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To address the challenge of providing accessible solutions that often lag behind rapid technology advances, the FCC is hosting a free workshop for developers Sept. 6-7 at its headquarters in Washington. The two-day event – “Developing with Accessibility” (DevAcc) – is designed to spur increased and ongoing collaboration on accessibility among developers for various technology platforms.

DevAcc is the part of Chairman Genachowski’s ongoing Accessibility and Innovation Initiative launched in July 2010 in commemoration of the 20th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act.

The A&I Initiative promotes collaboration among stakeholders from government, industry, and consumer sectors so that people with disabilities can reap the full benefit of broadband communication technologies.  Put simply, the Initiative is open government applied to accessibility.

Owning a computer and gaining access to the Internet is not a luxury, but a necessity in today's world. The digital divide is growing as Americans who are "offline" cannot fully participate in the digital economy and are left behind in important areas such as education and health care. Yet, nearly 60% of low-income households do not have a desktop or laptop computer at home and 100 million Americans have not adopted broadband at home.

Americans without a computer or broadband at home often cite the cost of a PC (10%) and/or broadband service (15%) as major barriers to adoption. However, there is an untapped resource of discounted high quality computers that could curb these figures: the millions of corporate PCs that are prematurely retired every year.

Businesses in the United States annually donate about 3% of the 40 million PCs replaced each year. Of these 40 million PC’s, over 12 million are less than a few years old and remain used-but-useful. These PC’s, once refurbished and installed with the latest software, can connect low-income families, schools, and public computing center users to the digital world.

On August 7, Chairman Genachowski and executives from Connect2Compete, Redemtech, and representatives from LULAC announced a nationwide computer donation and recycling call-to-action, called “PC Pledge 100,” to help narrow the digital divide for low-income families across the country.

Even when the Internet was new – and expensive and slow – it gave us essential access to the rest of the world. In 1994, when I lived in Senegal, the only Internet access available to me was a hold and forward account through a science research group, meaning I would dial into their servers in order to upload and download my messages. It was very expensive (I believe I paid more than $500 during my year in Senegal), but compared with faxes and telephone was so much more cost-effective and efficient. And it became crucial during the devaluation riots when many phone lines were cut. Our families were relieved to get news through the Internet that we were safe.

By the end of 1999, dial-up connections in Africa were more and more available, but still rare, slow, and expensive. I remember in 2000, the look on the face of West African Nutrition Officers in a cybercafe in Bamako when I accessed (sllllloooooooowwwwwwlllllyyyy) the WHO Nutrition web page, with copies of important documents in multiple languages. The Nutrition Officer from Niger shouted "There it is! I have been asking for someone to mail me that document for over a year!" She was able to leave that day with a 160 page print-out and a copy on a floppy disk. She also got her first email account that day and we added her to the West African Nutrition Network mailing list.

Just two years ago, I was interviewing some folks from Academy for Educational Development (AED) on the Afghanistan Education Portal project, and they told me an almost identical story -- a senior official In the Ministry of Education was overcome with emotion when he saw there was a copy of a key document he had been seeking for a year, now available to him on the internet, in several languages.

Some things never change.

The Peace Through Business program is an initiative of The Institute for Economic Empowerment of Women (IEEW), a non-profit group inspiring women in the United States and abroad to pursue greater entrepreneurial roles, to grow their businesses and start new ventures, and become more active public policy advocates.  Through its program, the IEEW recently hosted  twenty-five women from Afghanistan and Rwanda  here in the United States to receive high-level business and leadership training on topics such as accounting, finance, economics, digital marketing, and the importance of women’s involvement in politics.  

On July 24, 2012, we had the opportunity to accompany FCC International Bureau Chief, Mindel De La Torre to the graduation ceremony for these women and the experience was compelling.

Speakers at the graduation ceremony included Melanne Verveer, Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women’s Issues; Terry Neese, Founder and CEO of IEEW; and the Honorable Eklil Hakimi, Afghanistan’s Ambassador to the United States. Ambassador Verveer spoke of the difficulties that Rwanda and Afghanistan have faced after years of war and highlighted the progress each nation has made in women’s rights and economic and political development.

Today in Afghanistan, over 25% of Parliamentarians and 10% of judges are women. In Rwanda, women from different political and social parties came together to integrate their efforts and contributed to the prevention of further conflict after the genocide in 1994.  Today, 56% of Rwandan Parliamentarians are women.