Mr. Jaroslaw K. Ponder, Head of the Office for Europe at the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) (Geneva, Switzerland), representing ITU in Europe and directing actions, projects, initiatives and experts groups targeting 46 countries of the Europe Region. His portfolio includes set of Regional Initiatives for Europe, designed by the European Member States and focusing on the ICT Infrastructure, Digitization, Digital Inclusion, Accessibility, Innovation and Cybersecurity. Along the professional career, Mr. Ponder held official positions in the public sector and was a contributor to the legislative projects having the impact on the public policy. Since 2014 Mr. Ponder has been working for ITU holding diverse positions in the General Secretariat, Telecommunication Development Bureau, and Regional Presence, addressing complexity of information society development and digital transformation at national, regional, international level, including United Nations level. For several years he has managed ITU’s work on the United Nations World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) process, leading towards the establishment of the annual WSIS Forum, WSIS Prizes, WSIS Stocktaking, others.
Mr. Christoph Jo. Müller, Executive Vice President at CSS MicroSystems, will present the Assistive Mouse Adapter AMAneo. Millions of people worldwide suffer from a tremor, the strong shaking of the hands. Causes may be among others a Parkinson's disease or, often age-related, an essential tremor. This symptom can be a significant constraint, particularly when operating a computer or modern tablets via touchscreen. This product helps people with hand tremor to use the mouse on the computer much easier or even making it possible at all. This adapter filters electronically the trembling of hand, which can also be very strong, so that the mouse pointer on the display moves smoothly anyway. With tablets, the control by touchscreen is replaced by a normal mouse or a special assistive mouse. AMAneo gives back access to ICT for work and private use for people with severe hand tremor.
Mr. Yves Cornu is Managing Director of FACIL’iti and Vice-President of French Foreign Trade Advisors in New Aquitaine. With a literary university education (Sorbonne 1985-1990), he resumed his studies at EM Lyon in 2008 (MBA). After a first part of career in the large distribution (KIABI) he took the management of a historical silk weaving company in the Lyon region and made it evolve to restructure it, take it from the XIXth to the XXIth century , reposition it on innovative export markets (30% of turnover in China and Brazil) before reselling it. His functions as Vice-President of the French Trade Advisers made him meet Frédéric Sudraud during the design of FACIL'iti and he decided to join this adventure and use his network to position the start-up at the level worldwide and for example to open a subsidiary in Japan from the first year of existence. Yves Cornu is CEO of this subsidiary.
Rut Turró, CEO of Movingmood. Moving for a Good Mood. We are a creative social enterprise, specialised in fashion and diversity. Since 2011 we design accessibility of products and services for fashion companies, the clothing industry and universities. And for what? Our aim is to improve the autonomy of people with dependency and disability in the field of clothing and accessories. And what do we do? We research the needs. We design products and services that provide value. We develop consultancy and training. And how do we do it? We put all our creativity to work. We sew inclusive fashion programmes for companies and universities. We complete them with our unique method of implementation. We weave products applying the principles of accessible fashion. We design accessibility. We Create Inclusion. We have been awarded with several prizes and grants in Spain and the European Union.
Mr. Steffen Helbing, Board member of World in Sign EU GmbH. World in Sign is a company that develops new technologies for accessibility and inclusion of all people. World in Sign is represented internationally, e.g., in America (WIS LLC), France (WIS France) and Japan (WIS Japan). Together we develop different products and work every day to break barriers. The companies are run by hearing and deaf people. A major and current problem is the lack of two-way communication between hearing and hearing-impaired people in the everyday life. We developed an innovative interpreter app with a barrier-free emergency call function that can be used by all people and also by all countries in the world in the future. Through this app, hearing people can communicate with deaf people as there is an organized interpreter center in the background who is taking care of the different needs. But this will not be all - we are working strongly with a large network of telemedicine industry, for access to information of emergency response or even speech recognition systems. We are not looking back; the technology is our future and can support people to have better access and less barriers.
Mr. Claudiu Leverenz, CEO of Munevo, studied information systems at the Technical University of Munich in Germany with exchange studies in the US and Australia. In 2015 during his studies, he started the project Munevo and founded the company in 2018. Munevo supports with a new type of special steering for electrical wheelchairs which is now based on the use of smart glasses like Google Glass. People that are impaired by different diseases (ALS, multiple sclerosis, muscular dystrophy, etc.) or accidents (spinal cord injuries) might not be able to move or are limited in their legs and hands. Therefore, they are in need of a special steering solution. With Munevo DRIVE they can now steer their wheelchair just by using their head movements. The solution has evolved ever since to connect and control also your phone, computer, robot arms and the home environment, making it an everyday life assistant. Beginning of 2017 he has been nominated on Forbes „30 under 30 Europe “list in the category Science & Healthcare. Since 2018 he has joined the Global Shapers Munich, an initiative by the World Economic Forum, to support local social projects. He was invited to speak about Disability and Inclusion at the WEF Annual Meeting in Davos 2020 and elected Curator of the Global Shapers Munich in the same year.
