Podcasts about leonard cheshire

Unlock the secrets of transforming assistive technology with Steve Tyler, the pioneering Director of Assistive Tech and Transformation at Leonard Cheshire. Join us as Steve shares his compelling journey from the world of clinical psychology to becoming a beacon for disability support and technology integration. With invaluable insights into collaborations with major tech companies, discover how Steve is championing accessibility and inclusive practices that are reshaping the tech landscape for people with disabilities.Dive into the untapped market potential of accessible design and the strategic integration of accessibility within mainstream business. Through captivating examples like synthetic speech technology and Braille labeling for pharmaceuticals, we reveal how inclusive design not only meets diverse user needs but also powers sustainable business propositions. Steve sheds light on the importance of understanding industry decision-making and leveraging the art of storytelling to drive the adoption of inclusive practices.Navigate the pressing challenges within the disability community, where educational and employment opportunities have hit a frustrating plateau. Steve addresses the biases entrenched in these sectors and the inefficiencies plaguing assistive technology development. From the crucial role of Braille in education and employment to the financial entanglements of large charitable organizations, gain a deeper understanding of what it takes to forge a more cohesive and effective approach to disability inclusion and innovation.Support the showFollow axschat on social media.Bluesky:Antonio https://bsky.app/profile/akwyz.com Debra https://bsky.app/profile/debraruh.bsky.social Neil https://bsky.app/profile/neilmilliken.bsky.social axschat https://bsky.app/profile/axschat.bsky.social LinkedInhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/antoniovieirasantos/ https://www.linkedin.com/company/axschat/Vimeohttps://vimeo.com/akwyzhttps://twitter.com/axschathttps://twitter.com/AkwyZhttps://twitter.com/neilmillikenhttps://twitter.com/debraruh

Isobel WilliamsIsobel has years of experience as a publicist in the music industry, and runs the company Laydown PR. Isobel, a wheelchair user who has POTS, also founded popular TikTok channel The Ramp of Approval. The channel explores accessibility in London, the UK and beyond. With plenty of humour and a laid back style, the videos also offer bitesize information about POTS and life as a disabled person.You can follow Isobel's video series the Ramp of Approval: on TikTok @is0bellywelly. and on Instagram @therampofapprovalYou can also find Isobel: on Instagram @isobellywelly and @laydownPR; also on LinkedIn @Isobel WiliamsElle ChanteElle Chante is a UK music artist and model, a client of Isobel's at Laydown PR. The track featured on the Leonard Cheshire podcast is Come Alive (2022). Check out the track: Come Alive on Spotify.You can find Elle on Instagram @ellechanteuk. Find more via Elle's LinktreeFollow Leonard Cheshire You can follow Leonard Cheshire on Instagram @LeonardCheshire or by searching "Leonard Cheshire" on LinkedIn. Find out more at leonardcheshire.org   

Skye works at Dragon Indoor Market on Brackla Street Centre and loves all things spooky. Our host is Joshua Reeves, Campaign Support Officer for Leonard Cheshire, a lover of Black Metal and anything spooky!

In this episode, Leonard Cheshire's Joshua Reeves speaks with Whizz-Kidz ambassador Arunima Misra about accessible travel and navigating holidays as a wheelchair user.

Follow Leonard Cheshire  You can follow Leonard Cheshire on Twitter or Instagram @LeonardCheshire. Find out more at leonardcheshire.org  Follow Olivia and find out more about Paris 2024  You can follow Olivia via @livvy_breen on Instagram and @BreenOlivia on Twitter.  There's an easy way to find out more about Olivia, her fellow athletes and her journey to the Paralympic Games in 2024. Check out Olivia Breen's Paris Diaries on BBC Sounds.

Follow Jessica on X and Instagram using: @mrsjhatchettFollow Leonard Cheshire You can follow Leonard Cheshire on Twitter or Instagram @LeonardCheshire. Find out more at leonardcheshire.org  

Follow Leonard Cheshire You can follow Leonard Cheshire on Twitter or Instagram @LeonardCheshire. Find out more at leonardcheshire.org  Follow Kerry Thompson and read more of her workYou can follow Kerry via @kerry_thompson on Instagram, @kerrymThompson on Twitter. You can follow her blog: My Life, Kerry's Way.You can also read her article for Leonard Cheshire on the cost of living crisis and energy. Like many disabled people, I lose sleep worrying about bills | Leonard CheshireHer points on the extra costs of disability and high energy usage are very relevant for disabled people in 2024 and beyond.

You can follow Leonard Cheshire on Twitter or Instagram @LeonardCheshire. Find out more at leonardcheshire.org  Find Zarifa on: www.itsanidealworld.com, or @ZarifaRoberson on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter and Snapchat.Or you can directly e-mail her on: zroberson@itsanidealworld.comFind Paige and Taylor on: https://www.instagram.com/alifelookingup/https://www.youtube.com/@ALifeLookingUp

You can follow Leonard Cheshire on Twitter or Instagram @LeonardCheshire. Find out more at leonardcheshire.org  Follow WrexhamYou can find out more about accessibility at Wrexham and follow Kerry's work.on Twitter via @OfficalDLOWAFC.Follow Wrexham AFC: @Wrexham_AFC (Twitter) and  @wrexham_AFC (Instagram) Follow Welcome to Wrexham: @WrexhamFX (Twitter) and @wrexhamfx

This episode explores the topic of disability hate crime – what it is and how people can be allies to disabled people. UK disability charities Leonard Cheshire and United Response are set to launch key research on disability hate crime with the latest figures in all four UK nations. You can get support from the organisations below. Leonard Cheshire – We support disabled people across the UK. Check out the Leonard Cheshire disability hate crime page (latest updates will be live in October 2023). United Response – UK charity supporting disabled people. Check out the United Response disability hate crime page. Hate Crime Advocacy Service – Project supporting people in Northern Ireland who have experienced hate crime. This involves Leonard Cheshire, Victim Support, Migrant Centre NI and the Rainbow Trust) External Organisations Citizens Advice Bureau – an independent organisation that provides free and confidential information to people about different problems, including debt, housing, finance, and legal issues. Website: https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/ law-and-courts/discrimination/hate-crime/  Crimestoppers – a national charity with a free helpline for reporting crime anonymously. Website: https://crimestoppers-uk.org/ Phone: 0800 555 111  Equality Advisory Support Service (EASS) – a free Helpline to give information and guidance on discrimination and human rights for people living in England, Scotland, and Wales. Website: https://www.equalityadvisoryservice. com/ Email: adviceline@equalityadvisoryservice.com Phone: 0808 800 0082  Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) – the independent non-departmental public body responsible for the promotion of equality and non-discrimination laws in England and Wales. Website: https://equalityhumanrights.com/en Email: correspondence@equalityhumanrights. com Phone: 020 7832 7800 (London) / 02920 447710 (Cardiff)  GALOP – the UK's largest anti-abuse charity for LGBTQ+ people, supporting LGBTQ+ victims and survivors of domestic violence and hate crime. Website: http://www.galop.org.uk/ Email: hatecrime@galop.org.uk Phone: 020 7704 2040  Stop Hate UK – a charity that provides independent and confidential support to people affected by hate crime. Website: https://www.stophateuk.org/ Email: info@stophate.org Phone: 0113 293 5100  Tell MAMA – national initiative that seeks to tackle anti-Muslim attitudes whilst supporting victims and survivors with confidential advice. Website: https://tellmamauk.org/ Email: info@tellmamauk.org Phone: 0800 456 1226 True Vision – a national police scheme to help victims report hate crimes online. Website: https://www.report-it.org.uk/ Phone: 0208 016 5678 Victim Support – an independent charity operating in England and Wales that provides advice, information, and support to victims of abuse, hate crime, and other traumatic incidents. Website: https://www.victimsupport.org.uk/ Email: https://www.victimsupport.org.uk/ help-and-support/get-help/supportline/email-supportline/ 

In this episode, Martin speaks to Hannah Barham-Brown, a GP trainee who is an activist, campaigner and advocate around gender, disability and LGBTQ+ issues, a former Deputy Leader of the Women's Equality Party, and one of the Shaw Trust's 100 most influential disabled people in the UK. She speaks to Martin about the role of doctors in politics, being a ‘roll model', how to have awkward conversations, and why everyone should pay attention to the bins in NHS bathrooms.Episode transcript available at bma.org.uk/inspiringdoctorsContent warning: use of a disability-related slur in the context of a discussion on appropriate language. To avoid it skip from 43'09 to 43'47.The organisations mentioned as resources for doctors learning about disability and LGBTQ+ health inequalities are Scope, Leonard Cheshire, GLADD (The Association of LGBTQ+ Doctors and Dentists), the LGBT Foundation, and the RCGP's LGBT Health Hub.You can also find a list of EDI book recommendations on Hannah's website hannahbarhambrown.com/The interviewees on this podcast are just a selection of those who communicate medicine in fantastic ways. To join the conversation on social media and tell us about doctors whose communication skills inspired you, tag @TheBMA on Twitter and Instagram, and use #InspiringDoctors. For more information visit: bma.org.uk/inspiringdoctors Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

You can follow Dr Hannah Barham-Brown on:https://www.instagram.com/drhannahbarhambrown/https://www.linkedin.com/in/hannahbarhambrown/https://twitter.com/DrHannahBBhttps://hannahbarhambrown.com/You can follow Leonard Cheshire on Twitter or Instagram @LeonardCheshire. Find out more at leonardcheshire.orgGet in touch by emailing disabilitydownload@leonardcheshire.org 

You can follow Leonard Cheshire on Twitter or Instagram @LeonardCheshire. Find out more at leonardcheshire.orgGet in touch by emailing disabilitydownload@leonardcheshire.org Find Jax's Podcast/Broadcast Show "The One Take Live Cast" on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/the_one_take_live_cast/

You can follow Leonard Cheshire on Twitter or Instagram @LeonardCheshire. Find out more at leonardcheshire.orgGet in touch by emailing disabilitydownload@leonardcheshire.org Find Shehla at www.aboutme.groupWhat is Functional Neurological Disorder? 

Which would you prefer, sand in your swimsuit or sand in your wheelchair? Nikki Fox and Emma Tracey discuss the 300 beaches that have been made accessible for disabled people in Greece. Little AI robots have started using pavements to deliver shopping to homes in Wakefield, one of a handful of towns in the UK where such services have popped-up. We talk to Lisa Johnson from Starship Technologies, the company behind it, which reaches out to disabled people before these robots arrive in new areas. And Steve Tyler, from the charity Leonard Cheshire, talks about his experience of being on the advisory panel. Musician and author, Eliza Hull, talks about parenting as a disabled person and how seeing ramps at music award ceremonies help budding disabled artists "see it to be it", as the phrase goes. Sound recording and design was by Dave O'Neill. The production team were: Beth Rose, Keiligh Baker, Emma Tracey and Rebecca Grisedale-Sherry. Editor was Damon Rose.

You can follow Leonard Cheshire on Twitter or Instagram @LeonardCheshire. Find out more at leonardcheshire.orgGet in touch by emailing disabilitydownload@leonardcheshire.org More information: Mili mentions DecodeME – a large scientific study of people with M.E. launched in September 2022. You can read media coverage from the launch. 

Lucinda and Russ are joined by Sarah Hughes, chief executive of Mind, to discuss her plans for the charity, her views on the need to reform the voluntary sector and the state of mental health in charities.Sarah calls for bravery among third sector leaders in confronting notions of the role and place of charities in society. She identifies the heightened emotional relationship between charity staff and the causes they are fighting for, raising the risk of mental distress, and suggests ways of supporting mental health in the sector. She also discusses some of the challenges facing Mind, including the need to further the charity's commitment to tackling racism.Also in the episode, Russ and Lucinda talk about the difficulties facing social care charities, following a warning by Leonard Cheshire about the severe financial challenges jeopardising its future.And Lucinda decamps to Third Sector's C-Suite Summit to speak to some of the speakers and attendees at the event examining the future of the voluntary sector.Do you have stories of people whose lives have been transformed for the better thanks to your charity? If so, we'd like to hear them! All it takes is a short voice message to be featured on this podcast. Email lucinda.rouse@haymarket.com for further information.Tell us what you think of the Third Sector podcast! Please take five minutes to let us know how we can bring you the most relevant, useful content. To fill in the survey, click here.Read the transcript. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

You can follow Leonard Cheshire on Twitter or Instagram @LeonardCheshire. Find out more at leonardcheshire.orgFollow Cyber-Duck on Twitter: @cyberduck_uk or visit their website: cyber-duck.co.ukYahye's autobiography "Unshakeable Will" is available here.Get in touch by emailing disabilitydownload@leonardcheshire.org 

This week Steve Tyler, Director of Assistive Technology at Leonard Cheshire gives us his take on the recent trend for so-called ‘artificial intelligence' tools, Callum asks Stuart Lawler from Sight and Sound all about the Senseplayer from HIMS and of course we'll be tackling your emails. You can listen to the show live in the UK every Tuesday at 1pm on Freeview Channel 730, online at www.rnibconnectradio.org.uk , or on your smart speaker. You'll hear new episodes of the Tech Talk Podcast every Friday so make sure you're subscribed to never miss an episode. We'd love to hear your thoughts on accessible technology, drop us an email at techtalk@rnib.org.uk or tweet us @RNIBRadio with the hashtag #RNIBTechTalk

You can follow Leonard Cheshire on Twitter or Instagram @LeonardCheshire. Find out more at leonardcheshire.orgDiscover more about technology at Hill HouseFind out more about the Leonard Cheshire assistive technology project at Hill House, which supported Jane with voice banking.Get in touch by emailing disabilitydownload@leonardcheshire.org 

Check out Alice's website: https://alicechristina.wixsite.com/my-site Follow Alice on Instagram: @aliceccorrigan Follow Alice on Twitter: @aliceccorriganMore about Alice's show Past Life: https://cptheatre.co.uk/artists/Alice-ChristinaCorriganMore about Leonard Cheshire: https://www.leonardcheshire.org/ Follow Leonard Cheshire on social: @LeonardCheshire  

Check our Arthur's YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/ArthursRollingVlog Follow Leonard Cheshire on social: @LeonardCheshireGet in touch with your ideas: disabilitydownload@leonardcheshire.orgFind out more about Leonard Cheshire: https://leonardcheshire.org/

Follow Leonard Cheshire and the Trussell Trust You can follow Leonard Cheshire on Twitter or Instagram @LeonardCheshire. Find out more at leonardcheshire.org You can follow Trussell Trust on Twitter or Facebook @TrussellTrust or via trusselltrust.orgAbout the Trussell TrustThe Trussell Trust exists so we can all be free from hunger.Together, the Trussell Trust has more than 1,300 local food bank centres across the UK, providing practical support for people facing hardship. But emergency food isn't a long-term solution to hunger.People need food banks when they don't have enough money for essentials. It's not right that anyone needs a food bank to get by. This can be changed this by ensuring everyone has enough income to eat, stay warm and stay dry. That's why the Trussell Trust also work with communities across the UK to change the things that push people to need a food bankAbout fuel povertyMartin refers to fuel poverty. According to the common understanding of fuel poverty, someone is in fuel poverty when they find it extremely difficult to find the money to heat their home.According to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), someone in fuel poverty finds themselves in the following situation: when they spend the required amount to heat their home, they are left with a residual income below the official poverty lineandthey are living in a property with a fuel poverty energy efficiency rating of band D or below 

Some plants leave their best show until last and this week David heads to County Laois to find spectacular autumn colour at Gash Gardens. Mary Keenan describes how her family's dairy farm has been transformed into beautiful gardens with standout plants like the Spindle stealing the autumn show. In Omagh, David visits the Sow and Grow Project at the Ulster American Folk Park. It's run by the Leonard Cheshire trust which supports those with disabilities. Amy Kelly introduces the uncommon Quince and Ann Fitzsimmons joins David in studio to answer gardening questions live.

Check out Amrit's YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXg4dzkd45hY5PI0TShOsag Read Amrit's blog: https://leonardcheshire.org/our-impact/stories/we-need-debunk-myths-about-employing-disabled-peopleFollow Huma on Twitter: @humashahFollow Leonard Cheshire on social: @LeonardCheshire Find out more about Leonard Cheshire: https://leonardcheshire.org/ 

Follow Gary on Twitter: @BBCBlindGazzaFollow Jazz on Twitter: @JazzShabanFollow Leonard Cheshire on social: @LeonardCheshireFind out more about Leonard Cheshire: https://leonardcheshire.org/ Find out about Jazz's Small Voices Project: https://smallvoiceprojects.com/355-2/  

A Roadmap for Communicating ESG and Avoiding Greenwashing Claims Environmental, Social, and Governance Topics discussed: The Sustainable Business Handbook (TSBH) Co-authored with two colleagues: Mark Lee and Chris Coulter TSBH is a step by step guide — 13 chapters of key elements to sustainability as a business TSBH how-to manual — Previous book "All In" was tracking the evolution of biz over 20 years Embedding sustainability in the core of the business — one chapter dedicated to communications The power of storytelling — it can only come after identifying a strategy — Board oversight — and leadership buy-in Transparency and accountability are fundamental  Critical to a company's success is working through environmental, social, and economic impacts: positive and negative  Embedding sustainability is critical for people and the planet  Greenwashing and Purposewashing  How companies, funds, and investors can avoid greenwashing claims ESG claims must have substance How to build a sustainable business culture  Materiality exercise as a tool to improve ESG For reporting ESG, should include carbon and water TCFD and TNFD  Collaborations of standards and sustainability reporting and international accounting standard Boards Trends between ESG and investment  Top talent will be attracted to companies that align with a responsible way of doing business and shared values What role does the CMO play in the success of a sustainable business? Unilever is an example of embedding sustainability; even before Paul Polman  Unilever's “brands with purpose” Suzano, an example of a responsible company  Board oversight The Tata Group   About David Grayson David Grayson is Emeritus Professor of Corporate Responsibility at the Cranfield School of Management. He is also chair of the Institute of Business Ethics and of the international disability charity Leonard Cheshire. He has advised businesses and Corporate Responsibility coalitions around the world.

This week, on Tech Talk, we talk to Chris Sheldrick, the co-founder of location service 'What 3 Words'. Steve Tyler from Leonard Cheshire joins us to talk about the work that the charity does. Plus, Callum tries out the new sound splitter feature in JAWS. You can listen to the show live in the UK every Tuesday at 1pm on Freeview Channel 730, online at www.rnibconnectradio.org.uk , or on your smart speaker.  You'll hear new episodes of the Tech Talk Podcast every Friday so make sure you're subscribed to never miss an episode  We'd love to hear your thoughts on accessible technology, drop us an email at techtalk@rnib.org.uk or tweet us @RNIBRadio with the hashtag #RNIBTechTalk

You can find out more about the programmes and organisations we discussed. Visit Get Yourself Active and follow them on Twitter @GetYrselfActive. Visit Disability Rights UK and follow them on Twitter @DisRightsUK. Visit Sport for Confidence and follow them on Twitter @SportforConf.Also check out @LeonardCheshire for our forthcoming sport programmes in 2022. See Leonard Cheshire and Sport England All Active Together.You can follow boccia coach Donna Robinson on Twitter via @donna_c1987You can follow rower Scott Ballard-Ridley on Twitter via @ballardridley. Scott works as a Communication Engagement Manager at Bridges Self-Management and runs the podcast BridgesCast. Leonard Cheshire youth advocate Arthur Lawson has the excellent YouTube channel Arthur's Rolling Vlog.Follow Leonard Cheshire on Twitter/Instagram: @LeonardCheshireFind out more about our own sports programmes:  https://leonardcheshire.org/about-us/our-news/press-releases/leonard-cheshire-and-sport-england-all-active-together 

Follow Ennis on Twitter: @rookthebird or visit their website https://ennisrook.wordpress.com/Check out Leonard Cheshire's 'At the Intersection' blog series: https://leonardcheshire.org/our-impact/stories/why-we-need-talk-about-intersectionalityFollow Leonard Cheshire on Twitter and Instagram: @LeonardCheshireEmail us at disabilitydownload@leonardcheshire.org

Follow Martin on social media: @HywoodMartin Read Martin's blog: https://martinhywood.blogspot.com/ Follow Muscular Dystrophy UK: Twitter - @MDUK_News Instagram/Facebook/LinkedIn: musculardystrophyUKLearn more about Muscular Dystrophy UK: https://www.musculardystrophyuk.org/Follow Leonard Cheshire: @LeonardCheshireRead more about Leonard Cheshire's work: https://www.leonardcheshire.org/ Know someone who would be a great guest? Emails us at disabilitydownload@leonardcheshire.org You can also view a full transcript over on the Leonard Cheshire website: https://www.leonardcheshire.org/our-impact/stories/podcast-fundraising-family-and-fighting-fairer-world 

Follow Nathan on Twitter: @NathanMattick8Follow Leonard Cheshire on Instagram/Twitter: @LeonardCheshireRead more about Leonard Cheshire: https://www.leonardcheshire.org/Find out about Can Do sport: https://www.leonardcheshire.org/get-support/learning/can-doEmail us: disabilitydownload@leonardcheshire.org 

Find out more about Grinning Dog Records, the label Grace runs with her husband, at https://nickcapaldi.com/, or by following  Grinning Dog Records on Facebook, @_GDRecords on Twitter, and @grinningdogrecords on Instagram. Sound design and editing by Sally Raper: https://sallyar.wixsite.com/sallyraperFind out more about Leonard Cheshire's employment campaign: https://www.leonardcheshire.org/get-involved/campaign-us/employmentFollow us on Twitter and Instagram: @LeonardCheshireEmail: disabilitydownload@leonardcheshire.org

Find out more about Leonard Cheshire's employment campaign: https://www.leonardcheshire.org/get-involved/campaign-us/employmentFollow us on Twitter and Instagram: @LeonardCheshireEmail: disabilitydownload@leonardcheshire.org

Follow Livvy on Twitter: @BreenOlivia And on Instagram: @livvy_breenFollow Mo on Twitter: @MoatezJomniAnd on Instagram: @mr_jomniFollow Leonard Cheshire: @LeonardCheshireFind out more about Leonard Cheshire: https://www.leonardcheshire.org/Check out Livvy's 15 minute home work outs: https://www.leonardcheshire.org/get-support/learning/can-do/show-me-you-canFind out more about the Paralympics: https://paralympics.org.uk/articles/games/tokyo-2021  

Quite simply, Ruth is a tour-de-force. A true pioneer as well as an inspiring leader. A wheelchair user from the age of seven, Ruth is a passionate advocate of disabled people's rights, and acknowledged for her delivery of innovation in the disability sector. She was awarded an OBE in 2012, in recognition of her services to disabled children and young people. Ruth joined Leonard Cheshire from Whizz-Kidz, where she was CEO. Under her leadership, Whizz-Kidz has become the biggest provider of powered and light weight manual wheelchairs for disabled children outside of the NHS, and a leading campaigning organisation in the sector. Prior to Whizz-Kidz, Ruth had a successful career in the private sector, in technologies, eventually setting up and running her own IT company for ten years. For several years, Ruth was a Trustee of children's charity Barnardo's. In 2018 she was appointed as a non-Executive Director of Motability Operations Group Plc, and in 2019 was selected as a member of The Mayor of London's Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Advisory Group. We will run out of space to list all of what Ruth has achieved and, as you will hear, she isn't done yet!

In 2012, while studying at university, Mimi Butlin contracted viral meningitis — from which she never fully recovered. Since then she has been diagnosed with Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, fibromyalgia, postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome, and ME/CFS (as Mimi wryly notes, “a really lovely bunch!”). For years, she felt completely alone and that convinced she was responsible for her pain. In 2018, she started the Instagram account @CantGoOut_ImSick, a platform where she posted drawings of what living with illness was like — including portraits of other chronically ill women who had gone through similar experiences. Because of her work, including the #BelieveUs campaign, she has been featured in Women’s Health magazine, Grazia magazine, and on Refinery29 and Bustle. Recently, she collaborated with disability charity Leonard Cheshire to create the #DisabledLooksLikeMe campaign to raise awareness of invisible disabilities. Mimi is very proud of what was achieved throughout the campaign, which saw disabled influencers, creatives, and celebrities — such a Selma Blair and Sinead Burke!! — wearing her t-shirts and supporting the campaign on social media. She is currently taking a break from her work in order to accommodate her health (and wow, can we relate), but she’s extremely grateful to the people she has met along the way, who have helped her accept her conditions and feel proud of who she is. Tune in as Mimi shares: that of all her symptoms, chronic pain is most in control of her day-to-day that she was diagnosed with viral meningitis, and subsequently with Epstein-Barr Virus (EBV, or mono) and gastroenteritis — multiple times — and never fully recovered a discussion of access issues in healthcare, including the NHS and optional paid enhancements why doctors have a responsibility of care — both emotional and physical how mental health and medical PTSD have played a role in her health experience how she first received notice for her art — from fellow Spoonie, Lena Dunham! how her illnesses changed her relationship with her mum why she recommends those who identify as female bring a cis man with them as an advocate in doctors’ appointments her experiences of not being believed by medical practitioners who has inspired her in the disability community how she’s cultivated pride in her health status how research can give you perspective on your experience — and the experiences of others

Find out more about Access Rating: https://www.accessrating.com/app/Follow Access Rating on Twitter: @access_ratingFollow Leonard Cheshire on social: @LeonardCheshire  Visit the Leonard Cheshire website: https://www.leonardcheshire.org/  Email us: disabilitydownload@leonardcheshire.org 

How does language affect how we view disability; and who gets to decide what words we should use? Peter White discusses the changing terminology around visual impairment following a report by the charity Leonard Cheshire showing that nearly three quarters of disabled people feel more needs to be done for non-disabled people to understand that their words can offend. Presenter: Peter White Producer: Simon Hoban

Find out more about Headways, the Brain Injury Association: https://www.headway.org.uk/Find out more about The Prince's Trust: https://www.princes-trust.org.uk/Visit the Leonard Cheshire website: https://www.leonardcheshire.org/Follow Leonard Cheshire on Twitter and Instagram: @LeonardCheshire 

In this episode, you will hear from recent UCL graduates and experienced professionals working in the Charity and NGO sectors about their career to date and gain top tips on how to get a foot in the door. From volunteering to internships, gaining experience can give you the edge when applying for graduate roles. Including speakers from The National Trust, Ambitious about Autism, Leonard Cheshire, Save the Children, Breaking Barriers and Scaling Up Nutrition Civil Society Network (SUN CSN). Transcript: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/careers/transcript-getting-charities-ngos

We reached out to London School of Economics and Durham University for their response to some of the topics raised in this episode.A Durham University spokesperson said:“During her time at Durham University we worked with Amelia, both as a student, and in her role as a Sabbatical Officer for Durham Students' Union, to understand and seek to address concerns that she raised. Whilst respecting the experiences that Amelia has discussed, we are resolute that inclusivity is at the heart of our University and we are proud of the progress we have made. We are deeply committed to ensuring that all our students have the best possible experience during their time at Durham and believe our high student retention rate, including those with disabilities, demonstrates this.Nearly 20 per cent of our student body disclose a disability and staff across the University work hard to help ensure that adjustments are put in place to facilitate their engagement with academic studies and the wider student experience. We have made, and continue to make, significant investments in our estate to improve access for all students, adopting high accessibility standards when designing both new buildings and the refurbishment of existing buildings. We established an Access Review Team which incorporates students, disability support staff and estates staff who review and identify local infrastructure projects that make our campus more accessible for disabled students, staff and visitors. Our dedicated Disability Support service provides information, advice and guidance to support prospective and current students with a wide range of disabilities, and to staff working with disabled students.Most recently they have launched an interactive toolkit to help those with autism make a confident start at University and joined forces with a range of partners to establish a number of fully funded internships, with tailored support, for students and graduates with autism. We have also made funding available to help students secure full diagnostic assessments for Dyslexia or Dyspraxia.”More information on Durham University's Disability Support service can be found at www.dur.ac.uk/disability.supportAn LSE spokesperson said:“We are grateful to Cassie for sharing her experiences. Clearly there is more for the School to do in terms of accessibility and support for our disabled students, which we will raise with our colleagues. We are heartened to hear what has worked well over the past year and will seek to build on this as we learn from our handling of the pandemic.” Follow Disabled Students UK on Twitter: @ChangeDisabledVisit Disabled Students UK's website: https://disabledstudents.co.uk/Read the Disabled Students UK Covid-19 report: https://disabledstudents.co.uk/DSUK_Report_Update.pdfFollow Cassie on Twitter and Instagram: @soapsubVisit the Leonard Cheshire website: https://www.leonardcheshire.org/ Follow Leonard Cheshire on Twitter and Instagram: @LeonardCheshire Get in touch with us: disabilitydownload@leonardcheshire.org 

Some of the links mentioned in this month's episode:https://youthmusic.org.uk/ - Youth Music Website https://youthmusic.org.uk/reshape-music - Reshape Music Reporthttps://youthmusic.org.uk/thehigherfrequency - Higher Frequency Podcasthttps://takeitaway.org.uk/news/adaptive-musical-instrument-guide/ - Adaptive Musical Instrument GuideFollow Nick on Twitter: @Nick_WilsdonFollow Youth Music on Twitter: @youthmusicwww.carolhodge.co.uk/ - Carol's websiteFollow Carol on Twitter and Instagram: @carolxhodge https://www.leonardcheshire.org/  - Leonard Cheshire website Follow Leonard Cheshire on Twitter and Instagram: @LeonardCheshire Get in touch with us: disabilitydownload@leonardcheshire.org 

You can read the 'Breaking Down Barriers to Travel' report on Leonard Cheshire's website. You can listen to Sophie Elwes' A Life Less Ordinary podcast on the Apple Store.You can find out more about Makingtrax and Jezza Williams on their website.You can read more about Expedia Group's diversity and inclusion initiatives on their website. Find out more about Leonard Cheshire on their website. Follow Sophie Elwes on Twitter @sophieelwes, or Instagram @sophieelwesFollow Makingtrax on Instagram or Facebook using the handle @makingtrax.co.nz or on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/company/makingtrax/ Follow Expedia Group on Twitter at @ExpediaGroupYou can follow Leonard Cheshire on Facebook @LeonardCheshireOrg, on Twitter and Instagram at @Leonardcheshire, or on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/company/leonardcheshire/mycompany/. 

Lucy Smith spent 20 years working in the film industry before moving to the voluntary sector.  She is currently the philanthropy officer at Leonard Cheshire disability.  Lucy was integral to the creative collaboration between InterAct and Leonard Cheshire culminating in the creation of a radio play.  This interview was recorded during the period of the lockdown.  For more information on Leonard Cheshire,  www.leonardcheshire.org ‎Support the show (https://www.interactstrokesupport.org)

Find out more about Crohn's & Colitis UK's 'Not Every Disability is Visible' campaign: https://www.noteverydisabilityisvisible.org.uk/Find out more about Leonard Cheshire: https://www.leonardcheshire.org/Follow Leonard Cheshire: @LeonardCheshire 

To reflect on and celebrate International Day of Disabled Persons, we’ve invited Verity Ayling-Smith, Training and Consultancy Advisor with the Leonard Cheshire Organisation and Veronica Velazquez, Senior Manager, Inclusion & Diversity at Expedia Group to find out more about their respective roles, their connections to disability and to learn key insights from the just released disability inclusion travel report. Expedia Group {https://www.expediagroup.com/} Lenonard Chesire {https://www.leonardcheshire.org/} Explorable A Designsensory (https://designsensory.com/) Original Production. This is a podcast about travel, disability and inclusion. Join Josh Loebner and Toby Willis as they interview experts, advocates and allies of tourism, destinations and disability to learn about how they’re traveling the world, the obstacles they face, and how we can change it for the better to make each journey more explorable. The Explorable Podcast is one of many original productions for Designsensory, positioned to act as a catalyst for additional original podcasts, limited series, and various other forms of content. Designsensory (https://designsensory.com/)is a full-service research, branding, advertising and digital firm based in Knoxville, TN and known all over the world. Visit {https://www.explorablepodcast.com/} to learn more and drop us a line if you'd like to join the movement to make the entire planet more Explorable.

Megan McKie Smith in conversation with former yoga teacher Francis D'Angel about his life, and the circumstances of his stroke.  Francis is a regular attendee of Leonard Cheshire disablity in Wandsworth, an organisation InterAct has been working with.  Support the show (https://www.interactstrokesupport.org)

This is a BBC recording of Royal Air Force Pilot and Group Captain Leonard Cheshire describing what he witnessed upon viewing the detonating of the second atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Nagasaki on August 9th, 1945. Mr. Cheshire was so moved by his experience during World War II that after the War ended, he founded a hospice which grew into the charity Leonard Cheshire Disability. He became known for his work in conflict resolution. Although Mr. Cheshire passed away in 1992, his organization still exists.

Hosted by Antonio Santos, Debra Ruh and Neil Milliken.Sophie is an award-winning disability advocate & social entrepreneur who was paralysed in a car crash when she was 18 years old. Determined to channel her adversity into opportunity, she sees her challenges as a unique chance for creativity.She embodies her values; finding creative opportunity in diversity and adversity, and daring to be different, she proves the value and power of true disability representation in all areas of her work and life.Sophie can be found presenting most Live Para Sport events on Channel 4 as well as hard-hitting current affairs programs such as Dispatches and Unreported World. She is also a board member for Ofcom, the UK government- approved regulatory broadcast authority.In spring 2021 Sophie's debut book will be published with Little Brown. The book is part-memoir, part travel log and part coping strategy on how to adapt too life's challenges, find resilience and create positive change.She established Sophie Morgan Creative Ltd and is leading the charge to better representation for disabled people in retail, travel and design consulting for large retailers such as Target Corporation and John Lewis & Waitrose.Global Brand ambassador for Toyota GB and CanAm, Sophie is a passionate adventurer who believes that the right vehicle can transform your world. Sophie is also a judge for Toyota's Mobility Prize to be announced in 2020. She is also Global Ambassador for Womens Rights and Inclusive Education for Leonard Cheshire, and on the Special Advisory Committee for Human Rights Watch.Sophie doesn't just talk – she enables and creates change. In everything she does, from hosting Global Disability Summits to working along side global mega brands such as Air BnB or GoPro to open their minds to the ‘disability opportunity' to traveling the world to document abuses in human rights, she lives, breathes and creates the change she wants to see in the world.

In this special episode we talk to Leonard Cheshire to find out how they’re using National Lottery funding to adapt their service and recruit a large number of new volunteers to help tackle loneliness for people with disabilities across Wales during the COVID-19 pandemic. Yn y bennod arbennig yma, rydym yn siarad gyda Leonard Cheshire i ddarganfod sut maen nhw'n defnyddio arian grant y Loteri Genedlaethol i addasu eu gwasanaeth a recriwtio nifer fawr o wirfoddolwyr newydd i helpu i fynd i'r afael ag unigrwydd i bobl ag anableddau ledled Cymru yn ystod y pandemig COVID-19.

We talk to Leonard Cheshire's 'Change 100' about enabling more people with disabilities to find careers in marketing, and ask if the lockdown can have a positive long-term impact on the way we work. In this episode: Verity Ayling-Smith, training and consultancy advisor with Leonard Cheshire and the 'Change 100' programme, and Priyanca Desouza, user researcher and former Change 100 intern. What disability is Protected characteristics, diversity and inclusion Disability as a normal and common thing Bringing down the barriers in recruitment and the work environment A wide range of accessibility needs The visibility of disability Disability more prevalent than we realise The duty of employers to remove barriers Choosing whether or not to disclose your disability Employers missing out on fantastic talent The inexplicable employment gap for disabled people Change 100 and Leonard Cheshire Leonard Cheshire's mission to support disabled people Change 100's mission to close the employment gap for disabled graduates and students Matching skills to roles A highly competitive programme The popularity of marketing and communications The challenging language of job descriptions The value of different life experiences Resilience, creativity and difference by default The danger of the agency bubble and cookie-cutter thinking Actively welcoming and valuing a difference life experience Championing inclusive experience design The 'amplified self' The problem with traditional recruitment Jim Carroll and the amplified self Excellence vs mediocrity The positives of the lockdown (for us all) How remoteness has brought colleagues closer A more personalised way of working It's not where you work but how - challenging office culture Business investment in agile, remote working and management A more autonomous, liberated and creative workforce

Tonight's guests include: Hetan Shah - Chief Executive at The British Academy | Dr Julie Mills CEO and Principal of Milton Keynes College | Robin Millar CBE - Director, Institute for Apprenticeships | Nick Ellins - Chief Executive of Energy & Utility Skills Group | Mo Lovett - Writer & Researcher Specialising in Arts & Culture Robin Millar CBE is also Chairman, Blue Raincoat Chrysalis Group, Global Ambassador, Leonard Cheshire and Record Producer for Sade, Sting, and Eric Clapton.Episode 14: In the future will the british economy rely on having more scientist or creatives - Weds 13 MayPresented by the Chief Executive of the Federation of @AwardingBodies, Tom Bewick, #SkillsWorldLIVE is a new radio show that builds on the popular #SkillsWorld podcast series, where Tom interviews leading figures shaping the post-compulsory education and skills systems, including apprenticeships in the UK, and across the world.News Bulletin:~Unions set out five tests government and colleges must meet before staff and students can return~1 in 4 Teachers Have Been Placed On Furlough Or Had Their Contracts Cancelled~Uxbridge College supports carers with donations and gifts

For more information about Leonard Cheshire's 'Disabled Looks Like Me' t-shirt campaign head to: https://www.leonardcheshire.org/our-impact/stories/disabled-looks-meCheck them out on Everpress here: https://everpress.com/disabled-looks-like-meCheck out our guests:Mimi Butlin - @cantgoout_imsickLucy Dawson - @luuudaw / @ludawintheskyhttps://lucyintheskywithencephalitis.wordpress.com/about/Sophia Kleanthous - @soph_campaignerFor enquiries, email disabilitydownload@leonardcheshire.org 

Crip Camp documentary and memoir (01.51 – 15.23)International Women's Day (15.26 – 22.52)Leonard Cheshire and international work (22.55 – 24.03)Crip Camp debuts on Netflix in the UK on Wednesday 25 March.Check out the trailer here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fs0VRfOg7WoFor International Women's Day, we're challenging stereotypes of what disability looks like in our #DisabledLooksLikeMe t-shirt campaign. Find out more on our Everpress site.Please give us a review, like, share and subscribe.  If you have any suggestions or topics you'd like to hear about, email us  at disabilitydownload@leonardcheshire.org 

The Disability Download Special episode – Frances Ryan  [Music intro] Cathy Lynch Hello and welcome to The Disability Download. The Disability Download is brought to you by disability charity Leonard Cheshire. I'm Cathy Lynch. Erin O'Reilly And I'm Erin O'Reilly and on this podcast, we respond to current topics, share stories and open up conversations about disability. This month we're all about the Paralympics.  This month we're giving you a very special episode of The Disability Download, we actually recorded this last summer and what it is, is a very special interview with award-winning journalist Frances Ryan. Cathy actually caught up with her last year, right before her recent book was published. The book is called Crippled: austerity and the demonization of disabled people. We thought it was quite timely to share the interview with you especially given the recent news of the tragic story of Errol Graham who actually died of starvation after having his benefits cut by the DWP (Department for Work and Pensions) so that's being investigated at the moment but Frances' book really shows the impact of austerity over recent years and how it's affecting disabled people.  [Music fades] Cathy Lynch Yeah was a really interesting conversation actually, I think as well from reading the book, it is quite a difficult read in the sense that it is very emotional in at points, you know, I think it's really important to note that it could that having your benefits cut could happen to anyone. It makes the figures, a reality that you see in the news every day. So yeah, give it a listen.  Cathy LynchFrancis. Could you explain to our listeners what the book is about and why you wrote it.  Francis Ryan Yeah, absolutely, thank you for having me. So yeah really the book came about from the fact that I've been working on disability and really the impact of government cuts on disabled people support for the last sort of seven years now, and it just really struck me that this is an issue that has just been building and building, as we've seen billions of pounds pulled from support that disabled people rely on by the way of social care or housing or benefits, and they've actually been covered a little bit in some really great books on for example austerity and it's been absolutely covered to a certain extent in newspapers. It's never really been an issue that's I think really hit that sort of turning point, that critical moment where it's just really gained public attention, and I thought it was just a really crucial issue that needed to be looked at in detail, and that is really where I started, and quickly became sort of a, I think my aim was to make excellent conversation about Britain's relationship with disability; how we treat disabled people, what attitudes to disabled people are in modern Britain and how that translates to the sort of policies that governments are able to bring in.  Cathy Lynch So in your book you focus on the austerity years and disability. You talk about the time before 2010; what was it like for you growing up, and what was it like pre-2010? Francis Ryan Yeah, I think that was a really important part of what I was trying to get across, that sense that society is sort of dependent on what governments are in, and what point of progress you're in as a society treat certain groups differently. So disabled people have been, you know, obviously campaigning through the decades to win really basic fundamental rights; that's their right to live at home independently rather than being in a care home, or the right to be employed or get on public transport. When I was growing up in the 1990's, I thought that was really fortunate time to be born a disabled person because we've sort of had those key civil rights moments if you like, where disabled campaigners had been fighting for decades to get these basic rights and we had things like the Disability Discriminations Act come in, Disability Living Allowance benefit that helps pay for the extra costs of disability had been introduced. So it felt quite a positive time actually, to be a disabled person, and have opportunities that the previous generations hadn't, and I think that's why for a lot of people, the post-2010 era, so when these austerity steps first began to sort of dismantle this support, that was the really devastating part. It was the fact that people who fought these rights of people's equality, really it's not perfect but it got to a point where a lot of people felt actually we're the generation of disabled people that are able to enjoy much more opportunity and equality than we've ever had before. But now due to this cost cutting, we're seeing so many disabled people see these rights roll back in a way that we never really expected - I think that is the really crucial bit that those rights are not permanent. We're constantly having to fight for them if you like, and right now I think is a really crucial time for disabled people in Britain, because we're very much having these rights feel like they're underset again. Cathy Lynch Something that struck me from reading the first pages of the book, you say that you've outlined this is a national scandal - do you think that when we look back at this point in history we're going to be ashamed; do you think the government should be held accountable?  Francis Ryan I think there is a real problem when it comes to pointing out problems and then ministers being held accountable and changing them. I think that's one of the crucial issues of why things have been so incredibly difficult for disabled people, it's that the policies have been brought in, in the first place that are damaging. So for example it is quite predictable, but when you tighten eligibility for disability benefits for example that will result in a lot of people who desperately need these benefits no longer having it. If you bring in you know 6 billion pounds worth of cuts in social care that's going to quite obviously result in disabled people not being able to get dressed or washed in the morning. That was quite obvious, and yet the policies are brought in regardless. When we see, as we have done, MP enquiries, charities, disabled-led organizations doing this research which shows very clearly the devastating impact of these policies that still 99 times out of a hundred Ministers do absolutely nothing about it. I think that's the devastating bit for a lot of people that actually everyone is really aware increasingly of what's happening. I hope the book is a record of what's happening but we need to reach a point where it's not just about saying "this is happening", It's about saying actually we need to reach a point where Ministers are pressured to actually do something about it.  Cathy Lynch Do you discuss in the book what we as a society can do to improve and how we can tackle these issues.  Francis Ryan Yes, absolutely. It was really important to me with the book to have that sort of sense of what we can do, to make things better. I think disabled people and non-disabled people I think now in Britain with politics can feel quite intense and hopeless; there's so much going on, isn't there? Whether it's Brexit, austerity or the rise of the far right, there's so many issues that make you feel this is this is a really difficult time for lot of people and you need to not sanitize what's happening at the same time you need a sense of hope, and a sense that actually things don't have to be this way if you do things differently the lives of disabled people can be so much better than they are for a lot of people now. So like you say towards end of the book I talk about just sort of common sense things society can do to make to make life better for disabled people. So for example, I talk about the importance of representation - I really think that even though they seem not related, something like how many disabled people you have in positions of power like in Parliament, in the media, or just the people that you see whether or not you go to school with a disabled person, whether you see them in the workplace. That level of exclusion versus representation and inclusion I think is really important because if you live in a society where you don't really see disabled people in everyday life it becomes really easy to get these  cultural myths around us that we're not like normal people, that we don't have the same interests and needs and wants and dreams and those cultural attitudes make it really easy to bring in measures like cuts to social care that you just wouldn't do for other people. If you believe that a disabled person doesn't go to the pub, does not have relationships and doesn't want a career then it becomes really easy to cut that personal assistance, so they have to stay in the house 24/7. I think for me stuff like representation is really important. I think we really connect, I think that is a really big issue we need to talk about the fact that, for a lot of people, they still don't really come across disabled people in everyday life, or at least they don't think they have, they're not aware of it, there's still a real sort of awkwardness, a lack of interaction with disabled people in Britain I think all about really ties into the way that we see disabled people treated in everyday life. Cathy Lynch Do you think the discussion of disability issues is shifting and changing in the media?  Francis Ryan I think that we've had, over the last decade, we've had I think a lot of the same people that I speak to have become quite fearful actually of some of the coverage that they've received and there's been research that shows this - the negative portrayal of disabled people has increased in the press post-2010. You know things like referring to people who are too sick to work as 'work shy' or 'scroungers', and lots of research has shown that's increased, and research has shown that things like disability hate crime - people you are talking about in the public in the first place, it shouldn't be a case of non-disabled people talking about disabled people constantly. Disabled people should be the front and center of our own reporting.  Cathy Lynch Reading the stories in the book, were there any stories that you were surprised by, or on a scale that you didn't imagine.  Francis Ryan Yeah I think I think going into it I was aware of the scale of the issue because I've been reading the research for a good five years at that point, and I was just talking to people, the amount of emails and messages that I get from disabled people I think I got the impression that this was not a handful of cases. You know this is hundreds of thousands if not millions of people who are being affected by issues like disability benefit cuts and social care cuts. But at the same time, I think hopefully that's what the book gets across. Sometimes those sort of reports can seem quite cold and abstract. You know if you read Leonard Cheshire did research talking about there's one million disabled people without the social care they need in Britain. That figure sounds horrendous but actually when you talk to people who actually directly experience it that you that you really get an impression of just what that means to people on a day to day basis. I spoke to one woman called Rachel who is a wheelchair user. She was living independently in a bungalow in the New Forest and she was doing that with the help of a team of personal assistants. Over 2012 to 2016, she lost the person helped her get dressed in the morning, the person that help cook her meals, the person that cleaned her bungalow, the person that helped her get to bed at night. It was just cut cut cut, and in the end she has no social care at all, and that struck me despite knowing how great this is for a lot of people. The idea that a wheelchair user could be left as she was which was malnourished because she had no one to cook the meals anymore, and on her bad days she slept in her wheelchair, she told me because she did not the energy to lift yourself back into bed, and the person used to help her from the council has been cut and that, absolutely, those types of stories I think, are just absolutely devastating even if you know how bad it is. I think it's all just it makes me feel it's reached a point for a lot of people where things are happening that you don't think you ever imagine would actually happen in a well-funded, wealthy nation and I think you should be shocked by that - I should be shocked by that - the reader I hope in a positive way shocked by it, because unless we talk about it, unless we sort of say to each other this is completely inhumane what can we do about that, then these things don't change, do they?  Cathy Lynch Another point that we found from the book was your take on the benevolent othering of disabled people and what you had to say about the phrase "most vulnerable people”; could you explain to our listeners what the issue is? Francis Ryan, I think this was in a really interesting thing for me. I think you hear this idiom that we will always, as a country, protect the most vulnerable, and when you say vulnerable generally people mean disabled people is sort of the code word they're using. I think the sentiment behind it is is it positive isn't it? The idea that as a society we should take care of people we should support people who are most in need of support, who can't necessarily live their life safely and comfortably without support from other people. But I think actually when you break it down the idea of disabled people being inherently vulnerable is is part of the problem; I think for one it perpetuates the idea that disabled people are sort of inherently different - that we are fragile - that we are weak - that we are child like, when actually, absolutely, many of us need support in a way that other people don't. But I don't feel vulnerable on a day to day basis. I'm just a normal person who needs support to do things. The idea that we are vunerable I think perpetuates that sense as you say that 'othering', I think on a second level it suggests that disabled people are vulnerable because we're disabled but actually the only reason that we're vulnerable or we become vulnerable is when the support that we need to live a safe and dignified life is removed from us, to talk about Rachael with the social care - she is absolutely vulnerable now because she is malnourished because no one is helping her cook meals. She is vulnerable because she can't go to bed at night and sleep. She wasn't vulnerable before. She's not vulnerable because she's a wheelchair user. She's vulnerable because society has chosen to remove her social care from her. I think that's the really important bit for me to talk about, that disability is not inherently tragic and miserable and negative. We can live amazing lives but we need sometimes that support in order to do that, and that's the issue - if society gives us the adequate support our lives are nothing like a life of tregedy and vunerability.  Cathy Lynch After writing this book and looking forward, where do you think we'll be in ten years time?  Francis Ryan Well there's a question...! I think British politics is in a position, where we could make predictions but I think they would easily be completely transformed in a matter of months. I think this feels a bit for a lot of people whether you are disabled or not that Britain is in a bit of a turning point, I think. I say at the end of the book that it feels a bit like 'decision time' for society of what we want to do, what we want to be like, how we want to treat people like disabled people and other marginalized groups like migrants - are we going to be a society that turns in on ourselves and becomes mean spirited, are we going to be a society that actually funds our public services properly again. These sort of questions I think have never been more vital to address. I think we're at a point where we've had this decade of extreme cost cutting that has really gutted these services that a lot of us have relied on for years. Obviously the change of Brexit is going to be transformative for society again, for services disabled people rely on. I think it's very much a turning point of 'we can do better than this'. We can we can stop the roll back of disability rights, we can reinvigorate the welfare state, or we can continue down this path. There's only going to further reduce the rights and opportunities of disabled people. I think it's a turning point and I really hope these sort of conversations help us to transform this situation into something better - we have that potential, it does not to be like this. We just need to get there.  Cathy Lynch What are the main things journalists and charities and other organizations in the disability sector do you think should do in the meantime?  Francis Ryan I think that I think the number of disabled organizations and also charities are doing incredible work. I think it's easy when you look at the scale of these problems to fear as I say quite downhearted about it, and scared of what happening. I think it's really important to look at the incredible campaigns that were already happening, in the book I talk a lot about the things disabled campaigners are doing for example, organizations like disabled people against cuts, that they're working in protesting and highlighting the way that the closure of the Independent Living Fund and the impact that that had on and continues to have on disabled people. If we look at parents of disabled children who are currently campaigning to stop closures of respite centers that their children rely on and or specialist teacher assistance to help them and have their children in mainstream education - those campaigns and their battles are being fought and won in some cases all over the country as we speak. I think that's the really crucial bit isn't it - is to look in your local community to what the issues are and what we can do to try and help us maintain these little sides of support. I think that that there's some incredible work that we just need to highlight some more maybe - they don't necessarily didn't get the good stuff and the passion and their campaigns don't necessarily get the front pages like a devastating story would do, but social media for example I think it's a great way for a lot of disabled people to connect with one another who are not only going through these difficulties but also to look at these campaigns that you can get involved in whether it's education or social care or benefits or access to venues the same opportunity particularly online to get involved in your local networks on the national networks. It gives me hope, for sure, to see the way that disabled people can work together and get really a better result, it's a cliche but we do a lot better when we're all fighting together than just by ourselves, and I think that gives a sense of hope and solidarity for what can be stopped, and what can be changed, if you work together in that way. Cathy Lynch So now your book is done. What's next for you?  Francis Ryan A big sleep! I do love a nap! It's strange, it's about two years I think I've been working on that, so that's a long time. I think it's it's going to be a case of hoping that this these sort of stories that are covered in this book gets as much attention as we can, I really hope that the stories that people have so generously and really courageously told me in intimate detail in these books get the sort of reception that I hope these issues can finally get. To me going forward, continue to working with The Guardian and the great team there, people like Patrick Butler, who do incredible work in highlighting what is happening to disabled people, I think there are so many issues that you just can't not cover. I think issues like social care is going to be just an incredible issue over the next couple of years increasingly. Just today, I read an article that told me that people who are over the age of 65, the proposal was that they would get their personal care for free and not once in the news article did it mention that disabled people exist, that disabled people under the age of 65. For me personally just as social care continues to be debated and finally we get the the paper from the government hopefully to just continually bang the drum that social care actually is relied on by disabled people as well as older people and how we can make disabled people get the support we need as well as older people, that will be for me personally one really important issue over the next year.  Cathy Lynch Fantastic. Thank you so much Francis.  Erin O'Reilly So that was a really interesting chat there with Francis and covering obviously essential topics which are very timely in the current landscape, so Francis' book is available to buy from all good bookshops and available on Amazon as well. As always, we'll put relevant links in our show notes so check that out if you're interested in giving it a read.  Cathy Lynch And we'd love to know what you think of The Disability Download, email us at disabilitydownload@leonardcheshire.org and please remember to like, share and subscribe.  Cathy Lynch I'm Cathy Lynch  Erin O'Reilly and Erin O'Reilly Both And this has been The Disability Download.  Music plays 

Was the atom bomb originally intended for German cities? James Holland and Al Murray discuss the Manhattan project, including the little known story of the secret squadron of Lancasters prepared to carry the bomb to German targets.Plus James tells the extraordinary story of Leonard Cheshire, one of the most highly decorated pilots of the war.Winston Churchill’s plan to drop mustard gas on German cities is also scrutinized.A Goalhanger Films ProductionProduced by Joey McCarthy and Harry LinekerExec Producer: Tony PastorTwitter: #WeHaveWaysEmail: wehavewayspodcast@gmail.com See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Link to Sport England's website: https://www.sportengland.org/our-work/disability/To find your local active partnership: http://www.activepartnerships.org/Follow Olivia and Chris on their journey to Tokyo on Twitter:@ChristopherSke2@BreenOliviaSpecial thanks to Jonathan Drane.For transcript requests, please email disabilitydownload@leonardcheshire.orgIf you'd like to get in touch, please email disabilitydownload@leonardcheshire.org  

Michelle Walker is the People Business Partner for International at Leonard Cheshire in London. Michelle has a long-standing experience working in human resources. In this episode, Michelle explains the impact their organization has while working with people experiencing some form of disability, how they ensure that their workplace is inclusive, and how it all once began. - We are a pan-disability charity and in a nutshell we support individuals to live, learn and work independently as they choose whatever their ability and we do that globally, says Michelle Walker.

On this episode of the ACB Advocacy Update Podcast, Clark Rachfal is joined by Matt Ater to answer the question everyone is asking: “Who is Vispero?” Matt explains that ACB members most certainly know Vispero through their products and services offered by: Enhanced Vision, Freedom Scientific, Optelec, and the Paciello Group. Clark and Matt conclude the conversation by teasing some, but not all, of the special announcements and promotions that Vispero will have at the ACB 58th annual convention in Rochester, NY. To learn more about Vispero, visit: www.vispero.com. To register for the ACB annual convention, visit: www.acbconvention.org. And, please share your ideas for future podcasts with us at: advocacy@acb.org. Transcript of the Advocacy Update Podcast: Automated: 00:02 You are listening to the ACB Advocacy Update. Clark Rachfal: 00:12 Hello everyone and welcome to another edition of the ACB Advocacy Update Podcast. My name is Clark Rachfal. I'm the Director of Advocacy in Governmental Affairs for the American Council of the Blind, and today it's just me. Clair is out in San Rafael, California at Guide Dogs for the Blind, training with her new potential guide dog. If you'd like to learn more about what it's like going to a guide dog school and training with a dog, you can check out the Facebook Live video that Claire just did and that is on the American Council of the Blind Facebook page. Today we are joined by a friend of ACB who works in the accessible technology space, and that is Matt Ater, with Vispero. Say hello, Matt. Matt Ater: 01:14 Well, good afternoon, Clark. How are you doing today? Clark Rachfal: 01:17 Doing well. And yourself? Matt Ater: 01:19 I am doing wonderful. It's a beautiful day outside. Of course when people listen to us, you never know what the weather's going to be like, but life is good. Clark Rachfal: 01:28 That's great. I know a lot of our listeners are excited for the role that Vispero's going to play at the ACB Annual Convention in Rochester, and we'll certainly get to those activities here in a bit but, Matt, why don't you share with the listeners a little bit about yourself and your background? Matt Ater: 01:49 Sure. So I've been in the, I'll start with kind of the assistive technology field, prior to accessibility, but assistive technology field since I guess 25 years now. I've graduated from the University of Alabama with broadcasting degree and came back up to the DC area and decided that I wanted to go into more of the training and consulting field and spent a few years training federal employees around the country on how to use screen readers at jobs, teaching them how to use braille displays. I think government agencies, video magnifiers, large-print software, things of that nature. Matt Ater: 02:36 I did that for a couple of years, then went to go work for a nonprofit in Washington DC running the assistive technology department where we did a lot of training of end users, again, across the United States, so that was five years of my career. I did that. And then in early 2000s I did a little bit of a stint in working with the product lines and then eventually jumped into running government contracts for... I did about six years of running a project for the Social Security Administration, running their assistive technology support services. Which included installing equipment, training the users, configuring the software, deploying the software, providing a help desk, full-level support for any of the employees within that agency. Matt Ater: 03:41 And I jumped out of assistive technology for a few years to just kind of learn IT services and then landed into accessibility for four years. I joined Vispero, at that time Freedom Scientific, and I'll give a little background on who Vispero is in a few. But I joined Freedom Scientific in 2014 to start a consulting division for Freedom Scientific. They found that they had a lot of customers who were in corporate environments needing support and training and configuration and customization and scripting and all of these kinds of things so basically we started a group to support those larger customers to make sure that software was working right when people went to work. Matt Ater: 04:34 Eventually, after a year, I started getting more into the accessibility side of it and a started with two employees and grew to about 25 employees and then later we acquired another company which added another 40 employees and then another year bought another company that had another 10 employees and got to a point where I said, "Well, it's time to change again." So I'm still with Vispero but I moved back, not running the consulting practice now and more helping large enterprises look at the total package when it comes to all of our product lines and brands within the Vispero family of brands. So that's kind of the last 25 years wrapped up into a few minutes. Clark Rachfal: 05:29 That's fascinating, Matt. Do you have a history as an assistive technology user, especially at your time at the University of Alabama and throughout your career? Matt Ater: 05:40 Boy, it's a flashback when you think about going to college, pre-Windows. I was born with a condition called hydrocephalus, water on the brain, and when I was six years old the water pressure cut off blood supply to the optic nerves so I've lost most of my vision in my left eye and my right eye is about 26/100 tunnel vision. So I am a screen reader user today. It's funny, I've always told people my vision didn't get worse as time went on, technology just got better to the point that I became lazy and wanted to listen instead of see the screen. Matt Ater: 06:24 I can use large print but it takes a lot of time to read it and it's tiring on the eyes and so I use screen readers and braille at this point. I carry a handheld magnifier in my bag and I carry a braille display with me everywhere I go to type into my phone. And I have large-print software on the computer as well as a screen reader but from the day-to-day I would rather listen to the computer than I would try to see it with my eyes. Clark Rachfal: 06:56 Yeah. I think a lot of people that have low vision or deteriorating vision probably have a similar story. So for me, personally, I have Leber's congenital amaurosis and I started out with large print and magnifiers, then moved to CCTVs. My introduction to accessibility software was ZoomText and then ZoomText Level 2 with speech and now JAWS. So I'm very familiar with those products in the Freedom Scientific portfolio. But that's only one aspect of the work that Vispero is doing now. I think a lot of our listeners are probably familiar with Freedom Scientific but is there anything new going on with Freedom Scientific, whether that's JAWS, Fusion, ZoomText or anything else? Matt Ater: 07:48 Yeah. I definitely can dive into that. I think it would be great for me to kind of break down what Vispero is because a couple of years ago we were sold and then acquired and merged with Optelec and then eventually some other companies and I'll go through all of them. So I think everybody's probably been confused with all the name changes. Clark Rachfal: 08:13 Sure. Matt Ater: 08:17 Think of Vispero as more of a holding company. It's somewhere that deals with our dealer channels and things of that nature. But most customers we have have relationships with our actual companies and brands. And you just said that most people are familiar with Freedom Scientific because of JAWS and ZoomText and Focus Braille Displays and RUBY handheld magnifiers and lots of other stuff with Fusion and so on. And I think with every person, they have their preference in terms of what brand they feel comfortable with. Matt Ater: 08:56 So in this family of companies we have the four brands of Freedom Scientific, which we just ran through the majority of those products. Then Optelec, which is primarily video magnification. They do have a standalone scan-and-read system and they have traditional handheld magnifiers, as they call them, professional products that are mostly sold through the doctor channels. And then primarily you're talking about things like the ClearView. I'll talk about the ClearView GO in a little bit. Compact handheld magnifiers, the Compact 6 and so on. Matt Ater: 09:42 And then the other hardware company that's part of this family is called Enhanced Vision. They're based in Huntington Beach, California. They're, again, worldwide and the product lines are things like Merlin, Jordy. They, of course, have the Pebble handheld and some other things like that. When you look at all of the products, they're very similar in nature but have a different maybe look and feel. And probably like going to try on different shirts, and you find a shirt that fits you. This technology is very personal to people. Matt Ater: 10:27 As we know with braille cells and we know with large-print devices, and even with screen readers with voices, I'm perfectly fine using Eloquence, like you are, but the next person wants to use Vocalizer because it's more soothing to them listening to it. And so if you look at those three brands, and I'll get to the fourth in a minute, what you're talking about is three companies who make very similar hardware. The buttons are slightly different in each product. The features are primarily the same. But the buttons are different, the color may be slightly different. The shape and size of the screen may be slightly different. Matt Ater: 11:09 And we'll continue to keep those brands because they're very unique to the markets they fit. The distribution channel that is across Vispero family of companies is unmatched in this space. A dealer in Texas covers certain products and the guy in Minneapolis covers different products and there may be a different dealer, but they may hit different customer bases. And that's why they can still be multiple brands within a family of products is because they have different customers. And when you think about the number of people who are buying direct from us, it's small in numbers compared to the numbers of people who are buying from the local channels. Matt Ater: 12:00 The fourth company is called the Paciello Group and this is the one I mentioned that a couple of years ago we acquired and it was really to boost the accessibility services that Freedom Scientific was doing and then later we also acquired a company called Interactive Accessibility and so the three companies consulting practices are all merged into one called the Paciello Group and we can shorten that and just call it TPG. Let's just keep it simple because it's easier, right? Matt Ater: 12:38 The neat thing about this is that it's very complementary to selling software. Because we have customers all around the world who are challenged with accessibility issues and sometimes people say, "Well, it's because JAWS doesn't do something right." And there's always a chance that that can happen. But at the same time, it's a lot to do with whether or not people code things correctly. So this is why it's very complementary to the software side is because we get to, now, when people have concerns or issues and whether it's a website you're trying to buy shoes on or a kiosk you're trying to access and work with, obviously you may be using JAWS on that or ZoomText or some other product. But now we have the consultants who actually can work with those companies to solve their problems. Clark Rachfal: 13:36 So, Matt, what makes TPG, or the Paciello Group, different from other accessibility consultants for websites, whether that's web accessibility standards or 508 compliance within the government? There's a lot of companies that say that they can do accessibility but it seems like very few actually can. So how does the Paciello Group go about it? Matt Ater: 14:04 So, there's a couple of things. It's a mix of products and people. I think we have some of the smartest people in the field. The folks that are working at TPG have been in this quite a long time, they've helped write a lot of the standards. They understand stuff. Additionally, we have a very strong what we call a user experience background. A lot of people refer to it as UX. I've always said that we're so focused on compliance rather than usability and at some point don't we need to be focused on whether or not people can perform tasks rather than compliance? Matt Ater: 14:43 Compliance is checking a box. But can actually people use your product? That's different. And I think that's what TPG gets right is that we're not just about compliance, we're also making sure that people can use what they built. It's interesting, TPG, companies worldwide, folks in several countries, the majority of the work is in the US and some in Europe and some in Canada. But the kinds of people we bring in, it's about the people and that's really what it comes down to is people make up consulting. And really good consultants, it's amazing, not amazing because I know these folks, but it's great to hear from customers about how great the services have been. Matt Ater: 15:43 There's a company we've been working with recently who people come to us a lot of times because we own JAWS and ZoomText and so they assume that we can fix it because of that rather than helping them fix the code. And what I love the most is watching the large number of employers working with us not for necessarily just working in external websites where people can buy goods, but they're concerned about whether or not their applications can work so that a person who's blind or low vision or any other disability could actually work at that company. Matt Ater: 16:27 And I think that's the most powerful thing that we can bring to the table is that if an employer needs something to work on the job, what better company than the one who makes the screen reader, and the large-print software, to be able to tap into that resources. And even though Freedom Scientific and TPG are separate companies, we still have reach back into them to solve problems. And this other company, they had 50 low vision and blind employees who were being impacted by inaccessible applications so we're in there installing JAWS and ZoomText and things like that and training the users. But we recognized we needed accessibility help and we brought that in from TPG to solve the problems. And that's when it's powerful. Clark Rachfal: 17:13 Yeah. That's great that employers are able to invest in their employees and make sure that they not only have the productivity tools that they need to be successful but that they optimize the work setting for those tools so that their employees can be highly productive and succeed at their work. One of the other companies that you mentioned, I'd like you to talk a little bit more about, and that's Optelec. Can you talk a little bit about the product offerings within that portfolio? Matt Ater: 17:48 Yes. So the three main products right now, one's called ClearView. That's a desktop magnifier, obviously. You mentioned you've used them before. They called then CCTVs back when you and I were younger, right? Clark Rachfal: 18:03 Mm-hmm (affirmative). Matt Ater: 18:05 Back in the day when they were wood-paneled and things like that. Yeah. Today the ClearView C with speech, it's pretty cool because it does both the magnification but if your eyes get tired during the day or you just need a little help, you can touch the screen in the bottom corner and it actually becomes an OCR product, Optical Character Recognition. So it can take a picture of something and read it back to you. Clark Rachfal: 18:36 Oh, wow. Matt Ater: 18:36 It can do it in large print, change the color, change the font, whatever you need to do to make it easier to read it. And of course that's the kind of Cadillac, it's the highest end, it's the biggest unit, it's big screen, that kind of stuff. And you'll see it in VAs today, you'll it in libraries, different places like that, and of course end users as well. Matt Ater: 19:03 The ClearView GO is a brand-new product which we'll have at the ACB Convention this summer. It's a foldable CCTV or video magnifier that you can carry with you. I'm not sure the weight. I guess I should probably know all the stats, but just go to the table and ask them. It folds up and so it's great for schools. It has a distance camera so a student could sit at a desk and go to read the chalkboard or the blackboard or the whiteboard or the smart board or whatever board they're using today. I said I would want to use it. I'm not even in school any more. I don't plan to go back to school. But just the fact that it's a transportable product; it's pretty cool that I can actually carry it around. Matt Ater: 19:59 There is a ClearView speech device that does OCR, and it's kind of like a small... I'm trying to think of what would be a good example of the shape or size. It's not much bigger than a shoebox on its end. And of course it can take a picture of something and read it to you. Traditional kind of OCR with different voices and such. Matt Ater: 20:26 And then the Compact 6 is a touch screen, six inch, handheld camera that you can carry around and be able to read print, that also does OCR. So, once again, I think it's not uncommon for people with low vision is their eyes get tired during the day to want to have something read it to you. So you can just touch the screen, hit a button, and then it just reads the document to you, whatever it sees in its camera. Clark Rachfal: 20:58 That's great. Thanks, Matt. I know that these are products that a lot of ACB members, whether they already have or are losing their vision due to diabetes and diabetic retinopathy or, for our older members, if they're losing their vision due to macular degeneration or some other either age-related or degenerative condition, these low-vision devices provide a lot of services. One of the main benefits of them is that with the video capabilities and the OCR capabilities, even as your vision deteriorates, this is equipment that will remain useful over time. Ever since 2013, ACB's been working to introduce legislation that would provide for Medicare and Medicaid coverage for low-vision devices such as these. Matt Ater: 21:55 I think it's amazing to me that we're the last country in the world that won't pay for things out of insurance or some other form. This type of technology for blind and low vision. They do it with other disabilities but just not blind and low vision. Clark Rachfal: 22:11 Yeah. And it was only recently that white canes became classified as durable medical equipment. So hopefully we can make progress here on this issue so that low-vision devices and remove the eyeglass exclusion that's in place at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services so that these devices as well as eyeglasses and contacts can be classified as durable medical equipment. Clark Rachfal: 22:41 So you highlighted for us a lot of companies, brands, and products that are under the umbrella of Vispero. And I know that here in two weeks or so you'll be involved with the M-Enabling Summit, which our listeners are familiar with because we had a guest, not from Aerosmith but from Leonard Cheshire, Steve Tyler, come on and talk about... ICT and the M-Enabling Summit. What role will Vispero be playing at M-Enabling? Matt Ater: 23:19 We're going to have people attending the show this year and kind of exploring the different sessions. We have different relationships throughout the industry because of obviously our product lines and our accessibility, so we'll obviously be there as well to visit with our customers, talk about some of the accessibility things they're going through today. Obviously show some of the new tech that we have coming out, as well. I think that it's been nice to have a conference that's in the DC area. I think it's good to bring government into things, which is one of the things that happens here at this conference, as well. Clark Rachfal: 24:12 I agree. It's great to have a conference here in front of companies and policy makers and it sounds like it'll be a great turnout for the M-Enabling Summit. But I'm glad that you're saving all of the big guns for the ACB Annual Convention, which is in Rochester, New York, this summer, July 5th through 12th. And also thanks to Vispero for being a diamond-level sponsor of the ACB convention. And you guys are hosting an event and will be giving a presentation at the convention. Can you talk a little bit about the session that your colleague will be hosting, I believe, the morning of July 7th? Matt Ater: 24:56 Yeah. I actually think show's the 6th. It's on Saturday. Whatever day Saturday is. I'm off on my days. So that would be the 6th, I think. Clark Rachfal: 25:09 Yeah, you're correct. Matt Ater: 25:10 Yeah, Douglas Gerry's going to do a presentation on our software and, by the way, the first 50 people who attend it... Let's see what it says here. They'll have a 50% discount on our home software licenses and for those people who don't know about the home software licenses, this was a big deal that we did this year. We put in some new technology that allowed us to sell licenses online and basically if you're going to use it for home use, you can get JAWS I think it's for $90 and ZoomText for $80. And it lasts for one year. So it's a subscription-based license, it's not a perpetual license. But at the same time it's less than what you would pay for an SMA if you were paying for an SMA every two years. Matt Ater: 26:04 So this is to make sure that more people at home get access to JAWS and ZoomText and so, once again, when Douglas does his presentation, the first 50 people who come will get a coupon for it that will allow them to get 50% off, and they have to use it before the end of September. I'm not sure the exact date but it'll be on the document. So just make sure that if you get one of those, don't let it expire because it's worth a savings of $45 or $40. Matt Ater: 26:39 So what is Douglas going to show? So I would say that one of the neat features is a new feature came out with JAWS that's part of JAWS and Fusion called Picture Smart. And this allows you to take any picture that's in your photo library on your computer or on the web or in a document and actually have JAWS figure out what it is and describe it to you. Very similar to what you may get on Facebook or you may get on your iPhone, or you may use another products like Seeing AI to determine what a picture is. Matt Ater: 27:14 Well, now it's built into your Windows PC with JAWS. So if you need to figure out what a picture is, you can just do a application's key, which is Shift+F10 as well as another key for it, when you're highlighted on the picture in the folder on your computer, and then, say, recognize with Picture Smart. I think there's also a keystroke for it. But if anybody can remember all the keystrokes, it's not going to be me. Clark Rachfal: 27:43 Yeah. And I hope Doug doesn't steal all your thunder because then you will be presenting in front of the general session at the ACB Convention as well. Matt Ater: 27:53 Yeah, exactly. I'm excited about that. I think it's Tuesday morning that I get to come and talk and so I'm very excited about it. I'll obviously talk about new things that are happening with the company, probably, again, go a little bit over who Vispero is. Half the people don't even know how do you spell it, how do you pronounce it? There's probably lots of ways to do that. But just so everybody knows, it's www.vispero.com. In fact, if you want to know more about what we're doing, one of the things we also did is we released a video recently and it's on the Vispero homepage and it has audio description as well as captioning and you can sit down and watch a good video on some of our user stories. So it's pretty cool. Clark Rachfal: 28:45 Matt, thank you so much for joining us today. I know that you and Vispero will be very popular at the ACB Convention, especially in the Exhibit Hall. I'm sure you'll get a lot of people coming up to you asking you about products, they'll want demonstrations, hands-on testing and all that good stuff, so thank you so much for your time. Matt Ater: 29:07 Yeah. And if I can, I'll just give you two more specials at the show just so people know. There'll be 20% off of the home licenses at the booth, so if you don't get those 50% off licenses, you can get the 20% off. And then we're going to have 20% off all hardware. So if you need a new braille display, a new video magnifier or a handheld, any of the technology we build that's hardware of any of our brands, then you can get those as well at a 20% discount. So definitely come by and see us. Clark Rachfal: 29:42 That's fabulous. Thank you for doing that for the ACB members and those in attendance at the Annual Convention. Everyone just remember that the early registration for the ACB Convention runs through June 23rd and you can register at acbconvention.org. That's www.acbconvention.org. So, again, Matt, thank you so much for joining us on the Advocacy Update Podcast. We look forward to seeing you in Rochester. Matt Ater: 30:14 Take care.

On this episode of the ACB Advocacy Update Podcast, Clark Rachfal is joined by Matt Ater to answer the question everyone is asking: “Who is Vispero?” Matt explains that ACB members most certainly know Vispero through their products and services offered by: Enhanced Vision, Freedom Scientific, Optelec, and the Paciello Group. Clark and Matt conclude the conversation by teasing some, but not all, of the special announcements and promotions that Vispero will have at the ACB 58th annual convention in Rochester, NY. To learn more about Vispero, visit: www.vispero.com. To register for the ACB annual convention, visit: www.acbconvention.org. And, please share your ideas for future podcasts with us at: advocacy@acb.org. Transcript of the Advocacy Update Podcast: Automated: 00:02 You are listening to the ACB Advocacy Update. Clark Rachfal: 00:12 Hello everyone and welcome to another edition of the ACB Advocacy Update Podcast. My name is Clark Rachfal. I'm the Director of Advocacy in Governmental Affairs for the American Council of the Blind, and today it's just me. Clair is out in San Rafael, California at Guide Dogs for the Blind, training with her new potential guide dog. If you'd like to learn more about what it's like going to a guide dog school and training with a dog, you can check out the Facebook Live video that Claire just did and that is on the American Council of the Blind Facebook page. Today we are joined by a friend of ACB who works in the accessible technology space, and that is Matt Ater, with Vispero. Say hello, Matt. Matt Ater: 01:14 Well, good afternoon, Clark. How are you doing today? Clark Rachfal: 01:17 Doing well. And yourself? Matt Ater: 01:19 I am doing wonderful. It's a beautiful day outside. Of course when people listen to us, you never know what the weather's going to be like, but life is good. Clark Rachfal: 01:28 That's great. I know a lot of our listeners are excited for the role that Vispero's going to play at the ACB Annual Convention in Rochester, and we'll certainly get to those activities here in a bit but, Matt, why don't you share with the listeners a little bit about yourself and your background? Matt Ater: 01:49 Sure. So I've been in the, I'll start with kind of the assistive technology field, prior to accessibility, but assistive technology field since I guess 25 years now. I've graduated from the University of Alabama with broadcasting degree and came back up to the DC area and decided that I wanted to go into more of the training and consulting field and spent a few years training federal employees around the country on how to use screen readers at jobs, teaching them how to use braille displays. I think government agencies, video magnifiers, large-print software, things of that nature. Matt Ater: 02:36 I did that for a couple of years, then went to go work for a nonprofit in Washington DC running the assistive technology department where we did a lot of training of end users, again, across the United States, so that was five years of my career. I did that. And then in early 2000s I did a little bit of a stint in working with the product lines and then eventually jumped into running government contracts for... I did about six years of running a project for the Social Security Administration, running their assistive technology support services. Which included installing equipment, training the users, configuring the software, deploying the software, providing a help desk, full-level support for any of the employees within that agency. Matt Ater: 03:41 And I jumped out of assistive technology for a few years to just kind of learn IT services and then landed into accessibility for four years. I joined Vispero, at that time Freedom Scientific, and I'll give a little background on who Vispero is in a few. But I joined Freedom Scientific in 2014 to start a consulting division for Freedom Scientific. They found that they had a lot of customers who were in corporate environments needing support and training and configuration and customization and scripting and all of these kinds of things so basically we started a group to support those larger customers to make sure that software was working right when people went to work. Matt Ater: 04:34 Eventually, after a year, I started getting more into the accessibility side of it and a started with two employees and grew to about 25 employees and then later we acquired another company which added another 40 employees and then another year bought another company that had another 10 employees and got to a point where I said, "Well, it's time to change again." So I'm still with Vispero but I moved back, not running the consulting practice now and more helping large enterprises look at the total package when it comes to all of our product lines and brands within the Vispero family of brands. So that's kind of the last 25 years wrapped up into a few minutes. Clark Rachfal: 05:29 That's fascinating, Matt. Do you have a history as an assistive technology user, especially at your time at the University of Alabama and throughout your career? Matt Ater: 05:40 Boy, it's a flashback when you think about going to college, pre-Windows. I was born with a condition called hydrocephalus, water on the brain, and when I was six years old the water pressure cut off blood supply to the optic nerves so I've lost most of my vision in my left eye and my right eye is about 26/100 tunnel vision. So I am a screen reader user today. It's funny, I've always told people my vision didn't get worse as time went on, technology just got better to the point that I became lazy and wanted to listen instead of see the screen. Matt Ater: 06:24 I can use large print but it takes a lot of time to read it and it's tiring on the eyes and so I use screen readers and braille at this point. I carry a handheld magnifier in my bag and I carry a braille display with me everywhere I go to type into my phone. And I have large-print software on the computer as well as a screen reader but from the day-to-day I would rather listen to the computer than I would try to see it with my eyes. Clark Rachfal: 06:56 Yeah. I think a lot of people that have low vision or deteriorating vision probably have a similar story. So for me, personally, I have Leber's congenital amaurosis and I started out with large print and magnifiers, then moved to CCTVs. My introduction to accessibility software was ZoomText and then ZoomText Level 2 with speech and now JAWS. So I'm very familiar with those products in the Freedom Scientific portfolio. But that's only one aspect of the work that Vispero is doing now. I think a lot of our listeners are probably familiar with Freedom Scientific but is there anything new going on with Freedom Scientific, whether that's JAWS, Fusion, ZoomText or anything else? Matt Ater: 07:48 Yeah. I definitely can dive into that. I think it would be great for me to kind of break down what Vispero is because a couple of years ago we were sold and then acquired and merged with Optelec and then eventually some other companies and I'll go through all of them. So I think everybody's probably been confused with all the name changes. Clark Rachfal: 08:13 Sure. Matt Ater: 08:17 Think of Vispero as more of a holding company. It's somewhere that deals with our dealer channels and things of that nature. But most customers we have have relationships with our actual companies and brands. And you just said that most people are familiar with Freedom Scientific because of JAWS and ZoomText and Focus Braille Displays and RUBY handheld magnifiers and lots of other stuff with Fusion and so on. And I think with every person, they have their preference in terms of what brand they feel comfortable with. Matt Ater: 08:56 So in this family of companies we have the four brands of Freedom Scientific, which we just ran through the majority of those products. Then Optelec, which is primarily video magnification. They do have a standalone scan-and-read system and they have traditional handheld magnifiers, as they call them, professional products that are mostly sold through the doctor channels. And then primarily you're talking about things like the ClearView. I'll talk about the ClearView GO in a little bit. Compact handheld magnifiers, the Compact 6 and so on. Matt Ater: 09:42 And then the other hardware company that's part of this family is called Enhanced Vision. They're based in Huntington Beach, California. They're, again, worldwide and the product lines are things like Merlin, Jordy. They, of course, have the Pebble handheld and some other things like that. When you look at all of the products, they're very similar in nature but have a different maybe look and feel. And probably like going to try on different shirts, and you find a shirt that fits you. This technology is very personal to people. Matt Ater: 10:27 As we know with braille cells and we know with large-print devices, and even with screen readers with voices, I'm perfectly fine using Eloquence, like you are, but the next person wants to use Vocalizer because it's more soothing to them listening to it. And so if you look at those three brands, and I'll get to the fourth in a minute, what you're talking about is three companies who make very similar hardware. The buttons are slightly different in each product. The features are primarily the same. But the buttons are different, the color may be slightly different. The shape and size of the screen may be slightly different. Matt Ater: 11:09 And we'll continue to keep those brands because they're very unique to the markets they fit. The distribution channel that is across Vispero family of companies is unmatched in this space. A dealer in Texas covers certain products and the guy in Minneapolis covers different products and there may be a different dealer, but they may hit different customer bases. And that's why they can still be multiple brands within a family of products is because they have different customers. And when you think about the number of people who are buying direct from us, it's small in numbers compared to the numbers of people who are buying from the local channels. Matt Ater: 12:00 The fourth company is called the Paciello Group and this is the one I mentioned that a couple of years ago we acquired and it was really to boost the accessibility services that Freedom Scientific was doing and then later we also acquired a company called Interactive Accessibility and so the three companies consulting practices are all merged into one called the Paciello Group and we can shorten that and just call it TPG. Let's just keep it simple because it's easier, right? Matt Ater: 12:38 The neat thing about this is that it's very complementary to selling software. Because we have customers all around the world who are challenged with accessibility issues and sometimes people say, "Well, it's because JAWS doesn't do something right." And there's always a chance that that can happen. But at the same time, it's a lot to do with whether or not people code things correctly. So this is why it's very complementary to the software side is because we get to, now, when people have concerns or issues and whether it's a website you're trying to buy shoes on or a kiosk you're trying to access and work with, obviously you may be using JAWS on that or ZoomText or some other product. But now we have the consultants who actually can work with those companies to solve their problems. Clark Rachfal: 13:36 So, Matt, what makes TPG, or the Paciello Group, different from other accessibility consultants for websites, whether that's web accessibility standards or 508 compliance within the government? There's a lot of companies that say that they can do accessibility but it seems like very few actually can. So how does the Paciello Group go about it? Matt Ater: 14:04 So, there's a couple of things. It's a mix of products and people. I think we have some of the smartest people in the field. The folks that are working at TPG have been in this quite a long time, they've helped write a lot of the standards. They understand stuff. Additionally, we have a very strong what we call a user experience background. A lot of people refer to it as UX. I've always said that we're so focused on compliance rather than usability and at some point don't we need to be focused on whether or not people can perform tasks rather than compliance? Matt Ater: 14:43 Compliance is checking a box. But can actually people use your product? That's different. And I think that's what TPG gets right is that we're not just about compliance, we're also making sure that people can use what they built. It's interesting, TPG, companies worldwide, folks in several countries, the majority of the work is in the US and some in Europe and some in Canada. But the kinds of people we bring in, it's about the people and that's really what it comes down to is people make up consulting. And really good consultants, it's amazing, not amazing because I know these folks, but it's great to hear from customers about how great the services have been. Matt Ater: 15:43 There's a company we've been working with recently who people come to us a lot of times because we own JAWS and ZoomText and so they assume that we can fix it because of that rather than helping them fix the code. And what I love the most is watching the large number of employers working with us not for necessarily just working in external websites where people can buy goods, but they're concerned about whether or not their applications can work so that a person who's blind or low vision or any other disability could actually work at that company. Matt Ater: 16:27 And I think that's the most powerful thing that we can bring to the table is that if an employer needs something to work on the job, what better company than the one who makes the screen reader, and the large-print software, to be able to tap into that resources. And even though Freedom Scientific and TPG are separate companies, we still have reach back into them to solve problems. And this other company, they had 50 low vision and blind employees who were being impacted by inaccessible applications so we're in there installing JAWS and ZoomText and things like that and training the users. But we recognized we needed accessibility help and we brought that in from TPG to solve the problems. And that's when it's powerful. Clark Rachfal: 17:13 Yeah. That's great that employers are able to invest in their employees and make sure that they not only have the productivity tools that they need to be successful but that they optimize the work setting for those tools so that their employees can be highly productive and succeed at their work. One of the other companies that you mentioned, I'd like you to talk a little bit more about, and that's Optelec. Can you talk a little bit about the product offerings within that portfolio? Matt Ater: 17:48 Yes. So the three main products right now, one's called ClearView. That's a desktop magnifier, obviously. You mentioned you've used them before. They called then CCTVs back when you and I were younger, right? Clark Rachfal: 18:03 Mm-hmm (affirmative). Matt Ater: 18:05 Back in the day when they were wood-paneled and things like that. Yeah. Today the ClearView C with speech, it's pretty cool because it does both the magnification but if your eyes get tired during the day or you just need a little help, you can touch the screen in the bottom corner and it actually becomes an OCR product, Optical Character Recognition. So it can take a picture of something and read it back to you. Clark Rachfal: 18:36 Oh, wow. Matt Ater: 18:36 It can do it in large print, change the color, change the font, whatever you need to do to make it easier to read it. And of course that's the kind of Cadillac, it's the highest end, it's the biggest unit, it's big screen, that kind of stuff. And you'll see it in VAs today, you'll it in libraries, different places like that, and of course end users as well. Matt Ater: 19:03 The ClearView GO is a brand-new product which we'll have at the ACB Convention this summer. It's a foldable CCTV or video magnifier that you can carry with you. I'm not sure the weight. I guess I should probably know all the stats, but just go to the table and ask them. It folds up and so it's great for schools. It has a distance camera so a student could sit at a desk and go to read the chalkboard or the blackboard or the whiteboard or the smart board or whatever board they're using today. I said I would want to use it. I'm not even in school any more. I don't plan to go back to school. But just the fact that it's a transportable product; it's pretty cool that I can actually carry it around. Matt Ater: 19:59 There is a ClearView speech device that does OCR, and it's kind of like a small... I'm trying to think of what would be a good example of the shape or size. It's not much bigger than a shoebox on its end. And of course it can take a picture of something and read it to you. Traditional kind of OCR with different voices and such. Matt Ater: 20:26 And then the Compact 6 is a touch screen, six inch, handheld camera that you can carry around and be able to read print, that also does OCR. So, once again, I think it's not uncommon for people with low vision is their eyes get tired during the day to want to have something read it to you. So you can just touch the screen, hit a button, and then it just reads the document to you, whatever it sees in its camera. Clark Rachfal: 20:58 That's great. Thanks, Matt. I know that these are products that a lot of ACB members, whether they already have or are losing their vision due to diabetes and diabetic retinopathy or, for our older members, if they're losing their vision due to macular degeneration or some other either age-related or degenerative condition, these low-vision devices provide a lot of services. One of the main benefits of them is that with the video capabilities and the OCR capabilities, even as your vision deteriorates, this is equipment that will remain useful over time. Ever since 2013, ACB's been working to introduce legislation that would provide for Medicare and Medicaid coverage for low-vision devices such as these. Matt Ater: 21:55 I think it's amazing to me that we're the last country in the world that won't pay for things out of insurance or some other form. This type of technology for blind and low vision. They do it with other disabilities but just not blind and low vision. Clark Rachfal: 22:11 Yeah. And it was only recently that white canes became classified as durable medical equipment. So hopefully we can make progress here on this issue so that low-vision devices and remove the eyeglass exclusion that's in place at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services so that these devices as well as eyeglasses and contacts can be classified as durable medical equipment. Clark Rachfal: 22:41 So you highlighted for us a lot of companies, brands, and products that are under the umbrella of Vispero. And I know that here in two weeks or so you'll be involved with the M-Enabling Summit, which our listeners are familiar with because we had a guest, not from Aerosmith but from Leonard Cheshire, Steve Tyler, come on and talk about... ICT and the M-Enabling Summit. What role will Vispero be playing at M-Enabling? Matt Ater: 23:19 We're going to have people attending the show this year and kind of exploring the different sessions. We have different relationships throughout the industry because of obviously our product lines and our accessibility, so we'll obviously be there as well to visit with our customers, talk about some of the accessibility things they're going through today. Obviously show some of the new tech that we have coming out, as well. I think that it's been nice to have a conference that's in the DC area. I think it's good to bring government into things, which is one of the things that happens here at this conference, as well. Clark Rachfal: 24:12 I agree. It's great to have a conference here in front of companies and policy makers and it sounds like it'll be a great turnout for the M-Enabling Summit. But I'm glad that you're saving all of the big guns for the ACB Annual Convention, which is in Rochester, New York, this summer, July 5th through 12th. And also thanks to Vispero for being a diamond-level sponsor of the ACB convention. And you guys are hosting an event and will be giving a presentation at the convention. Can you talk a little bit about the session that your colleague will be hosting, I believe, the morning of July 7th? Matt Ater: 24:56 Yeah. I actually think show's the 6th. It's on Saturday. Whatever day Saturday is. I'm off on my days. So that would be the 6th, I think. Clark Rachfal: 25:09 Yeah, you're correct. Matt Ater: 25:10 Yeah, Douglas Gerry's going to do a presentation on our software and, by the way, the first 50 people who attend it... Let's see what it says here. They'll have a 50% discount on our home software licenses and for those people who don't know about the home software licenses, this was a big deal that we did this year. We put in some new technology that allowed us to sell licenses online and basically if you're going to use it for home use, you can get JAWS I think it's for $90 and ZoomText for $80. And it lasts for one year. So it's a subscription-based license, it's not a perpetual license. But at the same time it's less than what you would pay for an SMA if you were paying for an SMA every two years. Matt Ater: 26:04 So this is to make sure that more people at home get access to JAWS and ZoomText and so, once again, when Douglas does his presentation, the first 50 people who come will get a coupon for it that will allow them to get 50% off, and they have to use it before the end of September. I'm not sure the exact date but it'll be on the document. So just make sure that if you get one of those, don't let it expire because it's worth a savings of $45 or $40. Matt Ater: 26:39 So what is Douglas going to show? So I would say that one of the neat features is a new feature came out with JAWS that's part of JAWS and Fusion called Picture Smart. And this allows you to take any picture that's in your photo library on your computer or on the web or in a document and actually have JAWS figure out what it is and describe it to you. Very similar to what you may get on Facebook or you may get on your iPhone, or you may use another products like Seeing AI to determine what a picture is. Matt Ater: 27:14 Well, now it's built into your Windows PC with JAWS. So if you need to figure out what a picture is, you can just do a application's key, which is Shift+F10 as well as another key for it, when you're highlighted on the picture in the folder on your computer, and then, say, recognize with Picture Smart. I think there's also a keystroke for it. But if anybody can remember all the keystrokes, it's not going to be me. Clark Rachfal: 27:43 Yeah. And I hope Doug doesn't steal all your thunder because then you will be presenting in front of the general session at the ACB Convention as well. Matt Ater: 27:53 Yeah, exactly. I'm excited about that. I think it's Tuesday morning that I get to come and talk and so I'm very excited about it. I'll obviously talk about new things that are happening with the company, probably, again, go a little bit over who Vispero is. Half the people don't even know how do you spell it, how do you pronounce it? There's probably lots of ways to do that. But just so everybody knows, it's www.vispero.com. In fact, if you want to know more about what we're doing, one of the things we also did is we released a video recently and it's on the Vispero homepage and it has audio description as well as captioning and you can sit down and watch a good video on some of our user stories. So it's pretty cool. Clark Rachfal: 28:45 Matt, thank you so much for joining us today. I know that you and Vispero will be very popular at the ACB Convention, especially in the Exhibit Hall. I'm sure you'll get a lot of people coming up to you asking you about products, they'll want demonstrations, hands-on testing and all that good stuff, so thank you so much for your time. Matt Ater: 29:07 Yeah. And if I can, I'll just give you two more specials at the show just so people know. There'll be 20% off of the home licenses at the booth, so if you don't get those 50% off licenses, you can get the 20% off. And then we're going to have 20% off all hardware. So if you need a new braille display, a new video magnifier or a handheld, any of the technology we build that's hardware of any of our brands, then you can get those as well at a 20% discount. So definitely come by and see us. Clark Rachfal: 29:42 That's fabulous. Thank you for doing that for the ACB members and those in attendance at the Annual Convention. Everyone just remember that the early registration for the ACB Convention runs through June 23rd and you can register at acbconvention.org. That's www.acbconvention.org. So, again, Matt, thank you so much for joining us on the Advocacy Update Podcast. We look forward to seeing you in Rochester. Matt Ater: 30:14 Take care.

On this episode of the ACB Advocacy Update Podcast, Clark Rachfal is joined by Matt Ater to answer the question everyone is asking: “Who is Vispero?” Matt explains that ACB members most certainly know Vispero through their products and services offered by: Enhanced Vision, Freedom Scientific, Optelec, and the Paciello Group. Clark and Matt conclude the conversation by teasing some, but not all, of the special announcements and promotions that Vispero will have at the ACB 58th annual convention in Rochester, NY. To learn more about Vispero, visit: www.vispero.com. To register for the ACB annual convention, visit: www.acbconvention.org. And, please share your ideas for future podcasts with us at: advocacy@acb.org. Transcript of the Advocacy Update Podcast: Automated: 00:02 You are listening to the ACB Advocacy Update. Clark Rachfal: 00:12 Hello everyone and welcome to another edition of the ACB Advocacy Update Podcast. My name is Clark Rachfal. I'm the Director of Advocacy in Governmental Affairs for the American Council of the Blind, and today it's just me. Clair is out in San Rafael, California at Guide Dogs for the Blind, training with her new potential guide dog. If you'd like to learn more about what it's like going to a guide dog school and training with a dog, you can check out the Facebook Live video that Claire just did and that is on the American Council of the Blind Facebook page. Today we are joined by a friend of ACB who works in the accessible technology space, and that is Matt Ater, with Vispero. Say hello, Matt. Matt Ater: 01:14 Well, good afternoon, Clark. How are you doing today? Clark Rachfal: 01:17 Doing well. And yourself? Matt Ater: 01:19 I am doing wonderful. It's a beautiful day outside. Of course when people listen to us, you never know what the weather's going to be like, but life is good. Clark Rachfal: 01:28 That's great. I know a lot of our listeners are excited for the role that Vispero's going to play at the ACB Annual Convention in Rochester, and we'll certainly get to those activities here in a bit but, Matt, why don't you share with the listeners a little bit about yourself and your background? Matt Ater: 01:49 Sure. So I've been in the, I'll start with kind of the assistive technology field, prior to accessibility, but assistive technology field since I guess 25 years now. I've graduated from the University of Alabama with broadcasting degree and came back up to the DC area and decided that I wanted to go into more of the training and consulting field and spent a few years training federal employees around the country on how to use screen readers at jobs, teaching them how to use braille displays. I think government agencies, video magnifiers, large-print software, things of that nature. Matt Ater: 02:36 I did that for a couple of years, then went to go work for a nonprofit in Washington DC running the assistive technology department where we did a lot of training of end users, again, across the United States, so that was five years of my career. I did that. And then in early 2000s I did a little bit of a stint in working with the product lines and then eventually jumped into running government contracts for... I did about six years of running a project for the Social Security Administration, running their assistive technology support services. Which included installing equipment, training the users, configuring the software, deploying the software, providing a help desk, full-level support for any of the employees within that agency. Matt Ater: 03:41 And I jumped out of assistive technology for a few years to just kind of learn IT services and then landed into accessibility for four years. I joined Vispero, at that time Freedom Scientific, and I'll give a little background on who Vispero is in a few. But I joined Freedom Scientific in 2014 to start a consulting division for Freedom Scientific. They found that they had a lot of customers who were in corporate environments needing support and training and configuration and customization and scripting and all of these kinds of things so basically we started a group to support those larger customers to make sure that software was working right when people went to work. Matt Ater: 04:34 Eventually, after a year, I started getting more into the accessibility side of it and a started with two employees and grew to about 25 employees and then later we acquired another company which added another 40 employees and then another year bought another company that had another 10 employees and got to a point where I said, "Well, it's time to change again." So I'm still with Vispero but I moved back, not running the consulting practice now and more helping large enterprises look at the total package when it comes to all of our product lines and brands within the Vispero family of brands. So that's kind of the last 25 years wrapped up into a few minutes. Clark Rachfal: 05:29 That's fascinating, Matt. Do you have a history as an assistive technology user, especially at your time at the University of Alabama and throughout your career? Matt Ater: 05:40 Boy, it's a flashback when you think about going to college, pre-Windows. I was born with a condition called hydrocephalus, water on the brain, and when I was six years old the water pressure cut off blood supply to the optic nerves so I've lost most of my vision in my left eye and my right eye is about 26/100 tunnel vision. So I am a screen reader user today. It's funny, I've always told people my vision didn't get worse as time went on, technology just got better to the point that I became lazy and wanted to listen instead of see the screen. Matt Ater: 06:24 I can use large print but it takes a lot of time to read it and it's tiring on the eyes and so I use screen readers and braille at this point. I carry a handheld magnifier in my bag and I carry a braille display with me everywhere I go to type into my phone. And I have large-print software on the computer as well as a screen reader but from the day-to-day I would rather listen to the computer than I would try to see it with my eyes. Clark Rachfal: 06:56 Yeah. I think a lot of people that have low vision or deteriorating vision probably have a similar story. So for me, personally, I have Leber's congenital amaurosis and I started out with large print and magnifiers, then moved to CCTVs. My introduction to accessibility software was ZoomText and then ZoomText Level 2 with speech and now JAWS. So I'm very familiar with those products in the Freedom Scientific portfolio. But that's only one aspect of the work that Vispero is doing now. I think a lot of our listeners are probably familiar with Freedom Scientific but is there anything new going on with Freedom Scientific, whether that's JAWS, Fusion, ZoomText or anything else? Matt Ater: 07:48 Yeah. I definitely can dive into that. I think it would be great for me to kind of break down what Vispero is because a couple of years ago we were sold and then acquired and merged with Optelec and then eventually some other companies and I'll go through all of them. So I think everybody's probably been confused with all the name changes. Clark Rachfal: 08:13 Sure. Matt Ater: 08:17 Think of Vispero as more of a holding company. It's somewhere that deals with our dealer channels and things of that nature. But most customers we have have relationships with our actual companies and brands. And you just said that most people are familiar with Freedom Scientific because of JAWS and ZoomText and Focus Braille Displays and RUBY handheld magnifiers and lots of other stuff with Fusion and so on. And I think with every person, they have their preference in terms of what brand they feel comfortable with. Matt Ater: 08:56 So in this family of companies we have the four brands of Freedom Scientific, which we just ran through the majority of those products. Then Optelec, which is primarily video magnification. They do have a standalone scan-and-read system and they have traditional handheld magnifiers, as they call them, professional products that are mostly sold through the doctor channels. And then primarily you're talking about things like the ClearView. I'll talk about the ClearView GO in a little bit. Compact handheld magnifiers, the Compact 6 and so on. Matt Ater: 09:42 And then the other hardware company that's part of this family is called Enhanced Vision. They're based in Huntington Beach, California. They're, again, worldwide and the product lines are things like Merlin, Jordy. They, of course, have the Pebble handheld and some other things like that. When you look at all of the products, they're very similar in nature but have a different maybe look and feel. And probably like going to try on different shirts, and you find a shirt that fits you. This technology is very personal to people. Matt Ater: 10:27 As we know with braille cells and we know with large-print devices, and even with screen readers with voices, I'm perfectly fine using Eloquence, like you are, but the next person wants to use Vocalizer because it's more soothing to them listening to it. And so if you look at those three brands, and I'll get to the fourth in a minute, what you're talking about is three companies who make very similar hardware. The buttons are slightly different in each product. The features are primarily the same. But the buttons are different, the color may be slightly different. The shape and size of the screen may be slightly different. Matt Ater: 11:09 And we'll continue to keep those brands because they're very unique to the markets they fit. The distribution channel that is across Vispero family of companies is unmatched in this space. A dealer in Texas covers certain products and the guy in Minneapolis covers different products and there may be a different dealer, but they may hit different customer bases. And that's why they can still be multiple brands within a family of products is because they have different customers. And when you think about the number of people who are buying direct from us, it's small in numbers compared to the numbers of people who are buying from the local channels. Matt Ater: 12:00 The fourth company is called the Paciello Group and this is the one I mentioned that a couple of years ago we acquired and it was really to boost the accessibility services that Freedom Scientific was doing and then later we also acquired a company called Interactive Accessibility and so the three companies consulting practices are all merged into one called the Paciello Group and we can shorten that and just call it TPG. Let's just keep it simple because it's easier, right? Matt Ater: 12:38 The neat thing about this is that it's very complementary to selling software. Because we have customers all around the world who are challenged with accessibility issues and sometimes people say, "Well, it's because JAWS doesn't do something right." And there's always a chance that that can happen. But at the same time, it's a lot to do with whether or not people code things correctly. So this is why it's very complementary to the software side is because we get to, now, when people have concerns or issues and whether it's a website you're trying to buy shoes on or a kiosk you're trying to access and work with, obviously you may be using JAWS on that or ZoomText or some other product. But now we have the consultants who actually can work with those companies to solve their problems. Clark Rachfal: 13:36 So, Matt, what makes TPG, or the Paciello Group, different from other accessibility consultants for websites, whether that's web accessibility standards or 508 compliance within the government? There's a lot of companies that say that they can do accessibility but it seems like very few actually can. So how does the Paciello Group go about it? Matt Ater: 14:04 So, there's a couple of things. It's a mix of products and people. I think we have some of the smartest people in the field. The folks that are working at TPG have been in this quite a long time, they've helped write a lot of the standards. They understand stuff. Additionally, we have a very strong what we call a user experience background. A lot of people refer to it as UX. I've always said that we're so focused on compliance rather than usability and at some point don't we need to be focused on whether or not people can perform tasks rather than compliance? Matt Ater: 14:43 Compliance is checking a box. But can actually people use your product? That's different. And I think that's what TPG gets right is that we're not just about compliance, we're also making sure that people can use what they built. It's interesting, TPG, companies worldwide, folks in several countries, the majority of the work is in the US and some in Europe and some in Canada. But the kinds of people we bring in, it's about the people and that's really what it comes down to is people make up consulting. And really good consultants, it's amazing, not amazing because I know these folks, but it's great to hear from customers about how great the services have been. Matt Ater: 15:43 There's a company we've been working with recently who people come to us a lot of times because we own JAWS and ZoomText and so they assume that we can fix it because of that rather than helping them fix the code. And what I love the most is watching the large number of employers working with us not for necessarily just working in external websites where people can buy goods, but they're concerned about whether or not their applications can work so that a person who's blind or low vision or any other disability could actually work at that company. Matt Ater: 16:27 And I think that's the most powerful thing that we can bring to the table is that if an employer needs something to work on the job, what better company than the one who makes the screen reader, and the large-print software, to be able to tap into that resources. And even though Freedom Scientific and TPG are separate companies, we still have reach back into them to solve problems. And this other company, they had 50 low vision and blind employees who were being impacted by inaccessible applications so we're in there installing JAWS and ZoomText and things like that and training the users. But we recognized we needed accessibility help and we brought that in from TPG to solve the problems. And that's when it's powerful. Clark Rachfal: 17:13 Yeah. That's great that employers are able to invest in their employees and make sure that they not only have the productivity tools that they need to be successful but that they optimize the work setting for those tools so that their employees can be highly productive and succeed at their work. One of the other companies that you mentioned, I'd like you to talk a little bit more about, and that's Optelec. Can you talk a little bit about the product offerings within that portfolio? Matt Ater: 17:48 Yes. So the three main products right now, one's called ClearView. That's a desktop magnifier, obviously. You mentioned you've used them before. They called then CCTVs back when you and I were younger, right? Clark Rachfal: 18:03 Mm-hmm (affirmative). Matt Ater: 18:05 Back in the day when they were wood-paneled and things like that. Yeah. Today the ClearView C with speech, it's pretty cool because it does both the magnification but if your eyes get tired during the day or you just need a little help, you can touch the screen in the bottom corner and it actually becomes an OCR product, Optical Character Recognition. So it can take a picture of something and read it back to you. Clark Rachfal: 18:36 Oh, wow. Matt Ater: 18:36 It can do it in large print, change the color, change the font, whatever you need to do to make it easier to read it. And of course that's the kind of Cadillac, it's the highest end, it's the biggest unit, it's big screen, that kind of stuff. And you'll see it in VAs today, you'll it in libraries, different places like that, and of course end users as well. Matt Ater: 19:03 The ClearView GO is a brand-new product which we'll have at the ACB Convention this summer. It's a foldable CCTV or video magnifier that you can carry with you. I'm not sure the weight. I guess I should probably know all the stats, but just go to the table and ask them. It folds up and so it's great for schools. It has a distance camera so a student could sit at a desk and go to read the chalkboard or the blackboard or the whiteboard or the smart board or whatever board they're using today. I said I would want to use it. I'm not even in school any more. I don't plan to go back to school. But just the fact that it's a transportable product; it's pretty cool that I can actually carry it around. Matt Ater: 19:59 There is a ClearView speech device that does OCR, and it's kind of like a small... I'm trying to think of what would be a good example of the shape or size. It's not much bigger than a shoebox on its end. And of course it can take a picture of something and read it to you. Traditional kind of OCR with different voices and such. Matt Ater: 20:26 And then the Compact 6 is a touch screen, six inch, handheld camera that you can carry around and be able to read print, that also does OCR. So, once again, I think it's not uncommon for people with low vision is their eyes get tired during the day to want to have something read it to you. So you can just touch the screen, hit a button, and then it just reads the document to you, whatever it sees in its camera. Clark Rachfal: 20:58 That's great. Thanks, Matt. I know that these are products that a lot of ACB members, whether they already have or are losing their vision due to diabetes and diabetic retinopathy or, for our older members, if they're losing their vision due to macular degeneration or some other either age-related or degenerative condition, these low-vision devices provide a lot of services. One of the main benefits of them is that with the video capabilities and the OCR capabilities, even as your vision deteriorates, this is equipment that will remain useful over time. Ever since 2013, ACB's been working to introduce legislation that would provide for Medicare and Medicaid coverage for low-vision devices such as these. Matt Ater: 21:55 I think it's amazing to me that we're the last country in the world that won't pay for things out of insurance or some other form. This type of technology for blind and low vision. They do it with other disabilities but just not blind and low vision. Clark Rachfal: 22:11 Yeah. And it was only recently that white canes became classified as durable medical equipment. So hopefully we can make progress here on this issue so that low-vision devices and remove the eyeglass exclusion that's in place at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services so that these devices as well as eyeglasses and contacts can be classified as durable medical equipment. Clark Rachfal: 22:41 So you highlighted for us a lot of companies, brands, and products that are under the umbrella of Vispero. And I know that here in two weeks or so you'll be involved with the M-Enabling Summit, which our listeners are familiar with because we had a guest, not from Aerosmith but from Leonard Cheshire, Steve Tyler, come on and talk about... ICT and the M-Enabling Summit. What role will Vispero be playing at M-Enabling? Matt Ater: 23:19 We're going to have people attending the show this year and kind of exploring the different sessions. We have different relationships throughout the industry because of obviously our product lines and our accessibility, so we'll obviously be there as well to visit with our customers, talk about some of the accessibility things they're going through today. Obviously show some of the new tech that we have coming out, as well. I think that it's been nice to have a conference that's in the DC area. I think it's good to bring government into things, which is one of the things that happens here at this conference, as well. Clark Rachfal: 24:12 I agree. It's great to have a conference here in front of companies and policy makers and it sounds like it'll be a great turnout for the M-Enabling Summit. But I'm glad that you're saving all of the big guns for the ACB Annual Convention, which is in Rochester, New York, this summer, July 5th through 12th. And also thanks to Vispero for being a diamond-level sponsor of the ACB convention. And you guys are hosting an event and will be giving a presentation at the convention. Can you talk a little bit about the session that your colleague will be hosting, I believe, the morning of July 7th? Matt Ater: 24:56 Yeah. I actually think show's the 6th. It's on Saturday. Whatever day Saturday is. I'm off on my days. So that would be the 6th, I think. Clark Rachfal: 25:09 Yeah, you're correct. Matt Ater: 25:10 Yeah, Douglas Gerry's going to do a presentation on our software and, by the way, the first 50 people who attend it... Let's see what it says here. They'll have a 50% discount on our home software licenses and for those people who don't know about the home software licenses, this was a big deal that we did this year. We put in some new technology that allowed us to sell licenses online and basically if you're going to use it for home use, you can get JAWS I think it's for $90 and ZoomText for $80. And it lasts for one year. So it's a subscription-based license, it's not a perpetual license. But at the same time it's less than what you would pay for an SMA if you were paying for an SMA every two years. Matt Ater: 26:04 So this is to make sure that more people at home get access to JAWS and ZoomText and so, once again, when Douglas does his presentation, the first 50 people who come will get a coupon for it that will allow them to get 50% off, and they have to use it before the end of September. I'm not sure the exact date but it'll be on the document. So just make sure that if you get one of those, don't let it expire because it's worth a savings of $45 or $40. Matt Ater: 26:39 So what is Douglas going to show? So I would say that one of the neat features is a new feature came out with JAWS that's part of JAWS and Fusion called Picture Smart. And this allows you to take any picture that's in your photo library on your computer or on the web or in a document and actually have JAWS figure out what it is and describe it to you. Very similar to what you may get on Facebook or you may get on your iPhone, or you may use another products like Seeing AI to determine what a picture is. Matt Ater: 27:14 Well, now it's built into your Windows PC with JAWS. So if you need to figure out what a picture is, you can just do a application's key, which is Shift+F10 as well as another key for it, when you're highlighted on the picture in the folder on your computer, and then, say, recognize with Picture Smart. I think there's also a keystroke for it. But if anybody can remember all the keystrokes, it's not going to be me. Clark Rachfal: 27:43 Yeah. And I hope Doug doesn't steal all your thunder because then you will be presenting in front of the general session at the ACB Convention as well. Matt Ater: 27:53 Yeah, exactly. I'm excited about that. I think it's Tuesday morning that I get to come and talk and so I'm very excited about it. I'll obviously talk about new things that are happening with the company, probably, again, go a little bit over who Vispero is. Half the people don't even know how do you spell it, how do you pronounce it? There's probably lots of ways to do that. But just so everybody knows, it's www.vispero.com. In fact, if you want to know more about what we're doing, one of the things we also did is we released a video recently and it's on the Vispero homepage and it has audio description as well as captioning and you can sit down and watch a good video on some of our user stories. So it's pretty cool. Clark Rachfal: 28:45 Matt, thank you so much for joining us today. I know that you and Vispero will be very popular at the ACB Convention, especially in the Exhibit Hall. I'm sure you'll get a lot of people coming up to you asking you about products, they'll want demonstrations, hands-on testing and all that good stuff, so thank you so much for your time. Matt Ater: 29:07 Yeah. And if I can, I'll just give you two more specials at the show just so people know. There'll be 20% off of the home licenses at the booth, so if you don't get those 50% off licenses, you can get the 20% off. And then we're going to have 20% off all hardware. So if you need a new braille display, a new video magnifier or a handheld, any of the technology we build that's hardware of any of our brands, then you can get those as well at a 20% discount. So definitely come by and see us. Clark Rachfal: 29:42 That's fabulous. Thank you for doing that for the ACB members and those in attendance at the Annual Convention. Everyone just remember that the early registration for the ACB Convention runs through June 23rd and you can register at acbconvention.org. That's www.acbconvention.org. So, again, Matt, thank you so much for joining us on the Advocacy Update Podcast. We look forward to seeing you in Rochester. Matt Ater: 30:14 Take care.

On this episode of the ACB Advocacy Update Podcast, Clark Rachfal is joined by Matt Ater to answer the question everyone is asking: “Who is Vispero?” Matt explains that ACB members most certainly know Vispero through their products and services offered by: Enhanced Vision, Freedom Scientific, Optelec, and the Paciello Group. Clark and Matt conclude the conversation by teasing some, but not all, of the special announcements and promotions that Vispero will have at the ACB 58th annual convention in Rochester, NY. To learn more about Vispero, visit: www.vispero.com. To register for the ACB annual convention, visit: www.acbconvention.org. And, please share your ideas for future podcasts with us at: advocacy@acb.org. Transcript of the Advocacy Update Podcast: Automated: 00:02 You are listening to the ACB Advocacy Update. Clark Rachfal: 00:12 Hello everyone and welcome to another edition of the ACB Advocacy Update Podcast. My name is Clark Rachfal. I'm the Director of Advocacy in Governmental Affairs for the American Council of the Blind, and today it's just me. Clair is out in San Rafael, California at Guide Dogs for the Blind, training with her new potential guide dog. If you'd like to learn more about what it's like going to a guide dog school and training with a dog, you can check out the Facebook Live video that Claire just did and that is on the American Council of the Blind Facebook page. Today we are joined by a friend of ACB who works in the accessible technology space, and that is Matt Ater, with Vispero. Say hello, Matt. Matt Ater: 01:14 Well, good afternoon, Clark. How are you doing today? Clark Rachfal: 01:17 Doing well. And yourself? Matt Ater: 01:19 I am doing wonderful. It's a beautiful day outside. Of course when people listen to us, you never know what the weather's going to be like, but life is good. Clark Rachfal: 01:28 That's great. I know a lot of our listeners are excited for the role that Vispero's going to play at the ACB Annual Convention in Rochester, and we'll certainly get to those activities here in a bit but, Matt, why don't you share with the listeners a little bit about yourself and your background? Matt Ater: 01:49 Sure. So I've been in the, I'll start with kind of the assistive technology field, prior to accessibility, but assistive technology field since I guess 25 years now. I've graduated from the University of Alabama with broadcasting degree and came back up to the DC area and decided that I wanted to go into more of the training and consulting field and spent a few years training federal employees around the country on how to use screen readers at jobs, teaching them how to use braille displays. I think government agencies, video magnifiers, large-print software, things of that nature. Matt Ater: 02:36 I did that for a couple of years, then went to go work for a nonprofit in Washington DC running the assistive technology department where we did a lot of training of end users, again, across the United States, so that was five years of my career. I did that. And then in early 2000s I did a little bit of a stint in working with the product lines and then eventually jumped into running government contracts for... I did about six years of running a project for the Social Security Administration, running their assistive technology support services. Which included installing equipment, training the users, configuring the software, deploying the software, providing a help desk, full-level support for any of the employees within that agency. Matt Ater: 03:41 And I jumped out of assistive technology for a few years to just kind of learn IT services and then landed into accessibility for four years. I joined Vispero, at that time Freedom Scientific, and I'll give a little background on who Vispero is in a few. But I joined Freedom Scientific in 2014 to start a consulting division for Freedom Scientific. They found that they had a lot of customers who were in corporate environments needing support and training and configuration and customization and scripting and all of these kinds of things so basically we started a group to support those larger customers to make sure that software was working right when people went to work. Matt Ater: 04:34 Eventually, after a year, I started getting more into the accessibility side of it and a started with two employees and grew to about 25 employees and then later we acquired another company which added another 40 employees and then another year bought another company that had another 10 employees and got to a point where I said, "Well, it's time to change again." So I'm still with Vispero but I moved back, not running the consulting practice now and more helping large enterprises look at the total package when it comes to all of our product lines and brands within the Vispero family of brands. So that's kind of the last 25 years wrapped up into a few minutes. Clark Rachfal: 05:29 That's fascinating, Matt. Do you have a history as an assistive technology user, especially at your time at the University of Alabama and throughout your career? Matt Ater: 05:40 Boy, it's a flashback when you think about going to college, pre-Windows. I was born with a condition called hydrocephalus, water on the brain, and when I was six years old the water pressure cut off blood supply to the optic nerves so I've lost most of my vision in my left eye and my right eye is about 26/100 tunnel vision. So I am a screen reader user today. It's funny, I've always told people my vision didn't get worse as time went on, technology just got better to the point that I became lazy and wanted to listen instead of see the screen. Matt Ater: 06:24 I can use large print but it takes a lot of time to read it and it's tiring on the eyes and so I use screen readers and braille at this point. I carry a handheld magnifier in my bag and I carry a braille display with me everywhere I go to type into my phone. And I have large-print software on the computer as well as a screen reader but from the day-to-day I would rather listen to the computer than I would try to see it with my eyes. Clark Rachfal: 06:56 Yeah. I think a lot of people that have low vision or deteriorating vision probably have a similar story. So for me, personally, I have Leber's congenital amaurosis and I started out with large print and magnifiers, then moved to CCTVs. My introduction to accessibility software was ZoomText and then ZoomText Level 2 with speech and now JAWS. So I'm very familiar with those products in the Freedom Scientific portfolio. But that's only one aspect of the work that Vispero is doing now. I think a lot of our listeners are probably familiar with Freedom Scientific but is there anything new going on with Freedom Scientific, whether that's JAWS, Fusion, ZoomText or anything else? Matt Ater: 07:48 Yeah. I definitely can dive into that. I think it would be great for me to kind of break down what Vispero is because a couple of years ago we were sold and then acquired and merged with Optelec and then eventually some other companies and I'll go through all of them. So I think everybody's probably been confused with all the name changes. Clark Rachfal: 08:13 Sure. Matt Ater: 08:17 Think of Vispero as more of a holding company. It's somewhere that deals with our dealer channels and things of that nature. But most customers we have have relationships with our actual companies and brands. And you just said that most people are familiar with Freedom Scientific because of JAWS and ZoomText and Focus Braille Displays and RUBY handheld magnifiers and lots of other stuff with Fusion and so on. And I think with every person, they have their preference in terms of what brand they feel comfortable with. Matt Ater: 08:56 So in this family of companies we have the four brands of Freedom Scientific, which we just ran through the majority of those products. Then Optelec, which is primarily video magnification. They do have a standalone scan-and-read system and they have traditional handheld magnifiers, as they call them, professional products that are mostly sold through the doctor channels. And then primarily you're talking about things like the ClearView. I'll talk about the ClearView GO in a little bit. Compact handheld magnifiers, the Compact 6 and so on. Matt Ater: 09:42 And then the other hardware company that's part of this family is called Enhanced Vision. They're based in Huntington Beach, California. They're, again, worldwide and the product lines are things like Merlin, Jordy. They, of course, have the Pebble handheld and some other things like that. When you look at all of the products, they're very similar in nature but have a different maybe look and feel. And probably like going to try on different shirts, and you find a shirt that fits you. This technology is very personal to people. Matt Ater: 10:27 As we know with braille cells and we know with large-print devices, and even with screen readers with voices, I'm perfectly fine using Eloquence, like you are, but the next person wants to use Vocalizer because it's more soothing to them listening to it. And so if you look at those three brands, and I'll get to the fourth in a minute, what you're talking about is three companies who make very similar hardware. The buttons are slightly different in each product. The features are primarily the same. But the buttons are different, the color may be slightly different. The shape and size of the screen may be slightly different. Matt Ater: 11:09 And we'll continue to keep those brands because they're very unique to the markets they fit. The distribution channel that is across Vispero family of companies is unmatched in this space. A dealer in Texas covers certain products and the guy in Minneapolis covers different products and there may be a different dealer, but they may hit different customer bases. And that's why they can still be multiple brands within a family of products is because they have different customers. And when you think about the number of people who are buying direct from us, it's small in numbers compared to the numbers of people who are buying from the local channels. Matt Ater: 12:00 The fourth company is called the Paciello Group and this is the one I mentioned that a couple of years ago we acquired and it was really to boost the accessibility services that Freedom Scientific was doing and then later we also acquired a company called Interactive Accessibility and so the three companies consulting practices are all merged into one called the Paciello Group and we can shorten that and just call it TPG. Let's just keep it simple because it's easier, right? Matt Ater: 12:38 The neat thing about this is that it's very complementary to selling software. Because we have customers all around the world who are challenged with accessibility issues and sometimes people say, "Well, it's because JAWS doesn't do something right." And there's always a chance that that can happen. But at the same time, it's a lot to do with whether or not people code things correctly. So this is why it's very complementary to the software side is because we get to, now, when people have concerns or issues and whether it's a website you're trying to buy shoes on or a kiosk you're trying to access and work with, obviously you may be using JAWS on that or ZoomText or some other product. But now we have the consultants who actually can work with those companies to solve their problems. Clark Rachfal: 13:36 So, Matt, what makes TPG, or the Paciello Group, different from other accessibility consultants for websites, whether that's web accessibility standards or 508 compliance within the government? There's a lot of companies that say that they can do accessibility but it seems like very few actually can. So how does the Paciello Group go about it? Matt Ater: 14:04 So, there's a couple of things. It's a mix of products and people. I think we have some of the smartest people in the field. The folks that are working at TPG have been in this quite a long time, they've helped write a lot of the standards. They understand stuff. Additionally, we have a very strong what we call a user experience background. A lot of people refer to it as UX. I've always said that we're so focused on compliance rather than usability and at some point don't we need to be focused on whether or not people can perform tasks rather than compliance? Matt Ater: 14:43 Compliance is checking a box. But can actually people use your product? That's different. And I think that's what TPG gets right is that we're not just about compliance, we're also making sure that people can use what they built. It's interesting, TPG, companies worldwide, folks in several countries, the majority of the work is in the US and some in Europe and some in Canada. But the kinds of people we bring in, it's about the people and that's really what it comes down to is people make up consulting. And really good consultants, it's amazing, not amazing because I know these folks, but it's great to hear from customers about how great the services have been. Matt Ater: 15:43 There's a company we've been working with recently who people come to us a lot of times because we own JAWS and ZoomText and so they assume that we can fix it because of that rather than helping them fix the code. And what I love the most is watching the large number of employers working with us not for necessarily just working in external websites where people can buy goods, but they're concerned about whether or not their applications can work so that a person who's blind or low vision or any other disability could actually work at that company. Matt Ater: 16:27 And I think that's the most powerful thing that we can bring to the table is that if an employer needs something to work on the job, what better company than the one who makes the screen reader, and the large-print software, to be able to tap into that resources. And even though Freedom Scientific and TPG are separate companies, we still have reach back into them to solve problems. And this other company, they had 50 low vision and blind employees who were being impacted by inaccessible applications so we're in there installing JAWS and ZoomText and things like that and training the users. But we recognized we needed accessibility help and we brought that in from TPG to solve the problems. And that's when it's powerful. Clark Rachfal: 17:13 Yeah. That's great that employers are able to invest in their employees and make sure that they not only have the productivity tools that they need to be successful but that they optimize the work setting for those tools so that their employees can be highly productive and succeed at their work. One of the other companies that you mentioned, I'd like you to talk a little bit more about, and that's Optelec. Can you talk a little bit about the product offerings within that portfolio? Matt Ater: 17:48 Yes. So the three main products right now, one's called ClearView. That's a desktop magnifier, obviously. You mentioned you've used them before. They called then CCTVs back when you and I were younger, right? Clark Rachfal: 18:03 Mm-hmm (affirmative). Matt Ater: 18:05 Back in the day when they were wood-paneled and things like that. Yeah. Today the ClearView C with speech, it's pretty cool because it does both the magnification but if your eyes get tired during the day or you just need a little help, you can touch the screen in the bottom corner and it actually becomes an OCR product, Optical Character Recognition. So it can take a picture of something and read it back to you. Clark Rachfal: 18:36 Oh, wow. Matt Ater: 18:36 It can do it in large print, change the color, change the font, whatever you need to do to make it easier to read it. And of course that's the kind of Cadillac, it's the highest end, it's the biggest unit, it's big screen, that kind of stuff. And you'll see it in VAs today, you'll it in libraries, different places like that, and of course end users as well. Matt Ater: 19:03 The ClearView GO is a brand-new product which we'll have at the ACB Convention this summer. It's a foldable CCTV or video magnifier that you can carry with you. I'm not sure the weight. I guess I should probably know all the stats, but just go to the table and ask them. It folds up and so it's great for schools. It has a distance camera so a student could sit at a desk and go to read the chalkboard or the blackboard or the whiteboard or the smart board or whatever board they're using today. I said I would want to use it. I'm not even in school any more. I don't plan to go back to school. But just the fact that it's a transportable product; it's pretty cool that I can actually carry it around. Matt Ater: 19:59 There is a ClearView speech device that does OCR, and it's kind of like a small... I'm trying to think of what would be a good example of the shape or size. It's not much bigger than a shoebox on its end. And of course it can take a picture of something and read it to you. Traditional kind of OCR with different voices and such. Matt Ater: 20:26 And then the Compact 6 is a touch screen, six inch, handheld camera that you can carry around and be able to read print, that also does OCR. So, once again, I think it's not uncommon for people with low vision is their eyes get tired during the day to want to have something read it to you. So you can just touch the screen, hit a button, and then it just reads the document to you, whatever it sees in its camera. Clark Rachfal: 20:58 That's great. Thanks, Matt. I know that these are products that a lot of ACB members, whether they already have or are losing their vision due to diabetes and diabetic retinopathy or, for our older members, if they're losing their vision due to macular degeneration or some other either age-related or degenerative condition, these low-vision devices provide a lot of services. One of the main benefits of them is that with the video capabilities and the OCR capabilities, even as your vision deteriorates, this is equipment that will remain useful over time. Ever since 2013, ACB's been working to introduce legislation that would provide for Medicare and Medicaid coverage for low-vision devices such as these. Matt Ater: 21:55 I think it's amazing to me that we're the last country in the world that won't pay for things out of insurance or some other form. This type of technology for blind and low vision. They do it with other disabilities but just not blind and low vision. Clark Rachfal: 22:11 Yeah. And it was only recently that white canes became classified as durable medical equipment. So hopefully we can make progress here on this issue so that low-vision devices and remove the eyeglass exclusion that's in place at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services so that these devices as well as eyeglasses and contacts can be classified as durable medical equipment. Clark Rachfal: 22:41 So you highlighted for us a lot of companies, brands, and products that are under the umbrella of Vispero. And I know that here in two weeks or so you'll be involved with the M-Enabling Summit, which our listeners are familiar with because we had a guest, not from Aerosmith but from Leonard Cheshire, Steve Tyler, come on and talk about... ICT and the M-Enabling Summit. What role will Vispero be playing at M-Enabling? Matt Ater: 23:19 We're going to have people attending the show this year and kind of exploring the different sessions. We have different relationships throughout the industry because of obviously our product lines and our accessibility, so we'll obviously be there as well to visit with our customers, talk about some of the accessibility things they're going through today. Obviously show some of the new tech that we have coming out, as well. I think that it's been nice to have a conference that's in the DC area. I think it's good to bring government into things, which is one of the things that happens here at this conference, as well. Clark Rachfal: 24:12 I agree. It's great to have a conference here in front of companies and policy makers and it sounds like it'll be a great turnout for the M-Enabling Summit. But I'm glad that you're saving all of the big guns for the ACB Annual Convention, which is in Rochester, New York, this summer, July 5th through 12th. And also thanks to Vispero for being a diamond-level sponsor of the ACB convention. And you guys are hosting an event and will be giving a presentation at the convention. Can you talk a little bit about the session that your colleague will be hosting, I believe, the morning of July 7th? Matt Ater: 24:56 Yeah. I actually think show's the 6th. It's on Saturday. Whatever day Saturday is. I'm off on my days. So that would be the 6th, I think. Clark Rachfal: 25:09 Yeah, you're correct. Matt Ater: 25:10 Yeah, Douglas Gerry's going to do a presentation on our software and, by the way, the first 50 people who attend it... Let's see what it says here. They'll have a 50% discount on our home software licenses and for those people who don't know about the home software licenses, this was a big deal that we did this year. We put in some new technology that allowed us to sell licenses online and basically if you're going to use it for home use, you can get JAWS I think it's for $90 and ZoomText for $80. And it lasts for one year. So it's a subscription-based license, it's not a perpetual license. But at the same time it's less than what you would pay for an SMA if you were paying for an SMA every two years. Matt Ater: 26:04 So this is to make sure that more people at home get access to JAWS and ZoomText and so, once again, when Douglas does his presentation, the first 50 people who come will get a coupon for it that will allow them to get 50% off, and they have to use it before the end of September. I'm not sure the exact date but it'll be on the document. So just make sure that if you get one of those, don't let it expire because it's worth a savings of $45 or $40. Matt Ater: 26:39 So what is Douglas going to show? So I would say that one of the neat features is a new feature came out with JAWS that's part of JAWS and Fusion called Picture Smart. And this allows you to take any picture that's in your photo library on your computer or on the web or in a document and actually have JAWS figure out what it is and describe it to you. Very similar to what you may get on Facebook or you may get on your iPhone, or you may use another products like Seeing AI to determine what a picture is. Matt Ater: 27:14 Well, now it's built into your Windows PC with JAWS. So if you need to figure out what a picture is, you can just do a application's key, which is Shift+F10 as well as another key for it, when you're highlighted on the picture in the folder on your computer, and then, say, recognize with Picture Smart. I think there's also a keystroke for it. But if anybody can remember all the keystrokes, it's not going to be me. Clark Rachfal: 27:43 Yeah. And I hope Doug doesn't steal all your thunder because then you will be presenting in front of the general session at the ACB Convention as well. Matt Ater: 27:53 Yeah, exactly. I'm excited about that. I think it's Tuesday morning that I get to come and talk and so I'm very excited about it. I'll obviously talk about new things that are happening with the company, probably, again, go a little bit over who Vispero is. Half the people don't even know how do you spell it, how do you pronounce it? There's probably lots of ways to do that. But just so everybody knows, it's www.vispero.com. In fact, if you want to know more about what we're doing, one of the things we also did is we released a video recently and it's on the Vispero homepage and it has audio description as well as captioning and you can sit down and watch a good video on some of our user stories. So it's pretty cool. Clark Rachfal: 28:45 Matt, thank you so much for joining us today. I know that you and Vispero will be very popular at the ACB Convention, especially in the Exhibit Hall. I'm sure you'll get a lot of people coming up to you asking you about products, they'll want demonstrations, hands-on testing and all that good stuff, so thank you so much for your time. Matt Ater: 29:07 Yeah. And if I can, I'll just give you two more specials at the show just so people know. There'll be 20% off of the home licenses at the booth, so if you don't get those 50% off licenses, you can get the 20% off. And then we're going to have 20% off all hardware. So if you need a new braille display, a new video magnifier or a handheld, any of the technology we build that's hardware of any of our brands, then you can get those as well at a 20% discount. So definitely come by and see us. Clark Rachfal: 29:42 That's fabulous. Thank you for doing that for the ACB members and those in attendance at the Annual Convention. Everyone just remember that the early registration for the ACB Convention runs through June 23rd and you can register at acbconvention.org. That's www.acbconvention.org. So, again, Matt, thank you so much for joining us on the Advocacy Update Podcast. We look forward to seeing you in Rochester. Matt Ater: 30:14 Take care.

For this installment of the ACB Advocacy Update Podcast, Claire Stanley and Clark Rachfal are joined by Steve Tyler to discuss the 2019 M-Enabling Summit. Steve is the Director of Assistive Technology for Leonard Cheshire and is an active participant in the Global Initiative for Inclusive Information and Communication Technologies (G3ICT). The M-Enabling Summit is dedicated to promoting accessible and assistive technology for users of all abilities. With its theme of “Accessibility: Transforming Users’ Experience”, the 2019 M-Enabling Summit will provide a platform for empowering technologies and focus on next-generation innovations and breakthroughs for users of all abilities. To learn more about the 2019 Summit, visit: www.m-enabling.com, or e-mail: advocacy@acb.org.

For this installment of the ACB Advocacy Update Podcast, Claire Stanley and Clark Rachfal are joined by Steve Tyler to discuss the 2019 M-Enabling Summit. Steve is the Director of Assistive Technology for Leonard Cheshire and is an active participant in the Global Initiative for Inclusive Information and Communication Technologies (G3ICT). The M-Enabling Summit is dedicated to promoting accessible and assistive technology for users of all abilities. With its theme of “Accessibility: Transforming Users’ Experience”, the 2019 M-Enabling Summit will provide a platform for empowering technologies and focus on next-generation innovations and breakthroughs for users of all abilities. To learn more about the 2019 Summit, visit: www.m-enabling.com, or e-mail: advocacy@acb.org.

For this installment of the ACB Advocacy Update Podcast, Claire Stanley and Clark Rachfal are joined by Steve Tyler to discuss the 2019 M-Enabling Summit. Steve is the Director of Assistive Technology for Leonard Cheshire and is an active participant in the Global Initiative for Inclusive Information and Communication Technologies (G3ICT). The M-Enabling Summit is dedicated to promoting accessible and assistive technology for users of all abilities. With its theme of “Accessibility: Transforming Users’ Experience”, the 2019 M-Enabling Summit will provide a platform for empowering technologies and focus on next-generation innovations and breakthroughs for users of all abilities. To learn more about the 2019 Summit, visit: www.m-enabling.com, or e-mail: advocacy@acb.org.

For this installment of the ACB Advocacy Update Podcast, Claire Stanley and Clark Rachfal are joined by Steve Tyler to discuss the 2019 M-Enabling Summit. Steve is the Director of Assistive Technology for Leonard Cheshire and is an active participant in the Global Initiative for Inclusive Information and Communication Technologies (G3ICT). The M-Enabling Summit is dedicated to promoting accessible and assistive technology for users of all abilities. With its theme of “Accessibility: Transforming Users’ Experience”, the 2019 M-Enabling Summit will provide a platform for empowering technologies and focus on next-generation innovations and breakthroughs for users of all abilities. To learn more about the 2019 Summit, visit: www.m-enabling.com, or e-mail: advocacy@acb.org.

Peter White is joined by Cathy Yelf, CEO of the Macular Society, who talks about their new report calling for more collaboration in the funding of medical research to find a cure for Age-Related Macular Degeneration. Neil Heslop, newly appointed CEO of Leonard Cheshire Disability talks about his new role and the way in which he plans to lead the organisation.

How Tai Chi Can Heal You Simply By Breathing, Walking and Your Posture – Peter NewtonAired Wednesday, 30 September 2015, 4:00 PM ETTai Chi can heal you simply by your breathing, walking and posture. Peter Newton shows you how to gain access to the incredibly powerful healing postures, body-mechanics and breathing methods of the ancient Chinese Tai Chi masters. His book, “Healthy and Fit with Tai Chi,” demonstrates how simple adjustments to how you sit, stand walk, breathe and generally move can make a huge difference to the quality of your life. Join us as we talk to Peter about how you can use these simple techniques to improve your health.About Guest Sifu Peter NewtonSifu (Master Teacher) Peter Newton is full time professional ‘Tai Chi and Qigong’ physical therapist. He is an Honorary Vice-President of the ‘Tai Chi Union for Great Britain’ and author of the new book: ‘Healthy and Fit with Tai Chi- Perfect Your Posture Balance and Breathing’. Peter has over many years researched the medical benefits and applications of ‘Tai Chi and Qigong’ and his skills have attracted the attention of international soccer players, the general medical care profession and the business world. His clients include: ‘Parkinson’s UK’, ‘Kick-Start Cardiac Rehabilitation’, ‘Macmillan Cancer Support’ and ‘Leonard Cheshire’s Acquired Brain Injury Unit’. Visit his website: http://www.chinabridgetaichi.co.uk