good
afternoon!
My
name is Joseph Lazzaro, and I'm here to tell you
about my book, “Adaptive Technologies for Learning
and Work Environments”, which has been recently
translated into japanese. Let me begin by saying
that I am honored that I have been selected for
this project, and that my book is considered worthy
of this effort. Let me begin by describing myself
and my work, and how I got involved with adaptive
technology.
About
thirty years ago, I became legally blind, due
to retinal detachments. I remain legally blind
to this day. At the time, I was very unsure how
my life would proceed, and would I follow a course
where I could become productive.
In
the early 1980s, about ten years after I became
legally blind, I obtained an Apple II computer
with an Echo speech synthesizer. The computer
completely changed my life, and it helped me graduate
from university. I was attending the University
of Massachusetts, majoring in physics, and the
computer allowed me to work independently like
my sighted counterparts.
Shortly
after getting the Apple computer, I discovered
that many things were open to me. A dream that
I always had was to write and my first writing
assignment was as a result of the Apple computer.
I wrote a review of five speech synthesizers and
that was published in the December 1984 issue
of Byte Magazine with the title "The Search for
Speech". That article launched my career, and
because of that article, I was invited to write
other articles for other publications, many of
them prestigeous technical publications in the
computer press. At the time, I was one of the
very few blind and visually impaired persons doing
technical writing.
My
interest in writing also expands to science fiction,
and I have published several stories in Analog
magazine. My first published story was in the
September issue of Analog under the title "Ben
Franklin's Spaceship". That story was nominated
for a Hugo Honorable Mention, a high honor in
the science ficiton field.
In
1993, my first book "Adaptive Technologies for
Learning and Work Environments" was published
by the American Library Association. The book
was a description of how to adapt computers for
persons with different types of disabilities,
motor, and other disabilities. That book was considered
at the time an important work on how to adapt
computers and information technology for persons
with a variety of disabilities. I wrote the second
edition to that book, which was published in the
year 2001 by the American Library Association,
and was approached shortly thereafter by Mister
Shinichi Torihara to translate that book into
Japanese. I was very honored for them to accept
my book for this project, as I wanted to get my
book out to the widest possible audience, and
I know that many people from Asia and around the
world will be interested in this type of information.
As
a result of meeting Mister Torihara, I also had
the pleasure of meeting Professor Yasumura, MS
Nakkamura, and MS Ishida, also of the translation
project.
Most
of the work Shinichi and I did on the book was
through email. We did not meet until June of the
year 2001 when he came to the United States for
a conference, and then to Boston, where he stayed
in my home for several days. It was a pleasure
having Shinichi here, and we had a very nice time.
We had the chance to go through the city of Boston,
and spend a lot of quality time together.
I
am planning on writing future books, and I hope
that these will be of interest to the Japanese
market, because they will focus on adaptive computer
technology for persons with disabilities, and
I feel that it is very important to get this information
out to an international audience.
I
thank you for attending todays presentation, and
I hope that you enjoy my work. I give a special
thanks to Shinichi torihara, who put in a tremendous
effort to translate this book. It wasn't always
an easy task because he had to correct many of
my mistakes.
I
thank you for your time, and good luck.
I
want to thank all of you for coming here today.
If you would like to contact me by electronic
mail, my email address is lazzaro@theworld.com.
I
also want to thank Shinichi torihara and Professor
Yasumura for all their work. thank you, and goodbye
for now.
