Hi, Jason. That is an amazing background. People like you refused to let the crap life threw at them hold them down. I find these stories amazing. On Mon, Apr 8, 2013 at 9:13 PM, Jason White <jason at jasonjgw.net> wrote: > Bill Cox <speakup at linux-speakup.org> wrote: > >At one point I wanted to collaborate with Sina on a book about being blind > >in the age of technology, where stories like your's and Sinas would make > >excellent examples throughout the book. Then I got busy at work, and now > >I'm more busy than ever. I still like the idea, though. > > I'm sure you can find wonderfully inspiring people, such as those who have > already contributed to this thread, to share their experiences for the > book. > > Here's a brief personal account, for what it is worth. I am very fortunate > never to have undergone the experience of losing sight: I simply didn't > have > it in the first place. I divided my time between the local school for the > blind and a good private school chosen by my family, switching full time to > the latter after the primary years. I was also active in music at the > time; a > highlight of those years was the opportunity to travel to Europe as a > violinist in a chamber orchestra. (Visiting the then divided Berlin shortly > before the collapse of the east German regime is an experience that I shall > always remember.) > > I completed secondary school with sufficiently good results to enter a > combined Arts/Law degree program at university. My first year of university > also entailed discovering UNIX, the Internet, and becoming an observer in a > group known as the International Committee for Accessible Document Design > (ICADD), which was developing Document Type Definitions and a > transformation > technique to enable publishers to make books accessible to people with > disabilities. I started reading all of the papers I could acquire related > to > accessibility research. Four years later I entered the Honours program in > Philosophy, a subject in which I had become deeply interested. At this > point, > the World Wide Web was also expanding rapidly, and I was invited into the > inaugural W3C Web Accessibility Initiative Working Group, the beginning of > what unexpectedly became quite a career in Web accessibility > standard-setting > work that I continued while studying law school subjects in subsequent > years. > The W3C work involved negotiating technical standards as well as editorial > and > administrative responsibilities, notably as Co-Chair of the Web Content > Accessibility Guidelines working group from 2000-2004 during the > development > of WCAG 2.0. It was all highly enjoyable and engaging, with superb people > involved and a lot of work to be done. I contributed to technical work in > the > Daisy Consortium as well, principally associated with Daisy 3.0. > > Having completed law school, specializing in public law (international law, > human rights, Constitutional interpretation), it was time to pursue my > childhood dream and embark upon a Ph.D. I chose a topic in philosophy, more > specifically in contemporary analytic semantics of natural language, that > was > relevant to both my interests in public law and moral philosophy and to my > Web-related work. Unfortunately, it wasn't possible to keep up with the > workload attached to my Web accessibility responsibilities while focusing > on > research toward a Ph.D., so I had to set aside my W3C commitments entirely, > just to concentrate on research and thesis/dissertation writing. > Notwithstanding the difficulties along the way, I ultimately graduated with > the Ph.D., and have since returned to more Web accessibility work. I am > also > attempting the academic publishing process while looking for the next > research > opportunity and pursuing a number of smaller projects, with an intention to > contribute at both a theoretical and practical level to issues of human > rights, social justice and of course accessibility as a special case of the > above. > > That's rather long as a summary but it covers the essential points. > > > _______________________________________________ > Speakup mailing list > Speakup at linux-speakup.org > http://linux-speakup.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/speakup >
