Aboard the Enterprise, Capt Jean Luc Picard can order his favorite beverage with a simple command “Tea, Earl Grey, hot” , and voila, the computer responds to create his drink. While conjuring beverages from thin air is a little beyond today’s general purpose computers, I know that there are many of us working hard to make computers just that easy to use. Trying to figure out ways to make sure that the software understands what is it that we want at that particular moment. That’s one of the goals of Web 3.o, or the semantic web – where applications can understand the meaning behind any particular statement. So that in the example above, the computer does indeed make the beverage, instead of zooming off to the closest tea shop, finding the planet where Earl Grey grows best or launching into a long boring description of the chemical composition. Making computers easier for everyone to use regardless of how they might use them is something that people in Canada are world renowned for and a key part of our digital economy. While not quite the stuff of Star Trek, the efforts are certainly getting close…
Canadian experts are helping make computers easier for everyone to use. Most notably those with specialized access requirements. Research programs are found throughout the country, including the University of Saskatchewan and Adaptive Technology Research Centre at the University of Toronto. There are also a number of Canadian companies that create assistive technologies. Industry Canada maintains a fairly extensive listing of these companies on their Assistive Technologies Office Website. Canadian experts are also leading the development of standards at the International Standards Organization and W3C. In addition to these international standards, local standards development activities are also underway such as the Accessibility for Ontarions with Disabilities Act (AODA) standards work where experts are contributing to make computer and communications equipment easier for everyone to use.
So as we think about the Digital Economy, lets remember that since it impacts everyone, it needs to be accessible by everyone. Accessibility is a key part of and an important contribution to the Digital Economy.
