Announcing Sight Tech Global’s first in-person event, December 9

Sight Tech Global started out in 2020 as a purely virtual event, but our partners told us they were eager for a small, in person event that brought together top technologists, designers and product people working in assistive tech. We thought that sounded like a lot of fun, not to mention rewarding if we could put together some good programming and networking.

So the Sight Tech Global team launched “In Person” in order to meet that vision. The all-day event will be held in San Jose, California on December 9, 2022 at the San Jose office of the Vista Center (101 N Bascom Ave  San Jose, CA  95128). The Vista Center for the Blind and Visually Impaired operates the Sight Tech Global event. 

The event will offer a short main stage program, followed by attendee-proposed and attendee-led workshops on pressing topics in assistive tech, with ample time for networking and socializing. Breakfast and lunch will be provided on site, plus refreshments at the close of the event. We will announce the workshops just before Thanksgiving.

If you have an idea for a workshop, please submit it here.

The Sight Tech Global team will review and respond quickly. We are counting on great workshops to make the event a memorable one. So far, we have workshops committed from DOT, APH, Humanware, Fable, PEAT, and Smith Battlewell / UC Santa Cruz, among others. The Sight Tech Global team will review and respond quickly. We are counting on great workshops to make the event memorable.

Here is the line-up so far:

Main Stage

Assistive Tech: The Long Road to Today, and Where We Go From Here

• Mike May, evangelist at Good Maps 
• Jim Fruchterman, founder at TechMatters and Benetech 

Smith-Kettlewell’s renewed Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center (RERC) on Blindness and Low Vision

• James Coughlan,  Senior Scientist,  Coughlan Lab Director, Smith Kettlewell Skeri Eye Research Institute 

Workshops

Reshaping the Future of Braille

• Greg Stilson, APH 
• Colin Ratchford, APH

Enhancing blind accessibilities through a dynamic tactile display

• Eric Ju Yoon Kim, DOT
• Ki Kwang Sung, DOT

Tactile Maps for All

• Roberto Maduchi, UC Santa Cruz 
• James Coughlan, Smith-Kettlewell

The Future of Job Search 

• Sam Proulx, Fable  

Augmenting Access to the IoT with HumanWare AT

• Louis-Phillippe Masse, Humanware
• Peter Tucic, Humanware 

First Generation Smart Glasses 

• Shubh Mittal, Seleste 
• Smit Patel, Seleste 

AI-Enabled Hiring Technologies: Obstacles and Opportunities

• Bill Curtis-Davidson, PEAT 
• Alexa Huth, PEAT 

Attendance at the In-Person event is limited to 150 participants. The fee for individual attendees is $350 and tickets may be purchased here. Anyone who is blind or visually impaired, still in school, or not currently employed, may use this link for free registration. 

All attendees should have a strong, current engagement with advanced technology in assistive tech for the blind and visually impaired. 

Attendee lists will be available before the event so that everyone can reach out in advance for 1:1 meetings. 

The event will be fully accessible, and volunteers will be on hand to assist as needed.

Questions?  Contact us here.