Regional Challenges

3 September 2001
Participants discuss the state of the Internet and Accessibility in their countries

(In the order they were discussed)

Slovenia

Mr. Marjan Kroflic presented a summary of his research in accessible technologies available in Slovenia. The presentation included the challenges on the uses of email, seach engines, chat, newsgroups, and the costs of access. Taras Poljanec of the Cerebral Palsy Association of Slovenia presented the rehabilitation activities of the organization through the Soncek website http://www.zveza-soncek.si.

Hungary

Mr. Sandor Radai echoed the importance of providing access to the poor, though he was concerned that the language of most web sites was not in their native Hungarian. He mentioned that a program existed for English-to-Hungarian translation.

Slovak Republic

Dusan Simsik and Alena Galajdova provided the results of a study regarding the uses of the Internet in the Slovak Republic. The Technical University study located at http://www.vus.sk showed a lot of interest in web sites for job searching (due to 18% unemployment rate), telebanking and news.

Croatia

Marica Miric and Zorislav Bobus of the Association of Organizations of Disabled Persons in Croatia (http://hupt.tripod.com) discussed the activities of their organization. They also introduced the concept of Agenda 22, which is a strategy promoting policies based on the UN Standard Rules for the Equalization of Opportunities for Persons with Disabilities.

Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH)

Radosav Zivkovic of the non-governmental organization "Stop Mines" (http://www.stopmines.org) presented their demining awareness program. They have also been able to provide three personal computers to mine victims through external funding. Mirsad Muftic from the Centre for Rehabilitation in Sarajevo underscored the reduction of telecommunications caused by war, and that survival was more the priority. Natasa Tomic also agreed that relevance of Internet accessibility was dependent on meeting the basic needs of persons with disabilities. They are interested in the application of the Standard Rules in BiH.

Lithuania

Eligijus Kubilinskas provided an overview of the telecommunications and Internet situation in Lithuania. Telecommunications is a government monopoly, and dial-up accounts are rare and expensive, but many universities and offices have Internet access.

Czech Republic

Libuse Brabcova provided a short paper regarding the state of the Internet in the Czech Republic.

Poland

Justyna Bulinska provided a short paper regarding the state of the Internet in Poland.

Copyright (c) 2001 AIMS/VisionOffice.
Last updated 11/03/03.