Blind Faith
Artur Ortega is a Software Development Engineer at Yahoo! He is also blind. Uniquely placed like this, I was interested in finding out Ortega's views on the current potential and limitations of Web 2.0.
Ortega is positive about recent technological developments giving people with disabilities a stronger individual and collective voice in society. Yet he is also aware that this is “only a start”.
And maybe ultimately this is all we can expect of Web 2.0. Every journey has to start somewhere and the web with its multiple entry points is surely as good a place as we’ve ever had to build stronger and more open connections between all kinds of people.There is still much work to do, but the potential is there.
It may only be a start, but it’s a start that may not have come otherwise. Can Web 2.0 assist the process of wider integration and education? Well, before I began this project I had never really met either a blind or an autistic person. Online channels have enabled me to make these new connections and enrich my experience of this human journey we call life.
Truly, this is the blind leading the blind. Even as I embarked on this study, I thought only of what a person with a disability could get from this webbed 2.0 world we live in. How their life would be made easier, richer, more connected. I didn't think though about what they could give. How my life would be made easier, richer, more connected.
"Be prepared to learn". That was the first thing a fellow poster on the BBC Ouch! site said to me when I introduced myself as a student on the message boards. Be prepared to learn.
And I have learned, I'd like to think. I've learned that disability can, as Christian Heilmann says, be seen more as "a different ability". I've learned the wisdom in Amanda Baggs' championing of "the existence and value of many different kinds of thinking and interactions" and Robyn Steward's assertion that "you can see it as just a way of living if you want."
I've learned that we all have a lot to learn from each other. After all, the only thing that we truly share in this world is that we're all different. If only in giving us a chance to celebrate these differences, Web 2.0 has already given us something we've never truly had before.