NEW INC Pitch Presentations and Employment discussions The week began with meetings with Code Society, SOW, StreetWise and a social impact investor at NEW INC. In addition to giving a presentation to the group about our work, we learned from both SOW and Code Society about students who do not attend college, and how it is easy for them to get lost between the ages of 17-24. They don’t have the technical skills necessary to thrive in the information economy, especially in the STEAM fields. This mirrors the experiences of recent high school grads who have a visual impairment.
Subsequent to the conversation, we reviewed Census Bureau Statistics from both the SIPP and the ACS surveys regarding education and empllyment. We plan to share that data, as if demonstrated how important a college education is for people who have a visual impairment. As one might imagine, employment rates drop much further for a person who has a visual impairment and no college degree(compared to those with a collage degree) than for a person without and impairment who doesn’t have a college degree (compared to college educated peers).
Folks Kitchen Wear One of our industrial design advisors, Charlie Morgan, shared information regarding the Folks Kitchen Wear collection. It is a thoughtfully well designed tool that enables B&LV folks to prepare meals. We will be looking into their products further.
ELIA Game We created a video game and launched it on Friday. It challenges people to translate words in our font using a keyboard. It includes quotations from famous people and classical music. Please let us know your thoughts. It can be found here.
Printer Development We are in discussions to partner with one of HP’s recommended product design firms. The expectation is that they will share their expertise in firmware development and paper path optimization. Furhermore, for this final stage, they will help us design for manufacturing.
Pilot
The Pilot continues, with Adam Linn gaining speed and sharing insights into what it is like to learn and read the ELIA Frames font. Adam has done a good job of learning the alphabet, mastering the reading skills required for ELIA, advising us both on design and content, and helping us steer the company towards productive waters.
Kickstarter -
The Kickstarter rewards progressed this week. The ELIA Keyboards are in the process of design and manufacturing. The ELIA Poster is undergoing final font updating before it is sent to print.