ATU655 – Replay of Dr. Sachin Pavithran – Executive Director of the US Access Board

Hi, this is Sachin Pavithran. I’m the executive director of the United States Access Board, and this is Your Assistive Technology Update.

Hello and welcome to Your Assistive Technology Update, a weekly dose of information that keeps you up to date on the latest developments in the field of technology designed to assist individuals with disabilities and special needs. I’m your host, Josh Anderson with the INDATA Project at Easterseals Crossroads in beautiful Indianapolis, Indiana. Welcome to episode 655 of Assistive Technology Update. It is scheduled to be released on December 15th, 2023.

On today’s show, we’re taking a trip way back into the archives, back to episode 506, which was recorded and released back in February of 2021. You might ask yourself, “Josh, why are you going so far back in the archives to pull out this show?” Well, in the show we interviewed Dr. Sachin Pavithran and we had him on because he had just become the executive director of the US Access Board, which is a pretty big move.

Now, I still see him in LinkedIn and everything else sitting with the president or the vice president or other folks, really just making sure that access is front of mind for the people that make decisions that really alter and change all of our lives, at least here in the States and maybe even beyond. I’ve been thinking about this interview a lot lately as we’ve had some major changes around here, especially with the INDATA project and really with our whole assistive technology program.

So as many of you know, for the longest time I have been the manager of clinical assistive technology. I’ve been able to lead an absolutely amazing team of folks that go out and do workplace evals, post-secondary evaluations, and really get to work with folks one-on-one, just to make sure that they can achieve and accomplish their goals and really overcome some of those barriers placed on them in the world because of their disability.

And it has been a wonderful close to eight years, I believe that I’ve been in this role and been able to do it. Well recently, Brian Norton, who has been on this show actually quite a bit lately now that I really think about it, he has accepted a position here at Easterseals Crossroads as the vice president of adult programs. So essentially he will offer his guidance, his oversight and those kinds of things to most of our programs here that deal essentially with more of the adult population.

So our AT program, our employment programs, some of our veterans programs, as well as our deaf community services, our RF program or resource facilitation, as well as some other things. So it’s really great. It’s a great role to have. It’s going to give us a wonderful, wonderful leadership. Brian is a great leader and he’s going to do some really great things I think organizationally and also help all of these programs maybe work a little bit more together. We’re all in the weeds so much, it’s very hard to … I always want to say cross-pollinate. I don’t know if that’s really quite the right word, but really just make sure that if an individual can be helped by all these programs, let’s make sure that they’re involved in all of these programs and getting all the assistance that they can. I’m sure there’s other ways that we can all work together.

Well, with Brian moving on, that did leave his position as the director of assistive technology here vacant, and as of this last week, I am now the director of assistive technology here at Easterseals Crossroads, which means I will still have some oversight over that clinical program, although some of those roles and responsibilities will be moved to others. I will still host this podcast at least for the time being and probably for the foreseeable future maybe until I retire, but hopefully at least until I get as many shows under my belt as Wade had.

But I will also be the director and be over our whole INDATA Project. So hopefully I’ve done a good job of educating you on what those AT Acts are, but now I’m actually really going to have to learn what they are because for the longest time, the only thing I really did for our INDATA Project was this podcast. So there is going to be a huge learning curve, a lot of things to learn, a lot of new responsibilities. The nice thing is I do know this team and I’ve had the absolute pleasure of working with them for the last decade, many of them, and of course we’ve got newer folks. Some folks have moved on to other things, be it retirement or other opportunities, but the team that we have in place is absolutely incredible. And luckily it does seem, at least for the time being, are all still going to be here.

So I love that I get the chance to lead this team. Much like anything else, I’m very humbled by this responsibility. A little bit scared, the good kind of scared, not the being chased by a giant spider kind of fright, but the kind of fear that motivates you, that really gets you going and gets you to be able to do things. I’ve already met with some of the other folks nationally, which already is something that I did not have to do before and just excited to get to work with all these great folks, excited to get to work with just so many wonderful people, so many wonderful agencies, and really just make sure that we’re doing everything we’re supposed to do with the INDATA Project and with the AT Act here in Indiana, and ensure that we’re getting the word out about assistive technology and really getting it in the hands of people who could use it.

So anyway, there’s a really long way of saying, as I was sitting here thinking this week about what are we going to do? We didn’t really actually have a guest lined up. We did, it fell through. These things happen. Schedules get a little wild, especially as you get closer to the holiday season, everything seems to pile up and come up and things come up. People get sick and in weather, man, you throw that in and all kinds of stuff can really get in the way. But I was trying to think what show are we going to put on? And I really just thought about this interview as Dr. Pavithran was just moving into this new position, this new thing, and he had actually been the director of an AT Act out in I believe, Utah. When we listen to it, I believe you’ll hear that.

So doing this same job in a different state in a different program, and I really just thought about this interview and talking to him about just the new opportunity and walking in with that wonderment, that new, I want to say new car smell, but that’s definitely not right, but that new job feel and really walking into it. So in thinking about it a lot, I was like, I’m going to go back. I need to find this and I need to listen to it and get it put on. So anyway, that is why you’re hearing this episode here replayed today from I guess almost three years ago now that I really look at it, which also tells me that it’s about time to probably reach out and try to have him back here on the show just so that maybe he can talk a little bit about what’s been going on, maybe some of the different things that they’re doing to just ensure access for individuals with disabilities.

Anyway, listeners, as always, I do want to thank you for taking time out of your day to listen to this show, for reaching out, for giving us information, for helping us find guests, for letting us know what you like, what you don’t like, and really just helping us make this show a little bit better for anybody who might want to listen to it. If you’re one of those folks that does want to reach out to us, you can always shoot us an email at tech@eastersealscrossroads.org, or call our listener line at (317) 721-7124. I have taken up far too much of your time already, so let me go ahead and get into the replay of that interview.

Folks, if you’re listening to this show, it’s obvious that you like assistive technology and you love podcasts. Well, if you like assistive technology and podcasts, if I got a treat for you, Assistive Technology Update is not our only podcast here at the INDATA Project at Easterseals Crossroads. No, we actually have two others. Assistive Technology Frequently Asked Questions, or ATFAQ, is a question and answer show where we take your questions as well as questions that we receive through our other programs and do our best to answer those with our panel of experts. I use that word very loosely, but usually it’s myself, Brian Norton, and other members of our team sitting in to try to answer your questions. This show relies on our listeners, not just for our questions, but sometimes for the answers. Let’s not lie. We do not know everything that there is to know.

So we always try to throw those questions out and sometimes our listeners’ feedback, well, we get to learn stuff as well, which is always a great thing. Or if perhaps you’re short on time, we also have Accessibility Minute. Now, Accessibility Minute is just a little taster. It’s going to give you just a little bit of information about a new piece of assistive technology, a new app program or something else cool that might be able to help individuals with disabilities, and then give you some resources where you can go and check out more about it on your own.

So remember, if you like this show, if you like assistive technology and you like podcasts, check out our other shows, Assistive Technology Frequently Asked Questions and Accessibility Minute to go along with Assistive Technology Update, which you’re listening to right now. You can find those over at eastersealstech.com or anywhere you get your podcast. Don’t forget to like subscribe and give us some comments and feedback. We always love hearing from you, and thank you so much for listening to this and all of our programs.

Folks, I know I’ve asked you a lot and in fact, I’m pretty darn sure that I asked you at the very beginning of this show, but as we start to get very close to walking into a new year, I always need great ideas for guests. So remember, if you have an idea for someone we should interview on this show, please reach out at tech@eastersealscrossroads.org or call our listener line at (317) 721-7124.

This can be perhaps someone you’ve heard somewhere else, something you’ve read about, something you saw on social media, the news, a talk show, any of those things, or if you just have a question about, “Hey, is there something out there that can meet this need?” Please do reach out. We always love finding new guests. We always love talking to new folks and finding out just more about assistive technology, about the folks that make it and about all the things there are out there to assist individuals with disabilities in a myriad of different ways. Our guest today has been on the show before to talk about accessibility, the US Access Board and the Section 508 Refresh. Well, he is just been appointed as the executive director of the US Access Board and we’re very excited to welcome him back to the show. Sachin, welcome to AT Update.

Thank you, Josh. Thanks for having me on.

Yeah, I’m really excited to talk about your new role and everything that entails, but could you start off by telling our listeners a little bit about yourself and your background?

Sure. So I’m a blind individual, person of color that immigrated to the US 25 years ago to start my college degree here, and then I started working for Utah State University as a web accessibility specialist for WebAIM, got involved in disability policy and disability rights, got appointed by President Obama to the United States Access Board, and now I’m the executive director of the Federal Agency.

Excellent. So first of all, congratulations on being named the executive director. Can you tell our listeners who don’t know, what is the US Access Board?

The US Access Board is a small, independent federal agency that’s responsibility is to write technical standards and guidelines that impact accessibility in various spaces. You mentioned 508 Refresh, the web accessibility piece, so Section 508, which addresses web accessibility in the federal space. Other areas that the US Access Board has that they play a role is in building standards.

So building accessibility, passenger vessels, public right of way, so accessibility on your streets and traffic signals. All the various areas that you see there’s any accessibility influence, Access Board has a hand in it. We are not enforcers of all these different standards and guidelines. Our role is to make sure we put best practices, the standards, the guidelines out there there so agencies and other entities that are working in this space can make sure they’re doing the best possible, take the best possible approach to accessibility.

Excellent. I guess I should have maybe asked you what don’t you guys cover? It sounds like you have accessibility in all those spaces. Sachin, you were originally appointed to the board in 2012 by President Obama. How has the board changed over the last eight years?

When I was talking to you about, what the Access Board does, our biggest role has been rulemaking. So when I say rulemaking in the federal space is writing regulations that sets these standards. So that’s been the biggest focus. Now with changes that’s happening in the space of accessibility, initially we were talking about web accessibility, building accessibility, all those different areas that we are all familiar with. Transportation is an area that’s changing. If you think about autonomous vehicle, that’s an area that the Access Board is starting to get more involved in. All the other spaces when it comes to ICT, when it comes to information communication technology, the Access Board is getting more and more involved in it. There’s a lot more work to be done because our world around us is changing and there’s going be more work to be done to address accessibility in all these different spaces.

If you think about smart cities, it’s a concept that’s being discussed in lots of cities globally, but also in different parts of the US. What does smart cities mean for people with disabilities? Technology can be a huge savior for people with disabilities to be independent, but it also can be the biggest roadblock if accessibility is not taken into consideration.

So that’s where in the Access Board is shifting to see what role can we play in where these conversations are happening. So it’s not just working on federal guidelines or standards that is regulated through different agencies, but also being at the table when these conversations are happening, whether it’s with industry folks or whether it’s cities and towns, whether it’s with organizations that are brainstorming ideas what the next big technology piece is going to be.

That’s excellent. I think that’s very important that you’re going to be able to talk to all these folks as they make these new technologies because like you said, it can be a huge help or a hindrance just depending on how those things are built and whether disability is even thought of in that development process. But it’s always so much easier if that those things are built in and ingrained in the technology as opposed to an afterthought that you try to fit in afterwards. This is not the only role that you’ve had in assistive technology. I think you mentioned it a little bit, but you’ve also done a lot of work in Utah. Can you tell us about your work in Utah with assistive technology?

Yeah. One of the roles I played before taking on this position, I was the director of the Assistive Technology Program in Utah, where I worked with clients one-on-one within the community around the state, helping families to make sure they have access to assistive technology so that the individual has quality of life. So it ranged from anywhere in the early intervention stage all the way to individuals who are elderly, so that whether it’s for vocational rehabilitation, whether it’s for K through 12, whether it’s for just community living, whatever that might be, to make sure people have access to the appropriate assistive technology.

And that’s great that you naturally progressed from putting those supports in place to making sure that that accessibility was there for the folks right away without even having to have those AT interventions. You said something at the beginning that I wanted to touch on just a little bit. You said your AT journey and everything started about 25 years ago, going to college and doing all that. So you’ve had a lot of experience in assistive technology. Can you tell us just what some of the things that you were using 25 years ago, just for folks who maybe are new to assistive technology can get an idea of just how much things have changed?

Yeah, 25 years ago when I immigrated to the US, I did not know anything about assistive technology. I had no access to technology prior to that. I’ve never used any kind of AT of any sort. So coming to the US and being part of the university going through school, I started getting exposed to just different things that people who are blind could use. So being blind, at that point, I had enough vision to navigate and function without any AT, but that was going downhill pretty fast. But that’s when I first got introduced to a screen reader, which is JAWS, which is what I use on a daily basis, which is not as efficient as it is these days, but it was the only option back then and the way it worked. So that was probably my first piece of technology and then it just went on from there.

The big difference in the technology I used to use back in the day and versus what I do now, I had a device for different things that I needed, a JAWS screen reader for my computer. If I needed to check what currency I have on my hand to check the bills, I had a currency reader. If I wanted to check in a color of something, I had a color item. So my backpack was filled with gadgets. It was this treasure chest I had to pack around with me everywhere I went. The difference being the other pieces, everything was customized and built for the blind users to use, and it was a specific piece of technology.

Now, forward 25 years ago, I still have a laptop with a screen reader and I’m still using JAWS. So that part’s not changed. It’s just software’s improved. But my DOIA, the device I have in my pocket is my iPhone. All those extra things I was using is part of my iPhone now. The difference has been is all those specialized equipment has become more app-based, and I’m able to use a lot of the technology using a mainstream hardware, using apps that just download to my phone, whether it’s my iPhone or my iPad, and being more productive and having those accessible to me wherever I am. It was always a hard task to carry all this technology to different settings. Say I go to a restaurant, I don’t want to be walking out with my big backpack, which tool I need to pull out to use today. Now I have all those tools, most of the tools in one device.

And that’s where I figured you’d probably go. I know even when I started doing this, which wasn’t quite 25 years ago, there was so much specialized things and everything was $3-5,000 it seemed like. And some of it was big and heavy and can only be used at home or the things that were portable could just do one thing. So like you said, you have a backpack with a whole toolbox full of tricks, but then finding the one, making sure you had the right one, and now that’s all in one consumer product that can really make a difference in folks’ lives.

But I know some folks that are maybe newer to assistive technology maybe came forth after the invention of the iPhone just think that’s always been there and that’s definitely not the case. I don’t even remember the name of it, something I believe Kurzweil had made it and it was a portable OCR device and it looked almost like a … Yeah, it looked like an old Nokia phone with a camera tape to it, really if you look back and just had that portable OCR. I think it was $3500 and could do that one thing, and like you said, now an app on your phone can do it twice as fast and twice as good.

And the price factor is a pretty big component in the whole conversation because to do one, just the example you gave right now, the KNFP reader, which was clunky and it did a decent job, but the app, it’s a fraction of that cost and it’s a much better job and I have it everywhere I go. Same with any other software and I gave you an example of currency identifier. Well, if I wanted a currency identifier back in the day, it cost probably a hundred bucks to buy a currency identifier. Now it’s like I don’t know how much I paid the last time, it was probably $10 for the app, but it identifies probably 40, 50 different currencies. It is a significant improvement and also a huge cost saving for the population that a lot of times don’t have that disposable income to buy all this technology.

And I’ve had that question from folks before that, “Hey, I need this technology, but the price makes it inaccessible. So how is it really accessible technology?” And that’s always a question that’s almost impossible to answer. So as the AT community, as individuals who work with individuals with disabilities, who work with the assistive technology and things like that, is there anything we can do to help the US Access Board with getting your agenda passed or getting things done to really just help everyone out with accessibility?

I think one of the biggest role that the community, the AT community can play is bring more awareness to the role that the US Access Board plays, bringing more awareness to what the different impacts the Access Board have, but also bringing attention to the Access Board where things could be different if there are things that we need to be paying attention to. It’s easy to get bogged down into all the different regs and different things that we’re involved in because like I said, we’re involved in a lot of different areas. It’s not just technology or it’s not just ICT 508 refresh. Anything that you can think of that needs accessibility, we have our hands in it.

There are times we might not realize that’s a role that the agency could play or have an influence in. So in the AT community, bringing that to our attention is always helpful, whether it’s smart cities or whatever it might be. But also raising the awareness of the agency itself so that it’s not just those who are familiar with the work of the agency, keeping on reaching out to take advantage of the information that we have, but also letting others in the community know that this is a good resource for how communities can be more accessible.

And if folks would want to do that, to find out more about the US Access board or to maybe get information to you, what’s the best way for them to do that?

Like any EAG agency, we do have a pretty in-depth website that we just redesigned, which I think they’ve done a pretty good job in redesigning, so that’s accessdashboard.gov, that’s one way to get more information about the Access Board. And we provide a lot of different webinars, we’re providing more virtual training on the different concepts. Obviously reaching out for any technical assistance, we have a TA line and anyone’s more than welcome to reach out to me as well. And the information should be on the website as well.

Excellent. We’ll put all that information over in the show notes so folks can easily get to it. Well, Sachin, thank you so much for coming on today, for talking about the US Access Board just so that folks can be aware that it’s out there and there to help and also so they can hopefully maybe even bring things to your attention that maybe you all weren’t thinking about. And once again, congratulations on becoming the executive director.

Thank you, Josh, and once again, thanks for having me on. And please do reach out if there’s anything I can do.

Do you have a question about assistive technology? Do you have a suggestion for someone we should interview on Assistive Technology Update? If so, call our listener line at (317) 721-7124. Send us an email at tech@eastersealscrossroads.org or shoot us a note on Twitter at INDATA Project. Our captions and transcripts for the show are sponsored by the Indiana Telephone Relay Access Corporation or InTRAC. You can find out more about InTRAC at relayindiana.com.

A special thanks to Nikol Prieto for scheduling our amazing guests and making a mess of my schedule. Today’s show was produced, edited, hosted, and fought over by yours truly. The opinions expressed by our guests are their own and may or may not reflect those of the INDATA Project, Easterseals Crossroads, our supporting partners or this host. This was Your Assistive Technology Update. And I’m Josh Anderson with the INDATA Project at Easterseals Crossroads in beautiful, Indianapolis, Indiana. We look forward to seeing you next time.