World leaders are meeting in Barcelona to debate full inclusiveness for people with disabilities

• Today, the president of Fundación Incyde and the Spanish Chamber of Commerce and the honorary president of Asociación Arapdis, José Luis Bonet, and the  Delegate of the Free Trade Zone Consortium, Pere Navarro, presented the Summit to be held on the dates of 7th and 8th November in Barcelona

• Fundación Incyde, of the Chambers of Commerce, has organised the event with the cooperation of the Barcelona Free Trade Zone Consortium, Fundación La Caixa and Asociación Arapdis.

• World leaders in fields such as education, employment, entrepreneurship, science, technology and research, as well as culture and sports, will be analysing the measures to be implemented in order to move towards a fully inclusive society.

Barcelona, 8/10/19.  Today, the president of Fundación Incyde and the Spanish Chamber of Commerce and the honorary president of Asociación Arapdis, José Luis Bonet,  the  Delegate of the Free Trade Zone, Pere Navarro, and Joana Prats, Director of the Department of Cooperation with Social Entities and Cross-cutting Projects of the “la Caixa” Bank Foundation, presented the “World Summit on Disability, Entrepreneurship, Technology and Employment of 2019,” to be held in Barcelona on the dates of 7th and 8th November at the Catalonia Palace of Congresses.

Through the organisation of Fundación Incyde of the Chambers of Commerce, with the cooperation of the Barcelona Free Trade Zone Consortium, Fundación La Caixa and Asociación Arapdis, for two days top international figures in fields such as education, employment, entrepreneurship, science, technology and research, as well as culture and sports, will be coming together at the Summit to promote action plans which achieve greater inclusiveness for people with disabilities.

Over one billion people around the world live with some sort of disability. In Spain alone, there are 3.8 million people who face numerous social and technical barriers in their everyday lives, hurdles that they must get over or minimise in some way.

As stated by the president of Fundación Incyde, José Luis Bonet, the Summit hopes to become a seed for “a change in paradigm, a new way of thinking in order to be able to understand disabilities and the people who make up this social group.”

During the presentation, he also highlighted the value of entrepreneurship as a crucial factor in inclusiveness. “Here at Fundación Incyde we know that the culture of entrepreneurship is necessary to ensure that society evolves constantly, but this evolution cannot be achieved unless it can rely on absolutely all of the individuals who make up society, especially those most disadvantaged.”

As for the special State Delegate to the Barcelona Free Trade Zone Consortium, Pere Navarro, he stated that “the countdown has already begun to turn the Sustainable Development Goals into a road map for awareness and action to turn the implementation of Agenda 2030 into a reality. Mankind cannot miss the boat on social justice, and the BFTZ hopes to be one of the driving forces behind it. Our commitment to the summit being presented today is complete. The labour market’s inclusion of people with disabilities must also form part of the economy of the future, and our commitment, as the Consortium, is to provide assistance for as many initiatives of this type as necessary.”

At the “la Caixa” Bank Foundation, the Director of the Department of Cooperation,  Joana Prats, emphasised that “our social commitment is based on building a better, fairer society that gives greater opportunities to the people who need them most. In the case of people with disabilities, through the Incorpora labour market inclusiveness programme, we have managed to create 6,614 jobs for people with disabilities all over Spain this year. Today we are reinforcing our commitment with the World Summit on Disability, Entrepreneurship, Technology and Employment.”

 Programme

The opening speech will be given by Nicholas Negroponte, a founder at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).  Also taking part in the opening event at the Summit will be New York University psychiatrist and professor Luis Rojas-Marcos; the Ambassador of Open Bionics, Tilly Lockey; the founder and CEO of the African literacy programme BBES International, Bisilia Bokoko, and the president of Waterkeeper Alliance, Robert F. Kennedy.

The summit has been designed around three large sets of themes crucial to minimising the current barriers that people with disabilities run up against:

• Education, Employment and Entrepreneurship
• Science, Technology and Research
• Culture, Sports, Human Rights and Ethics

The theme “Education, Entrepreneurship and Employment” will include Richard Gerver, an internationally acknowledged expert on educational innovation. The theme of “Science, Research and Technology” will bring together experts from the field of health and medicine, such as Robert Liberman and Volker Roder. The special envoy of the United Nations Secretary General for Disability and Accessibility, the Vatican, the Olympic Committee and the winner of 26 Paralympics medals,  Teresa Perales, will all be taking part in the final themed unit devoted to   ”Culture, Human Rights, Sports and Ethics.”

Similarly, the President of the Spanish Committee of Representatives of the Disabled (CERMI), Luis Cayo Pérez Bueno, and the Director General of Disability Policies in Spain, Jesús Celada, will be taking part in the Summit.

Further information and the full schedule by following this link