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12.10

Harnessing the Cloud To Serve Individuals With Disabilities

This summer, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski announced a national Accessibility and Innovation Initiative during remarks at the 20th Anniversary Celebration of the Americans with Disabilities Act.

According to Genachowski, “we’ve made real progress on our goal of empowering Americans with disabilities to communicate with anyone, anywhere, at any time; to have real access to education, jobs, and health care; and to participate fully in our economy, our democracy, and the daily life of our society. Today, many Americans with disabilities can use communications technologies that would have been hard for any of us to imagine twenty years ago.”

Despite the progress, however, he noted that “only 42 percent of Americans with disabilities now use broadband at home, compared to 65 percent of the entire population. People with disabilities are at an unacceptable disadvantage in connecting with the world today.”

Helping enable persons with disabilities was one of the priorities outlined in the new National Broadband Plan, and FCC is pursuing several initiatives designed to advance that cause. Earlier this Fall, FCC requested public input on how wireless devices — including smart phones — can be made accessible to people who are blind or have low vision, including those who are both deaf and blind.

FCC also announced the establishment of the Chairman’s Awards for Advancement of Accessibility (or Chairman’s AAA). The AAA Awards will be given to pioneers in accessibility and innovations. Contenders could be individuals or organizations, public and/or private entities, academics, students, application developers, and represent mainstream or assistive technology industries. In addition to recognizing the development of individual mainstream or assistive technologies introduced into the marketplace, the awards could also recognize other accessibility advancements, such as the development of standards or best practices that foster accessibility, or the development of a new consumer clearinghouse of disability-related products and services.

The Chairman’s AAA is open to any individual or entity in the public or private sector. This year, the product, service, technology, or practice must be available and promoted publicly until 1 May 2011. In the future, the FCC will consider available and publicly promoted advancements that occur during a 12-month period prior to the award’s announcement.

More recently FCC in partnership with the Coleman Institute for Cognitive Disabilities at the University of Colorado announced a “challenge” entitled “Lifted by the Cloud: Visions of Cloud-Enhanced Accessbility”. The challenge invites individuals to create a multimedia presentation of an idea or concept for how cloud computing can create new opportunities for people with disabilities. The presentation can use any combination of video, audio, photos, graphics, text, or other presentation media, with any natural language, as long as it is accessible to a broad audience, including people with disabilities. A panel of judges will review the submissions and select three prize winners. The deadline for entries is 1 May 2011.

For more information on the Cloud Computing Challenge, see: http://challenge.gov/FCC/82-lifted-by-the-cloud-visions-of-cloud-enhanced-accessibility

Or visit the FCC’s Accessibility and Innovation website at: www.broadband.gov/accessibilityandinnovation

Comments may be submitted to todaysengineer@ieee.org.