Accessibility Coordinator in Hamakor

After complaining that I did not have real time access to the information about the winning number in the lottery which was conducted in August Penguin 2004, some people (notably ladypine) agreed that some attention should be paid to accessibility in future events organized by Hamakor (http://www.hamakor.org.il/).

So I volunteered to be the Accessibility Coordinator. My “job” has two parts:

  1. Provision of information to event organizers about the accessibility needs of people with disabilities.
  2. Education of the general population of Free Software users about computer usage by people with disabilities and their accessibility needs.

What I did so far was to give a lecture about accessibility in Linux, together with Ori Idan. The lecture was given in a meeting of Haifux (http://www.haifux.org/lectures/112/). Today in the evening, it will be given again in Telux meeting (http://www.cs.tau.ac.il/telux/ and press the “Advanced lectures” link).

The organizers of August Penguin 2005 are now looking for a place for the event, after having issued the CFP and making some silly arguments about dates. I provided them with information about the accessibility needs of wheelchaired people (hint: push your sensitive nose into the restrooms). Let’s hope they’ll be able to find a place with which everyone will be happy.

Author: Omer Zak

I am deaf since birth. I played with big computers which eat punched cards and spew out printouts since age 12. Ever since they became available, I work and play with desktop size computers which eat keyboard keypresses and spew out display pixels. Among other things, I developed software which helped the deaf in Israel use the telephone network, by means of home computers equipped with modems. Several years later, I developed Hebrew localizations for some cellular phones, which helped the deaf in Israel utilize the cellular phone networks. I am interested in entrepreneurship, Science Fiction and making the world more accessible to people with disabilities.