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#CSUN14 Audio: National Braille Press Awarding up to $20,000 for Accessible Software and Hardware


The National Braille Press is accepting nominations for its 2014 Touch of Genius prize, which awards up to $20,000 for software or hardware in four different categories. This year's deadline is April 15. Chancey Fleet talks to National Braille Press President Brian MacDonald to learn about the new focus for the prize and more about the award in this podcast. Blind Bargains audio coverage of CSUN 2014 is generously sponsored by the American Foundation for the Blind.

Transcript

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Direct from San Diego, it’s BlindBargains.com coverage of CSUN 2014. The biggest names, provocative interviews, and wall-to-wall exhibit hall coverage, brought to you by the American Foundation for the Blind.

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Now, here’s Chancey Fleet.

CF: Hi, I’m here with Brian MacDonald, President of the National Braille Press, to talk a little bit about the Touch of Genius award. So could you start out by telling me a little bit about the history of the award and what the mission is?

BM: Sure. The Touch of Genius prize we started a number of years ago now, thanks to a grant from The Gibney Family Foundation. It started out being hardware and educational directions to support Braille literacy and tactile literacy for blind and deaf-blind people, and recently we have changed the direction a little bit to focus more on four categories: one being professional software and apps, one being educational software and apps, and then gaming software or apps that promote tactile and Braille learning, and then the final category is Braille or tactile-related hardware. We still have some hardware components as an area and a category for the prize.

It’s a prize we give out annually, and it’s a $20,000 prize for those that are successful, so it’s a nice encouragement, I think, for people to apply for this grant.

CF: And how many are awarded each year? Is it just one annually?

BM: We do one a year, but sometimes we split the prize if we found there were some categories that were good or in different areas, we’ve broken it down to $10,000 and two $5,000 or different things. So it really depends on the year. That’s up to the Adjudication Committee.

CF: Who serves on the Adjudication? What kind of backgrounds?

BM: We have people from a lot of different organizations; someone from the Library of Congress, someone from MIT, someone who’s a research scientist. And many of them are blind and techies or Braille literacy people, so there’s a lot of different people on the committee. And some of our staff, of course.

CF: Could you tell me a little bit about the annual cycle and about the nominating process?

BM: This year, our deadline for people to submit this year is April 15th, and we normally would give the award out a few months from now. It’s once a year. We have changed the cycle, depending on – we’ve tried to link it with university engineering timeframes and the fall semesters when they gear up for new projects. So we’ve changed it around a few times, but this year, April 15th will be the deadline.

CF: Okay, great. Finally, could you provide me with the website URL so people can go and check out the prize?

BM: Of course. First I’ll put in a plug for National Braille Press, which is nbp.org, but the Touch of Genius website is www.touchofgeniusprize.org. So that works as well.

CF: All right, thank you very much.

BM: Thank you, Chancey.

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J.J. Meddaugh is an experienced technology writer and computer enthusiast. He is a graduate of Western Michigan University with a major in telecommunications management and a minor in business. When not writing for Blind Bargains, he enjoys travel, playing the keyboard, and meeting new people.


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