Re: [g-a-devel] Announcing AEGIS - a €12.6m investment in open source accessibility

["Steve Lee" <steve fullmeasure co uk>]

Peter this is totally fantastic and even better news than I had hoped for.

Thank you for all your hard work making this possible.
Many, many people are going to benefit from the improved open accessibility.

-- 
Steve Lee
Open Source Assistive Technology Software and Accessibility
fullmeasure.co.uk



2008/10/17 Peter Korn <Peter Korn sun com>:
> I am *very* pleased to share with you news about the AEGIS project, a €12.6m
> investment in accessibility, with the vast majority of it focused on open
> source solutions.
>
> Rather than repeat here all that I have written about AEGIS already, I will
> instead invite you to read about it in my blog:  http://blogs.sun.com/korn/
> or check out the AEGIS website at: http://www.aegis-project.eu/
>
> I have worked in the field of accessibility for nearly 17 years, and on open
> source accessibility almost a dozen of those years.  In that time, open
> source accessibility has become a deep and abiding passion.
> I'm very proud that the techniques we have pioneered in the open source
> community have since been adopted by Apple with the Macintosh & VoiceOver,
> and are being adopted by Microsoft with UI Automation.  These same
> techniques are enshrined in the report a 42 member committee delivered to
> the U.S. Access Board earlier this year (and which at this very moment being
> reviewed by them as they work on their refresh of the Section 508
> accessibility standard).  And these techniques are at the core of the AEGIS
> project.
>
> With AEGIS, over the next 3.5 years we will attempt to bring programmatic
> accessibility more fully to the web, and to the mobile world.  With AEGIS we
> will also address a number of issues that still remain in accessibility on
> the open desktop.  And while we're at it, we will bring a bunch of new and
> talented people into the open source accessibility community (you should
> start seeing them showing up on our mailing lists and wikis in the coming
> months).  We will also fund a number of the experts who have already made
> tremendous open source accessibility contributions - to enable to them to
> continue and to do even more.  I'm sure they will shortly make their voices
> heard on these lists and in the blogosphere.  And we will explicitly fund a
> number of European disability organizations.  These organizations and many
> dozens of their members will be providing their expert input on our work,
> and thoughtfully evaluating our prototypes, and perhaps adopting the
> solutions we come up with because they do a great job of meeting their
> needs.
>
> Oh, and we'll also write a bunch of open source accessibility code.
>
>
> This Sunday the 19th of October marks the 8th anniversary of the GNOME
> Accessibility Project.  AEGIS helps bring a fantastic 8th year to a close,
> and also serves to inaugurate the next 3.5 years!
>
>
> Regards,
>
> Peter Korn
> Accessibility Architect & Principal Engineer,
> Sun Microsystems, Inc.
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