GAATES - Contact Information

President

Mukhtar Al Shibani
president@gaates.org
Telephone: 00966 1 2177474

1^st Vice President

Cynthia Waddell
Cynthia.Waddell@icdri.org
Telephone: 1 925 829 3137

2^nd Vice President

Aqeel Qureshi
aqeelqureshi@disabilitynewsasia.com
Telephone: +81 3 3680 0109

Treasurer

Bob Topping
bob.topping@gaates.org
Telephone: 1 905 278 0665

Secretary

Chuck Letourneau
secretary@gaates.org
Telephone: 1 613 820 2272

Past-President

Betty Dion
pastpresident@gaates.org
Telephone: 1 613 725 0566

Mukhtar M.S. Al Shibani - SAUDI ARABIA - President

Mr. Mukhtar Al Shibani established Almodon Consulting office for the disabled and elderly people, Jeddah, KUSA, 1992, in order to provide services as a private consultant practicing architectural design in the Arab Region. Mr. Shibani is currently the Vice President of GAATES, and is a member of the ISO Committee TC59/SC16 Accessibility and Usability of the Build Environment.

He has worked as an architect in building and construction department, Standard Organization of Saudi Arabia, and at one time was the Head of Building and Construction, Saudi Standard Organization.

He has been a visiting lecturer at the College of Architecture and Planning for two semesters, King Faisal University, Dammam, KSA, 1982 and established the modeling center in Riyadh, K. S. A.1983. He is past Chief Editor of Albena architectural magazine in Riyadh, K. S.

He is a past board member of several organizations and served on the Board of Directors of the Saudi Umran society, was a Member of the Saudi national consulting committee for setting the national assembly for disabled, and a Member of the consulting committee, Prince Salman Research Center for the Disabled.

Andres Balcazar - MEXICO - Director

Andres Balcazar has a Bachelor of Architecture from Mexico's National Autonomous University (Mexico City). He currently works as an architect and accessibility consultant. In addition, is he a Professor of the undergraduate course "Universal Design in Public Spaces," in the Faculty of Architecture's Department of City Planning, at Mexico's National Autonomous University, Faculty of Architecture. He co-developed an online course about the basics of disability and universal design for Iberoamericana University (Mexico City).

He was a contributor to the International Best Practices in Universal Design : A Global Review and served on the expert panel to determine the best practices, and has completed Accessibility Assessment and Recommendations for the Mexican Congress facilities.

Susan Daniels - USA - Director

Susan passed away on October 20, 2011. Please read the tribute on our home page.

Susan Daniels was a nationally recognized expert and spokesperson on employment and disability policy. She had 25 years of executive experience in leading Federal agencies, academic institutions and philanthropic organizations through development, change and innovation. Daniels was a leader in advocacy, human rights and disability activism to achieve social justice and economic parity.

Daniels served as the Deputy Commissioner for Disability and Income Security Programs at the Social Security Administration in 1994-2000, where she spearheaded the disability and employment reform activities resulting in the passage of the "Ticket To Work And Work Incentive Improvement Act of 1999."

Daniels served as director, trustee or member of numerous charitable and community service organizations, national committees and international, national and state-level boards and committees, including the Disability Funders' Network, National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, The Ability Fund, United States International Council on Disability, and Rehabilitation International, to name just a few.

Daniels was also a frequent public speaker on policy and technical topics to the media, Congress, and other audiences. In addition, she was the author of numerous technical and non-technical publications. She was a member of many professional societies, including the American Rehabilitation Counseling Association, the American Association of Sex Educators, Counselors and Therapists, and the National Rehabilitation Association. She had a Ph.D, in Psychology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Betty Dion - CANADA - Past President

Betty Dion is a recognized International leader in accessibility of the built and virtual environments. She is the President of the Global Alliance on Accessible Technologies and Environments (GAATES), with members in over 100 countries.

In January 2005, Betty delivered a session entitled International Accessibility Standards at the United Nations, as part of the 5th Ad Hoc Committee Meeting on the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

Betty is the author of the international recognized seminal document International Best Practices in Universal Design: A Global Review (2005) and the International Best Practices in Universal Design: A Comparative Study (2000). These reports provided technical specification on accessibility codes and standards in Australia, Spain, Uruguay, Lebanon, Canada, the US, Bangladesh, Singapore, South Africa, Mexico, Ireland and Sweden. Betty has spoken extensively in Arab cities and elsewhere on accessibility issues relating to universal design and accessibility in the areas of transportation, and the built environment.

Betty co-authored the UNESCO Accessibility Guidelines for Community Multi-media Centers in 2007. She participated in the World Summit on the Information Society in both Tunisia and Geneva participating in presentations at the UNESCO event as well as the Global Forum on Accessibility of Information and Communication Technologies.

Ahmed El Rida - LIBYA - Director

Ahmed is an architect from Libya who has had a keen interest in the area of accessibility for the past 26 years. He is a graduate of the University of Garyounes - Begnhazi (1987) and a wheelchair user.

El-Rida has focused his work on creating an understanding of a Design for ALL approach through his private engineering consultancy firm ATTAYSEER. In fact, ATTAYSEER is the only firm in the country, and one of the very few in the whole Africa and Arab region, which specializes in accessibility consulting, and is the place where many students of engineering go to for internships.

El-Rida has worked as an accessibility consultant on many projects in Libya, including the Arab medical university, children's theater, culture auditorium, and many schools and public buildings. In addition, he has presented papers on accessibility at local, national and international conferences and workshops.

Amanda Gibberd - SOUTH AFRICA - Director

Amanda Gibberd is one of the directors of Gauge, a practice dealing with inclusion and sustainability of buildings in South Africa. Through the practice she works for the Department of Public Transport and is responsible for universal design and environmental access monitoring of public transport projects. She has a remit to translate South Africa's Action Plan of the Accessible Public Transport Strategy into a Programme of Action that can be implemented over the next three years, and to monitor its implementation. She is currently involved in over-seeing the roll-out of the Bus Rapid Transport systems in the country, the new system of accessible public transport. There are two systems running at present, in Cape Town and Johannesburg, with more coming on line.

Amanda represents South Africa on the International Standards Office committee on Accessibility and the Built Environment and sits on the national sub-committee on the part of the building regulations that affects universal design and the built environment.

Over the past three years Amanda has worked on a range of projects for Corporate and Public clients on universal design and environmental access. These range from undertaking audits and appraisals of buildings, the development of strategies and policy, the publication of guidance and implementing training courses. She is well recognised in South Africa and has worked for a number of national government departments including Transport, Education, the Department of Land Affairs and the Presidency.

Amanda trained as an occupational therapist in the UK and qualified at the Architectural Association School of Architecture with a post graduate diploma in Environmental Access. She worked for the Centre for Accessible Environments in London as the centre's trainer and ran various national series of courses on inclusive design. She also undertook access audits. She then worked at the University of Reading in the UK developing and managing the MSc in Inclusive Environments.

Søren Ginnerup - DENMARK - Director

Søren Ginnerup is a Senior Consultant for the Danish Building Research Institute and a past Senior Consultant for the Danish Centre for Accessibility.

He has recently been working on the Development of SBi Directions 216 of the Danish Building Regulations on Accessibility. He has worked on research projects on Moisture proof level access to buildings as well as accessible housing mapping, labelling and web-services.

Søren has extensive Training experience and has developed Training modules on Design for All for architects, municipal road and building staff, private companies.

He is a Member of the Danish Standards S-379 Accessibility for All working group, and the ISO/TC 59 SC 16 WG Accessibility and Usability in the Built Environment, which address Accessibility to buildings, grounds and recreational areas.

Monika Anna Klenovec - AUSTRIA - Director

Monika Anna Klenovec is a graduated architect and civil engineer, as well as a lecturer focusing on Universal Design and Barrier-free Buildings at the Faculty of Architectural and Regional Planning, Vienna University of Technology in Austria. She also serves as Chair of the UN NGO Committee on Ageing in Vienna and since 2006 as Founder and Chair of the design for all - Centre for Inclusive Environments. She has over 15 years professional experience in standardization management in the built environment within Austrian Standards Institutes on national, regional and international level, As an architect and with her extensive experience as standardization expert for the Austrian Consumer Council and within ANEC she works in several fields of accessibility standardization on the national, CEN and ISO level. In this position she has been involved with all aspects of accessibility in the built environment, with the design of fire escape routes and emergency exits for all including persons with disabilities. Since 2009 Ms. Klenovec has been announced by the Austrian state as legally certified expert on Universal Design and on accessible building design.

Chuck Letourneau - CANADA - Secretary

Chuck Letourneau is the president and lead consultant for Starling Access Services, an Ottawa-based Web accessibility consulting company. Chuck was co-chair of the W3C's first "Web Content Accessibility Guidelines Working Group" for the Web Accessibility Initiative. He has led Web accessibility projects for the Canadian and US Federal governments and is regularly invited to speak on the subject at conferences in Canada and abroad. Chuck also has expertise in the area of accessible procurement practices.

Aqeel Qureshi - INDIA / JAPAN - Vice President

Aqeel Qureshi is an Accessibility Consultant who has been working on accessibility issues and universal design. He has more than 10 years of experience working with disability organizations. As the Manager of the online newsletters Disability News India (DNI) and Disability News Asia (DNA), his work continues to generate awareness and sensitivity among policy makers, public and private authorities, officials responsible for providing services and assistance to persons with disabilities. His online newsletters facilitate dissemination of information on disability issues and collaboration with other organizations and ensure they are kept informed about the ongoing policy developments and disability movements across the country and around the world. He has worked as a Senior Project Coordinator for the National Centre for Promotion of Employment for Disabled People (NCPEDP) where he was responsible for Disability Access Audits, making disability access reports and working to build environment, public transportation & making information accessible to persons with disabilities.

As a disability rights campaigner, he has actively advocated for the rights of people with disabilities in the areas of accessibility of public places, public transportation and web accessibility. He was selected as a trainee of the 4th Duskin Leadership Training in Japan, one-year Training Course on Disability and was trained on Universal Design, Barrier-Free Environment and Assistive Technology.

Mohammed Tarawneh - JORDAN - Director

Mohammed Tarawneh, is the Chair of the UN Committee on the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, and has demonstrated outstanding leadership and dedication throughout the development of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

He has over 24 years experience in both public sector and international development, Mohammed Al Tarawneh is a highly experienced senior Director, having working as the Director of Special Building Codes in the Municipality of Greater Amman- Jordan; and as Chief Advisor to United Nations Special Rapporteur.

Bob Topping - CANADA - Treasurer

Bob Topping is a Canadian architect who has focused his work for over 20 years on accessibility issues and universal design.

Bob has worked as an accessibility consultant on many high-profile projects in Canada including the Air Canada Centre, Ricoh Coliseum, Windsor Casino and the Four Seasons Center for the Performing Arts. As the author of numerous municipal accessibility design standards, and through his work on technical committees for both Canadian and international accessibility standards, Bob has extensive experience in accessibility-related legislation and standards development.

Bob has authored and presented papers on accessibility and universal design at local, national and international conferences and workshops. He also teaches courses on accessibility and universal design within undergraduate programs at the University of Toronto and the Sheridan Institute of Technology and Advanced Learning.

Cynthia Waddell - USA - Vice President

Cynthia Waddell is a well-known advocate for fair and equal treatment of people with disabilities under the law. She has spoken in many places on the subject of the Internet and the fair and accessible presentation of information for everyone. Internationally recognized as an expert in the accessible design of electronic and information technology as well as employment and construction, Cynthia Waddell is Executive Director of ICDRI.

Cynthia can be credited with a wide variety of papers, presentations and legal resources on the subject of access to electronic and information technology. Of particular interest is the seminal paper "The Growing Digital Divide in Access for People with Disabilities: Overcoming Barriers to Participation" which was commissioned by the U.S. government for the first national conference on the impact of the digital economy in May 1999. Presentations include those given at the request of several U.S. State and Federal officials, private sector interests and the international community.

Ilene R. Zeitzer - BRAZIL - Director

In 2002, Ms. Zeitzer retired from the U.S. Social Security Administration (SSA) after 25 years to open her own consulting firm, Disability Policy Solutions. Prior to that, she was the Agency's specialist on international disability programs and rehabilitation issues. An internationally recognized expert on disability policy, she has published numerous articles in the U.S. and abroad. She is a frequently invited speaker, and consultant for the World Bank, the International Labor Organization, private firms and individual governments and organizations concerning operational and administrative disability-related issues.

Ernest G. Tannis - CANADA - Honourary Counsel

Ernest G. Tannis is a Solicitor and Mediator, and is the Hon. Legal Counsel for GAATES, since its incorporation as an NGO in 2007. He is a member of the Bar of the Law Society of Upper Canada in Ontario, since 1976, a Chartered Mediator with the ADR Institute of Canada, and an Accredited Family Mediator with the Ontario Association for Family Mediation.

Ernie has focused on social justice issues during his entire career, including being co-founder and now Honorary Office of Reach Canada www.reach.ca a charitable organization which provides pro bono legal services and educational programs for persons with disabilities, established in 1981 during International Year of Disabled Persons. He is Counsel to the law firm of Francis Loubert LLP, in Ottawa and also has his own law practice with Ernest G. Tannis Professional Corporation. He wrote the first book in Canada on ADR in 1989 — Alternative Dispute Resolution That Works! — now in a 2^nd 20^th anniversary edition release in 2010 in conjunction with his new book Is Everyone at the Table? 18 Life Lessons in Problem-Solving.

He is President of ADR Centre (Canada) Inc. which has created a program called All A Board™ to advise NGO's and Charities on the new transitional requirements under the Canadian Federal Not For Profit Corporations Act which came into legal effect on Oct. 17^th 2011, in the areas of information of the legal procedures, integration of ADR into the organization, and Good Governance.

His endeavors embrace activities and initiatives on a local, national and international level, applying his theme of world peace through inner peace, and a philosophy that when the world is no longer under your feet, all you have left to stand on is what you stood for.