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♪ [spry piano music]
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♪ [music adds in a chime-like instrument]
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(Nate) So excited with the way this event came out.
We've been planning it for months.
All the way from the branding, to all the cooperation throughout the company.
The actual turn-up of the vendors is amazing.
(Alan) What we hope will happen with most of what's here,
is that we can bust as many stereotypes as possible.
Most of us don't have a lot of direct experience with disabled people.
This is a way for Yahoo's to easily get immersed,
with experiences of people with disabilities.
I'm Ketra Oberlander, I'm founder of "Art of Possibility Studios".
Art of Possibility is the only brand exclusively
representing physically disabled artists,
in a for-profit model.
I'm blind, I lost my sight in my late 30's, and I picked up a paintbrush at 40.
Within a couple years, I was nationally recognized as an artist,
and I went on to found the company,
because I kept hitting barriers of logistics,
of getting art from point "a" to point "b".
(Larry) We are the WGBH National Center for Accessible Media,
and we partnered with Yahoo! to put together this day of independence,
showing technologies for people with disabilities.
So what we're showing here in our area of this tent,
is technology we developed for movie theaters,
so people who are deaf or hard of hearing can actually watch captions,
and no one else would be bothered by it.
You can also put on a pair of headphones,
and hear descriptions of what's going on in the movie.
(describer) At a zoo, Ellie exits the South American exhibit in a zookeeper's safari uniform.
(Larry) And the coolest latest thing we're doing is called "Media Access Mobile".
It's using a handheld device like a smartphone,
and you can be anywhere within a museum or an exhibit,
and on your device, read any language that we caption in,
English, or Russian, or French, or whatever else,
or hear the same descriptions if you're blind,
and on a smartphone, iPhone, Blackberry, whatever can get on the web,
you can be anywhere in the area,
and actually read the captions on your own device.
(Mark Barlet) Video games allow you to kind of present yourself in a way that's like,
"Hey, I'm a gamer",
"And oh, guess what? Now that you get to know me, I'm also disabled."
"Surprise!"
But you know, you've learned that there's a person
behind the ventilator, and the wheelchair, and all of that.
So I think that gaming can be a great equalizer.
Well, it's fun. We had a chance to get all the Yahoo! employees to play,
and try out wheelchair basketball.
For the most part, I think everybody enjoyed it.
I tell you, it's uh, it's amazingly difficult,
to get around, I mean,
the speed, and the agility that these wheelchair athletes have -
it's pretty astounding.
But they make it look so simple.
Did it surprise me how hard it was?
I was expecting it to be hard.
[laughter]
Oh, no, these guys left me in the dust, every time.
I just watched 'em go down, and was just trying to catch up.
But I tell ya, it was a lot of fun, trying to figure out how to get the hang of it,
and sit in the chair, and move it around, and you know -
have guys just blow ya off, and burn ya in every direction -
it was - it was a good time.
It's inspirational to see these guys
that have been dealt, in one form or another, a disability,
and to just conquer, you know?
Kick *** and take names.
Pretty damn inspirational.
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(Mark Snell) I think it's more than just accessibility, which is more of a legal kind of issue.
I think it's what's right for human beings.
You know, this is about helping people feel - part of the community.
(Nate) I think what people saw when they came out here is that
people with disabilities are just like you and I.
(Alan) I think what's got to increase, is people's comfort level.
That they won't feel so awkward around people with disabilities,
It's not so much about learning something,
it's really about feeling more comfortable than people generally do around disabled groups.
And when people go home tonight, they'll tell their partners, or their friends -
"This is what happened at Yahoo! today".
And I'm thrilled with that.
(Nate) The core message is "Independence".
If you make things accessible, if you include people with disabilities,
if you include the elderly, -
you're allowing those people to all of the sudden become independent.
You are able to say,
"I can do it, on my own, just in my own way."
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