15-20 Minute Paper
T B Dinesh
Founder, Janastu
Biography
Dinesh has Computer Science background and is a founder of Janastu in Bangalore, India. Janastu has been providing free and open source (FOSS) solutions and support to small not-for-profit and non-governmental organizations (NPOs/NGOs) since 2002. Dinesh is also a founding member of the International Institute of Art Culture and Democracy.
Abstract
We discuss the idea of re-narration as the basis for “designing for inclusion.” In the re- narration model, a web page or even an element of a web is rewritten, i.e., /re-narrated/, to make it accessible to a target audience of users in a completely decentralized way. The notion of re-narration is completely general. It could, for example, mean translating a page automatically to another language. Or it could mean creating a more accessible version of a technical document, even if it is in the same language by an expert for laymen.
Specifically, we discuss the case of the re-narration work. It focuses on enabling the accessibility of and contribution of content to anyone. In the true spirit of web, we
take the position that the consumers of any particular content is not predetermined.
It may be valuable to any consumer given that they can consume it. Obviously, the
true challenges here lie with reaching the population on the disadvantaged side of the digital gap as in rural area, poverty stricken areas, illiterate, minorities who speak other languages, and so on. We take the examples of pastoral networks, the case of Laws and Acts of India and the Indian Digital Heritage project where content is shared across literate and nonliterate sections via re-narration.