In the past few weeks, I attended several events relating to accessibility and entrepreneurship in Washington, D.C.  The prevalent theme from these speakers (legislators, government & industry leaders) was a commitment to accessibility and innovation in technology. In this “Part One” I’ll overview the White House Town Hall event and the conversation about innovation in accessibility & technology. Part Two covers the celebration for the “Twenty-First Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act.”

National Entrepreneurs’ Day – November 19, 2010

Keen Guides had the great honor of being invited to the National Entrepreneurs’ Day Town Hall meeting hosted by a local start-up, HelloWallet. U.S. Chief Technology Officer Aneesh Chopra and Steve Case, AOL Founder & co-chair of the National Advisory Council on Innovation and Entrepreneurship (NACIE) talked with 70+ entrepreneurs about ways that the government can better support entrepreneurship & be more transparent. This panel was moderated by Phil Weiser, who is the Senior Advisor to the National Economic Council.

Citizen Engagement to Solve Problems

One of the biggest topics discussed are “challenges” that the Government is hosting for entrepreneurs at challenge.gov where it is “a place where the public and government can solve problems together.” If the government likes the developments through the challenge, citizens may receive further funding to continue working towards a solution. See how the process works, to the right. If you’re interested, you can sign up at: http://challenge.gov/info

Aneesh Chopra: “I will not fail.”

I was able to ask a question to Aneesh Chopra and Steve Case about what the government is doing to support innovation & entrepreneurship for accessibility, because products in this market are often less “attractive” or considered “charity work.”

Chopra remarked,

“Literally, 24-hours ago, we had a dozen disability technology professionals, present on categories of potential challenges, prizes, and competitions. And one of them being liveable communities. The concept is so simple, collecting open source data about buildings, points of interests,  so that in one click, you can get accessible information about where you want to go. So we’re going to work on a liveable community disability challenge. I will not fail. In 90 days, we’re going to launch that challenge. There’s a lot of enthusiasm around it.“

So stay tuned on http://www.challenge.gov, or through the National Broadband Plan’s Accessibility and Innovative Initiatives website under “Accessibility and Innovation Challenges” We plan to be at the table for these challenges and help spur innovative practices in technology and accessibility through universal design.

Accountability for Accessible Technology

Moderator Phil Weiser remarked:

“The ‘Twenty-First Communication and Video Accessibility Act’ is a “wonderful bill” which received bipartisan support, is a critical step forward in creating an accessible community.  This catalyzes more innovation in this space and holds firms accountable and helps millions of Americans who need this technology.”

Video: Hear & See these remarks from Chopra, Weiser, and Case:

If you’d like to see the video clip about this (sorry, it’s not captioned!)  - scroll to timecode 53:20 – 55:48 to hear these remarks. For further information about this event – and see that Keen Guides got a shout-out – check out the White House blog reported by Doug Rand.

Part Two: The Twentieth Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act

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