TO: ON-NET Regional Advisory Committee Members
ON-NET Partner Organizations
Other organizations interested in this initiative
FROM: Larry Campbell, Project Director
Overbrook-Nippon Network on Educational Technology
(ON-NET)
DATE August 1, 2007
RE: The new ON-NET Technical Initiative Group
For the past few years ON-NET has been trying to improve capacity
within Southeast Asia to do scripting of the Jaws screenreader software.
This area is particularly important as we strive to develop open
employment opportunities for blind individuals that will allow them to
work in jobs that may require the use of proprietary software that will
not work with Jaws without a “scripting intervention”.
Our good friend and colleague Victor Tsaran got work started in this
area a few years back. We then were able to send two advanced level
users, one from the Philippines and the other from Vietnam, to Hamburg,
Germany during the summer of 2005 to work and study with a technical
team from Freedom Scientific.
Subsequent to these activities two on-line courses have been conducted
and recently a group of 8 very motivated Jaws scripting students met for
two weeks in Ho Chi Minh City to both improve their skill and knowledge
and to discuss a longer term plan for how ON-NET and others could move
this important aspect of access technology for the blind forward in
Southeast Asia.
I am pasting in below a document that was developed by the group
meeting in Vietnam for your information and review.
ON-NET believes that for the foreseeable future improving and expanding
capacity to do Jaws scripting will be very important, particularly as it
relates to securing employment opportunities for blind computer users.
I am writing to you today to call to your attention this new ON-NET
Technical Initiative Group and to invite your organization to become an
active member of this initiative by nominating qualified individuals to
participate in the work of this group. We are asking all organizations
that wish to participate in this new effort to contribute US$200 per
year to the work of the group. Rather than having to arrange for the
transfer of this small sum to a central location we will ask each
organization that wishes to be part of this initiative to make that
US$200 annual contribution by contributing this amount to the travel
costs of their staff who participate in what we anticipate to be
periodic regional or sub-regional training programs.
I encourage you to give this request serious consideration. If your
organization wishes to participate I would ask you to inform Mr. Dang
Hoai Phuc,<webmaster@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> who has agreed to be the first
project coordinator for this new effort. Mr. Phuc and/or Mr. Silatul
Rahim Bin Dahman, Assistant Project Coordinator, will then be in
contact with you to discuss your organizations needs and the most
appropriate person(s) to represent your organization.
Thanks for giving serious thought to this request.
The ON-NET Technical Initiative Group will accept organizational
applications until September 15, 2007, so please contact Mr. Phuc
immediately if your organization wishes to be involved in this effort.
Attached please find a handbook giving more information on this.
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