MIT I-Corps Customer Discovery Interviews

Please contact me! I would love to talk with you.New England Regional Innovation Node at MIT

I am conducting customer discovery interviews, which is the focus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Innovation-Corps program for my EasyText.AI startup (training AI to simplify web text for people with cognitive disabilities).

See my related blog post, “MIT Innovation Corps for EasyText.AI.”

Please contact me! Thank you!

MIT Innovation-Corps for EasyText.AI

New England Regional Innovation Node at MIT

New England Regional Innovation Node at MIT

I was just accepted to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Innovation-Corps program for my EasyText.AI startup (training AI to simplify web text for people with cognitive disabilities). I am excited!

The I-Corps Program will help me:

Notes

Two of my wonderful colleagues will join me.

I thank Philip Loew for accepting me into the I-Corps Program.

Accessibility and IoT / Smart and Connected Communities

Association for Information Systems

I recently published an article, “Accessibility and IoT / Smart and Connected Communities” in the journal of the Association for Information Systems (AIS).

The intended audience is user experience (UX) designers.

Article Content

  • How the Internet of Things (IoT) Can Best Work for People with Disabilities and Everyone
  • Independent Living
  • Loneliness
  • UX Accessibility
  • UX Security and Privacy
  • Smart Cities

Notes

2019 Boston Accessibility Conference – 11/2 – Register Now!


Register Now for the 2019 Boston Accessibility Conference!

Follow all the latest updates on @a11y_bos on Twitter.

When

  • Saturday, November 2, 8:15 AM to 4:00 PM

Where

  • Fidelity Investments Corporate Headquarters
  • 245 Summer Street, Boston, MA 02110
  • Close to Boston’s South Station

What

This is a conference about making technology accessible, especially the web. It is an opportunity for programmers, designers, developers, students, usability professionals, accessibility experts, and end-users to share information and learn from each other.

Who

Keynote Speaker: Jutta TreviranusInclusive Design Research CentreOntario College of Art and Design University

Organizers

2019 sponsors include my own program, INDEX, which has free information about programs, providers, and services for people with disabilities in Massachusetts. See DisabilityInfo.org. We build accessible web applications and online courses. See INDEX Technical Services. We also develop mass-scale, artificial-intelligence-driven Web text simplification for people with cognitive disabilities. See EasyText.AI.

Register Now for the 2019 Boston Accessibility Conference!

U.S. Federal Interagency Accessibility Forum

Federal Annual Interagency Accessibility Forum: Ensuring accessibility is a business imperative.
Today, I will be a panelist for the general session, Future Directions of Inclusive Technologies, at the United States Federal Interagency Accessibility Forum.

I will be speaking and answering questions about:

  • How can Artificial Intelligence (AI) help people understand what they read? (This relates to my EasyText.AI research.)
  • How can AI help people with disabilities live independently?
  • How can AI help people with disabilities gain and retain employment?
  • How we must not teach AI our biases.

Moderator

Betsy Sirk, Information Technology and Section 508 Program Manager, National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)

Panelists

AI Empowerment & Fairness, Japan

For the American Expert Speaker Program of the U.S. Department of State, I will give 3 presentations and participate in roundtable discussions in Tokyo, Fukuoka, and Beppu, Japan, from September 7 through September 23, 2019.

For two of them, I will focus on Artificial Intelligence (AI) empowerment and fairness for people with disabilities, especially how AI empowers companies to hire a more diverse workforce. This will include the work of my colleague, Frances West, author of Authentic InclusionTM: Drives Disruptive Innovation.

For one of them, I will focus on the functions and activities of the Eunice Kennedy Shriver Center and its INDEX Program, which I direct, as part of a larger discussion about independent living, the Internet of Things, and AI for people with disabilities. This will include my EasyText.AI research.

These activities are arranged and sponsored by the:

I am greatly honored that my presentations will be introduced by and/or the discussions will be moderated by the esteemed:

  • Ms. Kelsey De Rinaldis, Program Development Officer, Public Affairs Section, U.S. Embassy Tokyo
    • Audience: 5 to 10 NPO representatives, chief staff members of business entities, and researchers who work promoting using AI for accessibility.
  • Dr. Ken’ichiro Takashiba, Director of the Joint Surgery Center, Fukuoka Mirai Hospital / Vice-Chairperson, Fukuoka Triathlon 2019
    • Audience: about 60 rehabilitation and medical staff and doctors.
  • Mr. Hidekazu Goto, Chairperson of the Board of Directors, NPO Center for Independent Living Support Oita / International Visitor Leadership Program in 2018 on Accessibility and Inclusion
    • Audience: about 30 support staff, persons with disabilities, local government officials and the general public.

I am indebted to the following people for arranging all of this for me, and/or who will be assisting me.

I am excited to learn from Japanese experts including people with disabilities living independently in Japan.

AI and Disability Interview

AXS Chat recently posted to YouTube an interview of me about my artificial intelligence (AI) research and work for people with disabilities. I talk, in part, about:

  • the promise of a text-comprehension parallel between AI and people with intellectual disabilities;
  • how AI-driven Web text simplification will benefit other populations, such as non-native language speakers; and
  • my work to make sure people with intellectual disabilities and/or autism are not left out of online education.

I thank the AXS Chat members, Neil Milliken, Debra Ruh, and Antonio Santos, for their tireless work to inform the world about inclusion and technology.

Amazon re:MARS Accessibility


Amazon Machine Learning Research Awards generously sponsored my colleagues and me to participate in last week’s Amazon re:MARS Conference. It was a global artificial intelligence (AI) event focused on Machine Learning, Automation, Robotics, and Space.

The conference was great with accessibility. I was assigned an employee who guided me everywhere and was just wonderful. The conference website was accessible and easy to navigate. When I identified accessibility problems with the mobile app and with SageMaker tools, Amazon personnel immediately assured me they would be fixed.

The sponsorship included participation in the re:MARS VIP Leadership Networking Reception. I was honored to speak with members of Amazon leadership as well as senior researchers from industry and academia.

We discussed:

  • my AI-driven, Web text simplification research;
  • AI fairness for people with disabilities; and
  • developing an Alexa skill for DisabilityInfo.org.

 

AI Web Text Simplification: CSUN 2019

I will soon present part of my AI-Driven Web Text SiCSUN Center on Disabilitiesmplification research.

My talk:

We tested if people with intellectual disabilities understand Web text simplified with plain-language standards. (Spoiler: They do!)

We are operationalizing plain-language standards essentially to develop:

  • a reliable, easy-to-use method for human editors to create simple text; and
  • algorithms for AI to recognize and to create simple text.