IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - June 2009 - 32

WIE from Around the World

Personal and Professional
Enrichment
Women empowered by helping others

Touch of Genius
Gourgey has the foresight to help
the vision impaired
The only thing worse than being blind is
having sight but no vision.
-Hellen Keller

It's not often you come across someone
who is blind but can see clearly. Someone who uses their disability to their
ability. Meet Karen Gourgey. Working
with Touch Graphics, a company that
develops tools for the blind, has earned
Gourgey, who is also blind, the Touch
of Genius Award. Director of Baruch
College's Computer Center for Visually
Impaired People (CCVIP), Gourgey along
with Steve Landau, president of Touch
Graphics, have been named cowinners
of the first Touch of Genius Prize, which
is awarded by the National Braille Press
in partnership with The Gibney Family
Foundation. The award was developed to
inspire an innovator to continue the promotion of braille literacy for blind and
deafblind people worldwide. Gourgey
and Landau each received US$10,000
toward a new educational method, a new
tactile literacy product, or a new technological advance in tactile literacy.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MWIE.2009.932514

IEEE womEn In EngInEErIng magazInE

I've also always enjoyed gadgets. I loved
being a switchboard operator in high
school, partly it was creating connections between people, and partly, it was
getting to play with all the little cords,
keys, and buttons and finding that I
could actually make something happen.

Q: Tell us about your work. Why did you
choose to work in this field?
A: I direct a program called the Computer Center for Visually Impaired People at Baruch College, City University of
Gourgey and Landau won the interNew York. We promote the use of pernational competition for the Talking
sonal computers with assistive technolTactile Tablet (TTT), which the two
ogy by people who are blind or visually
jointly developed over a period of several
impaired.
years. The tablet is an inexpensive
Here's a little why I chose this
computer peripheral device
field: I started out as a high
that allows visually impaired
school English teacher, so
people to "read" diagrams,
access to the written word
maps, and illustrations. By
was pretty important. In the
placing one of many overmid-1970s, I started to learn
lay sheets on the tablet, a
about the possibility of havvisually impaired person
ing documents produced in
can explore a graphic using
"machine-readable" form
Karen Gourgey
easily learned "touch-andrather than simply in print.
talk" technology. The TTT was awarded
I took one programming class, and it
a patent by the U.S. Government Patent
was enough to help me understand that
Office in 2006.
the computer was an ideal means for
Gourgey comes from a teaching backproducing information that was accesground, having taught English at the
sible. People were creating computers
high school level for three years before
that could speak their output and printserving as an instructor in the Columbia
ers that could print in Braille. I asked
Teachers' College Department of Spemyself, could we get hold of those and
cial Education, in New York, where she
teach people to use them, not just for
received her doctorate in 1983. In that
programming, but for their own personal
same year, she was appointed director of
needs, say for reading?
CCVIP at Baruch College, City University
of New York.
Q: Tell me about the talking tactile tablet
you developed. Why did you develop it?
Q: Tell us about yourself-your dreams,
A: The tablet, or "TTT," is an inexpenpassions, and background.
sive, rugged, and simple new computer
peripheral device designed for use as a
A: I've always loved teaching, and
"viewer" for audio/tactile materials. Most
I've always had the desire to increase
simply, it consists of an off-the-shelf comfreedom and autonomy for people who
puter touch screen connected to a USB
are blind or who have low vision. I guess

june 2009

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - June 2009