People and Organizations that Make up the RtF Initiative

 Jim Fruchterman is a technology entrepreneur and former rocket scientist who has founded two of the foremost optical character recognition companies and developed successful social enterprises. Jim co-founded Calera Recognition Systems in 1982. Calera developed character recognition that allowed computers to read virtually all printed text.

In 1989, Jim founded Arkenstone, a nonprofit social enterprise, to produce reading machines for the disabled community based on the Calera technology. Following the sale of the Arkenstone product line in 2000, Jim used all the resulting capital to fund Benetech, with an explicit goal of using the power of technology to serve humanity.

Jim has also been active in public service, with two stints on U.S. federal advisory committees. He is a MacArthur fellow and was named an Outstanding Social Entrepreneur in 2003 by the Schwab Foundation and continues to participate in the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Benetech received the Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship under Jim's leadership. Jim has also received numerous awards from major disability groups and the American Library Association in recognition of his efforts to make literary works accessible to people who are blind or visually impaired.

To contact Jim directly, send an email to Info@RaisingTheFloor.net with [ATTN JIM] in the subject.

Gregg C. Vanderheiden is a professor of Industrial and Biomedical Engineering, and founder and director of Trace R&D Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He has worked in technology and disability for more than 35 years and currently directs the NIDRR Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center (RERC) on Information Technology Access, and co-directs the RERC on Telecommunications Access (joint with Gallaudet University).

Gregg pioneered in the field of Augmentative Communication (a name taken from his writings), working with people having physical, visual, hearing and cognitive disabilities. His work with the computer industry led to many of the access features that are standard today. For example, access features developed by Dr. Vanderheiden and his team (e.g., StickyKeys, MouseKeys, etc.) have been built into the Macintosh OS since 1987, OS/2 and the UNIX X Window system since 1993, and more than half a dozen were built into Windows 95, 98, NT, 2000, XP, Vista and now System 7. His work is also found in built in access features in ATMs, Point of Sale terminals, and cross-disability accessible Automated Postal Stations, Amtrak ticket machines, and airline terminals.

Dr. Vanderheiden has served on numerous professional, industry and government advisory and planning committees including those for the FCC, NSF, NIH, VA, DED, GSA, NCD, Access Board and White House. He is co-chair of the W3C's Web Content Accessibility Guidelines working group and editor of the HFES software accessibility standard. He has received over 30 awards for his work on technology and disability include the ACM Social Impact Award for the Human-Computer Interaction Community, the Ron Mace Award, the Access award from AFB, the Yuri Rubinski Memorial World Wide Web Award (WWW6), and the Isabelle and Leonard H. Goldenson Award for Outstanding Research in Medicine and Technology (UCPA).

To contact Gregg directly, send an email to Info@RaisingTheFloor.net with [ATTN GREGG] in the subject.