Disability Dialogue with Bill

Dining in the Dark: In the Dark

I recently attended an enjoyable and informational Dining in the Dark event hosted by the Foundation Fighting Blindness with my wife Kathy and colleagues.

We all had an enjoyable experience at this valuable event. In my opinion one of the highlights of the evening was listening to the many outstanding researchers, doctors and entrepreneurs talking about their fight to cure certain types of eye diseases and the tools they have developed in an effort to help fight blindness.

 

Another key highlight of the evening was to allow the attendees to experience what it would be like to be completely blind. To assist with creating the appropriate environment, when it was time to be served dinner, all the lights were turned off and all possible light sources were completely blacked-out to engulf the room in complete darkness. None of the attendees were allowed to leave their seats once the lights were turned out during dinner, to help prevent injuries of untrained attendees attempting to walk in complete darkness without the proper orientation and mobility training a person who is blind would receive. When the lights were out I was told it was so dark that you could not see your hand directly in front of your face. I am completely blind and this complete darkness is normal for me.

Waiters who were blind/ visually impaired served our meals in the complete darkness, and then the fun began. I listened to the exploratory and inquisitive voices of the others at our table attempting to determine what was on their plates, and what we were all eating. My technique is to feel the texture and shape of the food from the feedback in my fingers from the utensil touching the food. I can tell the shape of the food by the sensation, and the sound of the utensil touching the border of the food compared to the plate surrounding the food. From a combination of the smell, taste and texture I can mostly tell what I am eating. Comparing our non-visual clues with others at our table, we were able to determine what we were eating. I listened as I heard the others at my table working through their challenges of dining in the dark. Since I have been completely blind for a few years I had no trouble during the Dining in the Dark experience. Soon others at my table asked me my techniques to help them find the food on their plate in complete darkness, which I graciously provided some tips to assist. I believe this type of event is invaluable to allow all of us to get a very short glimpse of what it is like to be completely blind and increase blind / low vision awareness.

 

Has anyone attended a Dining in the Dark event and want to share your experience and describe what was most valuable to you? Even if you have not attended such an event from my description, what do you think you would learn from experiencing such an event? How would events like Dining in the Dark or any other disability awareness events increase your awareness of people with disabilities, enabling all to work more effectively to enhance relationships and productivity in our professional careers and personal lives?

I hope everyone can have the chance to experience a Dining in the Dark event.

We all look forward to hearing your comments and experiences.

 

Bill Tipton

 

Contributing Author,

Global Dialogue Center

http://www.globaldialoguecenter.com/

LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/wdtipton

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Twitter: http://twitter.com/wdtipton

Are Social and Ethical Problems Important to You

Do you ever wonder if the current way some governmental institutions, political parties and corporations conduct themselves in society is socially responsible or as ethical as they could be? Maybe these governmental institutions, political parties and corporations are trying in some instances to be socially responsible, but need help leveraging their resources in a way to produce positive results?

Do all corporations develop technology that benefits humanity and allows everyone to participate fully and equally so they are able to contribute to help solve our world’s critical problems; like I describe in Collective Intelligence: Include The Disabled for Success?

Do governmental institutions, political parties, corporations, organizations and individuals collaborate together to effectively serve all the people, or just a targeted few?

I think some corporations, governments, and individuals do collaborate effectively together to benefit humanity when they make it a priority and put the appropriate amount of resources into their goals. Just one example is Habitat Jam; in which I had the privilege to talk virtually to many people from all over the world. I was able to help make a positive contribution in the lives I was grateful to touch. Along with the many others who participated we truly made a positive difference.

There are many groups of people and numerous opportunities to collaborate together to truly make a difference. Just a short list of examples are below.

List of 8 items
• Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
• Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases
• Reduce child mortality
• Ensure environmental sustainability
• Achieve universal primary education
•Promote usability and accessibility in technology design so everyone has access; including the disabled and elderly.
• Promote gender equality and empower women
• Develop a global partnership for development.

I hope that as our world’s population grows, becomes elderly, disabled, goes through turbulent times, endures natural and man made disasters and faces other complicated challenges and hardships we can leverage technological innovations and social responsibilities to help combat and defeat our most critical social and environmental issues we will face.

Just think if we funneled the many billions of US dollars, or equivalent we spend on wars and killing each other towards projects and programs focused on the critical social and environmental issues I listed above. What a world we could create together!

Some of this work will be truly hard and difficult. The work will require the world’s governmental institutions, political parties, corporations and organizations to allocate adequate funding and resources to make positive progress in these critical issues we all face. I relate the difficulties of some of our challenges to something like my experience below.

I almost died multiple times when I got critically sick instantly one day after work, coded multiple times, went into a coma for 3 months, stayed in hospital for 7 months, went completely blind and endured other very undesirable and uncomfortable circumstances. I lost the ability to walk for one year because of that medical emergency. I fell to the ground in pain many times as I tore my clothes and bloodied parts of my body while I learned to walk again with my full leg braces, walker, Canadian crutches and now with 2 white canes. After leaving the hospital I retrained myself very quickly on many new skills I needed to be a successful blind person; with help from many others. I was able to successfully retain a job because of my efforts and desires. I was driven to succeed and failure was not an option.

Some of our challenges that we face as a society are far less traumatic than I endured. Some will be even more difficult and challenging. All involved such as governmental institutions, political parties, corporations, organizations and individuals working together to solve our most complex and pressing social and environmental problems will require the passion and dedication I had during my recovery. It will require leaders who are willing and prepared to walk alone and take well thought out and calculated risks.

One small example of the complexities, barriers and obstacles we will need to fully understand and overcome in a much larger scale can be described below.

In some global corporations teams work globally together across many different business units, time zones, different cultures, working styles, contrasting and conflicting personalities, different rewards and recognition systems, and different policies and procedures. It is essential to overcome some of the same challenges this working group has in a much larger scale to successfully leverage the knowledge of the world’s population to solve our most critical and complex problems. We need to take the lessons learned from working in such a global team and the skills mastered and expand the knowledge and mannerisms of working together successfully in global teams across many governmental institutions, political parties and corporations.

Two local Universities where I leverage knowledge where you can learn more about social Innovation are Santa Clara University - Center for Science, Technology & Society and
Center for Social Innovation (CSI): Stanford University Graduate School of Business

Let’s all work together and start positive change where ever we can! You can start in your community, your work place, educational institute or any organization you may be affiliated with. Do not be afraid to take that first step and walk alone if you need to. When you succeed others will follow your leadership. Who will step up and be our next world leader to help us? Maybe it could be you?

Just remember when I took my first steps after I was able to get out of my wheel chair. I fell many times before I could stand and walk again in my darkness. I hope you are not afraid to stand and walk in darkness and possibly fail along the path to successfully help us find new technology and other social remedies to solve our most critical problems we are faced with today.

Do you have any reference materials that will help us accomplish our lofty goals of solving some of the problems I described above? Any ideas or suggestions to enable groups of people across many governmental institutions, political parties, corporations, organizations and individuals to work together effectively? Do you have ideas of how to create and to allocate the funding needed to accomplish such goals? Do you have any suggestions and solutions to allow everyone to contribute equally and not have external barriers put on them by inaccessible technology? Any success stories you want to share?

We all look forward to hearing from you to help make this world better for everyone!

Bill Tipton
Contributing Author
Global Dialogue Center
http://www.globaldialoguecenter.com/