Information Society Watch

February 2, 2008, Nicole Ferraro, LightReading.com

Africa has been seemingly bypassed by the growth of the Internet, as evinced by the fact that only 3.5% of the internet users of the planet live there. There were multiple reasons for this slow growth in internet usage, primarily due to high costs associated with cable based services as well lack of reliable electricity supply.

June 2007, Dataquest India

Autism affects some of the brightest minds, including many in the IT industry, this article details how technology can help. This includes the creation of a working environment with as few elements of distraction as possible and the use of special software which caters to their needs (like the 'dasher' software which allows for typing using a mouse rather than a keyboard which autistics find difficult to operate).

2003, Leslie Casely-Hayford and Paul Lynch, Imfundo

The report examines ways in which Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) can best contribute to the delivery of education for those with Special Educational Needs (SEN) in Ghana. It has shown that a range of Assistive Technologies, including ICTs, do indeed have an important role to play in delivering the objectives of the Ghana Education Service (GES) with regard to SEN.

October 2003, Leslie Casely-Hayford and Paul Lynch, Imfundo

The aim of this study is to investigate how good practice and experiences from global use of Assistive Technology (AT) can be shared with African governments and people working in the sector. The study focuses on the use of ICT to support special educational needs in Africa with particular reference to special schools, teacher education and inclusive educational programming.

December 4, 2006, K.C. Jones, Information Week

The United Nations has launched the Global Initiative for Inclusive Technologies to standardise technologies and improve web accessibility for people with disabilities. The initiative aims to enhance the participation of disabled persons in the information age by lowering production costs of technologies and removing the barriers of prejudice, infrastructure and inaccessible formats.

March 30, 2007, BBC News Service

IBM is set to launch a multimedia browser which makes audio and video content accessible to the visually challenged. The application which was developed by a visually challenged employee will give visually challenged and partially-sighted people the same control over multimedia content that sighted people have using a mouse .

Mariane Youness, Premier’s Special Education Scholarship

This piece provides a comparison of inclusive technology design for education between the United States, and New South Wales (NSW), Australia. The NSW Public Schools Strategic Direction aims to facilitate students’ access to appropriate ICTs for furthering their educational goals.

November 20, 2006, Sascha Meinrath, Digital Communities

This article is part of a three-part series on digital inclusion. The author interviews a number of key coordinators of American community internet and media projects, thus synthesising an analysis on ways to combat systematic exclusion from the means of communication.