How can technology help improve our quality of life? How can we navigate the world without using the sense of vision? Inventor and IBM Fellow Chieko Asakawa, who's been blind since the age of fourteen, is working on answering these questions. In a charming demo, she shows off some new technology that's helping blind people explore the world ever more independently ... because, she suggests, when we design for greater accessibility, everyone benefits.

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Today we welcomed 3 teachers from Al-Basiir school of the blind in Mogadishu. The school was started in 2011 in response to the requests of blind students who were left without a school after the closure of a missionary school for the blind due to the dangerous situation in the area which resulted in the foreign teachers leaving Somalia.

We want to help develop this school by training the teachers to produce braille books and teaching methods. If you would like to help in giving them second hand braillers and laptops when they leave please give a donation.

Al-Fitrah foundation is also producing a braille book on how to perform solat so please let us know if you want it.

Today we welcomed 3 teachers from Al-Basiir school of the blind in Mogadishu. The school was started in 2011 in response to the requests of blind students who were left without a school after the closure of a missionary school for the blind due to the dangerous situation in the area which resulted in the foreign teachers leaving Somalia.

We want to help develop this school by training the teachers to produce braille books and teaching methods. If you would like to help in giving them second hand braillers and laptops when they leave please give a donation.

As today is World Braille day, let’s focus on a smartwatch that translates smartphone data into Braille. When wearing Dot, a Braille smartwatch, users can check the time, read incoming text messages or tweets, and even e-books. The face of the smartwatch consists of four cells with six active dots, which rise and fall to produce the four Braille characters. The rate at which the watch displays new characters can be calibrated to meet the user's reading speed. This smartwatch could also facilitate Braille learning: it spells out letters as they appear in Braille on the watch. This is an important step in improving Braille literacy as only 10% of blind students in the US are learning to read it.