CSUN <\/a>brings together thousands of participants from around the world. It would be impossible to attend all of the hundreds of conference sessions, and nearly impossible to explore the vast exhibit hall.\u00a0 CSUN becomes an overwhelming \u201cchoose your own adventure\u201d experience.<\/p>\nEach of the conference tracks could easily be their own separate conference.\u00a0 Policy and legal covers international standards all the way down to court rulings and new agency policies. Education might acquaint you with the challenges of new standardized testing or new approaches for teaching math to blind college students.\u00a0 Then there is technology, which includes the latest offerings from assistive technology vendors to Microsoft introducing the new accessibility features of Windows 10.\u00a0 There is more than enough for everyone and then some.<\/p>\n
Of the vast array of exhibits, three quarters of them featured vision-related assistive technology.\u00a0 Every vendor had something newer, smaller or faster.\u00a0 That said, there are certainly emerging trends.\u00a0 Products from book readers to glasses that\u00a0are sprouting cameras which can read printed text or even recognize faces. \u00a0Everything is going mobile and connecting to the cloud.\u00a0 In short, many of the technologies we have mentioned on the MDTAP BLOG, \u201cWhere It\u2019s AT,\u201d are maturing into products that are making their way to market.<\/p>\n
Perhaps the most valuable part of CSUN is rubbing elbows with the best and brightest in nearly all fields related to disabilities.\u00a0 I have no doubt many of the projects and products discussed at this year\u2019s CSUN were first imagined during an after-hours discussion in previous years.<\/p>\n
In the future, I might demonstrate a device in our Assistive Technology library which I first saw at CSUN.\u00a0 Perhaps I discussed it\u2019s pros and cons with the engineers.\u00a0 And my feedback may have been useful in shaping the final product.\u00a0 That\u2019s the AT life cycle.\u00a0 It starts, in the early Spring, far away from the ice and snow, at CSUN.<\/p>\n
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