Life Chances for Blind and Visually Impaired People in the Information Age
Return to Blindness and Visual Impairment
Speech given at Third IDP Africa Forum “Engagement in Citizenship: Creating Space and Opportunity in Civil Society for the Blind and Visually Impaired”
Date: 18/05/2004
Venue: Eskom Conference Centre, Midrand, Johannesburg, South Africa
Preface
During the past 20 years rich countries have been trapped in an expensive struggle to exploit the potential of growing computing power. For most of that period the major problems concerned input methodology and output intelligibility in such applications as word processing, accounting and research but the real issue is how to harness the processing power that now exists for intelligent agents, automated machine processing and 3d printing. These new developments will eliminate millions of jobs for poorly and moderately qualified people as human beings focus on what they can do better than machines. For blind and visually impaired people this means exploiting post computer technologies such as telephone networks and community broadcasting to provide trustworthy information and to communicate its importance. Since the rehabilitation crisis was recognised 30 years ago little has changed because we have been tied to sheltered and self employment, with a little communal agriculture; what we need are realistic business models such as Dominant Partnership, Social Firms and network collaboration; these, in turn, require a rehabilitation approach focused on self esteem rather than technical competence.
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