Profiles

Ron Hu emphasizes affordable, creative new approaches combined with simplicity of design. His recent Da Vinci Award for the KeyboardCommunicator and the successful SmartSpeakers for AlphaSmart systems showcase this approach.

This Innovator Profile of Jennifer Corriero spotlights the social networking platform for collaboration and activism which pays attention to inclusion and accessibility on a host of dimensions.

Find out how Fire and Ice is developing learning, collaborative action, and cultural relationships through web conferencing and social networking technology.

Read about WYNN, the literacy software designed with a graphic interface to accommodate a range of user needs and styles.

gh is an AT business success story. Find out how Dave utlized an incubator opportunity and venture capital to get started and how gh stays involved in standards and ahead of the development curve.

New York Times bestselling author, Dan Heath, co-author of Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die, is NCTI’s featured Innovator. Find out how can AT entrepreneurs make their visions more concrete and real for users.

Spark-Space mapping software allows users to visualize and organize ideas and documents in a 3-D spatial representation.

Australia’s ReadHowYouWant company configures text in a variety of formats to assist different types of readers recognize words more easily by manipulating or building new forms of cueing within the structure of text itself. Learn about the science and human story behind Chris Stephen’s entrepreneurial idea.

AbleNet is a company to watch given a unique business model that seeks to incorporate content and curriculum; software; assistive technology; and professional training into a single seamless solution for schools. AbleNet’s products are aimed primarily at students with severe/ profound to moderate disabilities, but the company also accounts for broad applicability to various populations.

Ray Schmidt knows communication devices inside and out – he is the designer of Cyrano, a device built with the HP iPAQ PDA, and is the father of a teenager who has used several communication devices through the years. These experiences give Ray incredible insight into the consumers – service providers and end users - of communication tools. The Cyrano is developed so that users can “build their own machines.”

Andrew Junker explores the background and possibilities of brain-activated technologies in this Innovator Profile. Brainfingers, an alternate computer access device, allows users to control any computerized technologies without touch, providing new means of feedback to those with even severe disabilities. Post comments and join Andrew online the afternoon of Wednesday, August 29, 2007 to discuss his profile and research.

Jason Hurdich represents a hopeful statistical anomaly, a person born Deaf who is not only employed, but impressively serving as the Lead Manager for the Sign Language Division and Chief Linguist at Vcom3D. Through their work, Jason and Vcom3D hope to make it easier for others to follow his lead.

Lars Liden (left) and Chris Whalen (right) are the cofounders of TeachTown, a system that incorporates therapeutic curriculum for children on the autism spectrum. Read more about how applied behavioral analysis and artificial intelligence can deliver a therapeutic curriculum.

Fraser Shein is the developer behind the successful WordQ and SpeakQ products. Read about Fraser’s background and business development model in the latest NCTI Innovator Profile.

Jim Schroeder chuckles a bit at the incongruity that his one-time work for the Army Research Institute preparing weapons simulation systems led directly to his AT products. It all began with a long-distance light pen he developed and patented in that early work. AHF now produces products targeted for persons with computer access and augmentative communication needs. Anecdotal reports suggest that persons with learning disabilities are using the programs to meet their unique needs, too. Various switches, pointing, and stylus devices can be used for input.

Larry Goldberg was keenly interested in technological “toys” since childhood. A self-described “geek from the AV (audio-visual) squad,” he began working with media in high school and studied cinema and broadcast journalism in college while working at TV and radio stations. This, coupled with a fierce commitment to “public service and the democratic applications of technology,” put him on a natural collision course with one of the most enlightened media organizations – WGBH in Boston.

Design Science may represent the future of technology inclusion companies: it is a mainstream producer of accessible mathematics authoring and workflow software for the publishing industry and science, technical, and medical fields with a universal design philosophy expressed in a belief that accessibility naturally arises as an integral component of good design using open-source standards.

Jim Fruchterman, CEO of The Benetech Initiative, has been awarded a 2006 MacArthur Fellowship from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Each of this year’s 25 MacArthur Fellows learned this week that they will receive $500,000 in “no strings attached” funding over the next five years.

Sight Enhancement Systems produces the Sci-Plus Series large display calculators capable of performing scientific, trigonometric, and statistical calculations.

Ai Squared produces ZoomText, a premier screen magnification and reading solution for computer access. Tim says that inputs for development come both from internal ideas and external feedback.

Chuck is intrigued by complexities in marketing speech recognition. He frequently refers to core functionality and the glitz and attraction of relatively new functionality by using the analogy of “the steak and the sizzle.”

Traxsys, a division of Esterline Corp., develops a range of alternative computer input devices including desktop and fascia or panel mounted trackballs, joysticks, and connectivity accessories.

When he had a “real job,” Tom was a clinical biochemist. He began Designer Appliances as a start-up using research on dynamic bio-mechanics of muscle and blood flow. A block of wood helped formulate his first conceptual model, leading to 5 or 6 fundamental iterations before going to market.

John is interested in the relationship between accessibility in the form of building architecture and access and that of information technology access. He has seen important gains for individuals with special needs arising from the Disability Discrimination Act in the U.K. Although he says “the snowball’s on the move.”

Ron is a self-described “techno-freak” and has worked with computers and electronics since he was a kid. Until recently, he owned an assistive technology vending company registered with the Canadian government. Through that work, he had a lot of contact with manufacturers of scanners, speech synthesizers, and other technologies that helped spark his desire to get back into design himself. “I was already familiar with the market, so to speak, and when I sold that business, I really wanted to get back into electronics more… this was a very good avenue for me to be able to design and play with new ideas.”

Annuska, the only female accessibility designer interviewed for this series of profiles, came to Microsoft Accessible Technology Group in 2000 by way of “an industrial engineering background.” She says, “I am really focused on customer research… a primary part of my job is making sure I’m understanding what the end user needs and then conveying that to the product developers, testers, and program managers on our team.”

Eye Tech’s hands-free eyetracking software and hardware systems permit alternative access to a full range of computing applications. Three models work with portable or desktop computers and the Eye Science software collects and analyzes gaze patterns.

TextHelp Systems makes a variety of software products, notably Read and Write Gold, which supports reading and the creation and editing of text for persons with literacy and learning difficulties.