NCTI -

National Center for Technology Innovation
Advancing Technology Innovations for All Students

Innovators

  • Cheryl Volkman, Co-Founder & CEO Emeritus, AbleNet

    Posted on January 7th, 2008

    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.

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  • da Vinci Awards

    Posted on August 17th, 2007

    [ September 28, 2007; ] The National Multiple Sclerosis Society have recognized individuals and organizations for their outstanding design innovations aimed at helping the disabled overcome barriers and further empower all people. The 2007 winners will be honored Friday, September 28th at the da Vinci Awards gala at the Ritz Carlton in Dearborn, Michigan. Past winners include a Who’s Who of accessible design.

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  • Fraser Shein, President and CEO, Quillsoft Ltd.

    Posted on May 29th, 2007

    Join Fraser Shein, the developer behind the successful WordQ and SpeakQ products, to discuss his ideas on design, marketing, and literacy supports. He will be online blogging in response to comments and questions related to his profile between May 30 and June 6. You must be registered to comment on this and any other NCTI postings.

    Read more about Fraser’s background and business development model in the latest NCTI Innovator Profile.

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  • Jim Schroeder, Ph.D., CHFP - President, Applied Human Factors (AHF) Inc.

    Posted on March 16th, 2007

    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.

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  • Larry Goldberg, Director of the Media Access Group at WGBH

    Posted on January 22nd, 2007

    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.

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  • Ron Hu, President / Designer, Afforda Speech

    Posted on May 5th, 2005

    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.”

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  • Liberated Learning: A University/Corporate Partnership with Global Reach

    Posted on April 6th, 2005

    Liberated Learning is an automated captioning system that enables teachers’ lectures to appear on a screen as they speak. Students can read as the professor talks and, at the end of the session, the system provides a text transcript and multimedia notes available on line after speech recognition errors have been edited out of the system. This alternative to conventional note-taking for students with disabilities also provides help to non-disabled students—they, too, can use the final notes and can benefit from having a visual lecture as well as an auditory one. The tool assists a range of learners, including typically-abled, quadriplegics, second language learners, students with learning disabilities and people who are deaf or hard of hearing.

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Articles and Papers

  • Assistive Technology Group Recognized for its Efforts

    CanAssist, an 8-year old non-profit assistive technology group partially funded by the University of Victoria in British Columbia, Canada, was recently recognized with a grant of $704k for the over 150 projects it has completed, by request, for members of the differently abled community.

  • Da Vinci Award Winners

    The National Multiple Sclerosis Society have recognized individuals and organizations for their outstanding design innovations aimed at helping the disabled overcome barriers and further empower all people. The winners will be honored Friday, September 28th at the 2007 da Vinci Awards gala at the Ritz Carlton in Dearborn, Michigan.

  • Microsoft 2007 Imagine Cup

    The Microsoft 2007 Imagine Cup is an international competition with $25,000 as the grand prize with $170,000 given overall. Now in its fourth year, competition organizers are seeing student contestants take on the challenge of creating designs for users with disabilities. Final awards will be announced in August.

  • Software Allows Children to Create Their Own Technology

    Marina Bers, an assistant professor at Tufts University and the author of the new book, “Blocks to Robots,” has created a software program that aids in learning by letting children create their own virtual communities.

Websites

The following links are to outside resources and are not contained on this site.

  • INDEX: the Global Non-Profit Network Organization

    INDEX: is a non-profit network organization - based in Copenhagen - that focuses on Design to Improve Life worldwide. The organization works through a global network to ensure access to the best knowledge on design and the cutting edge of contemporary thinking.

    Through a wide range of activities and events, INDEX: is the catalyst for Design to Improve Life: an organization that spurs public and professional awareness of the great – and too often unnoticed – human and commercial potential of Design to Improve Life.

Tom Large, President and CEO / Designer Appliances Incorporated

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.

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Posted in: Accessibility, Assistive Technology, Innovators, Profiles

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