The accessibility problem of the deaf due to lecture recordings

One of the Free Software clubs in Israel (there are several such clubs, some of them organize Linux related lectures, others speak about Perl, and yet others do Python) wants to start making available from its Web site the audio recordings of lectures organized by it.

Of course, I am screaming murder about this. Before the new service is made available, my ability to access lecture contents after the fact was equivalent to that of hearing people. I could read presentations as well as they could. Now, that the lecture recordings would be available, they would be available only to hearing people. I would be left out in the cold.

This problem currently exists with Larry Wall’s lecture in Present Continous, Future Perfect, at least until all volunteers finish transcribing it (so far, 37:53 minutes out of 72:39 have been transcribed).

Now the search for technical, attitude and organizational problems is being conducted. One of my grave sorrows is that I am the only champion of the interests of the deaf in this discussion. Other Israeli deaf software developers (both oral and signing) are still hiding in the shadows.

Author: Omer Zak

I am deaf since birth. I played with big computers which eat punched cards and spew out printouts since age 12. Ever since they became available, I work and play with desktop size computers which eat keyboard keypresses and spew out display pixels. Among other things, I developed software which helped the deaf in Israel use the telephone network, by means of home computers equipped with modems. Several years later, I developed Hebrew localizations for some cellular phones, which helped the deaf in Israel utilize the cellular phone networks. I am interested in entrepreneurship, Science Fiction and making the world more accessible to people with disabilities.

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