Whose Idea Was This Anyway?
by Tom Dekker, Founder & President Emeritus

My name is Tom Dekker. I am a blind person who has been involved with access technology since 1979, when I was hired by Ontario's blind self-help group to produce a report on how this technology could be better advocated for and utilized by blind people.

As a result of this project, then a follow-up employment advocacy project, I secured a mainstream job, for which the rehab folks provided me with a rather extensive collection of adaptive devices. After two years at this job, I left to set up my own adaptive technology company, mostly supporting users of paperless braille devices. And so it went from there.

While on vacation in San Francisco this past February, I resumed "access technology consultant mode" long enough to attend a meeting of BayTalk, the local blind and visually impaired computer users group. The meeting was attended by 15 or 20 folks ranging from complete novices to long-time, experienced veterans. What struck me most about the group was the supportive way in which the more experienced users were encouraging newer ones to get involved.

There was a business meeting and some discussion of new products. Then, there was a hands-on session with a new and interesting application--Netscape for Windows. It was a very informative meeting, where the energy was good and everyone seemed really interested in what was happening.

Upon my return to NYC, I spent a couple of months thinking about the rather amazing possibilities for a similar group in a densely populated urban area like ours--quite a lot of human resource potential, you might say. So I started mentioning the idea to different people, all of whom thought it to be a good one.

At about the same time, I put a query out on the net to see how many other groups of this type might be scattered throughout the country. Soon, I received responses from Chicago, Kansas City and even Wilkes-Barre, PA. They most willingly provided me with copies of their news letters, minutes from meetings and a lot of encouraging words.

Select this link to visit some of these groups' web sites, and find out what they are doing and to learn how they operate.

Terminal Index

1. Return to the History & Philosophy page

2. Go to the Meetings and Minutes page

3. Take Aim at a Moving Target

4. Join VIC-NYC, the emailing list of VICUG NYC

5. Learn how to network with other VICUGs

6. Contact and Learn More About VICUG NYC Members

7. Return to VICUG NYC's front page

8. Return to the top of this page

This page was created by Tom Dekker on March 18, 1997
Converted to HTML4 & CSS2 on May 26, 1999