Where It's AT – Assistive Technology Blog

Yesterday we had the opportunity to attend the Baltimore City Listening Post hosted by the Maryland Department of Disabilities. During this session, one of the issues that arose was the idea that there’s little public awareness about disability in the main stream media – essentially a lack of positive, inclusive public awareness campaigns. This is true. And it got me thinking.

Over the past six months, MD TAP has increased its public presence through social media. One of these venues in particular, Twitter, has proven to be an opportunity for us to share AT-specific articles. So, each week, we surf the web and share any AT related news that we find of value. Thankfully there’s been no lack of these articles, but they are disparate at best. It’s our hope that in some way we’re helping to streamline the information “out there” about AT and making it more accessible to the average Twitter user. And of course we cross-engage our fans on Facebook with questions, program updates, etc. But we know there has to be more; there has to be a way to get AT out in the public’s eye, and a way for integrating those AT stories into the mainstream media in a form that’s meaningful and useful.

With this is mind, we’ve had the opportunity to grow some of our own local public awareness. Here’s our list of media outreach for the next few months:

– We’ve taped a TV session (that will also be available online) on AT and Seniors

– We’re taking part in an hour-long radio segment for the radio show Insight on Disability

– We provided an interview with the Seoul Welfare Foundation on the AT Loan Program for an article in the Fall 2011  “Barrier Free Society” issue

We live in a remarkably advanced time in history where technology, more so than ever before, is being designed to accommodate many capabilities and basic accessibility is a standard feature. So the question is, how do we build off of this? How do we take these new advances in accessibility, disability and inclusion and talk about them, publicize them, and make them a part of a greater awareness of who we are as a people and where we would like to be?

Ideas?