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[Dramatic Music]
[Jeremy]: Growing up I played Baseball, Basketball, Soccer, Golf
you name it, I've done it
School was easy
I would sit in the back of the class with friends
try to get a "B"
you know, I didn't really care
I just wanted to get my degree, move on
get in the golf industry and work there for as long as I could
they say you know know what you had until it's gone
I had 20/20 vision my whole life and I thought that's what it would be like.. throughout
I never thought I could go legally blind at 19
and then, things change
when I was first diagnosed with LHON, I was devastated
I was depressed
I asked "why me?" every single day for a month and a half
In a matter of two months
my vision went from 20/20 to where it is now
There's millions of neurons in and around your optic nerve and
for me, they're dying off
If you compare your visual field to a donut
I have the donut part, I have this whole peripheral vision
but I have nothing in the center
when I look at people, their face and all this area is completely blurred out for me
The classroom I've realized is my least favorite place to be
there's a lot of people, there's stuff being written on the board
and the teacher goes, "Alright class, what does this mean?" or "If you focus on that then.."
All these "this", "that", "those", "if you see that"
That's when I go, "Well I can't see it!"
[music transition]
My name is David Hayden, I'm 24 years old and I was born with a visual impairment known as bilateral optic nerve hypoplasia
The physical world is less accessible for me with my limited vision
but on a computer screen I can get as close as I need to and it was an even playing field for me
In 2007 we were filling up a dozen chalkboards in 30-45 minutes and I simply couldn't keep up with note-taking
In a very real sense I felt that if I didn't come up with a solution
then I wasn't going to be able to finish my math degree and that just wasn't acceptable to me
So I decided that if we can put a camera connected to a tablet PC
and put some motors underneath it
then we should be able to provide a student with views of the board and their notes
We started the "Note-Taker" in 2007 and we didn't find out about the Imagine Cup until 2009
[News Anchor]: "It is like the Superbowl of technology"
[David]: the goal of the Imagine Cup is solving the world's toughest challenges
[Mark Hindsbo, Microsoft]: First prize goes to Team Note-Taker from Arizona State!
[David]: What started as a desperate attempt to try to allow myself to finish a math degree
to generalize into a product that could help low vision individuals in the United States
and even in the world beyond that
[Music transitions back to Jeremy's story]
[David]: Right now there's about 20 million low vision adults in the US
and the hope is continuing to develop technological solutions to problems
or to reinvent the way that we interact with our world
[Jeremy]: I can tell that there's a whiteboard there or a blackboard
but when things are being written up there, I can't see a thing
"Star this- it will be on the test"
I'm like, oh man I feel left out
[David]: I believe that technological solutions, more than policy solutions, are the way to overcome barriers of access
and to empower individuals with disabilities
you know, we've really accomplished something here
and I like to say.. that I'm just getting warmed up
[Jeremy w. the "Note-Taker"]: when she was talking about people that I didn't know
or when she was writing things on the board and saying "look at this"
I was able to zoom in and see what she was talking about and not have to raise my hand and say,
"Hey what is that?"
"how do you spell that?" etc.
I think I am missing out on things, but I think everyone is missing out on something. I mean that's why you make decisions in life
I've done way more now than I did when I had my vision. I have nothing to complain about
I know I'm legally blind, but I have nothing to complain about
[Dramatic Music]