A-Tech Review

The Best Accessibility Career

The best career I can think of to enter right now, especially if you have accessibility problems, is computer programming.

Getting your set-up together is tough, but once you do that you can start learning in many different directions.

Programming is no longer all about complex languages such as Fortran and Cobol. It's really a process of learning about new ways to direct computers. There are a host of skill sets where help is needed -- databases, security, scripting, administration -- and these don't require degrees.

I should add here that while I am technically "abled," and able to write rings around most people, I am hopelessly inept regarding computer programming and the use of computer tools. Consider this an admission of disability. I've covered the field for decades, and I admire people who are good at this, but I just can't do it.

If you can learn, then all you need is that experience. And you get that experience when you go online, when you learn any new skill, and when you display that skill.

Some more specific ideas follow.

15 Years Back

In many ways the assistive technology industry is 15 years behind the times.

Because the need for technology is so great, but the funds for technology are often so wanting, there is an active and valid market in assistive technology recycling, which no longer exists in the general market.

VocRehab Vermont has created a program for all of New England called GetATStuff. Each state has its own terms-and-conditions page, and the available devices are catalogued by type. Right now there is very little gear available, but that is going to change as word gets out.

One little-known political fact is that Vermont's state government has been Republican ever since Howard Dean left the Governorship in 2003. This is the kind of program which makes it so. Governor Jim Douglas is to commended for this, and I hope that other states follow suit.

Blind Fear Wafra Purchase of Freedom Scientific

The purchase by Wafra Partners, a private equity group based in Kuwait, of Freedom Scientific, which sells the market-leading JAWS screen-reader, is causing some fear among advocates for the blind.

Blind Confidential investigated and got a cool reaction from Freedom employees:

Communication with the FS rank and file has resulted in people telling BC sources, “we were brought into an ‘All Hands’ meeting and told that the company had been sold,” but no Freedom personnel is saying to whom the company may have been sold and details like the selling price remain undisclosed. Some FS employees have grumbled that their stock options turned out to be worthless but no one seems to know the threshold above which the company had to sell in order for the employees to make some money on the deal.

Make Accessibility Standard in Software

Accessibility needs to become a standard offering on Web page authoring tools. Right now, it's so difficult to maintain sites responding to screen readers that hardly anyone does so.

As Darrell Shandrow at Blind Access Journal notes, even the U.S. Senate can't meet the standards. There are great free tools out there like WebXact which can measure whether a site measures up, and the Web Access Initiative offers advice, but we really need software.

Price vs. Service in Assistive Technology

As the price of a product drops, and its market increases, the amount of service and support you can get on it goes down.

I first learned this important law from my late father. In the 1960s he ran a TV repair shop called TowerTV. He got out of the business in 1973 for personal reasons, but it turned out his market timing was excellent. TV repair quickly disappeared as chip technology made TVs more reliable. (This picture, believe it or not, was taken when my dad was 65. He passed away in 1999.)

And anyone who got into repair soon found that the same forces would work faster-and-faster as they moved up-market. Fact is it's now more expensive to repair a consumer video camera or PC than it is to just replace it.

That's what people do now. Lots of niches, like the one occupied by my friend Alex Randall back in the day, have virtually disappeared, and the biggest problem with the electronics industry today is its environmental impact -- pollution on the front-end, landfills on the back end.

Support, training, some help here? Fuhgetaboutit.

How to really celebrate Disability Awareness Day

Tomorrow, at Cal State Sacramento, they will be holding a Disability Awareness Day.

There will be technology demonstrations and " a tour of the Services to Students with Disabilities High Tech Center located in the Academic Information Resource Center, Rooms 2010 and 2011."

I know. I'm so excited I could plotz.

This is the kind of self-congratulatory group hug we usually see from well-meaning people, It's show-and-tell. And I should add, before continuing to sound snarky, that the University of California system is the most advanced in the world, when it comes to delivering assistive technology solutions to students.

But here are some alternate activities:

Assistive Technology and Mental Health

At this moment of horror and grief, I don't have answers. Just a question.

How can assistive technology help with our mental health challenge?

We already have many great tools for learning disabilities, such as Inspiration.

We need more tools for other mental health problems.

We need computer tools to assist in diagnosis. We need Internet tools to link people to the help they need. We need computer tools to assist in whatever remediation is possible.

What Will iCreate?

Singapore has decided to take the lead in assistive technology.

Its International Convention for Rehabilitation Engineering & Assistive Technology (i-Create) will be held at the Intercontinental Hotel in Singapore from April 24-26.

The conference is being held in conjunction with the 1st Tan Tock Seng Hospital, and will combine work on helping disabled work effectively with work on helping them become as able as possible.

Technology for Kids with LD

A blogger at Yahoo 360 has posted about technology for kids with learning disabilities.

I wish to comment on that here because I actually have some experience in this area.

Our daughter (right) was born with dyslexia. It was diagnosed at age 7. When she was 3, I remember sitting her down before a game called "Fun With Letters and Words", having her hit the keys and watch letters and words appear on a DOS screen. I never connected the dots. She would hit the same key again-and-again, she would finish a level and then repeat it, again-and-again. Something wasn't getting through.

The Market Charity Model

Most assistive technology is delivered with a charity model.

Governments and private entities, organized on a non-profit basis, unite to create solutions for clients.

This is not the only model for assistive technology.

What I would like to see more of is the market charity model. This is what the Skoll Foundation (right) promotes as social entrepreneurship.

This model first developed as dot-com millionaires and billionaires started setting up foundations to give away their money several years ago. The idea was that, instead of giving money to projects which would help people, they would give money to projects that would seek profits in helping people. In this way, they felt, their gifts would become self-sustaining.

Most of what we've seen at events like the recent SKOLL Forum and the CSUN Conference has been based on the charity model. While there is nothing wrong with such conferences, in creating solutions, I think they're all missing the ultimate point, which is self-sustainability and the market.

Social entrepreneurship, in other words, needs to accelerate.

It's possible many of the market charity foundations may also be missing the boat here. Instead of creating a single entity and sending that into the market, I think it would make sense to fund multiple entities, and to keep funding new entities as new ideas arise, in the same solution areas.