Technology opportunities
A market for assistive and IT technologies will be created in Russia
for the elderly and people with disabilities
During the conference, representatives of government agencies, international and Russian public organizations, leading commercial companies and disabled organizations discussed the accessibility of mobile and information and communication technologies for the elderly and people with disabilities. In fact, the conference discussed the development of a full-fledged market of assistive and IT technologies for the disabled in our country with a total volume of over 60 billion rubles a year.
Axel Leblois, Chairman of the conference program committee, founder and CEO of G3ict, noted that today there are a billion disabled people in the world, 13 million live in Russia. At the same time, 2/3 of them are significantly limited in funds and cannot purchase modern gadgets, smartphones, organizers, computers and other mobile tools that help them to be full-fledged participants in public life. "Such people, without any doubt, need daily support and assistance. And our task is to make IT technologies available to people with disabilities that contribute to changing their quality of life," Axel Leblois stressed.
Gulnaz Kadyrova, Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade of the Russian Federation noted that the Ministry of Industry and Trade of Russia is actively working on the development of the market of technical means of rehabilitation (hereinafter – TSR). "On the basis of the Ministry of Industry and Trade, a working group has been created to expand the production of products for the disabled and elderly citizens. We have analyzed a guaranteed list of rehabilitation measures, technical means and services provided to a disabled person free of charge at the expense of the federal budget. This work has shown that this document needs to be finalized. To successfully solve the problem, it is necessary not only the initiative of public authorities, but also the involvement of representatives of commercial companies in the process. At the moment, a strategy for the development of the industry of goods and means of rehabilitation is under development," she said.
Moderator of the event, Co-Chairman of the conference program Committee, Director General of the Center for the Development of Social Innovations "Technologies of Opportunities" Ivan Biryukov said that in order to successfully solve this socially significant task, it is necessary to create a society of equal opportunities. It is important to support young innovators engaged in the development and production of TCP and other assistive technologies that can improve the quality of life of people with disabilities. And also to support the projects of disabled entrepreneurs, because it is the self–employment of people with disabilities that is an indicator of the highest level of their socialization and independence.
The continuation of his words was the session "Systematic support of social projects and startups in the field of information technology in the field of solving problems of people with disabilities". Within the framework of this session, Ruslan Altaev, Director of Acceleration in the Biomedical Technologies direction of the Skolkovo Foundation; Natalia Radosteva, Head of Technological Entrepreneurship Development at Microsoft Russia; Fyodor Murachkovsky, CEO, Planeta.ru they talked about the ways and forms of support for startups in this area. During the session, Ivan Biryukov also spoke about the opportunities presented to such startups by the Technologies of Opportunities Program, which has no analogues in Russia, to support social entrepreneurship projects in the field of solving the problems of disabled people.
Special attention at the conference was paid to the topic of accessibility of mobile communications. So, within the framework of the conference, a meeting of the working group of the Ministry of Industry and Trade of Russia was held, dedicated to the development of accessible information and communication technologies for disabled and elderly citizens in our country. At the meeting, Evgenia Chistova, Head of Corporate Social Responsibility Projects at VimpelCom, shared the company's best practices in this area. "As a global operator, VimpelCom strives to promote the dissemination in Russia of the best international practices and standards in the development of assistive technologies designed to ensure equal opportunities and accessibility of telecommunications services for all groups of citizens – to improve the quality of life, education and opportunities for self-realization. For many of us, mobile communication has long been a basic element of convenience and security. However, there are still many people in our society for whom its use in this capacity is difficult to access. Beeline's strategy Is "Simple. Comfortable. For you" is aimed at taking into account the possibilities and peculiarities of communication of each client, providing him with the most relevant tariff offers and comfortable service," said Evgenia.
In many ways, these words were confirmed by the speech of the Honored Artist of Russia, member of the Public Chamber of the Russian Federation Diana Gurtskaya, who, by personal example, told how modern information technologies allow her to lead a full-fledged active lifestyle and do without outside help in her work. She emphasized the importance of the topic raised, since with the help of convenient technological solutions, it is possible to involve the maximum number of people with health restrictions in a normal life.
The conference also discussed the availability of the Internet for disabled and elderly citizens. So the Deputy director of the Department of development of the information technology industry Alexander Rusinov. In his speech, he focused on the fact that the Ministry of Communications is conducting a number of works to increase the availability of information technologies for people with disabilities. Among them: provision of broadband Internet access; work to improve the unified portal of public services; implementation of initiatives for the development of distance education and distance employment. "We are making every effort to make the interaction of people with disabilities with ICT more convenient and comfortable for them. So, the new version of the public services portal, which is currently being tested and will soon be launched, in addition to general improvements, takes into account the needs of disabled people, which makes it possible for this category of citizens to remove barriers when using public services," he said.
In the break between the plenary session and the panel sessions, the conference participants were able to get acquainted with the exhibition of current solutions of mobile and information and communication technologies for the elderly and people with disabilities.
The event was organized by the Global Initiative for Inclusive Information and Communication Technologies (G3ict), the company "I.J. Croiset & Associates", Bauman Moscow State Technical University and the first social project support program in Russia "Technologies of Opportunities".
Our help:
The Technologies of Opportunities program is a program to support and develop business ideas that are aimed at improving the quality of life of people with disabilities. The purpose of the program is to develop projects that solve the problems of people with disabilities and attract public attention to the problems of disabled people.
"Technologies of Opportunities" was created with the support of the Bauman Moscow State Technical University of the German pharmaceutical company Boehringer Ingelheim. Within the framework of the expert council of the Program, representatives of the largest organizations of the innovation and social entrepreneurship support infrastructure are united.
The program performs the functions of an accelerator, helps in business development and issues grants, the amount of which is determined individually.
Type of supported projects:
- the project manager or one of the members of the business project team is a person with disabilities;
- the project is aimed at producing goods or services for people with disabilities;
- the project provides jobs for people with disabilities.
Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru20.05.2015