Steve Bratt's keynote (26 April 2010) at W4A Conference, Raleigh,North Carolina, USA (7th International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility). See also: http://public.webfoundation.org/2010/04/20100426_W4A_bratt.pdf

1. Photo: Three girls in a computer lab in Brazil.
1

2. Photo: Brown, dry soil
African Sahel: South side of Sahara Desert. Badly de‐forested, badly degraded land
Global warming, drought, poor land use
Hundred of thousands of people forced to move south to more fertile land or to cities
Some people remained
2

3. Web Foundation visited Gurkina Faso in January and February 2010.
Small numbers of farmer innovators (pictured here: Yacouba, Sibiri, and Namouaia
Sawadogo) stayed in the Sahel They are creative, persistent, and some were successful ‐‐
but in a minority. Also, no formal education, never used a computer, non‐literate, speaking
Moré – a local language.
3

4. Farmer innovators use materials available, such as (from upper right, then clockwise) rows
of stones to slow water run‐off, hoes, cow manure
4

5. Technique called Zai ‐ farmer creates holes around existing or new plants, then surrounds
the plants with natural fertilizer
Hard work
5

6. Yacouba Sawadogo in front of vegetation he has grown. Trees can be grown in the near‐
desert condistions. Used for people and livestock food, fertilizer, medicin, firewood,
construction wood, crafts. Trees provide shade, and the right kinds of trees can improve
the soil.
http://public.webfoundation.org/2010/01/W4RA/
http://public.webfoundation.org/2010/01/W4RA/Overview.fr.html
Video documentary of Yacouba’s story: “The Man Who Stopped the Desert” ‐
http://www.1080films.co.uk/project‐mwsd.htm
The power of positive deviants:
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2009/11/29/the_power_of_positive_
deviants/
6

7. Growing support from farming extension agents and re‐greening experts from within and
outside of region to help spread techniques developed by innovative farmers to the major
of other farmers struggling. Seen here: Sibiri Sawadogo, farm extension agent from MARP,
and Chris Reij from VU University, The Netherlands.
7

8. Using, again, implements that are either available, or not too impossible to find and use …
technologies like mobile phones (via voice and Web) and community radio hold promise
For example, we’ve heard that almost every farmer has access to a simple mobile phone.
Namouaia Sawadogo, Sibiri Sawadogo
8

9. (1 Feb 2010): Group photo of Sibiri Sawadogo, and visitors from Africa Regreening Initiative
and the Web Foundation’s first project: Web‐alliance for Regreening Africa (W4RA)
What can the Web, with the help of the Web community, do to empower people like this
farmer innovator and the agricultural extension agents who are trying to spread best
practices to hundreds of thousands of farmers in the Sahel? What barriers stand in the
way?
9

10. 10

11. 11

12. 12

13. A decade of ICT growth driven by mobile technologies.
Curves of mobile voice, Internet users, fixed telephone, mobile broadband and fixed
broadband growth from 1998 – 2009.
By 2009, 67 mobile subscriptions per 100 inhabitants. Internet around 26/100
Reports:
• http://www.itu.int/ITU‐D/ict/publications/idi/2010/Material/MIS_2010_Summary_E.pdf
• http://www.itu.int/ITU‐D/ict/material/Telecom09_flyer.pdf
13

14. A decade of ICT growth driven by mobile technologies in Africa.
Curves of mobile voice, Internet users, fixed telephone, mobile broadband and fixed
broadband growth from 1998 – 2009.
By 2009, 33 mobile subscriptions per 100 inhabitants. Internet around 4/100
Full report: http://www.itu.int/dms_pub/itu‐d/opb/ind/D‐IND‐RPM.AF‐2009‐PDF‐E.pdf
14

15. 15

16. Web Foundation has conducted about ten visits to Africa in the past year to understand the
challenges and opportunities of using the Web, and building a network of people who we
can support and work with.
16

17. Web Foundation’s Stephane Boyera, Tim Berners‐Lee and Rosemary Leith with teachers
and students at the Kenya School for the Blind
17

18. 18

19. Web Foundation’s 3 programs: Web in Society, Web Science and Web Standards,
19

20. 20

21. 21

22. Five groups of people for whom Web accessibility can be challenging: People with
disabilities, challenged associated with aging, reading languages that don’t work well on
the Web, with low literacy, and/or with little experience with technology.
Text in graphic for languages says: “This article contains Ethiopic text. Without proper
rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of
Ethiopic characters.” – from Wikipedia.
22

23. Other stats
Hearing impaired: http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs300/en/index.html
Visually impaired: http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs282/en/
23

24. Pics of WCAG 2.0 specs in English and Korean in background
24

25. http://www.un.org/disabilities/index.asp
Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities
144 signatories
85 ratifications
Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities
88 signatories
52 ratifications
25

26. Old age ‐ http://www.un.org/esa/population/publications/worldageing19502050/
Bar chart showing percent of population of world, more developed regions and less
developed regions aged 60 or older for 1950, 1975, 2000, 2025, 2050. Percentage
increase for all 3 regions. For example, for the world, the percent of people older
than 60 goes from about 8% in 1950 to 20% projected fro 2050. Total population of
world in 2050 projected to be 9.3 billion.
26

27. 27

28. *African Web Survey 2006
http://gii2.nagaokaut.ac.jp/gii/blog/lopdiary.php/lopdiary.php?catid=154&blogid=8
Ethnologue, 2008/2009 ‐ http://www.ethnologue.com/ethno_docs/distribution.asp?b
oIt is estimated that 1.8 billion people speak English, but that’s not everyone:
o6,909 known living languages
o3,701 languages are first languages for groups of >10,000
o0.5% of African Web sites are in native African languages
28

29. Graph of top ten languages on the Internet/Web vs. graph of top ten languages in the world
by number of native speakers
For example, Hindi/Urdu and Bengali are in the top ten spoken languages, but not in the
top ten on the Web.
Languages on the Web:
* www.internetworldstats.com/stats7.htm
languages in the world:
languages in the world:
* en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_number_of_native_speakers
29

30. Graphic shows circles representing languages, with the size of the circle proportional to the
number of native speakers.
30

31. 31

32. 32

33. Mention Raising the Floor: http://raisingthefloor.net/about
33

34. 34

35. Pictures along base of slide: Girl with phone. doctor with mobile devide. seven hands on a globe, smart phone and
co pute , c d e
computer, children in a computer lab
a co pute ab
35

36. 36

37. 37

38. 38