FSG Accessibility Workgroup International Meeting 2005 Press Release Thursday, December 9, 2004 The Free Standards Group (FSG) today announced an international meeting of experts on open source computing platforms to further ongoing research, engineering, and standardization efforts in support of comprehensive computer access for persons with disabilities. Funded with a grant from the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF), the meeting will be hosted by the Archimedes Project at the University of Hawaii during the week of January 24, 2005. Live video streams via the Internet are planned. The meeting is intended to discuss accessibility support and reach consensus on a common layer of standardization that can be deployed and maintained on open source technology platforms such as Linux. These standards can serve as the basis for future collaborative development of multiple accessible products that are cost effective, interoperable and heterogeneous. Invited participants will include developers, marketers of free and open source technologies, academic and corporate researchers, and user communities. The objectives of the FSG's Accessibility Workgroup meeting in Hawaii include: o To achieve consensus on standards that can be adopted to support accessibility in the near term. The FSG's Accessibility Workgroup is currently preparing specific proposals that will be presented at the meeting; o Agree on engineering research and development that must yet be performed in order to support all persons with disabilities; o Identify areas where future targeted research on disability access issues is required before engineering solutions can be put forward; Individuals and organizations interested in participating should contact Janina Sajka, the Accessibility Workgroup's Chair, at janina at freestandards.org. The Home Page for this meeting, including both live and archived broadcast streams, is: http://a11y.org/f2f.html About the Free Standards Group The Free Standards Group is an independent nonprofit organization dedicated to accelerating the use and acceptance of free and open source software by developing and promoting standards. Key Free Standards Group projects include the Linux Standard Base (LSB), OpenI18N, LANANA and the new Accessibility Workgroup. Supported by leaders in the IT industry as well as the open source development community, the Free Standards Group fulfills a critical need to have common behavioral specifications, tools and ABIs across Linux platforms. More information on the Free Standards Group is available at http://www.freestandards.org. CONTACT: janina at freestandards.org -- Janina Sajka, Chair Accessibility Workgroup Free Standards Group (FSG) janina at freestandards.org Phone: +1 202.494.7040 -- Janina Sajka, Chair Accessibility Workgroup Free Standards Group (FSG) janina at freestandards.org Phone: +1 202.494.7040
