Yesterday, the White House honored 14 people who’ve served as pioneers in advancing technologies for people with disabilities. Among them: Rafael San Miguel, a deaf scientist whose career began with NASA’s space shuttle program and Dimitri Kanevsky, a Russian-born deaf scientist with more than 150 U.S. patents to his name, including an “artificial passenger” that keeps drivers awake by monitoring their eye movements.
Down the road, there may be one more big name to add to those being honored: Nektar Paisios. He just completed his computer science Ph.D. this month at New York University. Originally from Cyprus, and blind from the time he was four, Paisios is working on a number of iPhone apps that could solve some of the blind community’s problems.