subject by mapping the area of communication and culture studies in India; to strengthen ties among leading and emerging scholars and institutions in India and elsewhere; to develop and cultivate a research agenda for the field; and to explore the creation of an Indian Communication Studies Association.

The pre-conference will take place over 2 days. The first day will be dedicated to paper presentations from emerging scholars on a diverse range of issues, including media and cultural representations, gender, minorities, issues of nationalism and culture, and structural questions of governance.

The second day will be centered around three panels, which will address the development of communication studies in India; issues of technology, governance and development; and a discussion of scholarship about India. The organized panels will draw from academia, business, civil society, and government/policy-making circles.
Schedule for India and Communication Studies ICA Pre-Conference:

May 20 (Day One):

13.00 – 13.15 Opening Remarks, Monroe Price and organizers
13.15 – 14.30 Paper presentations: Session 1
14.30 – 15.45 Paper presentations: Session 2
15.45 – 16.00 Break
16.00 – 17.15 Paper presentations: Session 3

Moderators for paper sessions: TBC

17.30 – 19.00 Reception for pre-conference participants and guests

May 21 (Day Two):

8.00 – 9.00: Breakfast for pre-conference participants

9.00 – 10.15 Opening Keynote Discussion -- India and Cultural Pathways: Reflections on Identity, History and Scholarship:

The opening keynote will address the history of communications/media studies in and about India, placing it in the broader context of global communication studies and globalization and international relations.

• Biswajit Das, Centre for Culture, Media & Governance, Jamia Millia Islamia University
• Radhika Gajjala, Bowling Green University
• Sevanti Ninan, Honorary Secretary, The Media Foundation (TBC)
• Arvind Singhal, University of Texas (TBC)
• Daya Thussu, University of Westminster

Moderator: Monroe Price, Center for Global Communication Studies, Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania

10.15 – 10.30 – Coffee Break

10.30 -- 11.45 Panel One: The Complex Challenge of Developing Communications Studies in India

This panel will seek to begin mapping the intellectual network of scholars that has informed communications scholarship in and about India. Panelists will discuss the history and development of "Indian" communication studies, including the approaches taken towards this subject; the competition between production and commercial goals and theoretical study; and the institutional and other pressures and challenges encountered by emerging programs..

• Biswajit Das, Centre for Culture, Media & Governance, Jamia Millia Islamia University
• Vinod Pavarala, University of Hyderabad
• Anjali Monteiro, Tata Institute of Social Sciences
• Atul Tandon, MICA
• Peng Hwa Ang, MICORE

Moderator: Noshir Contractor, Northwestern University

11.45 – 13.00 –Lunch

13.00 – 14.15 Panel Two: "Media, Technology & Governance"

This panel will be approached through cases as presented by the panelists. It seeks to (a) open the door to the growing work on the IT industry and ICT for Development; and (b) outline a tighter set of analytics to encourage a stronger connection between academic research & public policy in India.

• David Page or William Crawley (TBC), Media South Asia Project, Institute of Development Studies, Sussex University, UK
• Victoria Farmer, Department of Political Science and International Relations SUNY-Geneseo
• Steve McDowell, Department of Communication, Florida State University
• Sunil Abraham, Director (Policy), Centre for Internet & Society, Bangalore

Moderator: Vibodh Parthasarathi, Associate Professor, Centre for Culture, Media & Governance, Jamia Millia Islamia University

14.15 – 14.30 Coffee Break

14.30 – 15.45 Panel Three: Nodes of Contact: How to Map Scholarship about India

This panel aims to map the intellectual patterns and trajectories in media and communications scholarship on India. Panelists will address specific areas within communications research--gender and interdisciplinarity, new media, diaspora, television, and media production and reception--to chart and analyze the theoretical and empirical terrain that scholars have covered, and to suggest new and productive directions for future research.

• Radha Hegde, Department of Media, Culture, and Communication, New York University
• Shanti Kumar, Department of Radio-Television-Film, The University of Texas at Austin
• William Mazzarella, University of Chicago
• Ananda Mitra, Department of Communication, Wake Forest University
• Hemant Shah, School of Journalism & Mass Communication, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Moderator: Radhika Parameswaran, School of Journalism, Indiana University

15.45 – 16.15 Concluding Remarks and Wrap-up

This last part of the ICA Pre-Conference Program will feature open discussion and commentary from the organizers and audience.

For more information about this pre-conference, please contact Susan Abbott, Associate Director, Center for Global Communication Studies: sabbott@asc.upenn.edu

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Click here to read this information on the ICA website.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/ica-preconference

‘Housing the Democratic City’: Panel Discussion Featuring Bill Dunster, Cino Zucchi and Sunil Abraham

sachia — 2011-08-04T04:42:02Z

Sunil Abraham, Director (Policy), Centre for Internet and Society, attended the first edition of the Biennale Democrazia in Turin, 22-26 April 2009. He participated in a panel discussion on the topic 'Housing the Democratic City'. This blog entry links to videos of his contribution to the discussion and reproduces the promotional material on the event as a whole.

In these videos (Part I, Part II & Part III) Sunil Abraham replies to three questions on the role of democracy in contemporary urban form:

In the future do you envisage a home for everyone?

Part I - Housing The Democratic City, Torino April 26, 2009.

How can we proceed towards more sustainable – or less unsustainable – development in the future?

Part II - Housing The Democratic City, Torino April 26 2009.

In your opinion what makes an urban place ‘democratic’, and is there a relationship between architecture, urbanism and democracy?

Part III - Housing The Democratic City, Torino April 26 2009.

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Cluster in collaboration with the Architects Association of Turin (FOAT) participates at the Democracy Biennial.

The first edition of the Biennale Democrazia, will take place in Turin the 22 – 26 April 2009, it is an international cultural event entirely dedicated to the ethical and political project of democracy a political system which, by definition, is in constant evolution and development, continually facing new challenges to be overcome. The Democracy Biennial is organized by the City of Turin, the Italia Committee and the Piedmont Regional government. It forms part of a series of programmes and public events called Esperienza Italia organized to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Unification of Italy in 1861. The Democracy Biennial takes its inspiration from the profound studies on democracy carried out by Norberto Bobbio and it is intended to function as a tool for spreading a culture of Democracy that can also be put into practice in everyday life. It aims to create a permanent, ongoing workshop, open to the public, that explores and debates, from both a local and international point of view, the fundamental values of democracy, the forms it has adopted and the challenges it faces today. The event will consist of different preparatory activities (workshops, debates, readings, international forums, in-depth seminars and events actively involving citizens (as well as films, theatre and music events).

In partnership with the Biennale Democrazia the Architects Association of Turin (FOAT), has curated a section, within the event program, entitled “Housing the Democratic City”. The section offers a series of sessions: a workshop, conferences and a call for paper that aim to stimulate reflections on issues related to housing the city, for a future of urban democracy.

In occasion of this important event Cluster, in collaboration with the Architects Association (FOAT), has invited a collaborator from Bangalore, India, Sunil Abraham to speak at the conference “Housing the Democratic City” at Teatro Gobetti on Sunday 26th April. Other participating speakers are Bill Dunster (UK), Cino Zucchi (Italy).

Sunil Abraham is an industrial and production engineer from Bangalore in India. In 1998 he founded Mahiti, an association dedicated to reducing the cost and complexity of information and communication technology for the voluntary sector. In August 2008 he co-founded The Centre for Internet and Society, that brings together a team of practitioners, theoreticians, researchers and artists to work on the emerging field of Internet and Society to critically engage with concerns of digital pluralism, public accountability and pedagogic practices, with particular emphasis on South-South dialogues and exchange. Sunil contributed to the last issue of Cluster, Transmitting Architecture in a dual interview and discussion with John Thackara entitled “Design in Urban Democracy:a question of survival?” here.

Sunil Abraham will also be speaking in two other sections of the Biennial on April 25 ‘Democracy and India’ with Prof. Federico Squarcini, professor of History of Indian Religions, University of Florence and ‘Democracy and Technology’ with the Politecnico of Turin. More details on the programme coming soon.

For info. please visit: Biennale Democrazia Order of the Architects of Turin (FOAT)

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Originally posted at http://www.cluster.eu/v2/themes/democracy/

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/housing-the-democratic-city