User:Per B.

My name is Per Busch, I am 40 years old and I live in Kassel in Germany. For about 16 years I am blind. My motto: Learning by doing and hoping the best. :-)

I am reporting about accessibility and mobile technology, occasionally for Heise Online which is a reputable platform for computer technology news in Germany. I also contribute to pages such as the iPhone link collection on Blind Wiki and spread the word on Twitter. You can read my tweet based Blog about Mobile Accessibility and follow me on Twitter. In May 2009 I was nominated for the German media award Alternativer Medienpreis in the category internet.

I am dreaming of accessible and affordable mobile devices for the needs of blind persons, especially for those from the developing and newly industrializing countries. To do my little part for making this dream true, I have started the Open Letter Initiative:

Mobile technology could be a revolutionary chance for the many blind and visually impaired people around the world but it must be accessible and affordable.

Since November 2007 I have written hundreds of direct and public messages to convince decision makers from the mobile technologie sector, developers, research scientists, organisations, media and all kinds of disseminators as well. Possibly influenced by this "Consumer-to-Business-PR":

Google employees have started an Android screen reader development, firstly announced in the New York Times on January 03, 2009. From the article: "Mr. Raman, 43, is now working to modify the latest technological gadget that he says could make life easier for blind people." I have used the same formulation in the subject line of my first public post to Google, the Open Handset Alliance and Android developers on November 24, 2007: Android could make life for blind people easier. See also my post Don't be evil, be accessible and find other Android related posts. Additionally, read: Nokia plans to design handsets for disabled, announced in the Indian Economic Times on December 13, 2008.

If you are able to understand german language, you may be interested in my articles for Heise Online:
 * iPhone 3GS mit VoiceOver für blinde Menschen nutzbar, published on August 05, 2009. Reports about Apples revolutionary screen reader for the iPhone.
 * Mobilfunk-Branche entdeckt blinde Menschen als Kunden, published on March 13, 2009. Reports about new offers to blind customers by mobile technology vendors and network providers, the selling price for Wayfinder Access and some research&development plans.
 * Navigationsprojekt für blinde Fußgänger, published on June 12, 2008. Reports about the German Nav4blind initiative and the European Haptimap project. In July 2008, a more extensive version (PDF) of this article was published in the print magazine C'T which offers some more info about existing accessible sat nav solutions for blind pedestrians such as Loadstone-GPS and accuracy of GPS receivers. See also my user page at Wikipedia.

I have started this Wikia wiki to get a home for my open letter initiative. I am the only contributor to Blind Wiki as yet. :( I am using a screen reader with synthetic speech output but without a Braille display to access my PC and the web. I just have average computer skills. Please excuse my English -- till 1990 I learned it in school but I never had to use it for speaking, reading or writing. This changed in 2007. Please feel free to improve my formulations if my English is not correct.

I am an independent writer. I don't belong to an organisation, company or political party. I have no personal commercial interests, but I am interested in collaboration with professionals. If you have questions, suggestions or comments, please send your message to "per.busch" at the domain "online.de" or use my talk page.

Perhaps you'd also like to read about some of my other dreams at epractice, an European Commission platform:
 * Public dreams of a blind ICT user
 * Making Wikipedia fully accessible for all

Other user pages:
 * @PerBusch on Twitter
 * User Lalue at the English language Wikipedia
 * Benutzer Lalü at the German language Wikipedia