I have just experienced a day I could have never imagined.
I shared the stage with Sir Tim Berners-Lee and other fellow grantees as we accepted our grant awards from the Knight Foundation. I have shaped my craft, my company, and my career on the very invention that is credited to Berners-Lee. It is an awesome event in the life of a geek to stand in this moment. We are humbled and inspired to be selected among such an amazing spectrum of projects.
I was fortunate to share dinner conversation with Berners-Lee’s colleague, Dr. Martin Moore and other grant winners as we pondered the past and future of web standards. Our table also included grantee Brein McNamara who is a deaf technologist and blogger. Through translators, we were able to learn about the experience of the deaf web. This had a particular twist as our grant is focused on radio which is one of the mediums that can be inaccessible to the deaf.
While we at Quiddities have long adhered to web standards that allow the visually impaired to navigate our websites, we have never considered the impact of the multimedia web on the deaf. They are unable to experience or engage in a site like YouTube. Imagine missing this cultural phenomenon. Brein’s project and his participation in the Knight community will bring a wider awareness to issues that could lead to web standards for the deaf.
Yesterday was just the beginning of a conversation. As grant recipients, we will have the opportunity over the course of the grant to explore avenues of digital innovation with other award winners. We will be gathering at MIT and in Chicago this summer to continue our conversation. We are humbled.