Saba Hocek is one of few women who were pioneers in the assistive technology field. Hocek, along with her brother, Adam, formed Ad Hoc Systems in the early 1980s and produced the first optical character recognition system for personal computers. Ad Hoc Systems preceded Kurzweil and Arkanstone by at least two years, but eventually was driven out of business by Arkenstone's not-for-profit business model. Since Hocek closed the business in the early 1990s, she has worked as a mainstream computer specialist, occasionally providing assistive technology services to a few longtime clients.
Born in New York, Hocek's family also lived in Turkey, Austria, and Iran over the course of her childhood, and were living in Tehran at the time of the Iranian revolution.
