IBM Accessibility Center

Best Research 

Received by: Simon Cooper, Program Director of Infrastructure and Accessibility, IBM Accessibility Center 
Presented by: Robert David Hall, television actor (CSI: Crime Scene Investigation) and Steve Budorick, Trizec Properties 

In 2000, IBM established the IBM Worldwide Accessibility Center as a part of the IBM Research community.  The Center’s mission is to apply research technologies to solve problems experienced by people who have disabilities.  Web Adaptation Technology enables thousands of current pilot users to change content on Web pages, allowing them to specify anything from larger fonts to more space between words.  The technology can also read Web content aloud.  IBM, in partnership with eight universities, is testing a technology that uses speech recognition software to provide “captioning” of classroom lectures.   IBM ViaScribe provides the benefit of “dual modality” – both seeing and hearing the lecture.