19th November 2013 Directorate of Information Technology, Government of Maharashtra Press Release eAccessibility Workshop 2013 organised by DIT

at Mumbai and Pune

Directorate of Information Technology (DIT), in association with Mahaonline Limited (MoL) and National Internet Exchange of India (NIXI) has organized a workshop on eAccessibility on November 19-20, 2013 at Mumbai and Pune. In this workshop, web designers and developers from various software companies, which are working on citizen-centric, high-traffic, high impact websites of various departments of Government of Maharashtra are invited. They are being taught about accessibility and try to make their websites compliant to WCAG 2.0 Level A. It may be noted that Maharashtras egovernance policy 2011 specifies that websites/applications should be WCAG 2.0 Level A compliant. The primary aim of this workshop is to demonstrate the importance of creating accessible web sites. The training will comprise both theory-oriented and practical (Hands-on) sessions on their own websites. Advanced topics such as eAccesibility sensitisation, Accessibility Implementation methods and manageability shall be discussed. Participant Profile For this workshop, DIT has invited experienced technical professionals already involved in developing high traffic/high impact important web sites for Mahatrashtra government clients,. Around 50 web developers and web designers of various software companies such as TCS, Mastek, Nelito, iGate, ABM Knowledgeware, Red Panda etc, and, a number of NIC officials are participating in the workshop. Expected Outcome of the workshop As part of one of the outcome of the workshop, it is expected that around 25 inaccessible government web sites shall be retrofitting with accessibility features, to make them compliance to WCAG 2.0 Level A. Follow-up Workshop / Concluding session There will be a followup workshop after 2-3 weeks, which shall be important milestone for the entire initiative. In this followup workshop, compliance-check and actual certification of Websites shall be taken up Trainer Organisations DIT has invited three Front-Runner organizations in India working on Accessibility, namely The Centre for Internet and Society (CIS), Barrierbreak and Advanced Blind Student LearningCentre, Univ. Of Pune, to participate in this workshop as CO-TRAINERS.