Hector Minto has worked at the cutting edge of Assistive Technology (AT)
for 20 years specialising in Alternative Communication (AAC) and Home
Automation (EC) for people with physical and learning disabilities and, most
recently, driving the growth and awareness of eye gaze technology across
Europe.
Hector’s role at Microsoft as an Accessibility Evangelist, sees him
engaging across the European workforce and stakeholders to showcase, product
accessibility, inclusive design, the inclusive hiring program and accessibility
innovation from Microsoft Research. A critical part of Hector’s role is tolearn from Microsoft customers how we can continue to adapt to the changing
needs of the diverse population we support, and to provide this feedback
directly to the Microsoft product teams for ongoing improvement of the
accessibility of our products, websites, and services.
Microsoft’s mission is to empower every person and every
organisation on the planet to achieve more.
We are passionate about creating a future where we push the boundaries
to create products and tools that have the potential to transform lives for thebetter.
As Technical Evangelist for Accessibility, I am proud to be part
of a diverse community that wants to equip and empower everyone to be their best
selves.
It could be creating apps to help people work better or make the
day-to-day easier. It could be empowering young adults or children into STEM
careers via our community programs. It could even be an individual taking the
time to volunteer at a charity or organise fundraising.
How about you start your journey to becoming more accessible for
everyone – did you know that you can check all your Microsoft documents,
presentations, and even emails for their accessibility? All it takes is a click ofa button.
Creating tools to empower everyone
To survive the world as it is today, technology is necessary for
schools, the workplace, or to access social services, utilities, or technology.
There are over 1 billion people with disabilities globally, according to WHO, who facebarriers in their daily lives.
We need to globalise the solutions we make, and make sure
everyone accessing technology can personalise and do so in a way that suits and
empowers them. Disability is not a personal health condition. When we view disability
as a mismatch in human interaction, we can design products and services that
deliberately include a wider range of abilities.
Every day at Microsoft, people are empowered to invest their
time and use their skills to help others. It could be working in the Microsoft Research Labs making breakthroughs
in AI, human-computer interaction, healthcare and more; or finding solutions in
the day-to-day business.
The Microsoft Enable Lab for example, focusses on
creating technologies that empower people living with disabilities. The Inclusive Technology Lab increases awareness of
gamers with disabilities. Microsoft also hosts an Ability Summit, that brings
together our disability community and allies, and hosts annual hackathons
globally.
It was at the first hackathon in 2014, when former NFL player Steve Gleason,
who has ALS (MND), challenged Microsoft to create something to help him move
his wheelchair independently. The challenge was met with gusto and a team
created a solution that allowed Gleason to move his wheelchair with just his
eyes.
This led to the implementation of the same technology in Eye Control for Windows 10,
making this technology more readily available for all, and for us to reach a
more global audience with disabilities.
In 2014, Anirudh Koul, a
data scientist working with machine learning in Bing, realised his grandfather
was gradually losing his vision and was unable to recognise him on Skype.
Koul had an idea to use images to navigate users around their environment.
A year later another team of Microsoft Researchers developed a
vision-to-language technology that was more accurate than humans at recognising
objects in images. This brought to life Koul’s idea and he brought together a
diverse team to create and test the software.
The project won the 2015 hackathon award and now Seeing AI is a free app available globally.
The hack culture that delivered both Eye Control and Seeing AI
is one we are keen to promote globally. When we invest in people centred
solutions and invest our time learning about disability inclusion, we discover
amazing ideas that help a much wider audience. We describe this process and the
story behind our hack culture in The Ability Hacks,
available for download.
Emma Lawton was 29 when she was diagnosedwith Parkinson’s Disease. As a graphic designer, the tremors Emma had meant itwas virtually impossible to draw.
Enter Haiyan Zhang, Innovation Director at Microsoft Research,
Cambridge. On BBC Big Life Fix, the two were introduced and Zhang
was faced with a challenge – help Lawton draw again. She devised a watch which
vibrates and distracts the brain. Dubbed ‘The Emma Watch’,
it helped Lawton draw again.
Sometimes all it takes is a simple use of technology that can
change someone’s life. Microsoft Learning Tools leverages
technology to improve reading and writing for people, regardless of their age
or ability. It offers simple ways to change and highlight font, reads aloud and
has focus modes
Or perhaps, it’s just offering the use of current tools to
empower. At the City of Westminster
of College, Esam Baboukhan, a computer science teacher, wanted to
bridge the communication gap between his students. One of his students, Kabir,
has a hearing impairment and while he is accompanied by an interpreter in
classes, neither Baboukhan or the other students knew British Sign Language.
With the simple introduction of Microsoft Teams,
an online collaboration app, the communication barriers fell. Kabir now feels
more confident to communicate with his peers. Baboukhan now uses Teams in all
his classes to increase collaboration.
And what’s good for one person is good for others. Technology
created to help someone with a permanent disability can help those with a
temporary injury or a situational disability. Accessibility for the few, more
often than not, becomes usability for many.
Did you know that any webpage can be read aloud by simply right
clicking (or holding a touchscreen) and choosing that option? Suddenly
webpages become accessible to a much wider audience.
Technology is reaching further into society and as it does, we
must consider the specific needs of this wider audience. Consider the number of
people in the world with low levels of literacy or dyslexia. Take for example,
the Immersive Reader, created as part of the Learning Tools.
It can be leveraged for a wide range of uses, from helping those
with vision impairment, non-native language speakers learning new languages, to
those recovering from eye surgery, or in a situation where someone can’t read
their screen. Teachers are now even using it to help them mark their student’s
work.
Being inclusive and diverse
These projects would never have happened if the teams weren’t able
to draw on different backgrounds, experiences, and abilities. Having people
with different experiences means we can solve different challenges across
society and meet the needs of our increasingly diverse world.
Microsoft prides itself on empowering people to come as they are
and do what they love. This means having inclusive hiring practices and
workplaces that echo the great mix in our society. Our Autism Hiring Programme, LEAP, and intern, graduate and
apprenticeships schemes help us to expand the pipeline of
talent within our organisation.
With programmes such as DigiGirlz, Digital Skills, Microsoft Imagine, and YouthSpark we
aim to increase the digital skills in young people to help solve the world’s
greatest challenges. We not only partner with not-for-profits, governments, educators,
partners, and other organisations, we empower our staff to use their skills to
make a difference in the community personally.
We have one of the more diverse leadership teams in the
technology sector. There are also over 50 community groups in Microsoft that
offer support, mentoring, product input, and more.
We’re open to learning our own biases and changing our
behaviours, so we can tap into the collective power of everyone at Microsoft.
Over 70,000 employees have completed our unconscious bias training and
we’ve opened the course externally too.
Best of all, we are surrounded by supportive and encouraging
co-workers and managers to help us achieve our work and personal goals. It’s
also easy to create a difference, both locally and globally, as Microsoft
supports us when we volunteer or raise money for charities.
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