Dear Chris April 3, 2021 Further Our Zoom Meeting Here Are a Few Words

Dear Chris April 3, 2021 Further our Zoom meeting here are a few words for my suggestion to speak about the uniqueness of making websites and applications accessible case of Israel - what we have done and what we can learn from.

Israel is a small country of nine million people.

The Equal Rights Law formed a three layers structure –

1. The Equal Rights and Accessibility Law 2. Accessibility Regulations 3. Accessibility Standards.

The issue of accessible websites and applications is defined in the Accessibility services regulation that were passed at 2013. These Regulations are very unique and first of their kind on a global level.

The following legal requirements have made Israel a great Case Study for Accessibility Implementation on a country level:

1. In Israel all websites and applications (existing and new) must be accessible from the end of 2017 and comply to WCAG 2 AA. Applications must be accessible according to the software guidelines (iOs, Android and others) 2. Every company with more than 25 employees must have and Accessibility Coordinator and must advertise his/her contact information to the public – The Accessibility Coordinator has to take care of all accessibility issues between the organization and users/customers with disabilities. 3. In addition to the Accessibility Statement, every website and application must also publish a fully detailed statement with information about all accessibility services that are implemented in the organization for clients with disabilities. 4. Every entity must annually train all service providers (including those providing remote services in the website or call centers) on accessible services - to know how to specifically serve clients with disabilities according to their needs and at least once the training must be an experiential one. 5. Lastly the Israel law enables every citizen in Israel to file a lawsuit when accessibility is not kept.

In addition to the legislation, we have put a lot of work to implement website accessibility. We done a lot of awareness and training. The laws, awareness and training put Israel websites and application Accessibility as one of the leading countries in the world.

We do have some significate challenges looking forward, mainly getting better in developing fully accessible website especially for screen readers users. The second challenge is actually training people with disability on how to use already accessible websites.

It will be an honor to speak at your conference

Yuval Wagner, Founder & Chair Access Israel Ord

עמותת נגישות ישראל )ע"ר( .Access Israel Org. 58-0341204 P.O.B. 555 Magdiel, Hod Hasharon, 4510501, ISRAEL. Tel. • 972-9-7451126 Fax • 972-9-7451127 www.aisrael.org [email protected]

Introducing Access Israel Making Accessibility and Inclusion A Reality

About Access Israel Access Israel was founded in 1999 by Yuval Wagner, who due to a helicopter accident in his military service is disabled and paralyzed from the neck down. After realizing how inaccessible and non- inclusive Israel was at the time for people with disabilities, Yuval decided to take action and wrote a letter to Ezer Weizman, the Israeli President at the time. To his surprise Yuval received a phone call by President Weizman who asked Yuval to create a non-profit organization to make Israel accessible and inclusive for all. Yuval followed President Weizman's call and established Access Israel which was formally launched in the President's residence in 1999. In 2019 we celebrated Access Israel's 20th anniversary at President of Israel Reuven Rivlin's residence.

Our mission Access Israel's mission is to make Israel accessible and inclusive for people with all kinds of disabilities and the elderly in all spheres of life. Our goal is to improve their quality of life and create a society that enables everyone to live with dignity, respect, equality and maximum independence in order to reach their full potential.

Who we are Access Israel is led by Michal Rimon, CEO, and Yuval Wagner, the Founder and Chairman. The Access Israel team consists of people with and without disabilities that all aim to have an impact and create a society that is accessible and inclusive for all.

Michal Rimon Yuval Wagner, CEO Founder and Chairman

Please watch our introduction video.