IT Park attended the "Digital Inclusion for People with Disabilities" online forum

On April 6, 2022, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) hosted the Regional Online Forum "Digital Inclusion for People with Disabilities".

The event focused on presenting an overview of existing practices for ensuring digital inclusion for people with disabilities, and the exchange of practical experience in teaching digital skills to persons with disabilities.

The event included a panel discussion chaired by ITU Regional Director Natalia Mochu. IT Park Deputy Director for Regional Development Abdulahad Kuchkarov became one of the participants at these discussions.

In the first part of the session, the speakers discussed the current challenges and actions being taken in order to promote the development of digital skills for people with disabilities.

“One of the major concerns when it comes to children with disabilities is accessibility. The second issue is the lack of computers for many of these children,” Abdulahad Kuchkarov stressed.

During the second part, participants considered how the potential of digital technologies forwardly could stimulate and facilitate digital inclusion.

As the IT Park specialist notes, each parent of a special child wants his son or daughter to be engaged in self-development, and communicate with other people more. The main issue is not even digital technologies, but people’s worldviews, Kuchkarov believes.

“You won’t see a single child with disabilities on the street. It's not that they don’t exist. People think it's better for them to stay at home. The focus of any area, including digital inclusion, is to break this barrier. We contacted the boarding school for hearing impaired and deaf children to take students who would like to study in a special room we created for them.”

Abdulahad Kuchkarov stressed that after the graduation of the first group, parents of other children began to contact us.

“Our programs are free, parents are ready to bring their children from any part of the city and even pay for courses. The potential of digital technologies in digital inclusion can and must be developed. In order to do this, there’s a need to create new curricula for different children with different disabilities and find new approaches to make them interested.” Kuchkarov also added that it is necessary to organize more activities on gender equality, to involve girls in the IT sector and entrepreneurship.