14.09.2020

Podcast and Talk on "Accessible Technology" with Ahmed Hamdy

As part of the EU project "WeNet - The Internet of Us", our guest Ahmed Hamdy talks about how access to technology can be made inclusive

wenet@tuebingen seminar with Ahmed Hamdy, American University in Cairo (Egypt), and University of Tübingen, Germany – Recorded on 27 August 2020

WeNet project aspires to develop a social media tool to foster community social relations, particularly among student populations. Diversity is an integral part of WeNet conceptually and practically. While disability is only one diversity factor, considering disability among users remains fundamental for equal access and opportunity.

WeNet recently had the opportunity and pleasure to host Ahmed Hamdy for a conversation on accessibility standards in digital technologies. The talk introduces system designers to the topic “accessibility”, and discusses how designers can accommodate the needs of users with disabilities in their systems. Users with visual impairment require assistive technologies to be able to navigate smartphones and digital services. In our conversation, Ahmed Hamdy introduced the social model of disability and argued for making digital technologies accessible to users with disabilities. He then shed light on how users with visual impairment use technologies and touched on the technical requirements for making apps more accessible.

This talk was hosted by Laura Schelenz, ethics researcher at the International Center for Ethics in the Sciences and Humanities (IZEW), University of Tübingen, and it’s available here below in video format.

The podcast and talk is available online at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYdBYDURqoo&feature=emb_title