Resource Persons’ Profiles
Mr. Hiroshi Kawamura is former Director of Information Center and Director of International Division, Japanese Society for Rehabilitation of Persons with Disabilities (JSRPD). Trained in geography, he has vast experience in disability-related work and issues, serving as researcher on DAISY, National Rehabilitation Center for the Disabled, Member of JICA Advisory Committee for Asia Pacific Development Center on Disability and Board Member, Global Applied Disability Research and Information Network on Employment and Training, GLADNET Association. Among the agencies he is currently involved in are as Steering Committee Member of Web Accessibility Initiative, World Wide Web Consortium; chairman of the Copyright Committee of the Disability Concerned National Forum on Broadcasting; advisory Board Member for the Japanese Federation of the Deaf and chairman of the Section of Libraries for the Blind, International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions.
Mr. Monthian Buntan is the Director of Technology, International Relations and Human Resource Development of the Thai Blind People's Foundation. Trained in Music Theory and Composition as well as English and Philosophy he was the Deputy Director of Ratchasuda College, Mahidol University. Among his many positions in the disability movement, he served as the first Vice President of the Thailand Association of the Blind, Executive Committee Member of the World Blind Union, member on the Advisory committee on Disability to the Prime Minister of Thailand, member on the Committee on Educational Reform for Persons with Disabilities, other Disadvantage Groups and Gifted Children, Ministry of Education. Mr. Buntan is also founder of the Thai National Institute for the Blind and the Thailand National Committee on DAISY Production and Services. In 1995, he was awarded the Most Outstanding Person with Disabilities in Thailand from the Council on Social Welfare and in 2001; he was awarded the Plaque of Honour from the Prime Minister of Thailand as an Outstanding Individual whose contributions have made significant improvements to the lives of persons with disabilities in Thailand.
Ms. Wantanee Panthachat is a Chief of Assistive Technology Section, National Electronics and Compute Technology Center (NECTEC) in Thailand.
Mr. Markus Gylling is International Technical Development Coordinator of the DAISY Consortium. His general working area is that of accessible electronic information, where he works with standards and software development focusing on W3C technologies such as XML, SMIL, as well as user agent design. As a committee member of the ANSI/NISO Z39.86-2002 standard for Digital Talking Books, his areas of focus are Internationalization and conformance testing. Mr. Gylling is a member of the W3C Timed Text working group, developing an XML based format used for the representation of streamed text synchronized with other timed media, like audio and video. He is also a Software Development Manager and Web Technologies Developer at TPB - The Swedish Library of Talking books and Braille.
Mr. Masafumi Nakane is a Technical Manager of Organization: IMG SRC, Inc., taking part in administration of the company network and technical development. He also involves in activities to promote and improve computer accessibility as well as development of FreeBSD, a freely distributed Unix-like operating system.
Mr. Mark Hakkinen is presently Open Source Coordinator for the Daisy for All Project, and Chair of the World Wide Web Consortium's Web Accessibility Initiative Research and Development Interest Group (RDIG). He has been active in the Web standards arena for many years and has participated in the development of W3C recommendations and guidelines, including the Synchronized Multimedia Intergration Language (SMIL). Mr. Hakkinen continues his involvement in the development of the Daisy and ANSI/NISO Z39.86-2002 Digital Talking Book standards. Mr. Hakkinen was the creator of the pioneering WebSpeak talking web browser in 1995, which introduced key concepts in audio navigation of web content. He has over 20 years of experience in research and development of human-computer interfaces in industry and the public sector. Mr. Hakkinen has a B.Sc. in Psychology from Washington University in St. Louis (USA) and conducted graduate research in Speech-based Interfaces at Virginia Tech (USA).
Mr.Raksak Chairanchueh is a Computer teacher Teaching computer for blind students at Bangkok School for the Blind. Mr. Masafumi NAKANE is a Technical Manager of Organization: IMG SRC, Inc., taking part in administration of the company network and technical development. He also involves in activities to promote and improve computer accessibility as well as development of FreeBSD, a freely distributed Unix-like operating system.
