150 cross-disciplinary leaders from university, government, industry and advocacy organizations came together with IBM and IEEE in July 2009 and generated a list of ten accessibility recommendations to help ensure digital inclusion for current and future generations.

Recently, a public-private partnership - the Georgia Alliance for Accessible Technologies - has been formed to help make inclusive travel and tourism a reality in Georgia. Over 60 Georgia-based companies, research and academic institutions, NGOs and public sector organizations have been involved in the initiative, which IBM is co-chairing.

In February, IBM was a gold sponsor of Techshare India 2010. Read about the conference and IBM's participation.

Learn about virtual classroom solutions and best practices that instructors can follow to deliver the most accessible online course despite the limitations of virtual classroom tools.

In the six years since Shanghai won its bid to host the 2010 World Expo, China has appeared to be on a mission to revitalize the Fairs' faltering image. Critics of the nearly 160-year tradition claim that technology has rendered the experience obsolete. Why travel to explore humankind's latest achievements when you can get all the insight you need from a quick Google search? Allow the leaders of China's second-largest city to enlighten you: this Expo isn't focused on nature, or the world's oceans or any number of previously selected topics that may or may not be of interest to the average global citizen. It's about you. Where you live. How you live. And the many ways in which governments, businesses and individuals can work together to transform cities into smarter environments that contribute to an overall better quality of life for everyone.

A team from IBM Research in Tokyo presented a study they conducted to determine if it was possible to customize an existing product, Easy Web Browsing, to each individual user, and presented their findings at the California State University at Northridge (CSUN) 25th Annual International Technology and Persons with Disabilities Conference.

In early July, the Linux Foundation announced new licensing terms for IAccessible2 (IA2) and the availability of AccProbe, a new desktop application testing tool for the development community.

With Accessible Rich Internet Applications (WAI-ARIA), developers can make advanced Web applications accessible and usable to a broad range of people with disabilities.

The USBLN 2010 Annual Leadership Awards highlighted employer achievements in seven categories, including supplier diversity and market share. IBM was among those honored, receiving the "Employee Resource Group (ERG) of the Year" award for exemplary strategies to advance disability inclusiveness in the workplace, marketplace and supply chain.

The City of Nettuno worked with IBM Human-Centric Solutions (HCS) to develop an interactive service providing real-time accessibility information via a smartphone application. Called "Accessibility City Tag" (ACT!), the service allows residents or visitors with disabilities to view accessibility information about Nettuno points of interest, filtered by their particular disability type, on their smart phone.

For many people, accessibility and disability are philanthropic efforts that represent requisite components of every company's Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) portfolio. Well, that is one point of view. At IBM, we've traditionally viewed these issues from a more out-of-the-box perspective that asked: What if accessibility was a REAL business? How could including people with disabilities in the workforce create an additional business advantage for companies?

Faced with a stagnant, 10-year budget forecast, restricted resources and the need to address healthcare and safety needs of a rapidly growing percentage of healthy citizens over the age of 70, city leaders got creative. Partnering with IBM, TIS Innovation Park, the technological park of Bolzano, and Dr. Hein GmbH, the city sponsored the Secure Living project to help seniors safely 'age in place' at home.

Learn how IBM is how incorporating WAI-ARIA techniques and examples into: IBM accessibility guidelines, product accessibility reviews by the IBM Accessibility Architecture Review Board, and automated accessibility testing via IBM Rational Policy Tester.

For many people, accessibility and disability are philanthropic efforts that represent requisite components of every company's Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) portfolio.

More and more users are adopting the mobile platform. It is predicted that the tipping point will be reached in 2013 with mobile devices surpassing the desktop computer as the most common Web access device

Our world is becoming increasingly intelligent, interconnected, and instrumented, resulting in massive amounts of data being collected. This data is a treasure trove of information that can be mined to improve service, increase sales, determine risk, or make operations more efficient.

Analysis of such large amounts of data, often called analytics, is increasingly desired by governments and businesses alike.

The Lille Metropole Museum of Modern, Contemporary and Outsider Art (LaM) has a new Smartphone application called "Tag My LaM" — that describes nearby sculptures when visitors are strolling the extensive outside sculpture garden.

IBM is piloting a first-of-a-kind prototype application, called AccessMyNYC, for a limited time in New York City to study accessible travel solution requirements for Smarter Cities.

Seth Bravin testifies before US Senate about higher education and employment for people who are deaf and hard of hearing

The ability to read small visual displays (SVDs) affects successful functioning at home and in the workplace. SVDs can be found in products as diverse as cell phones, personal digital assistants, photocopiers, fax machines, kitchen and laundry appliances, home entertainment devices, exercise equipment, and diabetes self-management technology. Individuals with vision loss face severe limitations in using such products safely and effectively because the visual displays lack accessibility features.

Many talented, creative clients and colleagues have physical limitations, such as blindness or visual impairment, deafness or limited mobility. When you schedule a meeting, do you take potential disabilities into consideration? These 10 steps should help you design your meeting and include everyone.

As IBM turned 100 in June of 2011, the corporation embraced its history of service to the communities in which it does business. IBM encouraged employees to participate in the global IBM Celebration of Service. The IBMers who make up the Human Ability and Accessibility Center found many memorable ways of including accessibility as a focus of their participation in the Celebration of Service.

As cloud technology evolves to seamlessly configure, integrate and deploy applications, IT of the future will be able to focus higher up in the software stack to deliver business value. This article explores what we know thus far with how assistive technologies work in this environment, As cloud technology evolves to seamlessly configure, integrate and deploy applications, IT of the future will be able to focus higher up in the software stack to deliver business value. This article explores what we know thus far with how assistive technologies work in this environment.

IBM has been a leader in making IT accessible to many people, including those with disabilities. IBM is committed to creating accessible and easy-to-use technologies that enhance the overall workplace environment and contribute to the productivity of all employees.

On Monday, May 7, 2012, the White House honored fourteen individuals as Champions of Change for their efforts to advance access to science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) for people with disabilities.

The ultimate goal of the COGNO 2.0 initiative is to develop technology that leverages patterns of human cognition to become smarter with every use and experience.

The City of Bolzano's Living Safe Project was one of the top five Laureates, or nominees, in the "Innovation" category at the ComputerWorld Honors program, and was recognized publicly at the Laureate Medal Ceremony and Gala Evening.

HTML5 is the fifth version of the World Wide Web Hypertext Markup Language (HTML). HTML5 accessibility is a work in progress with many details still under development.

By definition, social business is people business. As such, it can and should value every voice, which is why IBM set out to enable more inclusive social business.

The Daily Planet team from the Discovery Channel Canada is hip. They highlight cool new technologies and explore interesting people, places and things. So, when their FutureTech team wanted to get a first-hand look at the New Mobile Workplace, they came to IBM.

IBM advocacy partner, the Carl and Ruth Shapiro Family National Center for Accessible Media at WGBH (NCAM) received the FCC Chairman's Award for Advancement in Accessibility for Mobile Applications for their development of the Media Access Mobile (MAM) solution. MAM is designed to serve visitors to entertainment venues and cultural institutions who are deaf, hard-of-hearing, blind or visually impaired, or who speak languages other than English.

At the 28th Annual International Technology and Persons with Disabilities Conference California State University, Northridge (CSUN) conference, IBM brought together accessibility experts from government, major enterprise IT (information technology) providers, mobile OS (operating system) providers, mobile device providers, and industry standards efforts to bring focus and direction to addressing accessibility in one of the most liberating opportunities for people with disabilities in the last decade.

The AFB Leadership Conference was held in Chicago, IL on April 18-20, 2013. The conference had over 400 attendees and covered a wide range of topics over the 3 days. Chieko Asakawa, IBM Fellow, was a keynote speaker.

The desire to connect whenever we want, wherever we are has created a unique opportunity for the private sector to capture new markets as they work to fulfill our desire for ubiquitous connectivity. The growth in mobile ICT technology is profound and shows little signs of slowing down.

The decline in oil prices and the value of investment assets since the start of the coronavirus outbreak will have an adverse impact on the "financial solvency" of the state, Emir Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah said on Saturday. "Kuwait is facing the big and unprecedented challenge of shielding our economy from the external shocks caused by this virus, specifically the decline in oil prices and the value of investments and assets, which will have a negative impact on the financial solvency of the state," the emir was cited by the state news agency KUNA as saying. It wasn't clear if the comment meant that Kuwait could delay the payment of government dues, or whether it was a general statement about the deterioration of the state's finance as a result of the economic impact of the health crisis.

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The American economy plunged deeper into crisis last month, losing 20.5 million jobs as the unemployment rate jumped to 14.7%, the worst devastation since the Great Depression.The Labor Department's monthly report Friday provided the clearest picture yet of the breadth and depth of the economic damage -- and how swiftly it spread -- as the coronavirus pandemic swept the country.Job losses have encompassed the entire economy, affecting every major industry. Areas like leisure and hospitality had the biggest losses in April, but even health care shed more than 1 million jobs. Low-wage workers, including many women and members of racial and ethnic minorities, have been hit especially hard."It's literally off the charts," said Michelle Meyer, head of U.S. economics at Bank of America. "What would typically take months or quarters to play out in a recession happened in a matter of weeks this time."From almost any vantage point, it was a bleak report. The share of the adult population with a job, at 51.3%, was the lowest on record. Nearly 11 million people reported working part time because they couldn't find full-time work, up from about 4 million before the pandemic.If anything, the numbers probably understate the economic distress.Millions more Americans have filed unemployment claims since the data was collected in mid-April. What's more, because of issues with the way workers are classified, the Labor Department said the actual unemployment rate last month might have been closer to 20%.It remains possible that the recovery, too, will be swift, and that as the pandemic retreats, businesses that were fundamentally healthy before the virus will reopen, rehire and return more or less to normal. The one bright spot in Friday's report was that nearly 80% of the unemployed said they had been temporarily laid off and expected to return to their jobs in the coming months.President Donald Trump endorsed this view in an interview Friday morning on Fox News. "Those jobs will all be back, and they'll be back very soon," Trump said, "and next year we're going to have a phenomenal year."But Diane Swonk, chief economist at Grant Thornton, said that such optimism was misplaced, and that many of the jobs could not be recovered."This is going to be a hard reality," Swonk said. "These furloughs are permanent, not temporary."Many businesses have indicated that employees can work from home throughout the summer, hurting sales at downtown restaurants. Meetings and conferences have been put off as well, reducing demand at hotels and other gathering places. And the longer the pandemic lasts, the more businesses will fail, deepening the downturn.The broad nature of the job cuts, too, means it will take longer for the labor market to recover than if the losses were confined to one or two areas."There is no safe place in the labor market right now," said Martha Gimbel, an economist and labor market expert at Schmidt Futures, a philanthropic initiative. "Once people are unemployed, once they've lost their jobs, once their spending has been sucked out of the economy, it takes so long to come back from that."Carrie Hines, a managing director at an advertising firm in Austin, Texas, had the kind of professional job -- adaptable to working from home -- that seemed insulated from the pandemic's effects. But her firm worked closely with companies in the airline, hotel and amusement park industries. When their business evaporated as a result of the outbreak, it was only a matter of time before Hines' firm felt the impact. She was laid off April 20."I was shocked," she said. "I've never had a gap in work since college."Hines and her husband are cutting back where they can, and they have canceled plans to send their three children to summer camp. "I never imagined this kind of job market where the entire advertising industry has been crushed," she said.The scale of the job losses last month alone far exceed the 8.7 million lost in the last recession, when unemployment peaked at 10% in October 2009."I thought the Great Recession was once in a lifetime, but this is much worse," said Beth Ann Bovino, chief U.S. economist at S&P Global.The only comparable period is when unemployment reached about 25% in 1933, before the government began publishing official statistics. Then, as now, workers from a variety of backgrounds found themselves with few prospects for quickly landing a new job.The government's official definition of unemployment typically requires people to be actively looking for work, making the measure ill-suited to a crisis in which the government is encouraging people to stay home. Some 6.4 million people left the labor force entirely in April, meaning they were neither working nor looking for work.Joblessness -- by any measure -- could be even higher in the report for May, which will reflect conditions next week. Some economists say the unemployment rate should fall over the summer as people begin to return to work. Several states have begun to reopen their economies, and others are expected to do so in coming weeks.But with the virus untamed, it's not clear how quickly customers will return to businesses. And epidemiologists and economists warn that if states move too quickly, they could risk a second wave of infections, imperiling public health and the economy."That would stop people from shopping and cause austerity," Bovino said.For businesses, the uncertainty about the path of the pandemic and about consumers' response to it is making planning difficult.When Austin Ramirez heard about the coronavirus earlier this year, his initial concern was for his supply chain. Ramirez runs Husco International, a manufacturer of hydraulic and electromechanical components for cars and other equipment. The company has a factory in China and receives parts from suppliers there and around the world.By April, virtually the entire U.S. auto industry was shut down, Husco included. (The company's nonautomotive production continued at a reduced rate.) Ramirez said he didn't know when business would bounce back. His goal is to weather the storm."There's no visibility or certainty on what the future demand is going to look like," he said. "We can't build a business model that relies on there being a big recovery six months from now."While most of Husco's roughly 750 North American workers have been furloughed during the crisis, the company has mostly avoided large-scale, permanent job cuts. Ramirez said he expected that most of his workers would come back when he needs them.But particularly in industries like retail and hospitality, layoffs that were initially temporary might not remain so as bankruptcies mount and business owners confront shifts in consumer behavior.Most forecasters expect the unemployment rate to remain elevated at least through 2021, and probably longer. That means that it will be years before workers enjoy the bargaining power that was beginning to bring them faster wage gains and better benefits before the crisis.This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2020 The New York Times Company

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