The Institute for the Protection and the Security of
the Citizen of the European Commission Joint Research Centre participates
to the EC InterService Group on Disability, chaired by the Directorate General
Employment and Social Affairs, which promotes the European Year of
People with Disabilities 2003.
VOICE organises several activities for Year 2003 or encourages and collaborates
with activities proposed by other partners. The events spread information
on the results achieved by the VOICE Project and the Development
and Harmonisation of Subtitling in European Television Broadcasting Project
and propose new activities.
VOICE continues the contacts with the television broadcasters
and CENELEC, aimed at providing techical support that may help in armonising
subtitling in European television broadcasting. It increases collaboration
with the universities for helping students with hearing impairment
by subtitling the lectures.
In most cases the partners exchange information on their activities and get
more visibility by using the VOICE Web Site and its Discussion
Forum. These tools follow the basic rules to make Web Sites accessible
by people with disabilities and care will be spent on this aspect, proposing
the Site as a test reference for all users, particularly for JRC and other
EC Directorates General colleagues.
2003 First Semester
In the first semester 2003, the VOICE Project presented
the Project's results and the Year 2003 aims to ALFA Association in Milan,
AFA Association in Cantù (Como), Lions Club in Gallarate (Varese),
CENELEC Standardisation Committee in Brussels, ANEC User Group in Brussels,
the International Symposium of EURO-CIU Association in Berlin, the Universities
of Milan, Pavia, Trieste, Benevento and Lecce, the Videoconference InfoPoverty
of OCCAM-UNESCO-ONU-WorldBank-EC-PE at Milan Politecnico and Cattolica Milan
University with Oklahoma University.
The VOICE Project's co-ordinator also presented the applications of voice
recognition for people with disabilities in a workshop for JRC-Ispra colleagues
and attended the Opening Ceremony of Year 2003 in Bari and the ETSI Conference
Accessibility for All in Nice and to a television broadcast of RAI-3
Racconti di Vita, which gave a positive feeling of how it is possible
to live without loosing enthusiasm, even within the limits of a disability.
Two students of Milan University wrote their thesis on deafness and the VOICE
Project: one of them, hearing impaired, graduated with the maximum vote.
2003 Second Semester
In the second semester the VOICE Project participates
to the Organising Committee of the Italian Presidency Semester at JRC and
will present the VOICE Project's results and the Year 2003 aims to the JRC
colleagues at Ispra in October and to several workshops in collaboration with
the local organisations in the area of Varese.
The Project will continue the contacts with the Universities and the television
broadcasters.
The main events will be the presentation at the IST
Conference in Milan on the 4th October, the collaboration with the
local authorities for the 3 days of the stop of the Year-2003-Bus
in Varese on the 3-5 November and the organisation of the Conference
eAccessibility by Voice: VOICE Recognition supporting people with
hearing or other disabilities, to be held at JRC-Ispra on November
24-25.
Important will be the collaboration with the organisers in Brussels and Rome
in order to ensure that the JRC events will be in line with the other foreseen
events. JRC-Ispra is to be seen as the obvious intersection of the European
events organised by Brussels and the Italian events organised by Rome, with
a particular accent on the aspects of European Research and disabilities.
