| APrIGF 2025 Session Proposal Submission Form | |||||||||||
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| Part 1 - Lead Organizer | |||||||||||
| Contact Person | |||||||||||
| Ms. Susmeera Aryal | |||||||||||
| Organization / Affiliation (Please state "Individual" if appropriate) * | |||||||||||
| Women's Group for Disability Rights | |||||||||||
| Designation | |||||||||||
| Execurive Director | |||||||||||
| Gender | |||||||||||
| Female | |||||||||||
| Economy of Residence | |||||||||||
| Nepal | |||||||||||
| Stakeholder Group | |||||||||||
| Civil Society | |||||||||||
| List Your Organizing Partners (if any) | |||||||||||
| N/A | |||||||||||
| Part 2 - Session Proposal | |||||||||||
| Session Title | |||||||||||
| Beyond Connection: Fostering Digital Literacy and Accessibility for All Ages and Abilities | |||||||||||
| Thematic Track of Your Session | |||||||||||
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| Description of Session Formats | |||||||||||
| Panel Discussion (60 minutes) | |||||||||||
| Where do you plan to organize your session? | |||||||||||
| Onsite at the venue (with online moderator for questions and comments from remote participants) | |||||||||||
| Specific Issues for Discussion | |||||||||||
| o Digital Skills for Life: Moving beyond basic IT skills, what does meaningful digital literacy look like in the age of AI and misinformation? How can we equip citizens, especially seniors, with critical thinking skills to navigate the online world safely? o Web Accessibility by Default: The majority of websites in the Asia Pacific are not accessible to persons with disabilities. How can we promote the adoption of standards like WCAG? What is the role of government procurement policies and legislation? o Linguistic Diversity Online: How can we ensure the internet is relevant and accessible for speakers of the thousands of languages in the Asia Pacific? What is the role of local content creation, and technology for low-resource languages? o Designing for Inclusion: How can we involve persons with disabilities, the elderly, and other marginalized groups directly in the design process of digital services (co-design) to ensure they meet their needs? |
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| Describe the Relevance of Your Session to APrIGF | |||||||||||
| Access is more than just a connection; it is the ability to use, understand, and create with digital tools. True inclusion means no one is left behind due to age, ability, or language. This session is vital for the APrIGF as it addresses the "second level" digital divide. It fosters a multistakeholder conversation on the human-centric policies and practices needed to make the digital transformation in the Asia Pacific truly inclusive and empowering for all its citizens. | |||||||||||
| Methodology / Agenda (Please add rows by clicking "+" on the right) | |||||||||||
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| Moderators & Speakers Info (Please complete where possible) - (Required) | |||||||||||
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| Please explain the rationale for choosing each of the above contributors to the session. | |||||||||||
| o Moderator: An accessibility expert ensures the conversation is authentic, respectful, and grounded in the principles of disability rights. o Speaker 1 (User Expert): The "nothing about us without us" principle is vital. A user's lived experience is the most powerful testimony to the importance of accessibility. o Speaker 2 (Civil Society): Provides practical, on-the-ground experience of the challenges and successful methods for teaching digital skills to specific, often-overlooked demographics. o Speaker 3 (Private Sector): Shows how inclusive design can be integrated into the product development lifecycle, making the business case for accessibility. o Speaker 4 (Technical Community/Academia): Addresses the critical but often-neglected issue of linguistic inclusion, highlighting both the challenges and the technological possibilities. |
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| If you need assistance to find a suitable speaker to contribute to your session, or an onsite facilitator for your online-only session, please specify your request with details of what you are looking for. | |||||||||||
| NA | |||||||||||
| Please declare if you have any potential conflict of interest with the Program Committee 2025. | |||||||||||
| No | |||||||||||
| Are you or other session contributors planning to apply for the APrIGF Fellowship Program 2025? | |||||||||||
| No | |||||||||||
| Upon evaluation by the Program Committee, your session proposal may only be selected under the condition that you will accept the suggestion of merging with another proposal with similar topics. Please state your preference below: | |||||||||||
| Yes, I am willing to work with another session proposer on a suggested merger. | |||||||||||
| Brief Summary of Your Session | |||||||||||
| Instead of just talking about connection, the purpose of the session was to nudge and expand that conversation toward building a digital ecosystem that is accessible, empowering, human human-centered. Access is more than just a connection; it is the ability to use, understand, and create with digital tools. True inclusion means no one is left behind due to age, ability, or language. This session is vital for the APrIGF as it addresses the "second-level" digital divide. The digital transformation must not overlook those who face systemic barriers, such as complex interfaces for older adults, inaccessible design for PWDs, and unsafe online environments for gender minorities. There is a need for a multistakeholder conversation on the human-centric policies and practices needed to make the digital transformation in the Asia Pacific truly inclusive and empowering for all its citizens. Despite some technical interruptions, the panel session was able to achieve its objective of fostering a meaningful dialogue and knowledge exchange among regional experts and participants. It reaffirmed the importance of mainstreaming accessibility and literacy in all dimensions of digital governance. The discussion contributed valuable regional insights to the broader global conversation on inclusive technology and set a strong foundation for continued work toward a digitally equitable Asia-Pacific region. |
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| Substantive Summary of the Key Issues Raised and the Discussion | |||||||||||
| • Accessibility is a human right, not an extra plug-in; inclusion needs to be built into design and policy and practice. • Digital literacy is key to empowerment — and older people, women, rural populations need it most of all. • Language diversity is essential to equitable digital access. • Success is contingent on collaboration across sectors — government, private industry, academia and civil society. • The Asia-Pacific region should prioritize capacity building, standard adoption and inclusive innovation to address the developing gap in digital technology |
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| Conclusions and Suggestions of Way Forward | |||||||||||
| • Make accessibility and inclusivity standards part of the official policy for all public digital services (e.g., WCAG, ATAG). • Develop community-based digital literacy programs tailored to underrepresented groups. • To promote the inclusion of these in engineering and computer science curricula so as to encourage inclusive design education. • Promote multi-language and culturally adaptive technologies using AI-driven innovation. • By including and promoting the active participation of stakeholders, we can create a favorable environment for regional collaboration and knowledge sharing through APrIGF-type forums , where they would present their tools , cases , good practices . |
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| Number of Attendees (Please fill in numbers) | |||||||||||
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| Gender Balance in Moderators/Speakers (Please fill in numbers) | |||||||||||
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| How were gender perspectives, equality, inclusion or empowerment discussed? Please provide details and context. | |||||||||||
| The panel noted that the digital divide is more than a question of access, but also about issues related to digital literacy, accessibility, and inclusion. Nearly 70 percent of the world’s population is now online, and about 2.6 billion people are not. But access isn’t the same as inclusion. The conversation highlighted that the gap is more about accessible technology, digital literacy, and inclusive participation—including for older persons, persons with disabilities (PWDs), linguistic minorities, and diverse gender communities. The digital transformation must not overlook those who face systemic barriers, such as complex interfaces for older adults, inaccessible design for PWDs, and unsafe online environments for gender minorities. |
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| Consent | |||||||||||
 I agree that my data can be submitted to forms.for.asia and processed by APrIGF organizers for the program selection of APrIGF 2025. |
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