[Nfbnet-members-list] National Federation of the Blind and Amazon Join Forces to Improve Accessible Reading Experiences for Blind and Low-Vision Students

[Kuhnke, Kristian]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE



CONTACT:

Chris Danielsen

Director of Public Relations

National Federation of the Blind

(410) 659-9314, extension 2330

(410) 262-1281 (Cell)

<mailto:cdanielsen at nfb.org>cdanielsen at nfb.org





National Federation of the Blind and Amazon Join Forces to Improve 
Accessible Reading Experiences for Blind and Low-Vision Students

Baltimore, Maryland (March 2, 2016): The National Federation of the 
Blind (NFB) and Amazon announced today that they will be working 
together to increase selection, enhance accessibility, and improve 
reading experiences for blind students, including those who have low 
vision or who are deaf-blind. Amazon and the National Federation of 
the Blind will collaborate on improvements to Amazon's education 
content, platforms, and applications, and will meet on an ongoing 
basis to review progress and exchange ideas and feedback. Initial 
results of this collaboration are expected this year and beyond.



"We are seeing educational institutions embrace digital learning for 
its ease of access to a large selection of learning resources for 
students," said Rohit Agarwal, General Manager, Amazon K-12 
Education. "This shift provides a great opportunity to improve 
accessibility for blind students. By collaborating with the National 
Federation of the Blind, we hope to advance accessibility for all 
content, platforms and applications that Amazon develops to better 
serve K-12 and higher education students."



"The National Federation of the Blind is dedicated to using our 
expertise in the development and implementation of built-in 
accessibility in technology to ensure that the blind have equal 
access to the information and tools we need to live the lives we 
want," said Mark A. Riccobono, President of the National Federation 
of the Blind. "The NFB and Amazon have sought a productive 
collaboration to improve accessibility, and we now look forward to 
working together closely to improve the technologies that will make 
digital reading experiences better for all customers. The commitment 
that Amazon has made in this agreement brings us ever closer to the 
day when blind students of all ages will have the same digital 
reading experience and access to content as others, and demonstrates 
that access for the blind goes hand in hand with continued innovation 
in technology."



# # #



About the National Federation of the Blind



The National Federation of the Blind knows that blindness is not the 
characteristic that defines you or your future. Every day we raise 
the expectations of blind people, because low expectations create 
obstacles between blind people and our dreams. You can live the life 
you want; blindness is not what holds you back.








-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://nfbnet.org/pipermail/nfbnet-members-list_nfbnet.org/attachments/20160302/42a376bb/attachment.html>