Greetings.

Hope everyone has been able to enjoy the holiday season.  For me it is an
excuse for some long awaited R & R, however, being the sad anorak that I am
I can't sit and twiddle my thumbs for the duration of the 2 week shutdown we
have at Ford of Britain.  At last I have the opportunity to embark on this
series of courses about Accessible Technology.

Me, I work at Ford in Essex, England.  Within IT I have, over the past 2-3
years, been allowed/encouraged to pursue my interest in adaptive
technologies, to the extent that I have now developed a role that has
responsibility for the provision of adaptive technologies and raising
awareness of the availability of such options, Ford Accessibility Services
(FAS).

My interested started some years ago when, while working at British Gas, I
worked in a PC support office that provided support for approx. 2000 users.
One day a call took me to the desk of a blind colleague, a Cobol Programmer.
The braille technolgies that were employed at the time may seem archaic now,
but it had provided for 2 programmers that happened to be blind to work in a
professional environment, with the same workload, expectations and problems
of the rest of their team.  Once I started to become aware of the range of
adaptive technologies available I was hooked.

It was not long however before I realised that there were 1000's of people
in the workplace that would benefit from adaptive technologies, but often
not aware of its existence, and then there were the 100's of companies
producing solutions but not aware of the individuals that would benefit.

The year 2003 has been adopted by the European Union as the "Europena Year
of People with Disabilities".  Ford will be supporting this initiative by
allowing me to co-ordinate a year long series of events and presentations to
raise awareness about a range of disability issues, focusing on Disabilities
in the Workplace, Self Assessments and Accessibiliy Issues (PCs, Internet,
Buildings, Driving).

Obviously I am late in joining in this course, hopoefully I would have
caught up by the end of this week.  Here goes...

Regards

Stella Staines