Access Israel’s last international webinar took place on the 12th of April and focused on “Accessible and Inclusive Smart Cities for All During and Post COVID-19”. Over 690 people from 83 countries registered to the conference and the webinar received great feedback!
The goal of the conference was to bring the international accessibility community together to discuss the trends and newest developments in accessible smart cities and how COVID-19 affected these developments. The speakers were very inspiring and shared their knowledge in the field.
Michal Rimon, the CEO of Access Israel gave the opening remarks of the webinar and welcomed the hundreds of guests. In addition, the participants were greeted by a video message of Luis Gallegos, the Chairman of the G3ict and the Minister of Foreign Affairs in Ecuador. This was followed by greetings by Anna Kצnigseder, the Process Manager & Business Manager of the Zero Project who are great partners to Access Israel. Further, Joe Wierichs, the Counselor for Public Affairs of the U.S. Embassy addressed the audience. The embassy supports Access Israel in its international activities for years
The first lecture was given by James Thurston, the Vice President of the G3ICT, leaders in the field of accessible smart cities. Further, Yuval Wagner, the Founder and Chairperson of Access Israel shared his insights into the importance and developments of inclusive smart cities. In addition, Sergio Vinistki, CEO of VISERCO and Smartcity Expo World Congress Barcelona Delegate for Israel talked about his work. After this lecture, Richard Streitz, the Chief Operating Officer at Ruh Global spoke about his work, especially his work in creating accessible “cities” in Disney Land.
Megan Goddard, the Accessibility Senior Program Manager at Google spoke about accessible maps. After this interesting lecture, Yael Shomron, the Global Marketing Manager of Step Hear spoke about the innovations of Step Hear which allow people with disabilities to move more freely in society. Jose Luis Borau Jordan, the Head of the Department of Accessibility to the Physical Environment of ONCE spoke about their work in creating accessible smart cities. Then, Ed Summers, the Director of Accessibility of the SAS Institute spoke about accessible date.
Yovav Meidad, the Chief Growth and Marketing Manager of Moovit spoke about their efforts in ensuring that their app for public transportation will be accessible and inclusive for all. This interesting lecture was followed by Quemuel Arroyo, the Chief Accessibility Officer at State of NY Metropolitan Transportation Authority shared the experience and efforts of the MTA to be accessible and icnlsuive. Yariv Bash, the Co-Founder and CEO of Flytrex spoke about their technological solution of drone deliveries. Anat Caspi, the Director Taskar Center for Accessible Technology of the University of Washington spoke about her research in accessible smart cities.
Further, Haim Pinto, the CTO Business Architecture of CISCO Israel spoke about the importance of remote health and Rene Perkins, the CEO & Co-Founder of CityMaaS spoke about their technological solution for accessible maps. The solution by the Spanish technology Mass Factory was presented by Faustino Cuadrado Capitan, the CEO. Carlo Castellano, the CEO of PARK4DIS presented another Spanish technology and its solution for accessible smart cities. At the end, Rushi Rama, the Smart Cities Lead of the World Economic Forum spoke about the work of the WEF and the important of accessible smart cities.
Thank you to all the speakers for their interesting lectures and the time and effort that were put into it.
Thank you to the sponsors of the webinar, the U.S Embassy, Google, Abledocs and Step Hear.
Thank you Verbit for providing the captioning.
Thank you Language People for providing the translation to sign language.
To watch the recording of the webinar please click here.
