President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi said that what Egypt is witnessing today is a shining picture of the use of ICT tools to remove obstacles standing in the way of people with disabilities. This came during his speech in the seventh annual Cairo Information Technology Convergence and Services for People with Disabilities Conference on Monday. “The fact that Egypt won plenty of international awards in the field of using ICT to integrate and empower people with disability reflects the international recognition of Egypt's commitment to the inclusion of people with disabilities, paving the way for Egypt to become a regional centre for the manufacture and export of assistive technology to the Arab region and Africa,” the president stated. He added that the success in transforming the lives of people living with disabilities is in line with the initiative launched two years ago to integrate the use of ICT tools as part of Egypt's 2030 sustainable development goals. Al-Sisi stressed Egypt's keenness to become a society without disability discrimination, where children would have equal rights, and that technology is the tool that would lead to achieving these goals. When asked about enforcing the law demanding that 5% of employees be of people with special needs, the president responded that the law is already enforced, yet the number of disabled people may actually be greater than the current capacity. "To resolve this issue, we have to stick together and then we can achieve anything," he concluded.
