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Webcast Recording:
(Access below)

"Accessibility Webcast for Broadband Grant Applicants"
WGBH's National Center for Accessible Media (NCAM)
Recorded: July 29, 2009

Are you interested in the federal government’s plans to expand access to broadband technologies throughout the United States? Are you applying for Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP) or Broadband Initiatives Program (BIP) funds to help build this important public infrastructure and/or related services?

If so, you should know that numerous disability-access related Federal laws, regulations, and technical standards apply to broadband technologies and services.

The BTOP Grant Guidelines and Applications distributed at regional workshops during the week of July 6 include the following criterion for one of the grant programs - the Public Computing Centers Program:

"14. Accessibility. Please describe the ways in which your center(s) will be accessible and welcoming to people with disabilities.
Public computer centers funded by BTOP should be accessible (physically, technologically, and culturally) to people with disabilities, such as limited mobility, vision, or hearing…"

Inclusive Technologies and WGBH's National Center for Accessible Media (NCAM) have put together a collaborative team to help applicants for these funds assure that their project outcomes will be accessible to people with disabilities. Both organizations are recognized as expert leaders in the field of accessible information and communications technologies and participated in the development of Federal accessibility requirements and early meetings with NTIA and the White House on assuring full inclusion in the outcomes of broadband grant-funded projects.

We are offered a free, accessible online workshop on July 29, 2009 to help BTOP/BIP applicants understand their obligations to assure that project outcomes will be accessible to people with disabilities, and the competitive advantage accessibility will add to your proposal. This 60-minute session covered:

accessibility laws and regulations
common accessibility barriers and solutions in broadband technologies
where and how accessibility fits in the BTOP and BIP programs

To access the recording of the webcast, please complete the form below.

Information about the webcast presenters -- Larry Goldberg and Jim Tobias -- appears below. To get more information about accessibility in the BTOP and BIP programs, please contact BTOPaccess@wgbh.org or visit ncam.wgbh.org/BTOPaccess.

About the Webcast Presenters:

Larry Goldberg, director of the National Center for Accessible Media, advises government agencies and media and technology companies on access issues. He directs WGBH's media access activities which include the development of television, web, movie theater and museum captioning and video description and numerous media and technology access R&D innovations. He was a member of the Federal Communications Commission's (FCC) Technological Advisory Council and Consumer Advisory Committee, and currently serves on the FCC’s Working Group on DTV closed captioning and video description. Larry also served on the U.S. Access Board's Advisory Committees that established and updated rules ("section 508") for federal IT accessibility. He testified in May 2008 before the House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet on the “21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act.”

Jim Tobias, president of Inclusive Technologies, has worked in the field of technology and disability for twenty-five years. He worked for ten years at Bell Labs and Bellcore, providing telecommunications and disability consulting for Bell companies and other telecommunications and information industry clients. In addition, he specializes in market research and analysis and technology policy in the public and private sectors. He recently co-chaired the U.S. Access Board's Advisory Committee that updated rules for federal agency accessibility.