CSUN: Keynote notes

Jonn Williams (Introduction).
Talked about the development of assistive technology.
Referenced two sites:
Assistive technology News: www.atechnews.com
My MS My Way: www.mymsmyway.com

Keynote: Jim Fruchterman

Raising the floor for people with disability.

Former Caltech rocket scientist.
Current social entreprenure: www.benetech.org
Makes software to track social injustice.
Also runs BookShare, providing accessible ebooks: www.bookshare.org

Williams' original idea: pattern recognition app for blind people.

Became involved with ocr to speech systems in 1970s. Projects transitioned into Arkenstone - which was organized as nonprofit.
Arkenstone succeeded through the 90s. Arkenstone bought by freedom scientific. Benetech emerged later with larger mandate, including human-rights.
Software for human rights groups, including who dif what to whom database. Ie Milosevic trial.

Other venture; BookShare. Community scans and proofs and uploads to the book share library.

Current vision for assistive technology
1 drop price by a factor of ten. As with other technology that has penetrated like cellular phones.
2 Cell phone seen as new platform for assistive technology.
3 Open source is third component.
Mentioned also creative commons.

Raising the floor granted 32 million to pursue free e-text and assistive technology.