Dear AccessWorld readers,
It has been one busy, action-packed time at AccessWorld lately! We just wrapped up with CSUN, and we are now in the throes of preparing for the American Foundation for the Blind Leadership Conference. If you will be in the Phoenix area, AFB and the Arizona AER hope you will attend our jointly hosted 2015 Leadership Conference: "Rising to the Challenge." The conference takes place at the Renaissance Phoenix Downtown Hotel, April 9–11.
AFB and the AccessWorld team would like to thank our generous conference sponsors: JPMorgan Chase & Co., Delta Gamma, Google, AudioEye, Inc., IBM, Vanda Pharmaceuticals, CTIA, OpenText, Sprint, AT&T, Canon, Comcast, Facebook, Freedom Scientific, Microsoft, NIB, HumanWare, APH, Helen Keller Services for the Blind, A.B. Data, and TracFone.
We are also grateful for our conference partners: Academy for Certification of Vision Rehabilitation and Education Professionals, Arizona Center for the Blind and Visually Impaired, Arizona Council of the Blind, Arizona Industries for the Blind, Arizona State Schools for the Deaf and the Blind, Foundation for Blind Children, Southern Arizona Association for the Visually Impaired, and The University of Arizona: Specialization in Visual Impairment.
The AFB Leadership Conference attracts established and emerging leaders in the blindness field. Conference attendees include technology experts, corporate representatives, university professors, teachers of students with visual impairments, orientation and mobility instructors, rehabilitation professionals, and parents. They come from diverse organizations and institutions spanning the public and private sectors, including school districts, schools for the blind, Veterans Administrations, hospitals, private agencies, and universities.
As in the past, this year's conference sessions are eligible for ACVREP and CRC CEUs and will focus on technology, leadership, employment, education, orientation and mobility, and rehabilitation. For the full conference agenda, please visit the AFB Leadership Conference 2015 Agenda page.
At the conference, AccessWorld will, once again, be sponsoring the AccessWorld Technology Summit. This full-day event will be made up of presentations from technology giants including Google, Apple, Yahoo!, Intuit, Canon, and Sprint among others. For more information on the AccessWorld Technology Summit, I invite you to visit the Technology Summit's agenda page.
In addition to the fantastic line up of workshops, educational sessions, panel discussions, and presentations planned for the conference, we have also planned for great weather! That's right, temperatures into the 80's are also awaiting you in Phoenix. Superb conference content complemented by sunny warm weather is just what we all need to help us as we emerge from this year's arctic winter, and in Phoenix, we will have both!
It's not too early to mark your calendars and save the date for AFB Leadership Conference 2016, which will take place March 3–5 in our nation's capital, Washington DC!
Sincerely,
Lee Huffman, AccessWorld Editor-in-Chief
American Foundation for the Blind
