accessibility on the web and why it's a good idea

As part of my duties over at netivity.co.ke, I have to ensure that the sites designed and the applications developed are accessible to anyone with access to the internet.
In this day and age and with our infant internet industry, mobile phone browsers are a major means of internet access and old underpowered machines being the only way in which millions of others will be able to access the internet for the foreseeable future.
Designing standards compliant web sites and applications is not easy but it does in a very long way in ensuring that anyone who visits the website shall be able to access the content within.
When any device is being equipped with the ability to surf the internet, the manufacturers only hope of ensuring that it can access the majority of pages on the internet is to ensure that it can read standards compliant pages in the desired manner, thus designing a web page/app in a standards compliant manner ensures wide accessibility before any extra modifications are made.