PBS TV Documentary - 'Freedom Machines" - Disability & Technology
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This upcoming television program may be of interest:

P.O.V.'s 'Freedom Machines' Looks at Disability Through the Lens of
Technology: Tuesday, Sept. 14 on PBS

For Nation's 54 Million Citizens with Disabilities, Film Challenges
Society' s Basic Notions About Disability

Narrated by Peter Dinklage, star of 'The Station Agent'

An Independent Television Service (ITVS) Co-presentation

High school student Latoya Nesmith of Albany, N.Y. dreams of
becoming a translator at the United Nations as she completes her
classroom assignments using a keyboard that mitigates her limited
dexterity. Floyd Stewart, paralyzed in mid-life by a car accident,
uses assistive technologies to run Middle Tennessee's Center for
Independent Living. Blind physicist Dr. Kent Cullers taught computers
to do what his ears can do, and now leads the Search for
Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) Institute in Palo Alto,Calif.
Susanna Sweeney-Martini is completing her college education in
Seattle
with the aid of a power wheelchair and voice-input software.

These are a few of the people whose stories are at the center of
Freedom Machines, a new documentary having its broadcast premiere
Tuesday, Sept. 14 at 10 p.m. (check local listings) on PBS' acclaimed
non-fiction series P.O.V.  This poignant and thought-provoking film
tells the stories of people typically labeled (and dismissed) as
"disabled", whose determination and access to inventive new
technologies are transforming their lives and their communities.

Jamie Stobie and Janet Cole's Freedom Machines is part of the 17th
season of PBS's acclaimed P.O.V. series.  P.O.V. continues on
Tuesdays, 10 p.m., through Sept. 28 on PBS.  A winter special
completes the 2004 season. American television's longest-running
independent documentary series, P.O.V. is public television's premier
showcase for point-of-view, non-fiction films.

Freedom Machines is not a profile of "unusual" people who have
"overcome their disabilities" or succeeded "despite" their physical
conditions. Rather, in showing what is possible, the film asks
viewers
to question accepted ideas of what "disability" means.  And access to
assistive technologies is properly set in the context of civil rights
and public policy rather than limited to the realm of charity or good
will.

Freedom Machines replaces romantic notions of gallant individual
struggles with the reality of society's attitudes and choices about
assistive technologies.  Who has access and who doesn't?  What
decisions do we make about the design of our buildings, streets,
transportation, and media?  Who bears the costs and who benefits? Do
we see assistive technologies as burdensome disability devices, or,
as
inventor Dean Kamen says, "enabling devices?"  And if they are
enabling devices, what do they enable us - all of us - to do?

Freedom Machines shows what is now possible and what will soon be
possible.  But, as the film demonstrates, the existence of the
technology is not enough to ensure its use.  Liberating new
technologies remain out of reach for many of America's 54 million
disabled people. As Jackie Brand, founder of the Alliance for
Technology Access and mother of one of the women profiled in Freedom
Machines summarizes, "It's a terribly frustrating thing to look at
something that you know would change your life so enormously and be
so
powerful for you, and to know it's not to be had because you don't
have the resources and the society has not decided that it's
important
enough for you to have."

The lives of the people we meet in Freedom Machines underscore the
fact that the promises of 1990's landmark Americans with Disabilities
Act, which mandated equal access to education, employment, and other
essential activities and services for the country's largest minority
group, remain largely unfulfilled. The benefits of new technology,
new
laws, and new design concepts are being held hostage to lack of
funding, information, and political will.

As a result, society as a whole misses the chance to maximize human
potential and productivity.  As evidence, Freedom Machines explores
the concept of "universal design" (UD), which employs technology and
architecture to make environments adaptable to the particular needs
and abilities of a wide range of individuals.  In doing so, UD is
breaking down social distinctions between "abled" and "disabled." For
example, the simple curb cut, once controversial, today facilitates
the movements of mothers with baby carriages, delivery people with
carts, even skateboarders, along with people who use wheelchairs.

Narrated by actor Peter Dinklage, star of the acclaimed film The
Station Agent, Freedom Machines is a timely and dramatic look at
technology's new "enabling" wonders, and at the contradictions in
social policy and attitudes that prevent their full employment by all
those who need or can benefit from them.  Freedom Machines dares to
envision a genuinely inclusive community, a community that benefits
from each of its unique members contributing at their full capacity.
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