Tuesday, August 20, 2013

TED Talk Tuesday: Ron McCallum - How To Read When You Are Blind?

Its Tuesday, so that means another TED Talk and this week the featured speaker is visually impaired. I know I should of featured more videos like this sooner.

This week's presentation features Ron McCallum who is a human rights lawyer, university professor, Chairperson of the United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and he is blind.

In the marvelous TEDxSydney presentation Mr. McCallum discusses how technological advancements during the last 60 years have enhanced the lives of the visually impaired.


He recalls being told as a little boy he wouldn't be able to read because of his disability. Volunteers had to manually transcribe books into braille for him to read, which was a long selfless process. With the decades of advancements in assistive technology such as screen readers he now can virtually read any document that he chooses. 


I came across the presentation from the TED tumblr blog which featured his video. Since this month I've been participating in VEDA (Vlog Everyday in August) I've been looking for new vlogs (video blogs) to watch. Reading through the comments left on Mr. McCallum's TED talk many of the commenters said they found the video from TheINENIVlogs Youtube channel. I was pleasantly surprised to find out that the channel features the daily vlogs of Ron's son Daniel.


The video below isn't the actual TED talk but is of Daniel talking about how proud he is of his father. He said that his father has just recently started speaking more about being blind and is writing a memoir. 


Watch Ron's full TED Talk here: http://youtu.be/pY6ul_P70HY


Check out Daniel speaking about his Dad below:


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