Boston Museum of Science, April 17th, 2025, along with Perkins School for Blind in Watertown. Free. The Museum and Perkins School for the Blind team up for this program highlighting how end-to-end accessibility is crucial for civic engagement. In a true democracy, everyone can participate equally. Explore how end-to-end accessibility — of media, voting processes and more — is essential for full civic participation of people with disabilities.
* How might — and should — systems enable:
- People with blindness / low vision to engage with political information from maps/data visualizations?
- People with auditory and / or language processing issues to participate in community forums, town halls, and meetings with policymakers, amid the lack of standardized, real-time, high-quality captioning?
- People with neurocognitive disabilities to discern mis/disinformation, in order to make informed civic decisions?
- Featured speakers – please see below.
For more information visit https://www.mos.org/events/democracy-disability-issue
Speakers –
- Kim Charlson and Idabelle – Kim Charlson has been involved with Perkins Library since 1985, and has been director since 2001. Charlson also oversees the FCC iCanConnect program, the National Deaf-Blind Equipment Distribution Program providing free communication technology and training to eligible individuals. She is the co-chair of the Federal Communications Commission’s Disability Advisory Committee, and she serves as the co-chair of the Coalition on Assistive Technology. A distinguished expert on library and information services for people with disabilities, Charlson serves on several committees for the Library of Congress’ National Library Service for the Blind and Print Disabled and has contributed to numerous publications on braille and accessible library services. She was the first woman president of the American Council of the Blind (2013-2019) and a member of the Accessible Books Consortium to support the Marrakesh Treaty. Charlson is the president of the North America/Caribbean Region of the World Blind Union (WBU) and the chair of the WBU’s World Braille Council.
- Helen Michaud – Helen Michaud joined Clear Ballot in 2019. As Vice President of Product, she is responsible for the product strategy of Clear Ballot’s election solutions and also oversees training and documentation.
- Santiago “Santi” Garces, driven by early experiences in his native Bogotá, Colombia, has dedicated his career to make government work better for people through technology, process, and design. As the Chief Information Offi cer (CIO) for the City of Boston. Santi served CIO in South Bend and Pittsburgh. Santi was named a Rising Star by Route Fifty, Executive of the Year by LocalSmart, and has received several awards for his work. He is a Data-Smart Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School, and a Senior Fellow with the Burnes Center at Northeastern and the GovLab, working with Beth Noveck to enable AI applications for social impact. He also serves as a US representative to UN-Habitat as an expert on People-Centered Smart Cities. Santi co-founded the innovation and talent incubator nonprofit, enFocus, in South Bend. He served as a co-founding board member of the MetroLab Network.
- Ethan Zuckerman is an associate professor of public policy, communication, and information, as well as director of the UMass Initiative for Digital Public Infrastructure, focused on reimagining the Internet as a tool for civic engagement. His research focuses on civic media, online community governance, digital public infrastructure, quantitative studies of media attention, technology, and social change.Before coming to UMass, Zuckerman was at MIT, where he served as director of the Center for Civic Media and as associate professor of practice in media arts and sciences at the MIT Media Lab. His research focuses on the use of media as a tool for social change, the role of technology in international development, and the use of new media technologies by activists. The author of Rewire: Digital Cosmopolitans in the Age of Connection, he will publish a new book, Mistrust: Why Losing Faith in Institutions Provides the Tools to Transform Them (W.W. Norton), in early 2021.In 2005, Zuckerman cofounded Global Voices, which showcases news and opinions from citizen media in more than 150 nations and 30 languages.
