Three Promising Teams Win the AT&T NYU #ConnectAbility: Challenge Hackathon

An app that retrieves and transcribes images from Twitter, another that facilitates communication for people who cannot use their voices, and a third designed to prevent anxiety attacks earned $10,000 in prizes at the kickoff hackathon for AT&T and New York University's three-month Connect Ability Challenge.

The challenge–launched in recognition of the 25th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) this July–calls on makers, coders, and innovators to create and refine apps, wearables, and other technology that break down barriers to independence and self-expression, helping millions of people with disabilities.

Hosted by technical experts from NYU and AT&T, hackathon participants worked with exemplars—members of the disability community—who discussed the challenges they face in their daily routines and the kinds of tech they believe can help. All app developers who participated in the hackathon, as well as others who are contributing from around the world, will have until June 24 to build apps and submit them for judging in the Connect Ability Challenge. Then, on the 25th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act in July, AT&T and NYU will announce who will collect $100,000 in prizes to help bring their assistive technologies to life.

The winning concepts are:

  • First prize ($5,000): alt_text_bot, an app that uses image recognition technology to quickly describe images on Twitter so that people with visual impairments can participate more fully in social media.
  • Second prize ($3,500): StenoSpeak, a mobile app that improves upon open-source stenography technology to speed up text translation to a conversational pace for those who cannot use their voices to communicate.
  • Third prize ($1,500): Tranquil Tracker, a biosensing system that can predict and prevent anxiety attacks.

Fifteen teams presented to judges at the conclusion of the 36-hour hackathon at the NYU ABILITY Lab in Downtown Brooklyn. More than 100 hackers, makers, and innovators participated.

"On behalf of New York University, it's my honor to congratulate the winners of the Connect Ability Challenge hackathon, and I thank all of the participants for spending their weekend with us working to make a difference for people with disabilities," said R. Luke DuBois, associate professor of Integrated Digital Media at the NYU Polytechnic School of Engineering. "We encourage everyone to continue their work into the summer as part of the AT&T NYU Connect Ability Challenge. The nation's largest private research university is tremendously proud to be partnering with AT&T to support an active, engaged ecosystem of makers and developers interested in opening access for all."

"The ideas generated during these two short days have exceeded our expectations, and the energy and interest that the participants demonstrated in developing solutions for people with disabilities is astounding," said Anita Perr, clinical associate professor of occupational therapy at NYU's Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development. "I hope that they take these lessons with them and continue to address the needs of people with disabilities in their future work. We're fortunate to have a unique team come together for this challenge, from disability specialists and clinicians to engineers, designers, and developers–not to mention people from AT&T sharing their expertise in methods of connectivity and the input from our exemplars who are using their own experiences to push forward the technology available for people with disabilities."

The NYU ABILITY Lab leads the Connect Ability Challenge participation at NYU. This interdisciplinary research space within the Media and Games Network (MAGNET) in Downtown Brooklyn is a collaboration of the Polytechnic School of Engineering; the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development; and the Tisch School of the Arts in support of research and education across NYU.

Winners of the Connect Ability Challenge will be announced on July 26, which is the 25th anniversary of the ADA. For more information or to register for the challenge, visit the Challenge Post page for the Connect Ability Challenge and follow the latest news on Twitter using the hashtag #ConnectAbility.

Check out the Connect Ability videos below!

Introducing the AT&T and NYU Connect Ability Challenge marking the 25th Anniversary of the A.D.A.

Xian Horn describing her life and disability for the AT&T and NYU Connect Ability Challenge

Gus Chalkias describing his life and disability for the AT&T and NYU Connect Ability Challenge

AFB Press announces Vision and the Brain: Understanding Cerebral Visual Impairment in Children

AFB is very pleased announce the recent publication of Vision and the Brain: Understanding Cerebral Visual Impairment in Children, edited by Amanda Hall Lueck and Gordon N. Dutton.

Published by AFB Press, Vision and the Brain is a unique and comprehensive sourcebook of current knowledge about cerebral visual impairment (CVI) and best practices for working with children with CVI. It includes information from international experts, from a variety of professions, on how vision is affected by various disorders in the brain, methods of assessing children with CVI, and models of intervention.

Vision and the Brain is 720 pages long and is now available in paperback for $79.95. Electronic formats (e-book for $55.95; via online subscription for $47.95) will be available shortly.

New Release from National Braille Press: Everything You Need to Know to Use the Mac with Yosemite and VoiceOver

In the August 2014 issue of AccessWorld, Bill Holton reviewed the book Learn to Use the Mac with VoiceOver: a Step-by-Step Guide for Blind Users, written by Janet Ingber and published by National Braille Press. Almost one year later, Ingber has written a second book entitled, Everything You Need to Know to Use the Mac with Yosemite and VoiceOver. Also published by National Braille Press, this second volume expands on the first, and highlights features new to Apple's Yosemite operating system for the Mac.

If you have not yet purchased a Mac, you will find suggestions for deciding which Mac to buy. Also included is a discussion of how the various Mac keyboards are laid out, getting up and running with the VoiceOver screen reader for the first time, and getting help on using your Mac and VoiceOver.

The book provides numerous step-by-step instructions for performing common tasks such as working with e-mail, word processing, and file management. Ingber includes personal thoughts on how she uses her Mac in everyday situations, and provides multiple approaches to accomplishing most tasks.

There are a number of new features included in Yosemite, and the book highlights quite a few of them, including a section dealing with how to answer phone calls from your Mac instead of your iPhone. Expanded chapters on iCloud and the Keychain password manager may well make this newest release from Ingber and National Braille Press worth the price for many.

There is no way any one volume could satisfy the needs of every Mac user, and Ingber takes care of this problem by providing links to various resources at the end of the book. Available in plain text, electronic and hard copy braille, Word, and DAISY, you can purchase the book from National Braille Press for $22. Any electronic version of the book can be purchased on a USB drive rather than having to be downloaded from the Web.

Envision Peer Review Calls for Late-Breaking Abstracts for the 10th annual Envision Conference

The Envision Conference Peer Review Committee welcomes late breaking research abstracts from anyone involved in the area of visual research. Abstracts can be submitted by people in the professional and academic visual research community as well as applied psychology, low vision therapists, occupational therapists, and practicing ophthalmologists and optometrists.

Your abstract text must be submitted in Envision's required format to include four distinct parts with the following headers: Purpose; Methods; Results; and Conclusions. Abstracts will not be considered or reviewed unless all required fields are completed. Researchers may submit multiple abstracts.

Deadline for submissions is June 8, 2015.

The 10th Annual Envision Conference will be held in Denver, Colorado, September 9–12.

Envision's 10th annual conference will provide a multi-disciplinary forum for the exchange of ideas and information on approaches to low vision rehabilitation. Over four days, ophthalmologists, optometrists, occupational therapists, researchers, academics and other vision care professionals will attend sessions, view exhibits of the latest low vision products and services, and share knowledge from around the globe in an effort to improve approaches to minimizing the adverse impact of vision loss.

Matt Simpson, a champion goalball player and the membership and outreach coordinator for the U.S. Association of Blind Athletes, and Dr. Jeanne Derber, a Colorado Springs-based optometrist and director of vision services for the United States Olympic Training Center, will serve as co-keynote speakers at its 10th annual Envision Conference. The keynote address will take place during the Opening Plenary Session on Thursday, September 10. Full details of the 2015 program are available on the Envision website.

US Department of Labor launches Disability Employment Initiative Grants

$15M in Disability Employment Initiative grants to better serve the needs of youth and adults with disabilities seeking employment. Workforce agencies must apply by the June 11 deadline.

Americans with disabilities face many obstacles in life, including those that make their search for employment difficult. To help remove some of these impediments, the US Department of Labor is working to increase the ability of federal job training programs to serve youth and adults with disabilities through better collaboration and new partnerships at state and local levels.

The department recently announced the availability of approximately $15 million in grants through the Disability Employment Initiative to state workforce agencies to develop flexible and innovative strategies to increase the participation of people with disabilities in federally funded education and training programs.

"People with disabilities have enormous contributions to make to our economy and our society, but they remain disproportionately represented among our nation's unemployed," said US Secretary of Labor Thomas E. Perez. "We are working to change that by providing more training options that prepare these workers for good jobs. These grants will help build strong ladders of opportunity to the middle-class for these workers."

The grants are the sixth round of funding through the Disability Employment Initiative, a joint program of the Labor Department's Employment and Training Administration and the Office of Disability Employment Policy.

Since 2010, the department has awarded grants worth more than $95 million through the DEI to 37 state workforce agencies in 26 states to improve education, training, and employment outcomes of youth and adults with disabilities. The funds are used to refine and expand workforce strategies proven to be successful, and enhance inclusive service delivery through the public workforce system. Improvements include: increasing the accessibility of American Job Centers; training front-line AJC and partner staff; and increasing partnerships and collaboration across numerous systems that are critical for assisting youth and adults with disabilities in securing meaningful employment.

The department anticipates awarding eight grants—ranging from $1.5 to $2.5 million—to be spent in a 42-month period. Funding will be provided to at least one project for each of the following three target populations: adults with disabilities (ages 18 and older); youth with disabilities (ages 14-24); and individuals with significant disabilities (ages 14 and older).

Workforce agencies interested in applying for this funding should visit the federal grants website. The deadline to apply is June 11, 2015.

National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped (NLS) launches That All May Read Campaign

That All May Read, the motto of the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped (NLS), Library of Congress, is the name of the new NLS campaign designed to reach people with temporary or permanent low vision, blindness, or other physical disabilities that prevent them from reading or using printed materials.

The campaign allows people to learn more about the braille and talking book program on NLS's new website. On the website, you will find:

The That All May Read website will be updated regularly, so check back frequently to see what is new.

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