The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation awarded prizes to ten not-for-profit institutions. UW CSE’s own WebAnywhere was one of this year’s recipients. Vint Cerf, presenting these awards at the Fall Task Force meeting of the Coalition for Networked Information (CNI) said the following:
“The MATC Awards have a history of recognizing projects that improve accessibility for people with visual or other impairments, and this year is no exception. The next awardee is the University of Washington, for Project WebAnywhere. By providing a screen-reader as a Web server component, WebAnywhere allows an institution to provide screen-reading functionality to any computer, anywhere in the world, as long as it has speakers, an Internet connection, and a Web browser. Because screen readers can cost thousands of dollars per machine and cannot be moved easily, the total benefit to an institution can be considerable—and the improved mobility for persons with visual impairments generates substantial benefits for students and faculty.
Accepting the award for UW is Jeff Bigham, a PhD candidate in Computer Science and the creator of WebAnywhere.”
Additional information on the awards may be viewed here. More information on the awards ceremony, including podcast interviews with recipients, may be viewed at the CNI website which should be available around December 10, 2008.