The 2020 Agenda

We will announce the full 2021 agenda in October. Until then, watch for emails and posts announcing speakers.

  • Main Stage

    Welcome and Introduction by Karae Lisle, CEO of Vista Center and Will Butler, Host of Sight Tech Global

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  • Main Stage

    Seeing AI: Where does Microsoft’s blockbuster app go from here

    With ever more powerful computer and data resources available in the cloud, Microsoft’s Seeing AI mobile app is destined to become a steadily better ally for anyone with vision challenges. Co-founder Saqib Shaikh leads the engineering team that is charting the app’s cloud-enabled future.
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  • Main Stage

    The future of AT devices and the companies that make them

    Dedicated devices vs accessible platforms? Victor Reader Stream vs. iPhones and Alexa? How will AT companies take advantage of a world with cloud data and edge computational power, AI algorithms and more demanding customers than ever? Humanware, eSight and APH are already looking far into that future.
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  • Main Stage

    The future according to OrCam

    As AI-based computer vision, voice recognition and natural language processing race ahead, the engineering challenge is to design devices that can perceive the physical world and communicate that information in a timely manner. Amnon Shashua’s OrCam MyEye is the most sophisticated effort yet to merge those technologies in a seamless experience on a dedicated device.
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  • Main Stage

    Our AI future is already here

    Whether it’s Alexa, Tesla or Facebook, AI is already deeply embedded in our daily lives. Few understand that better than Dr. Kai-Fu Lee, a scientist who developed the first speaker-independent, continuous speech recognition system as a Ph.D. student at Carnegie Mellon, led Google in China and held senior roles at Microsoft and Apple. Today, Dr. Lee runs Sinovation Ventures, a $2 billion fund based in China, is president of the Sinovation’s Artificial Intelligence Institute and has 50 million followers on social media.
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    Speakers

    • Kai-Fu Lee Photo
      Kai-Fu Lee, Chairman and CEO, Sinovation Ventures
    • Ned Desmond Photo
      Moderator: Ned Desmond, Founder and Executive Producer, Sight Tech Global
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  • Main Stage

    Alexa, what is your future?

    When Alexa launched six years ago, no one imagined that the voice assistant would reach into millions of daily lives and become a huge convenience for people who are blind or visually impaired. This fall, Alexa introduced personalization and conversational capabilities that are a step-change toward more human-like home companionship. Amazon’s Josh Miele and Anne Toth will discuss the impact on accessibility as Alexa becomes more capable.
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    Speakers

    • Josh Miele Photo
      Josh Miele, Principal Accessibility Researcher, Lab126, Amazon
    • Anne Toth Photo
      Anne Toth, Director, Alexa Trust, Amazon
    • Devin Coldewey Photo
      Moderator: Devin Coldewey, Writer & Photographer, TechCrunch
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  • Main Stage

    Inventors invent: Three new takes on assistive technology

    Inventors have long been inspired to apply their genius to helping blind people. Think of innovators like Louis Braille and Ray Kurzweil, to name just two. Today's ambitious pioneers have the cheap sensors, high speed data networks, and data and compute "in the cloud" to do more than ever before. In this session, three founders present products that have just or will soon will enter production that they believe will improve the lives of people with disabilities.
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  • Main Stage

    If the Jetsons had screen readers, would they be using keyboard commands?

    The screen reader is arguably the most consequential digital technology ever for people who are blind or visually impaired. At the same time, screen readers depend on a dizzying array of keyboard commands, and - when it comes to reading websites in a browser - they struggle with the ugly reality of poor website accessibility. New technologies may lead the way to a better experience.
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  • Main Stage

    AI, Fairness and Bias: What technologists and advocates need to do to ensure that AI helps instead of harms people with disabilities

    While it's clear that AI-based technologies like natural language processing and computer vision are powerful tools to help with accessibility, there are also areas where AI technologies inject bias against people with disabilities by contrasting them again "norms" established in databases. This panel will look at examples of where that is happening – in employment software, benefits determination or even self-driving cars, for example, - and approaches that will help address these issues from the ground up.
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    Speakers

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  • Main Stage

    Welcome and Introduction by Karae Lisle, CEO of Vista Center and Will Butler, Host of Sight Tech Global

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  • Main Stage

    Designing for everyone: Accessibility innovation at Apple

    Apple has long embraced accessibility as a bedrock design principle. Not only has Apple created some of the most popular consumer products in history, these same products are also some of the most powerful assistive devices ever. Apple’s Sarah Herrlinger and Chris Fleizach will discuss the latest accessibility technology from Apple and how the company fosters a culture of innovation, empowerment and inclusion.
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  • Main Stage

    Computer Vision, AI and Accessibility: What’s missing from this picture?

    For an AI to interpret the visual world on behalf of people who are blind or visually impaired, the AI needs to know what it’s looking at, and no less important, that it’s looking at the right thing. Mainstream computer vision databases don’t do that well - yet. Work is under way to fill those data gaps.
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    Speakers

    • Patrick Clary Photo
      Patrick Clary, Product Lead, Accessibility Engineering, Google Research
    • Danna Gurari Photo
      Danna Gurari, Director, Image and Video Computing Group, University of Texas at Austin
    • Cecily Morrison Photo
      Cecily Morrison, Principal Researcher in the Human Experience & Design, Microsoft
    • Roberto Manduchi Photo
      Moderator: Roberto Manduchi, Professor of Computer Science and Engineering, University of California, Santa Cruz
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  • Main Stage

    Accessibility from the wheels up: the Waymo self-driving taxi

    If people who are blind or visually impaired find Uber and Lyft liberating, imagine how they will feel summoning a self-driving ride from an app on their mobile phones. But wait, how exactly will they locate the cars and what happens when they climb in? Clem Wright is responsible for the self-driving taxi’s accessibility, and he will be joined by leadership from two organizations with a big stake in the outcome: the Lighthouse for the Blind SF and the Foundation for Blind Children.
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  • Main Stage

    What can a body do? How we meet the built world

    Technologists like to imagine how their work affects people, but that's no substitute for truly knowing the real impact on lives, or better yet understanding what people, especially people with disabilities, really want from their surroundings and community. Author, designer and professor Sara Hendren discusses her new book, "What Can a Body Can Do?"
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    Speakers

    • Sara Hendren Photo
      Sara Hendren, Associate Professor, Olin College of Engineering
    • Will Butler Photo
      Moderator: Will Butler, Vice President, Be My Eyes
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  • Main Stage

    Wayfinding: Finding the mark

    Map apps on mobile phones are miraculous tools accessible via voice output, but mainstream apps don’t announce the detailed location information (which people who are blind or visually impaired really want), especially inside buildings and in public transportation settings. Efforts in the US and UK are improving accessible navigation.
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  • Main Stage

    Augmented Reality and Perception: What’s the best way to get the message across?

    It's one thing for an AI-based system to "know" when it's time to turn left, who came through the door or how far away the couch is: it's quite another to convey that information in a timely fashion with minimal distraction. Researchers are making use of haptics, visual augmented reality (AR), sound and language to figure out the right solutions.
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    Speakers

    • Amos Miller Photo
      Amos Miller, Product Strategist, Microsoft AI and Research, Microsoft
    • Sile O'Modhrain Photo
      Sile O'Modhrain, Associate Professor, Performing Arts Technology, University of Michigan
    • Ashley Tuan Photo
      Ashley Tuan, VP Medical Devices, Mojo Vision
    • Dr. Nicholas Giudice Photo
      Moderator: Dr. Nicholas Giudice, Professor of Spatial Informatics, University of Maine
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  • Main Stage

    Disability Rights and Inventing the Accessible Future

    When technologists design exciting new innovations, those designs rarely include blind people. Access to technology and information is a civil right. Yet when technologists design exciting new innovations, those designs rarely include blind people. Advocates urge us to employ a variety of strategies, from education to litigation, to ensure accessibility is baked into all future tech and information systems. Harvard Law’s first Deafblind graduate Haben Girma, disability rights attorney Lainey Feingold, and Chief Innovations officer with the DAISY Consortium, George Kerscher, will discuss strategies for creating a future fully accessible to disabled people, including those who are Black, Indigenous, People of Color.
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2020 Sponsors