Mosen At Large

Born in Ukraine when it was still part of the Soviet Union, Victor Tsaran had no idea as a child that he would one day move to the United States, see his life transformed by computers, and work for some of the leading tech companies in Silicon Valley, making the world a more accessible place.

Nowadays, Victor is Technical Program Manager, Accessibility Initiatives at Google.

Victor tells Jonathan Mosen about his extraordinary life, and they have a candid conversation about the state of Android accessibility.

The podcast closes with a song by Victor, who is a talented musician.

In 2013,. Kim Charlson was elected unopposed as the first female President of the American Council of the Blind (ACB), making her the first woman to be elected as President of a blind consumer advocacy organisation in the United States.

In this extended interview, Jonathan Mosen talks with Kim about what makes her tick, what she perceives to be the accomplishments of her presidency so far, what she still hopes to achieve, and whether she thinks ACB and NFB will ever reunite.

You’ve saved up and waited patiently for tickets to the popular musical “Hamilton” on Broadway, only to find that there are no audio described performances available. You’re therefore concerned that you’ll not be able to enjoy it as fully as everyone else. What do you do?

If you’re Mark Lasser, you encourage those responsible to offer at least some audio described performances. When that fails, you file a lawsuit seeking a change. Mark joins us on The Blind Side to discuss his legal action.

With a smartphone in your pocket, you have an abundant bookshelf. With so many apps and services out there, it can be confusing to know which apps to use when, and which services provide the most accessible experience in any given situation. Judy Dixon has written a book called “The Abundant Bookshelf” published by national Braille Press, to make sense of it all.

And following our repost of Tara Briggs’s interview with Jon [...]

Blind Citizens New Zealand isn’t only the oldest advocacy organisation driven by disabled people themselves in New Zealand, it’s also one of the oldest blindness consumer advocacy organisations worldwide.

Following their conference last week, Jonathan Mosen speaks with Clive Lansink, National President of Blind Citizens New Zealand. We learn about the history of Blind Citizens New Zealand, and some of the challenges facing the organisation and blind New Zealanders today.

Jonathan begins this week with a recent experience he had in a lawyer’s office that got him thinking about the legal profession and outdated attitudes about blindness.

We meet Eric Miller from the Rush Miller Foundation, an organization dedicated to providing tandem bicycles for blind people and a sighted bike mate to use. Learn more about the Foundation at http://www.rushmillerfoundation.org.

We then hear from Jeremy Cooperstock from McGill University in Canada about Autour, a navigation app that is trying an innovative approach to providing blind people with information about what’s around them.

Social media has been abuzz with talk of a fund raising campaign for the Foundation Fighting Blindness. Called “How Eye See It”, the campaign invites sighted people to blindfold themselves and perform a range of tasks, then make a donation to the Foundation. But the National Federation of the Blind says rather than show people what it’s really like to be blind, the campaign perpetuates inaccurate and harmful myths about blindness. Jonathan Mosen speaks with Chris Danielsen from NFB. We have extended an invitation to the Foundation Fighting Blindness to appear on the podcast. We did not receive a reply to our invitation by the time of publication, however the invitation remains open.