David Banes – Founder of David Banes Access and Inclusion

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David Banes

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David Banes is Director of his company David Banes Access and Inclusion Services and was formerly CEO, at Mada the Qatar Assistive Technology and Accessibility Center based in Doha where he worked for six years. Throughout his career, he has been responsible for developing services to ensure that people with a disability are digitally included, and in shaping the broad policy framework required to ensure and sustain this.

As a Consultant addressing all aspects of access and inclusion through disability, he is currently working a range of issues the Middle East and Europe and has a special interest in how access will be ensured as technology and our understanding of disability shifts.

Much of his work is designed to build capacity in emerging access ecosystems, supporting an end to end approach from awareness to policy, and from production of assistive technologies to approaches to training and development.

Prior to taking up his post in Qatar, he worked as a teacher of children with special needs and principal of a major special school before working in the realm of digital Inclusion in the UK and Europe as Director of Operations and Development for a UK NGO.  He now seeks to support the emerging Access ecosystem in the region promoting cooperation between states and supports the development of assistive technology solutions and digital content that meet the needs of Arabic speaking people with a disability.

His recent work has focussed on the development of a framework for responding to disruptive innovation in the AT Industry, identify solutions t meeting the needs of refugees with a disability, consulting on the creation of a business case for public investment in assistive technology and supporting innovation and research to bring products and services to market.

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