Employment and Career Exploration Advice and More: AFB CareerConnect Launches the CareerConnect Blog
The American Foundation for the Blind's (AFB) CareerConnect Program launched its new CareerConnect Blog on July 1st. AFB CareerConnect is a member of the AFB family of websites. The program provides career exploration, employment information, e-mentoring, and tips and advice on navigating the employment process as a person who is blind or visually impaired. The new blog will provide updates, tips, and advice in an informal and current format. Bloggers for the new CareerConnect Blog will include CareerConnect Program Manager, Joe Strechay, and Employment Specialist, Detra Bannister. There will also be many other contributors to the blog in the coming months.
The new CareerConnect Blog has recently included posts about the launch of the new "Lesson Plans for Teachers and Professionals" section. Mr. Strechay has provided some of his stories from the road, and he has created posts including useful tips and advice for job seekers. Ms. Bannister has posted about the launch of the newly reorganized "Our Stories" section, which is packed with success stories about people who are blind or visually impaired. Check out these posts and many others.
Visit the CareerConnect Blog now!
CEA Foundation Supports Lighthouse International
The CEA Foundation, a charitable organization affiliated with the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA), announced its support of Lighthouse International with a grant to support its patient resource and communications center. This center assists thousands of people with visual impairments each year in New York and online across the country to maximize their use of technology.
"Having had an opportunity to visit Lighthouse International's building and meet with their staff, I am excited to announce the CEA Foundation's support of their center," said John Shalam, chairman of the CEA Foundation. "Regardless of age, this center helps those with visual impairments utilize the latest technology to assist with daily activities."
This grant will help equip the center with devices and staff necessary to assist the visually impaired. Lighthouse instructors, knowledgeable about the functional aspects of low vision, will assist low vision patients, particularly regarding daily activities and the nature and variety of optical devices available. Visitors will receive demonstrations, advice, and guidance on the latest technology, including e-readers, mobile phones, tablets, and mobile apps that are changing the lives of people with impaired vision.
"Technological advances afford people who are visually impaired greater access to information and resources, allowing them to be fully independent in their lives," said Mark G. Ackermann, president and CEO of Lighthouse International. "The CEA Foundation, a national leader in utilizing technology to help people with disabilities, is an ideal partner for Lighthouse International as we work to ensure a level playing field for people of all ages living with vision loss. The Lighthouse is grateful to the CEA Foundation for its generous philanthropic support and we look forward to working together to further our mutual missions of serving those most in need."
"We are excited to assist Lighthouse International in being able to identify technologies that can assist people with vision loss," said Steve Ewell, executive director of the CEA Foundation.
About the CEA Foundation
The CEA Foundation is a public, national foundation affiliated with the Consumer Electronics Association. It was established with the mission to link seniors and people with disabilities with technologies to enhance their lives. The Foundation is focused on strategic support of programs to impact these communities and has launched its first series of grants in 2012. It also serves to facilitate dialog among industry, consumers, government, advocacy groups, and other key stakeholders around important issues.
About Lighthouse International
Founded in 1905, Lighthouse International (800-829-0500) is a non-profit organization dedicated to fighting vision loss through prevention, treatment, and empowerment. It achieves this through clinical and rehabilitation services, education, research, and advocacy.
BrightFocus Foundation Announces $7.2 Million in New Grants for Alzheimer's and Vision Disease Research
BrightFocus Foundation, a nonprofit organization that funds innovative, early-stage research on Alzheimer's disease and the vision diseases of glaucoma and macular degeneration, recently announced grant awards totaling more than $7.2 million to 53 scientists in 16 states and four foreign countries.
The funded research projects reflect the full range of new tools and innovations in imaging technology, gene therapy, and cell regeneration that scientists are using to better understand how diseases of mind and sight develop. Study results could lead to new therapies to prevent or treat these diseases.
"Investment in research has advanced our understanding of Alzheimer's and vision diseases," said BrightFocus President and CEO, Stacy Pagos Haller. "Now, thanks to new developments in genetics, neurology, and imaging, the potential for scientists to make groundbreaking research discoveries is taking off. BrightFocus Foundation is more committed than ever to making this cutting-edge research possible, particularly at a time when government research funding levels are stagnant."
BrightFocus has provided $130 million to date in research funding, awarding more than $26 million for research on diseases of mind and sight in the last four years alone. This year's grantees include researchers from across the US as well as Australia, Great Britain, Ireland, and Israel.
Alzheimer's Disease Research
Alzheimer's is a devastating degenerative disease that irreversibly destroys memory and other brain function over time. BrightFocus-funded scientists are studying various ways in which the "memory pathways" in the brain (the systems by which brain cells communicate) can go awry in this disease.
Some researchers are investigating whether certain chemicals control the "switches" to these pathways. Others are using highly refined brain imaging or magnetic brain stimulation techniques to learn more about pathways, and some are using cell-based therapies to try to restore the brain circuits made during memory formation. Still others are studying how problems with brain blood flow contribute to Alzheimer's disease.
Glaucoma Research
For all three diseases, scientists want to know how inflammation and the body's immune response system may be involved, making the body turn against healthy cells in the brain or eyes. Several glaucoma researchers are examining the mind-eye connection and why changes in the brain may contribute to the development of glaucoma long before vision loss occurs. Early detection is particularly important for glaucoma. In the US an estimated half of the three million people with glaucoma may not know they have the disease.
Macular Degeneration Research
New cell-based and gene-based therapies may help stop the nerve damage and the loss of the eye's retinal cells involved in macular degeneration. The latest cell regeneration techniques may allow scientists to restore damaged eye cells or generate new healthy ones. Researchers are also investigating the mysterious presence of micro RNAs, a large group of small molecules that may affect the functioning of the retina in macular degeneration as well as brain functions in Alzheimer's disease.
About BrightFocus Foundation
BrightFocus Foundation, formerly the American Health Assistance Foundation, is a nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing brain and eye health, by funding research worldwide on Alzheimer's disease, macular degeneration, and glaucoma. BrightFocus also provides the public with information about these diseases, including risk factors, current treatments, and coping strategies. Read more about the new grant projects. For more information, contact Alice Kirkman, BrightFocus marketing and communications manager.
American Council of the Blind Elects New President
In a historic unanimous vote, American Council of the Blind (ACB) elected Kim Charlson as its first-ever woman president. She has been a key player in efforts to make ATMs talk, has consulted with federal officials on quiet cars and accessible currency, and helped pioneer audio description for movies and television. Her election in Columbus, Ohio at ACB's annual conference makes Charlson the first woman president of a major national blindness consumer advocacy organization in the United States.
Dedicated to breaking down barriers and setting sights on new horizons, Charlson has been the director of the Perkins Library based in Watertown, Massachusetts since 2001. In that role, she led one of the first libraries to bring talking books into the digital age along with many other innovative programs. She joined Perkins as Service Management Librarian and Assistant Director in 1985.
Charlson has served as First Vice-President of the American Council of the Blind since 2007. She is an internationally renowned expert on library services for people with disabilities, information access, and literacy through braille. She has served on a number of committees for the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped of the Library of Congress (NLS), represents ACB on the Braille Authority of North America, and serves as one of two ACB representatives to the World Blind Union North American/Caribbean Regional board.
In her home state, Charlson chairs the Massachusetts Department of Education's Braille Literacy Advisory Council, represents the concerns of voters who are blind, and has served on the Governor's Advisory Council on Disability Policy, the Braille Revival League, and as president of the Bay State Council of the Blind, Guide Dog Users Inc. Among numerous honors and awards, she was inducted into the Massachusetts Library Association Hall of Fame in 2004, and the Boston Celtics Shamrock Foundation named her a "Hero among Us" in 2013.
Charlson's writing credits include a number of articles and contributions to books and treatises on braille, library services, and rights and accessibility for people with visual impairments. In addition, Charlson's book, "Drawing with Your Perkins Brailler," provides directions in print and braille on how to make create pictures in braille. Recently, she was a prime mover in ushering in the new united English braille code and, with the NLS, organized the first ever international Braille Summit on the Perkins campus.
Please participate in the Survey of User Needs!
The Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center for Wireless Technologies (Wireless RERC) is conducting a survey on how people with all types of disabilities do or do not use wireless technologies. Their Survey of User Needs (SUN) is about wireless products like cell phones and tablets. The purpose of the survey is to learn about how people with disabilities use this technology. It's also to learn about why some people with disabilities don't use these products. This information helps designers and engineers learn about the needs of people of all ages and with all types of abilities in order to make wireless products easier to use. Since 2001 more than 5,000 people with disabilities have taken this survey.
The survey is available in English or Spanish at the following links:
If you have questions or wish to complete the survey on paper, please contact John Morris at john_morris@shepherd.org or 404-367-1348.
Eyes on Success Radio Program Receives Award
The Eyes on Success radio program/podcast recently received the 2012 International Association of Audio Information Services (IAAIS) Program of the Year Award in the Consumer Information Category. The IAAIS represents over 140 services throughout the United States and in Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Japan and South Africa, distributing material to affiliated radio reading services.
In particular, the episode of Eyes on Success (then known as ViewPoints) that won the award was Show #1242: 10-17-12 Downloading and Reading Books on a Smartphone. As smartphones become more powerful and common, people have developed great apps for them. Hosts Peter and Nancy Torpey discuss and demonstrate how you can directly download books to, and read books on, a smartphone. Apps include Read2Go from Bookshare, Overdrive from public libraries, and an app from Learning Ally.
About Eyes on Success
This half-hour weekly radio program and podcast discusses products, services, and daily living tips for people with vision loss. It is available through radio reading services across the US and Canada, via three internet streaming services (ACB Radio, The Global Voice, and iBlink Radio), and to everybody else as a podcast. To date, the show has been downloaded in all 50 states in the US, eight Canadian provinces, and over 90 other countries on all the inhabited continents. Eyes on Success is hosted and produced by Peter Torpey and Nancy Goodman Torpey and distributed by WXXI Reachout Radio in Rochester, NY.
Eyes on Success has been airing weekly since January 2011. Prior to January 2013, the name of the show was ViewPoints. Other than the name, nothing has changed.
You can subscribe to the podcast or download individual shows via links on the Eyes on Success website. There, you will also find a brief description of each show, plus links to show notes with contact information for the products and services discussed in each episode.
To contact the hosts with questions, comments, or suggestions for future shows, send an e-mail. If you'd like to connect with other listeners of Eyes on Success, you can join a listener e-mail forum on GoogleGroups. You can also follow Eyes on Success on Twitter, or "Like" the show on Facebook.
Perkins School for the Blind, Helen Keller National Center, and FableVision will Lead the iCanConnect Campaign
Many thousands of Americans who have combined loss of hearing and vision may soon connect with family, friends, and community thanks to the National Deaf-Blind Equipment Distribution Program. Mandated by the 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act (CVAA), the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) established this new program to provide support for the local distribution of a wide array of accessible communications technology.
The FCC is also funding a national outreach campaign to educate the public about this new program. The iCanConnect campaign will be conducted jointly by Perkins School for the Blind in Watertown, MA, the Helen Keller National Center in New York City, NY, and FableVision of Boston, MA. iCanConnect will seek to ensure that everyone knows about the free communications technology and training that is now available to low-income individuals with combined hearing and vision loss. From screen enlargement software and video phones to off-the-shelf products that are accessible or adaptable, this technology can vastly improve quality of life for this population.
iCanConnect seeks to increase awareness about the availability of communications technology for this underserved population, so people who are deaf-blind and have limited income can remain safe and healthy, hold jobs, manage their households, and contribute to the economy and the community.
Information about the new equipment distribution program is available online at the iCanConnect website or by phone at 800-825-4595. Additional information is available through the online FCC Encyclopedia.
"With the right technology, people with disabilities can link to information and ideas, be productive, and move ahead," said Steven Rothstein, President of Perkins. "Perkins' most famous student, Helen Keller, exemplified the potential of a person who is deaf-blind. We are proud to have a role in this transformational program."
The CVAA, championed in Washington, D.C. by Congressman Edward J. Markey of Massachusetts and Senator Mark Pryor of Arkansas, acknowledges that advances in technology can revolutionize lives. Nearly one million people in the United States have some combination of vision and hearing loss. People with combined loss of vision and hearing as defined by the Helen Keller National Center Act whose income does not exceed 400 percent of the Federal Poverty Guidelines are eligible to participate in the new program.
"The mission of the Helen Keller National Center is to enable each person who is deaf-blind to live and work in his or her community of choice," explains Executive Director Joe McNulty, adding, "This critical technology access program accelerates those efforts but only if people know about the resources. iCanConnect is poised to get the word out, coast to coast."
"FableVision's mission is to help ALL learners reach their full potential," said Paul Reynolds, CEO of FableVision Studios. "With this program we advance that mission, helping spread the word about equal access to tools that offer those with hearing and vision loss the transformational power of technology." Reynolds adds, "Now everyone is invited to the technology promise powering the human network."
My Blind Spot, Inc. to Enable Access to Intuit QuickBooks:
Blind and Print Disabled Individuals to Gain Access to Leading Small Business Accounting Software
My Blind Spot, a not-for-profit dedicated to advancing personal independence and societal inclusion for the blind and visually impaired, is working with Intuit to ensure that QuickBooks for Windows*, the leading small business accounting software, is usable by those with conditions that impede them from reading text on-screen. Albert J. Rizzi, founder of My Blind Spot, stated that "improving the accessibility of QuickBooks will lead to job opportunities, job retention, and greater financial independence for this historically underserved population."
The blind and visually impaired number an estimated 300 million worldwide. In the United States, there are approximately 25 million severely visually impaired individuals, of whom 18.7 million are of working age—between 18 and 64. Among this group, it is estimated that more than two-thirds are unemployed; 8.5 million are counted as "poor" or "near poor;" and 10.4 million have family income of less than $35,000. This is due in large part to inaccessible work environments and inadequate resources. A key way to foster financial well-being and overcome barriers to employment is to promote and advance screen reader technology, through which users can listen to text.
Mr. Rizzi noted, "Expanding employment and improving accessibility are two major goals of My Blind Spot. To work toward these goals with a product that over 4 million people already rely on is very exciting. My Blind Spot's team of educators and accessibility experts are thrilled to bring QuickBooks to the blind and visually impaired."
To learn more about this initiative or My Blind Spot, contact Albert Rizzi.
My Blind Spot is a 501 (c) (3) corporation based in New York City.
*Intuit, Inc.'s QuickBooks for Windows includes QuickBooks Pro, QuickBooks Premier, and QuickBooks Enterprise.
