Access Information News

09/12/2025

The Blind Travel Foundation is hosting the Blind Travel Summit November 13-14, 2025 at the Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired in Austin, Texas!
https://secure.qgiv.com/for/blindtravelfoundation/event/blindtravelsummit2025/

Led by Mike May—Consumer Technology Hall of Famer, Paralympian, accessibility trailblazer, and Blind Travel Foundation board member.

“This summit is a unique opportunity for conversations among active blind travelers, and travel industry experts using lived experience to consider what is possible, what works and what can be improved.”

Why attend?

It is an opportunity to have conversations with fellow blind travelers, tech users, and accessibility advocates.

You will be able to engage in sessions with partners across rideshare, AV, air travel, hotels, apps, gear, and more.

Call for session leads:
Have a topic or story to share? Submit your session idea today. https://lnkd.in/efXj2Taz

Register Now!
Early registration for $30 ends October 1st. Early registrants will be entered into door prize drawings for FEELDOM NAVi-BADGES, Aira minutes, and AGIGA glasses. https://lnkd.in/eb5ZCkQx

Hotel block:
We have secured a group rate at the Hampton Inn & Suites Austin-Downtown — $191 per night, includes breakfast & taxes. Book by October 12th.
Hotel link: https://lnkd.in/e6FEkbBu

Stay in the loop:
Join our newsletter and learn more: https://lnkd.in/e4U7WPrd

Sponsors:
Huge thanks to our Gold Sponsors, Uber and a Major Airline (TBA). Bronze Sponsors: AGIGA, Aira, Ambutech, FEELDOM, and Open Doors Organization.

Let's build the future of accessible travel—together. See you in Austin!
https://lnkd.in/e6vWZuGR

09/11/2025

E-Transfers, If You Can See Them: The Accessibility Gap at Canada's Top Bank — and Across the Big Five | Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA
https://donnajodhan.com/the-accessibility-gap-at-canadas-top-banks

Here, Donna Jodhan traces how Canada went from world-first talking ATMs to web journeys that still fail blind and low-vision customers where it matters most: sending and accepting e-Transfers. After more than a year of unusable e-Transfers at Canada's top bank—and a complaint to the Canadian Human Rights Commission—she shows how policy promises, alternate formats, and even branch innovations like BlindSquare beacons and ASL video interpretation can't compensate for broken digital flows. Drawing on March 2025 research, she explains that automated scans only catch part of the problem; banks must test real tasks with real assistive-tech users and fix the steps that block independence and privacy.

She then lays out a practical, time-bound roadmap: 30-day hotfixes (labels, focus order, error associations, “get accessible help now” links), 90-day pattern and hierarchy clean-up (task before promos, consistent controls, user-controlled contrast and text size), and a one-year cultural reset (team training, built-in assistive features, quarterly scorecards on real outcomes). Vendor excuses don't wash; banks control procurement and certification and should demand WCAG conformance and inclusive testing. With AODA and the Accessible Canada Act setting expectations—and international pressure rising—her ask is clear: publish timelines, fix the journeys, test with us, and keep a human safety net in place until the code is right.

09/11/2025

Merit + Inclusion, Measurable Results: Why I'm Partnering with DIRC25 (Twice) on October 30, 2025 | Dr. Kirk Adams
https://drkirkadams.com/dirc2025/

Here, Dr. Kirk Adams reframes a noisy DEI debate into a performance system—merit through inclusion—and explains why he is partnering with DIRC25 twice: Innovative Impact for diagnostics, implementation roadmaps, and accountable cadence; and his Dr. Kirk Adams channels for storytelling and connections that accelerate adoption. He argues that inclusion is the process you tune while diversity is the outcome you get, with supervisors as force multipliers and accessible tools and meeting practices as non-negotiables. He positions DIRC25, one-day, virtual on October 30, 2025, as a high-signal research-to-operations bridge, with recorded sessions for evergreen enablement and a cross-sector audience built for practical uptake.

He offers a concrete playbook: a 30-day pre-event prep to identify three friction points, run a 10-day accessibility sprint, instrument one metric per lever, and bring a cross-functional buddy; followed by a 90-day roadmap featuring one experiment per function, supervisor micro-training and job aids, a simple monthly dashboard, and ritualized reviews to scale what works. A cybersecurity case study demonstrates how skills-first pathways (CompTIA Network+ and Security+), accessible training and tools, remote-first job design, and public-sector alignment (including vendor pathways) uncover merit and produce real roles. He closes by showing how to handle backlash by bucketing experiences not people, guard merit with clear performance gates, build for compliance by default, and act now: register for October 30, 2025, bring a lever-owner, launch one 30-day experiment, and align on a 90-day plan.

09/11/2025

Catalysts in the Capital: Disability Innovation Forum 2025: September 18, 2025: Join Us For The Next Wave of Inclusive Growth | Dr. Kirk Adams
https://drkirkadams.com/disability-innovation-forum-2025/

Discover why the Disability Innovation Forum 2025 in Washington, D.C. is poised to transform inclusive growth, as Dr. Kirk Adams highlights market-shaping technologies, cross-sector capital, and universal design practices that convert “payrolls, not pity” into a $13-trillion economic opportunity.

09/11/2025

Top Tech Tidbits for Thursday, September 11, 2025 - Volume 1032
https://toptechtidbits.com/tidbits2025/09112025/

♿️ The Week's News in Access Technology
A Mind Vault Solutions, Ltd. Publication


Top Tech Tidbits. The world's #1 online resource for current news and trends in access technology.

Subscribers: 41,758 🔢️ subscribers were sent this issue via email.

Top Tech Tidbits is the world's leading not-for-profit access technology publication that reaches over 40,000 blind, low vision, deaf, hard of hearing, deafblind, neurodivergent and/or disabled professionals, educators and enthusiasts, all over the world, each week.

09/10/2025

Podcasts By Dr. Kirk Adams: Interview with Rich and Brittany Palmer, Managing Partners, Adaptation Ventures
https://drkirkadams.com/podcasts-by-dr-kirk-adams-08-18-2025/

In this engaging episode, Dr. Kirk Adams sits down with Rich and Brittany Palmer — Managing Partners of Adaptation Ventures — to trace the personal and entrepreneurial paths that led them to launch an angel, member-based fund focused on disability innovation. Brittany, a bilateral below-elbow amputee, shares how early prosthetics, supportive parents, and careers spanning environmental law and global consulting shaped her founder lens; when she built Beeyonder, a live virtual-tour startup for people with limited mobility, she ran into investors who mislabeled the opportunity as "niche," a pattern she later saw across disability-tech. Rich recounts a winding route from RPI to Wall Street to startups, a life-threatening brain aneurysm at 28, and a reset at Babson that culminated in building and exiting an AI-for-philanthropy company — followed by leading one of the nation's largest angel groups and testifying to Congress about early-stage capital.

Together they explain how Adaptation Ventures aims to be "first money in" at pre-seed and seed, typically leading ~$250K checks and targeting roughly four investment opportunities for review by members per quarter, with a low barrier to member participation and optional fee-free, carry-free co-invest alongside the fund. Rejecting concessionary mindsets, they argue that disability markets deliver venture-scale returns — citing outsized economic multipliers for both angel dollars and assistive technology — and emphasize bottoms-up validation, universal design's "curb-cut effect," and aging demographics as powerful demand signals. They preview their first member meeting in mid-October/early November 2025 and invite founders and prospective members to connect via adaptation.vc, while Adams underscores how inclusive products expand total addressable markets and how entrepreneurship can be a natural fit for disabled innovators.

09/10/2025

The Adaptation Advantage: Rich And Brittany Palmer's First-Money-In Play For Disability Innovation | Dr. Kirk Adams
https://drkirkadams.com/rich-and-brittany-palmer-adaptation-ventures/

Here, Dr. Kirk Adams makes the case that the world's largest overlooked market is the disability community, and that innovation built for disabled users becomes better for everyone. He profiles Rich and Brittany Palmer, operators with lived experience who run Adaptation Ventures, a member-driven angel network that closes the earliest funding gap for accessibility-focused startups. Their model is disciplined and practical: quarterly pitch meetings, collaborative diligence, and leading checks around $250K at pre-seed/seed, targeting roughly four investment opportunities for review by members per quarter. The thesis is crisp, "make the big stuff smaller; make the expensive stuff cheaper", and the demand signals are clear: aging populations, chronic conditions, and mainstream preference for frictionless products.

Adams translates investor logic into action for employers, policymakers, VR systems, and founders: require WCAG/Section 508 in procurement, pilot one startup this quarter, braid training dollars with product pilots, and come with accessibility evidence, not intent. He lays out metrics that prove value (activation and retention, compliance backlog reduction, time-to-productivity, capital efficiency) and names guardrails against impact-washing, feature creep, and regulatory surprises. Anchored by his August 18, 2025 podcast with the Palmers, the piece argues that when first checks meet first-rate operators, and community members, testers, and employers close the loop, disability innovation stops being “niche” and starts compounding into mainstream performance.

09/10/2025

Refocus: The Guide Shawn Maloney & Victoria Nolan Wished Existed — And Why the Access Community Needs It Now | Aaron Di Blasi | AT-Newswire
https://at-newswire.com/book-refocus-essential-guide-to-living-with-vision-loss/

Here, Aaron Di Blasi introduces Refocus: The Essential Guide to Living a Happy and Successful Life with Vision Loss as the plain-English, whole-life handbook our ecosystem has been missing, written by people who've walked the road and know where the potholes are. Co-authors Victoria Nolan (four-time Paralympian, educator, AMI TV co-host, and CNIB leader) and Shawn Maloney (legally blind researcher-educator with eye-health and tech credentials) built a staged framework, the Seven A's of Vision Loss: Acceptance, Attitude, Adaptation, Awareness, Advocacy, Accessibility, and Achievement, and a two-track method (mindset + mechanics) that turns uncertainty into action. The piece explains why this lived-authority + how-to blend matters now, and argues that the framework travels beyond blindness to other disability journeys because the underlying moves are universal.

It also anchors readers in the practicals: early amplification from Fighting Blindness Canada, CNIB, and AMI; a mid-2025 release available in accessible formats from day one, print, Kindle e-book, and an unabridged ~4h37m audiobook narrated by Sam Rosenthal on Audible (July 18, 2025) and Apple Books. The takeaway is simple and actionable: obtain the format that works for you, share it with clients, families, and colleagues, and, if you run a clinic, school, or access program, make Refocus part of your starter kit so the Seven A's become common language from day one.

09/10/2025

Merit Without Myth — My Invitation to a September 17, 2025 NWDLS Workshop | Dr. Kirk Adams
https://drkirkadams.com/isdi-nwdls-09-17-2025/

Here, Dr. Kirk Adams dismantles the tired “merit vs. diversity” binary and argues that real merit is built by design, not slogans. Using the January 29 Potomac mid-air collision as a cautionary tale, he contrasts unsubstantiated claims tying FAA inclusivity—particularly disability hiring—to the tragedy with the factual record and the swift rebuttals from AAPD, the National Federation of the Blind, NDRN, and PVA. He centers standards and systems—ISO 30415, the Global DEI Benchmarks, and the SPINE framework—alongside the Better Arguments method to show how fair, auditable processes protect both performance and trust.

He then invites readers to a virtual NWDLS Workshop #4 on September 17, 2025 (12-2 p.m. ET), where participants will apply these tools to real decisions in hiring, promotions, admissions, referrals, and appointments. Attendees will leave with a draft rubric, a facilitation script for tough debates, and a 30-day SPINE micro-plan; the session offers SHRM and HRCI credit and ASL by request. The message is simple and actionable: replace myth with method, and build merit you can stand on—and stand behind.

09/09/2025

AI-Weekly for Tuesday, September 9, 2025 - Issue 181
https://ai-weekly.ai/newsletter-09-09-2025/

✨ The Week's News in Artificial Intelligence
A Mind Vault Solutions, Ltd. Publication


Subscribers: 46,050 🔢️ subscribers were sent this issue via email.

AI-Weekly is the world's #1 online resource for current news and trends in artificial intelligence that reaches over 45,000 AI professionals, educators and enthusiasts, all over the world, each week.

09/09/2025

A Billion People, Ten Minutes, One Platform: The Case for Doppler Labs' At-Home Hearing: Netcapital Raise Ends November 14, 2025 | Dr. Kirk Adams
https://drkirkadams.com/doppler-labs-at-home-hearing/

Here Dr. Kirk Adams lays out a plain case: move clinical-grade hearing from the clinic to the home and you remove the bottlenecks that keep people from hearing the moments that matter. He frames the unmet need, 1.5 billion people worldwide, high costs, too many devices in drawers, and explains why Doppler's at-home platform is different: clinical-grade hearing aids in three styles paired with Jenn, a handheld tablet that tunes in five to ten minutes, saves up to eight profiles, and is backed by accessories, 24/7 chat, and extended phone support. Pricing is simple ($199 down + $29/month after a trial, with worn-out devices replaced for subscribers), and the model is built for stickiness where life happens, at home, at work, on the go.

He then connects go-to-market to equity: direct-to-consumer, big-box retail like Walmart and Walgreens, and special channels such as the VA and international partnerships. Leadership and milestones are in place (experienced executives, four issued utility patents, completed clinical trials, beta hardware/software, supply chain and pricing locked in), risks are acknowledged with clear mitigations, and a nonprofit arm will take the same technology to regions with few or no audiologists. The call to action is immediate: invest or share the raise on Netcapital, Common Stock under Reg CF at $8 per share, $104 minimum, before 11:59 p.m. ET on November 14, 2025, and help bring hearing home: https://netcapital.com/companies/doppler-labs.

09/08/2025

Careers for the Blind Podcast Episode 66: The Apex Program: Dr. Kirk Adams
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/episode-66-the-apex-program-dr-kirk-adams/id1527098674?i=1000722297367

The Apex Program is a specialized training initiative designed to equip blind and low vision individuals with the skills to pursue careers as cybersecurity analysts. Cybersecurity analysts enjoy above-average earning potential, strong job security, and abundant opportunities nationwide—many of which offer the flexibility of remote work.

Podcast Episode · Careers for the Blind · 08/17/2025 · 29m