It's been a great conference in Phoenix, AZ, so far. Day 2 of our Leadership Conference is well underway! This annual conference, which kicked off yesterday and runs through Saturday, covers the most pressing and relevant topics in the field of blindness and offers many opportunities to learn from the best and brightest minds, make new connections, and reunite with old friends.
Stopping at booths in the CSUN exhibit hall last week, I saw a lot of innovative problem-solving. One of the problems I saw companies trying to solve was, simply put, how to make smart phones more usable for people who are not really users of technology, and who are blind or visually impaired.
Most years, there's a trend in the exhibit hall. A few years ago it was iOS — apps, hardware accessories, our old product now works with the iPhone, and so on. Last year it was STEM—science, technology, engineering, math (I know you knew that already) and every other booth had a solution — product, website, program, or new feature.
We're at CSUN! What is it? It's the huge Technology and People with Disabilities conference in San Diego. AccessWorld magazine always has a full highlights article after the conference has ended, but here I'll tell you about a few things I've seen. It's a little random, as I've spent most of my time in the exhibit hall, and I've skipped some booths because they were too crowded.
G3ict (The Global Initiative for Inclusive ICTs), an advocacy initiative of the United Nations Global Alliance for ICT and Development (UN GAID), is presenting the 2nd edition of the global conference and showcase, M-Enabling Summit on Accessible Mobile Technology for Seniors and Users of All Abilities next month.
From April 18-20, AFB hosted its annual flagship conference (formerly titled the Josephine L. Taylor Leadership Institute), together with Illinois AER, in Chicago. With over two dozen exhibitors and more than 400 attendees, we made many new friends and reconnected with old ones.