Disability, Technology and Digital Inclusion in Southeast Asia

Centre for Disability Research and Policy

This conference features a series of presentations that consider the intersections of disability, technology and digital inclusion.

We invite you join us for to the 'Disability, Technology an Digital Inclusion in South East Asia', Conference!This conference features a series of presentations that consider the intersections of disability, technology and digital inclusion in and across Southeast Asia. It draws attention to an emergent and understudied research area, one that has significant impact on disabled populations given the widespread embrace of the digital today.Organizers:<ul><li>Kuansong Victor ZHUANG (U Syd/ NTU),</li><li>Gerard GOGGIN (Western Sydney U),</li><li>Jennifer SMITH-MERRY (U Syd)</li></ul> The Conference is co-hosted by:<ul><li>Centre for Disability Research and Policy, University of Sydney</li><li>Institute for Culture and Society, Western Sydney University</li><li>Asian Communication Research Centre, Nanyang Technological University</li><li>Sydney Southeast Asia Centre, University of Sydney</li></ul> BackgroundAsia has been widely noted as the world’s largest market in digital technology. While researchers have focused on the efforts of Japan, South Korea, and China, Southeast Asia has been on the rise for the past 5-10 years, especially attracting attention with the prominence of digital platform companies such as Gojek (headquartered in Indonesia) and Grab (Singapore HQ). These digital platform companies have established a foothold not only in their home countries (Indonesia and Malaysia) but also expanded across the region. Such extensive digitalization of society is mirrored by a longer historical trajectory of Southeast Asian countries adopting the smart and technology as enablers for economic growth of development, for instance in Singapore (Goggin and Zhuang 2022) and Malaysia (Bunnell 2015, 2004), just to name two. We juxtapose this with the emergence of disability as an area of considerable research, social, and policy importance across Southeast Asia, underpinned by the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, and regional initiatives like the Incheon Strategy and the ASEAN Enabling Masterplan. Notably, the third Asian-Pacific Decade of Persons with Disabilities 2023-2032 was convened in Indonesia and culminated in the Jakarta Declaration. Across Southeast Asia, we see vibrant disabled communities and research appearing, as well as various government attempts at achieving disability inclusion. In particular, the ASEAN Enabling Masterplan puts forth key recommendations to support the development of inclusive ICTs. AEC 12 highlights the importance of “Promot[ing] smart city projects that have inclusive infrastructure and technologies that are accessible to urban dwellers with disabilities”, while AEC 13 notes the need to “Encourage inclusive ICT by improving its accessibility and usability for persons with disabilities and by upgrading digital skill sets of developers and users to have a more digitally empowered and connected ASEAN people and stakeholders” (ASEAN 2019). Accordingly, digital inclusion for people with disability is a high priority area for policymakers, industry, technology designs, institutions (such as education, law, and others), and civil society organizations, even as digital forms of governance are increasingly prevalent. We bring together these developments – the extensive digitalization of society and the use of technology in all aspects of life (especially with disability), the embrace of disability rights globally, and the pursuit of digital inclusion by Southeast Asian nation states – into productive conversation. While digital technology is a crucial area for realizing goals of social and economic participation as well as rights, the practices of digital inclusion are however not uniformly spread among people with disability across the region; what some have described as digital divides and digital inequalities (Goggin 2017; Dobransky and Hargittai 2016; Hargittai and Hsieh 2013). There have been estimated to be more than 90 million people in Southeast Asia with disability, and for many, assistive technology is a key part of their lives. Importantly, many disabled people are not able to fully participate in society on an equal basis with others and the WHO has called for government action and research to promote inclusion. Importantly, research focused on the intersections of technology, digital inclusion, and disability across Southeast Asia is very much nascent. Research and policy frameworks, exemplars, and models relating to disability and digital inclusion still largely derive from a small set of influential jurisdictions, including the US, UK, and Europe. ReferencesASEAN. 2019. ASEAN Enabling Masterplan 2025: Mainstreaming the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Jakarta: ASEAN Secretariat.Bunnell, Tim. 2004. Malaysia, modernity and the multimedia super corridor: A critical geography of intelligent landscapes. Routledge.---. 2015. "Smart city returns." Dialogues in Human Geography 5 (1): 45-48.Dobransky, Kerry, and Eszter Hargittai. 2016. "Unrealized potential: Exploring the digital disability divide." Poetics 58: 18-28.Goggin, Gerard. 2017. "Disability and digital inequalities: Rethinking digital divides with disability theory." In Theorizing Digital Divides, edited by Massimo Ragnedda and Glenn W. Muschert, 63-74. New York: Routledge.Goggin, Gerard, and Kuansong Victor Zhuang. 2022. "Disability as Smart Equality: Inclusive Technology in a Digitally Advanced Nation." In Digital Inclusion: Enhancing Vulnerable People’s Social Inclusion and Welfare?, edited by Panayiota Tsatsou, 257-275. London: Palgrave.Hargittai, Eszter, and Yu-li Patrick Hsieh. 2013. "Digital Inequality." In The Oxford Handbook of Internet Studies, edited by William H Dutton, 129-150. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Agenda

Prof. Jen Smith-Merry (Professor of Health and Social Policy, University of Sydney
ARC Industry Laureate Fellow; Director, Centre for Disability Research and Policy (CDRP)) & Dr Kuansong Victor Zhuang (Visiting Fellow, University of Sydney
International Postdoctoral Scholar, Nanyang Technological University)

Opening Remarks

Panel 1: Emerging Issues

Lunch break

Panel 2: Southeast Asian Perspectives

Break

Panel 3: Digital Praxis

Panel 4: Disabled Voices

Prof. Gerard Goggin, Institute for Culture and Society, Western Sydney University

Closing Remarks

Panel 1 Speakers

Presented by Wenqi Tan, PhD Student, Discipline
of Department of Media and
Communications, U Sydney

Interdependency, disability, and misfitting in the smart (cyborg) city 

Examining the implications of Digital Identification
Systems on People with Disabilities. 
Presented by Maitreya Shah, Fellow, Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society, Harvard University

Implications of Digital Identification Systems on People with Disabilities

Presented by Rachel Tng, Independent Researcher

The Role of Algorithmic Bias In Digital Inclusion in Singapore

Presented by Abdul Rohman, Lecturer, RMIT University Vietnam, &  Diem-Trang Vo, Associate Lecturer, RMIT University Vietnam

Disabilities and digital privacy in emerging markets

Panel 2 Speakers

Advancing Accessibility and Inclusion for People with Disability with Digital Marketing: A Thai Case Study.
Presented by Adam Poulsen, Brain and Mind Centre, U Sydney
 & Ryncharida Manun, Macquarie University

Advancing Accessibility and Inclusion for People with Disability

Online Learning Experiences of Filipino Visually Impaired Students with Total Blindness Enrolled through Open and Distance Learning (ODL). Presented by Rudolf Anthony A. Lacerna, Associate Professor, Polytechnic University of the Philippines

Online Learning Experiences of Filipino Visually Impaired Students

Assessing Progress in Digital Public Health Inclusion in the ASEAN Region: A Systematic Review of Digital Accessibility since the Adoption of the ASEAN Enabling Masterplan. Presented by John Paul Cruz, U Melbourne 

Assessing Progress in Digital Public Health Inclusion in the ASEAN Region

Presented by Beatriz A. dela Cruz, University of Santo Tomas

The Inadequacy of Philippine Laws to Digital Inclusivity for Disability

Panel 3 Speakers

Designing MIKA 1.0: A communication learning application for children with Autism Spectrum Disorder in Indonesia. Presented by Margaretha (Universitas Airlangga, Indonesia; The University of Melbourne, Australia; Forum Peduli Autisme Jawa Timur, Indonesia), Sri Retno Yuliani (Special School Riverkids Malang, Indonesia; Forum Peduli Autisme Jawa Timur, Indonesia), Nishrina Khamida (Unit Pelayanan Terpadu Daerah Anak Berkebutuhan Khusus Sidoarjo,
Indonesia; Forum Peduli Autisme Jawa Timur, Indonesia), Vitotamma Emir
Muhammad (Universitas Airlangga, Indonesia) & Ira Puspitasar  (Universitas Airlangga, Indonesia) 

A communication learning application for children with Autism

DISABILITY RIGHTS ADVOCACY: HARNESSING
DIGITAL PLATFORMS TO ADVOCATE THE UNHEARD VOICES IN INDONESIA. Presented by Destry Indra Wibawa, Ministry of Law and Human Rights, Indonesia.

HARNESSING DIGITAL PLATFORMS TO ADVOCATE THE UNHEARD VOICE IN INDONESIA

Evidence-based digital storytelling: strengthening the advocacy of Indonesian organisations of people with disabilities. Presented by Felix Kiefel-Johnson (Technical Advisor, Nossal Institute for Global Health, University of Melbourne), Sholih Muhdlo (Gender Equality, Disability and Social Inclusion (GEDSI) Coordinator, Sentra Advokasi Perempuan Difabel dan
Anak (SAPDA), Indonesia).

Evidence-based digital storytelling for advocacy

Panel 4 Speakers

Imagined Citizenship: Exploring Rohingya’s digital ownership, identity and action in Southeast Asia. Presented by WENDELL GLENN P. CAGAPE, JH Cerilles State College

Imagined Citizenship: Rohingya’s digital ownership, identity and action

We Belong to You, but You Don’t Represent Us: A Javanese (Indonesian) Disability Experiences. Presented by Umar, PhD Student, Discipline of Department of Media and Communications, U Sydney

We Belong to You, but You Don’t Represent Us

Presented by Sook Yee Helena Song, Flinders University

Digital Inclusion in the University: Five stories from Malaysia

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