Congratulations to Susan Mazrui, current director for Public Policy at AT&T and a former AFB Trustee, who received the 2016 Stephen Garff Marriott Award! The award honors a blind or visually impaired individual who has served as an extraordinary mentor or who has attained remarkable professional success.
Mazrui currently works on disability-related public policy issues and serves as the co-chair of the Federal Communications Disability Advisory Committee. She also serves on the board of the U.S. International Council on Disability and the Disability Equality Index advisory committee. Learn more about Susan Mazrui's contributions to the field.
It was a packed house at the Cerebral/Cortical Visual Impairment: A National Conversation track today:
The American Foundation for the Blind and the American Printing House for the Blind teamed up to sponsor this intensive workshop. It is designed to unite a core group of people who will work together to build upon prior knowledge, initiate research, and discuss best practice interventions in support of the CVI population.
Highlights from this afternoon's AccessWorld® Magazine Tech Summit and Showcase:
- An accessibility update from Eve Andersson of Google Access, who showcased the automatic verbalization on Google graphs, and encouraged everyone to sign up to give Google feedback.
- Sarah Herrlinger, of Apple Global Accessibility, stressed that "We build accessibility into the core of our products...Instead of asking 'Why would you make a camera accessible to the blind?' Apple asked 'How can we do it?'" Herrlinger demonstrated how we might navigate cities with the built-in haptics on an Apple Watch.
- Greg Stilson of Humanware spoke on using technology as a blind person and what the future holds for accessibility.
- Jeff Weiland of Facebook and Larry Goldberg of Yahoo introduced teachaccess.org, an initiative bringing industry, academia, and advocacy together to create models for teaching and training students of technology to create accessible experiences.
- Darren Burton demonstrated Yahoo's accessible apps for iOS and Android. (Visit AFB's Product Database for more information on Accessible Mobile Apps.)
- TV needs to be accessible, too. Thomas Wlodkowski wrapped up the AFB Leadership Conference Tech Summit with an update on Comcast's accessibility initiatives, and stated that "people with disabilities need to be partners in the development of technology."
Follow the #AFBLC hashtag and @AFB1921 on Twitter for live updates from the conference, and join in the conversation!
