Ask HN: How do I get in touch with technologically savvy blind people? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How do I get in touch with technologically savvy blind people?

8 pointstonteldoos15 comments

I have an idea for making digital devices more accessible for blind and poorly sighted people, at a fraction of the cost of current devices. However, not being either, and not knowing anyone that fits the criteria, I'd love to chat with a technically minded person (or a few) on the viability of the idea. Any suggestions or contacts, HN?

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I've started working as a developer for my country's government (Argentina) very recently.

I discovered that each and every website I build must be fully supported by screen readers and it must be entirely accesible.

There's this blind fellow that sits right next to me, with the task of checking out every single thing I do, in order to verify it works correctly for him.

He's very smart and a gadget freak. He walks around with his iPhone everywhere and loves to dabble in discussions with us about current technologies.

I'd be glad to hook you up. I'm not familiar with his English skills, but I'm willing to bet he'd do alright in a conversation. If not, I can surely act as an intermediary if that's ok for you.

Let me know!!

I worked for a company that built products for the blind. I did a quick search on the optacon, a product I did some work with, and came up with this site of a user: http://www.blindcanadians.ca/publications/cbm/6/support-opta... The company I worked for became "freedon Scientific". THis company makes a variety of enabling technology.

I work with a couple of pioneers in the industry, I would be glad to either check out your idea, or pass it on to my friends.

Unfortunately FS have created an expensive ($1k+) piece of software that is difficult to learn. I commend the OP for having the vision to innovate in this space.

I am not real familiar with "Jaws" which is what I think you are referring too. I had worked for the company that had been called Blazie Research. Blazie made "laptops for the blind", their products used a Z80 processor and a hardware based text to speech. The premium model had a braille output that had either 20 or 40 braille cells that were driven with piezo transducers. When I started we were tasked with building the next generation model based on the StrongArm chip. It was a very cool project that was lost in a venture capital based merger.

At my university there are ~3-5 CS/ACT majors who are legally blind and very tech saavy, so maybe check there too as I'm sure they'll have some interesting suggestions

There was a story here on HN about a dev who spent a week 'blind' to test his website accessibility. A few blind developers showed up in the thread, maybe try to contact them. (I tried to find the thread but couldn't, will update this if I do)

Edit: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5020421

Hap Holly, KC9RP. Blind since birth, long time ham radio operator. His website is http://www.therainreport.com/abouthap.shtml.

Ham Radio has a long tradition of connection with blind or otherwise "handicapped" folks.

Thank you! :)

The Accessibility Internet Rally in Austin used to have someone from the University of Texas as a judge. I think he worked at the disabilities studies lab. http://www.knowbility.org/

Thank you for the comments everyone!

I will be following up on them, but just need to do a bit of research (based on some comments below) to make sure I don't ask silly questions :)

Old friend of mine, Chelsea, would meet the criteria. Contact info at http://mashable.com/people/chelsea_stark/

Hit up @Jennison and @kevinrj on twitter — I've seen them both do talks at conferences and they really know what they are talking about.

Reddit has a subreddit just for that.

http://reddit.com/r/blind

What's your contact info? I have a friend who meets your criteria.

email in profile

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