NIZHNY NOVGOROD, May 24- .The head of the State Duma Committee on Information Policy, Information Technologies and Communications, Alexander Khinshtein, during a visiting session within the framework of the conference “Digital Industry of Industrial Russia” (CIPR-2024) in Nizhny Novgorod, stated the need to continue work on the development of digital inclusion for people with disabilities.
“An important social proposal was made by colleagues from the Nizhny Novgorod region – to take into account when developing the national projects “Data Economy” and “Personnel” the extent to which they reflect the tasks of equal access to the data economy for people with physical disabilities. Digital inclusion has really greatly transformed the lives of Russians with disability, work in this direction must continue,” Khinshtein said. 
In a conversation with journalists, he noted that he was impressed by the software and hardware solution developed in the Nizhny Novgorod region, which allows users with certain health limitations and emergency services to communicate with each other via SMS messages – the so-called SMS gateway .
“Certainly, a unique project being implemented in the region, concerning an inclusive environment… Indeed, if a person has difficulties in terms of the possibility of a voice message, there are some problems, an SMS gateway in this case will be a salvation. And here, in the Nizhny Novgorod region, This decision has already been prepared, and it will be implemented further,” Khinshtein said.
He emphasized that in the Nizhny Novgorod region “there is a lot of positive experience, a lot of successful practices that are worthy of being scaled up and implemented in other regions.”
In turn, the project manager of the ANO “Project Office for the Development Strategy of the Nizhny Novgorod Region” Ilya Lebedev noted that the region has its own expertise in digital accessibility. “Rosstat’s data on users with disabilities requires the attention of the state. Every second person does not use the Internet at all, and only every third person uses it to solve everyday problems. Therefore, we take a comprehensive approach to adapting the digital environment – from auditing the accessibility of state websites to teaching digital literacy to visually impaired people.” , – he said. 
Governor of the Nizhny Novgorod Region Gleb Nikitin emphasized that equal access to information is necessary for people with physical disabilities. “I believe that our experience and successful practices can be applied to the development of a new digital environment nationwide. The regional government portal has already been fully adapted for blind users. In the interests of people with hearing and speech impairments, we signed an agreement with Sberbank on the development of Russian sign language recognition technology And at the Neumark IT campus, educational programs for developers and designers will include digital accessibility,” Nikitin said.
During the meeting, the digital transformation of public services in the region and the transition to the “0-0-0” concept, when receiving a service does not require manual input of information when filling out a form, there is no need to provide paper documents – services are provided automatically online, were also discussed.
“For example, we have created a regional center for optimization of public services. Its task is to simplify the interaction of citizens with government agencies. According to the regional maternity capital, we plan to reduce the number of documents required to obtain from 11 to 1. And there are a lot of such goals,” Nikitin said, noting , that for this “the assistance of federal structures is needed.”
CIPR – one of the largest business events in the field of digital economy in the country – takes place in Nizhny Novgorod from May 21 to 24.
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