Announcing the agenda and new sessions for Sight Tech Global 2023

Last week, we released the first group of main stage sessions for Sight Tech Global and promised to release the complete agenda and the rest of the sessions this week. We like to keep promises here at Sight Tech so here is the agenda with all of the main state sessions (apart from a few gaps) and below in this post you can find the sessions we have added since last week. Register today!

Next week, we will add in a great line-up of breakout sessions. Those are live AMAs with important speakers who will ready to take your questions. Register today! It’s free, online, and really worth you time! Dec. 6-7 from 8 a.m – Noon Pacific. Register today!

It’s also time to thank to Sight Tech Global’s sponsors, whose support sustains the Vista Center for the Blind and Visually Impaired, a 75 year-old 501 (c)(3) non-profit that helps the blind and visually impaired in the San Francisco Bay Area embrace life to the fullest through evaluation, counseling, education and training. Sight Tech is a Vista Center production and an all-volunteer effort. We are very grateful to sponsors META, Salesforce, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Waymo. Thank you.

The New Sessions

dot 2.0 

With new partnerships to lean on and generative AI looking to make their dynamic tactile display more useful than ever, the founders of the DOT pad return to Sight Tech Global to discuss how their vision for the breakthrough device is fast evolving. 

Eric Ju Yoon Kim, Co-Founder and CEO, dot
Ki Kwang Sung, Co-Founder and CBDO, dot
Nick Giudice, Professor of Spatial Computing, University of Maine

Envision: What happens when smart glasses really get smart?

Envision is a pioneer in the effort to connect computer vision with everyday life in the form of tech-enabled glasses that can tell a blind user about their surroundings. Using the Google glass platform, Envision found a market with blind users who value a hands-free interaction, and the experience only got better with the launch of scene description AIs in the past two years. But what’s really changed the game for Envision is generative AI, and the tantalizing possibility of a multimodal AI that’s more like an all-around personal assistant. 
Karthik Mahadevan, co-founder and CEO, Envision
Moderator: Joe Devon, Co-founder, GAAD

Immediately following this session, Karthik Mahadevan will be available to take questions live in a breakout session. 

AI Gets Complicated: emerging debates / surprising challenges

For all remarkable advantages AI has brought to accessibility, there’s always been a backbeat of issues, notably around certain kinds of bias against people with disabilities. Now that AI is infiltrating more and more day-to-day experiences and generative AI is taking wing, the expanse of issues for blind people is growing fast. In some cases, it’s all about advocating for technologies like autonomous taxis (think Waymo) or facial recognition that present big advantages but are opposed by other interests in the name of privacy or public safety; in other cases, the challenge is making sure emerging generative AIs take into account the worlds of eBraille and the always emerging language of the community. 

Chancey Fleet, Assistive Tech Coordinator, NY Public Library
Bryan Bashin, Vice Chair, Be My Eyes
Dr. Sheri Wells-Jensen, Associate Professor of Linguistics at Bowling Green State University
Moderator: Merve Hickok, Founder, AIethicist.org 

Waymo in San Francisco: A lesson in public advocacy for AI 

Who loves the idea of autonomous, driverless taxis best? Hard to say, but anyone who is blind will likely tell you they can’t wait. Why? The human drivers in ride-share apps turn down passengers with guide dogs, and driving with a stranger is that much more stressful when you can’t see them. And fundamentally, it’s about mobility without reliance on other people. That’s why Lighthouse and NFB took a big interest in Waymo’s San Francisco rollout and even took up the cause for the autonomous taxis. 

Rachel Kamen, Public Affairs Specialist, Waymo
Sharon Giovinazzo, CEO, Lighthouse for the Blind and Visually Impaired San Francisco

Thanks again to our sponsors META, Salesforce, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Waymo!