The FY2006 Foundation for C&C Promotion Symposium was entitled ‘International Symposium on New Paths to ICT Accessibility’. IISE supported the symposium together with Sankei Shimbun Co., Ltd. The symposium was held at the Izumi Garden Conference Center, attended by about 100 participants. Keynote speakers were Inmaculada Plancecia-Porrero, Deputy Head of Unit, Directorate General Information Society and Media, eInclusion Unit, who reported on trends in ‘e-Inclusion’ policy in Europe, and Kazuma Yokota, Deputy Director, ICT Accessibility and Human Resources Development Division, Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MPHPT), who reported on trends in information accessibility in Japan.

After these reports was a panel discussion on topics such as reasons for the expansion of the concept of accessibility from ‘e-accessibility’ to ‘e-inclusion’ in Europe, a Japanese initiative toward ISO standardization of information accessibility and a US movement toward revision of Section 508, harmonization of the development of accessibility standards for government procurements in Europe, as well as allocation of responsibility for the cost of building an accessible society.

Speakers and program:
13:00 Opening
13:30 Opening speech (1)
by Hiroshi Gokan, Executive Director, the Foundation for C&C Promotion
13:35 Key note speech (2)
‘Trends in e-Inclusion in EU’ by Inmaculada Placencia Porrero, Deputy Head of Unit, Directorate General Information Society and Media, eInclusion Unit
14:05 Key note speech
‘New Paths to Information Accessibility’ by Kazuma Yokota, Deputy Director, ICT Accessibility and Human Resources Development Division, Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MPHPT)
14:35 Presentations: Various movements supporting e-Inclusion
Presenters:
Naoki Sakakibara, Researcher, Universal Design Institute for Information Technology (UDIT)
Kazuko Yuma, Research Analyst, Institute for International Socio-Economic Studies
15:05 Recess
15:20 Panel Discussion ‘New Paths to ICT Accessibility: EU-Japan Perspectives on International Harmonization’
Moderator:Hajime Yamada, Professor, Faculty of Economics, Toyo University
Panelists: Inmaculada Placencia Porrero, Deputy Head of Unit, Directorate General Information Society and Media, eInclusion Unit
Kazuma Yokota, Deputy Director, ICT Accessibility and Human Resources
Development Division, Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MPHPT)
Chika Sekine, President and Founder, Universal Design Institute for Information Technology (UDIT)
Takashi Kobayashi, Assistant Professor, Tokai Univ. / Research Fellow, Keio University
17:00 Closing


(Provided with Japanese and English simultaneous interpreting, summary notes and sign language interpreting)