The 8th International Conference for Universal Design in the Cloud 2021 -Seminar Series- Purport

The International Association for Universal Design (IAUD) will hold the "8th International Conference for Universal Design in the Cloud 2021 —Seminar Series—".

This is a general term for online international conferences that will be held multiple times as a prelude to the "9th International Conference for Universal Design in Dubai 2021 (tentative)" scheduled to be held in the autumn of 2021, and the first one is held on Friday 26 and Saturday 27, February 2021.

Purport is as below.

Purport

December 27, 2020

The International Association for Universal Design (IAUD) will hold the 8th International Conference for Universal Design, “Design for the Coronavirus Infection Prevention” on the internet in February 2021. The purpose of this conference is to take measures against the COVID-19, which still has been a big threat to all over the world.

Universal Design (UD) is generally defined as the creation of designs for equipment, buildings, and the immediate living environment that can be used by as many people as possible irrespective of age, gender, race, culture, customs, nationality, or ability. However, IAUD regards Universal Design as creating a society everyone respects human dignity each other, which is quoted from the declarative statement of the 1st International Conference for Universal Design in Yokohama November 2002. This definition is the same idea as “Universal Declaration of Human Rights”, adopted at the 3rd United Nations General Assembly on 10 December 1948.
Also, “Diversity & Inclusion”, the basic philosophy of Universal Design, is essentially the same as the principle of the SDGs, “No one should be left behind.” Therefore, it can be said that UD and SDGs are linked.

Subsequently to the first one, the International Conference for Universal Design was held in Kyoto in 2006, Hamamatsu in 2010, Fukuoka in 2012, the two cities of Tokyo and Fukushima in 2014, Nagoya in 2016, and Bangkok Thailand in 2019. The 8th conference was supposed to be held in Dubai, the second largest city in UAE in Autumn 2020, but due to the pandemic of COVID-19, World Expo 2020 in Dubai was postponed as well as the Olympic and Paralympic Games 2020 in Tokyo. The International Conference for Universal Design was no exception.

More than a year has passed since the outbreak of the new coronavirus, but there is no sign of convergence yet, and it will take four to five years for herd immunity to be acquired through vaccine development and natural infection, according to some experts. However, it is too reluctant and irresponsible to think that there is nothing we can do but to wait. We need to make our effort to find solutions for it based on scientific evidence, leaving aside the media reports such as the number of the infected people mischievously inflame people's fears.

According to a study at Colombia University in the USA, it is revealed that new coronavirus will become inactivated in terms of contagious trait and toxic effect by a few-minutes-irradiation of ultraviolet radiation with a wavelength of 222mn, which is harmless to human body. Some Japanese companies are now trying to develop this light source. In addition, research reports have shown that the coronavirus will become inactivated after 4 hours of being on the surface of copper and photocatalysts such as titanium oxide have antiviral effects. We need innovation design for infection prevention measures utilizing these scientific findings and we believe that it is the purpose and mission of this conference for the design thinking and dissemination.

IAUD aims to end the pandemic as soon as possible and revive a safe and secure society by bringing together the knowledge and wisdom of like-minded people around the world.
We sincerely ask for your understanding in our objectives, and for the widespread support and cooperation of people in various positions. We look forward to your active participation in this conference.

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