Centre for Internet and Society

article 5

praskrishna — 2013-11-29T04:43:22Z

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/home-images/Article5.png

Indic Wikipedia

praskrishna — 2013-11-29T06:07:55Z

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/home-images/IndicWikipedia.png

Vishnu

praskrishna — 2013-11-29T06:50:30Z

Vishnu

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/home-images/vishnu.png

Industries Participation

praskrishna — 2013-12-05T10:41:31Z

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/home-images/IndustriesParticipation.png

National Conference on: Harnessing technology for the empowerment for the persons with visual impairments

praskrishna — 2014-02-03T10:38:53Z

Dr. Nirmita Narasimhan participates as a speaker at this event. The event is organized by NIVH.

Click to read the complete agenda published by NAB Centre for Blind Women & Disability Studies

Background Note

As we all are aware, Assistive Technolgy has played an unprecedented role in equalizing opportunities and in improving the quality of life of people with disabilities in last few years, with solutions helping in the elimination of barriers in all kinds of environments.

However, inspite of the advanced development, the Assistive technology for the VI has been confined to special devices leading mostly to disparate solutions. These devices also are most often rendered incompatible with the quickly changing technological landscape interfacing with all sectors of development, making it unaffordable or obsolete for people with disabilities to communicate with the highly digital and networked society in the contemporary world. This disparity further isolates the disabled population calling out for a more holistic approach to make the mainstream technology accessible from the designing stage.

Moreover, increasingly all services in every sphere of life, be it employment, education, communication, entertainment, civic participation, or government functions are moving either primarily or exclusively online worldwide.

While for PWDs, the Internet has a great potential to enhance their freedom to access goods, services and information independently through online services; a sizeable population of people especially with visual impairment are increasingly finding it difficult to access online services and information due to design barriers. This is becoming an alarmingly serious issue in the near future, considering the engagement of vital sectors like banking and publications with technology.

We already face a rate of unemployment that is more than 3 times as high as the rest of the population and experience similar gaps in educational achievement. High levels of inaccessibility on the Web and Internet-enabled mobile technologies are threatening to exclude people with visual impairment even further, who experience disability from the information society.

The potential of an accessible Internet is immense which could not only increase the inclusion of people with disabilities and facilitate online education, telework, participation in e-government, but also would enable social relationships that overcome barriers and challenges presented by the physical world.

We are, therefore, in a situation of necessity, to harness the enormous prospects of technology to create an empowering, economically progressive and inclusive society, with a new approach to implement the public policy to eliminate the virtual barriers that are in place, ensuring that people with disabilities are not marginalized.

The need of the hour is to develop an accessible technology plan to

Define the accessible technology strategy,
Identify requirements,
Design, develop, and purchase technology,
Implement and Train in a timely manner

The national conference on ` Harnessing technology for the empowerment for the persons with visual impairments’ being organised by the NIVH, a premier Institute of Government of India in the field of visual disability functioning under the administrative control of Ministry of Social Justice & Empowerment to be held on 19th Nov 2013 aims to create opportunities of exploring the potential of inclusive solutions which are designed to serve all people regardless of their physical abilities.

The conference would bring together best practices models from India and abroad. It would facilitate interaction between the inclusive design experts for online services & accessible information and the officials from all levels of government and PSUs. The conference will in particular address the problems and potential solutions with reference to access to banking services, web and online services, access to documents and publications in digital, Braille and audio formats, and access to Digital Television
On the sidelines of the conference, a small exhibition will display a range of products hardware and software rendering possible solutions.

It is understood that all the participants invited to this conference have a critical role in the implementation of legal commitments and policy decisions for creating an accessible, enabling and empowering environment in which people can access all the services and information intended to benefit all citizens of the country.

Draft agenda

9:00 – 9:30 a.m.: Registration
9:30 a.m.- 10:20 a.m.: Inaugural Session
9:30 a.m.: Felicitations
9:36 a.m.: Lighting of Lamp followed by a devotional song
9:40 a.m.: Welcome address by J.S. DDA and objectives of the Conference
9:45 a.m.: Address by Secy. DDA
9:55 a.m.: Key Note address
10:15 a.m.: Vote of Thanks by Director NIVH
10:20-10:40 a.m.: Tea Break
10.40 a.m.: Plenary Session 1
11.40 a.m.: Plenary Session 2
2.15 p.m.: Plenary Session 3
4.00 p.m.: Plenary Session 4

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/nabcentreforwomen-november-19-2013-national-conference-on-harnessing-technology-for-the-empowerment-for-the-persons-with-visual-impairments

crunching data

praskrishna — 2013-12-13T03:52:46Z

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/home-images/crunchingdata.png

Nullcon Goa Feb 2014 — International Security Conference

praskrishna — 2013-12-13T06:42:48Z

Nullcon (http://nullcon.net) is celebrating its 5th Anniversary with efforts being made to bring key decision makers, thought leaders with an expectation of 500+ participants from the industry and government sector. Nullcon is scheduled from February 12 to 15, 2014 at Bogmallo Beach Resort, Goa, comprising of 2 days of technical trainings, followed by 2days of talks, workshops, exhibition, networking parties and CTFs.

The Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) is one of the sponsors for this event.

The Conference

The nullcon conference is a unique platform for security companies/evangelists to showcase their research and technology. Nullcon hosts Prototype, Exhibition, Trainings, Free Workshops, null Job Fair at the conference. It is an integrated and structured platform which caters to the needs of IT Security industry at large in a comprehensive way.

About Nullcon

Nullcon was founded in 2010 with the idea of providing an integrated platform for exchanging information on the latest attack vectors, zero day vulnerabilities and unknown threats. Our motto - "The neXt security thing!" drives the objective of the conference i.e. to discuss and showcase the future of information security and the next-generation of offensive and defensive security technology. The idea started as a gathering for researchers and organizations to brain storm and demonstrate why the current technology is not sufficient and what should be the focus for the coming years pertaining to information security. In addition to security, one of the section of the conference called Desi Jugaad (Hindi for "Local Hack") is dedicated to hacking where we invite researchers who come up with innovative security/tech/non-tech solutions for solving real life challenges or taking up new initiatives.

Nullcon is managed and marketed by Payatu Technologies. The idea of nullcon emerged out of null - The open security community, a registered not-for-profit society and the largest active security community in India with over 8 chapters in major cities - Bangalore, Mumbai, Chennai, Pune, Hyderabad, Mysore, Trivandrum and Delhi. As a tribute to the community nullcon funds null to further null's cause and supports all of its initiatives. If you are interested in knowing how null can help your organization and would like to contribute to null, please get in touch with null team at info@null.co.in

Dates:
Training: February 12 - 13, 2014
Conference: February 14-15, 2014
Registation: http://nullcon.net/website/register.php
Keynotes:

Jeff Moss, VP & CSO - ICANN, Founder - Defcon/Blackhat
Dr. Kiran Bedi, Ex-IPS (Police)

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/events/nullcon-goa-2014-intl-security-conference

A Wikipedia Workshop at IISC

praskrishna — 2013-12-31T03:38:30Z

Along with Wikipedian Shiju Alex we supported the Assamese Wikipedians to organize a workshop at IISC.

Assamese Wikipedian Gitartha Bordoloi took a session explaining about Wikipedia. Almost 13 scholars from Assam who are currently researching at IISC took part in this workshop. This also opened a new avenue for us to start an Assamese Wiki community in Bangalore.

Click to download the original published by Amarasom Gl Publications. The link to the original is here.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/wikipedia-workshop-iisc

PV

praskrishna — 2013-12-31T09:30:24Z

Prajavani

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/copy_of_PVMangaloreDec222013d.png

Edits on Konkani Wikipedia

praskrishna — 2013-12-31T11:29:16Z

Edits on Wikipedia

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/home-images/EditsonKonkaniWikipedia.png

Wikieditors

praskrishna — 2013-12-31T12:03:55Z

Wikieditors

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/home-images/Wikieditors.png

Vishnu

praskrishna — 2013-12-31T12:23:13Z

Vishnu Vardhan at re-release of Konkani Vishwakosh

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/home-images/Vishnu.png

Konkani Vishwakosh Event Poster

praskrishna — 2013-12-31T12:27:58Z

Konkani Vishwakosh Event Poster

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/home-images/KonkaniVishwakoshPoster.png

Konkani Wikipedia Editors

praskrishna — 2013-12-31T12:33:31Z

Konkani Wikipedia Editors

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/home-images/KonkaniWikipediaEditors.png

Pranesh Prakash elected as Asia-Pacific Representative to the Executive Committee of NonCommercial Users Constituency

praskrishna — 2014-01-06T02:50:52Z

Pranesh Prakash has been elected as the Asia-Pacific representative to the executive committee of the NonCommercial Users Constituency (NCUC) (part of the Non-Commercial Stakeholders Group, which is in turn part of the Generic Names Supporting Organization, which is in turn part of ICANN).

More information about the NCUC including how to join can be found at http://www.ncuc.org/

Background & Mission Statement:
The purpose of the NonCommercial Users Constituency (NCUC) is to represent, through its elected representatives and its interest groups, the interests and concerns of non-commercial registrants and non-commercial Internet users of generic Top-level Domains (gTLDs).

It provides a voice and representation in ICANN processes to: non-profit organizations that serve non-commercial interests; nonprofit services such as education, philanthropies, consumer protection, community organizing, promotion of the arts, public interest policy advocacy, children's welfare, religion, scientific research, and human rights; public interest software concerns; families or individuals who register domain names for noncommercial personal use; and Internet users who are primarily concerned with the noncommercial, public interest aspects of domain name policy.

Chair
William Drake, U. Zurich, Switzerland

Executive Committee (Europe)
Stefania Milan, Tilburg University, the Netherlands

Executive Committee (Africa)
Grace Githaiga, Kenya ICT Action Network

Executive Committee (Asia and the Pacific)
Pranesh Prakash, Centre for Internet and Society, India

Executive Committee (North America)
Roy Balleste, St. Thomas University, USA

Executive Committee (Latin America)
Carlos Affonso Pereira de Souza, Rio de Janeiro Institute for Technology of Society

The election results were as under:

Total Ballots Cast (including duplicates): 146
Ballots Counted (excluding duplicates): 124
Voters Who Haven't Voted: 84

Chair
1: 155 votes: William Drake
2: 22 votes: Abstain

Executive Committee (Europe)
3: 152 votes: Stefania Milan
4: 21 votes: Abstain

Executive Committee (Africa)
5: 37 votes: Hago Dafalla
6: 106 votes: Grace Githaiga
7: 34 votes: Abstain

Executive Committee (Asia and the Pacific)
8: 43 votes: Peter Green (aka Zuan Zhang)
9: 17 votes: Imran Ahmed Shah
10: 38 votes: Walid Al-Saqaf
11: 62 votes: Pranesh Prakash
12: 33 votes: Abstain

Executive Committee (North America)
13: 145 votes: Roy Balleste
14: 32 votes: Abstain

Executive Committee (Latin America)
15:149 votes: Carlos Affonso Pereira de Souza
16: 24 votes: Abstain

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/icann-december-24-2013-pranesh-prakash-elected-as-asia-pacific-representative-to-executive-committee-of-nuc