In a community with high literacy rates, it’s easy to take the ability to read for granted. Many people, however, including highly intelligent people, struggle with reading and writing. A person may be visually challenged or suffer from a learning disability such as dyslexia. For people who value education, making information accessible to all is a top priority.
Inventor and renowned futurist Ray Kurzweil values education. In 1999, President Bill Clinton presented Kurzweil with the National Medal of Technology and Innovation, the nation’s highest award in the field of technology, for Kurzweil’s revolutionary text-to-speech synthesizer. Essentially, Kurzweil invented software that uses a common scanner to process the pages of a book or magazine and translate the text to speech. No fancy equipment necessary.
In our library, we’ve designated one of our 24 computers for use with the Kurzweil software to ensure that this technology is readily available when a student may need it.
Students wishing to make use of our Kurzweil software may also contact Jan Weis in the Students with Disabilities for additional questions or a tutorial.
For more information on Ray Kurzweil, American inventor, author, scientist and futurist, check out his book in our collection: