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Cerf is also hearing-impaired. He has progressive nerve loss that became sufficiently severe that at age 13 he started wearing hearing aids. Today, he wears a device in each ear and uses a high-volume speaker phone when using the telephone. Recently, he sat down with BW Online Assistive Technology columnist John Williams to discuss the Internet -- and its role for people with disabilities. Business Week Online will run two edited excerpts from their conversation. The first will explore Cerf's thoughts on having a disability in the workplace today, and the benefits and disadvantages of the Net for disabled people. The second will explore his vision for the future: Q: What is the reaction of your co-workers to your hearing loss? A: Mostly, they ignore it, or accommodate it when I seem to have missed something. I have never felt abused by anyone in this regard, but this is in part a consequence of successful reliance on hearing aids for most circumstances. Q: Do you find your hearing loss is an impediment to your work? A: My hearing impairment isn't much of an impediment. I can use the telephone -- a speakerphone with amplification is helpful. It is a challenge to do questions and answers in public speeches, but I have solved that either by running around with a wireless microphone so I can get close enough to the questioner to lip-read if necessary, or ask for written questions or rely on a moderator to repeat questions that I cannot hear. Since I speak many times per week, I think I have these techniques refined to a fairly good degree. Q: This question may seem odd, but are there any advantages to being hearing-impaired? A: Yes, especially on a long airplane ride with a screaming kid -- I just take off my hearing aids. Being hearing-impaired can drown out noises so my concentration is improved. Q: Why are you called the Father of the Internet? A: I think the title results from MCI years ago having an hyperactive public relations department. The truth of the matter is Robert E. Kahn was also involved in the original design of the Internet. At the tme we were developing the Internet, I was a professor at Stanford University. Bob was one of the program managers at the Advanced Research Projects Agency (at the Defense Dept.). He was involved in developing a variety of packet-switching technologies for mobile radio and satellites, as well as being the principal architect of another network that was the main predecessor to the Internet. He was struggling with the problem of how to interconnect the different kinds of packet nets together. We jointly co-authored the first documents describing the concept of multiple networks being interconnected with special end-to-end protocols. TCP/IP is what ultimately emerged from that a document. Voila. Q: How do you define the Internet? A: I define the Internet as a federation of computer networks that speak the same protocol, particularly TCP/IP. The networks are connected to each other with high-speed telephone circuits. The protocols spoken on the Internet are computer networking protocols allowing computers to communicate to each other. Q: What is the intrinsic value of the Internet to disabled people? A: There are several. It depends on the nature of the disability. There are also problems that the Internet poses for people with disabilities. On the positive side for some people who are so disabled that they simply can't get around, the Internet becomes a way of their being in the world, even though the person with a disability is confined to a much smaller parameter. More than once I have heard disabled people, young people in particular, say their lives have been dramatically changed by their ability to interact with people elsewhere in the world through the Internet. The Internet can be a very powerful communications tool for people with disabilities because of the ability to communicate in a written format. E-mail, for example, becomes an empowering device for disabled people. The other side of that coin is now that we are carrying sound on the network, communicating sound is a real challenge for people who cannot hear. The Internet poses problems for blind and visually impaired people. However, the solutions to the problems are not insurmountable. There are navigational systems for blind and visually impaired people. Voice output on the Internet can be a real plus for such people. Q: How valuable to you is the Internet, particularly E-mail, in communicating to others? A: The Internet is enormously valuable to me -- both for the clarity of written material but also for the convenience of being able to communicate at times convenient to me. For example, it was 4:19 a.m. when I sent you an E-mail the other day, and I suspect you wouldn't have been interested in a telephone call at that hour. The Internet, via E-mail, is an effective, silent, valuable voice for disabled people. It is a valuable, empowerment tool. Disabled people need to understand that. They need to learn how to use it and how to use it to their benefit. Information is power. The way it is disseminated is powerful. Q: How often do you use E-mail? A: I would guess that I consume 6-8 hours per day with E-mail or Internet-related services. I receive a lot of information via E-mail. One of the advantages of it is nobody knows you are disabled if you don't want them to know. You also have the power to write and rewrite, to think and rethink your message. Q: Do you use any chat rooms for communicating to large numbers of people. Can chat rooms benefit disabled people? A: I very rarely use chat rooms. Chat rooms can be powerful tools for people who can't travel or who have difficulty traveling. It is an inexpensive way to communicate, and we know the majority of disabled people live on fixed incomes. Chat rooms can be a personal way for disabled people to reach a large number of other disabled people, even people who aren't disabled. Q: What value does the Web have for hearing-impaired and deaf people? A: Plainly, visual communication is a vital alternative for people with hearing impairments. Fortunately, E-mail is also so valuable to people with normal hearing that it isn't viewed as something out of the ordinary to be used to communicate with deaf or hard-of-hearing people. Q: What does the Internet lack in accessibility features for hearing-impaired and deaf people that you would like to see? A: We need to make the audio part of Internet regularly captioned when the audio contains speech. This is not the normal practice. Generally, Web sites can all use work on accessibility for people with various kinds of disabilities. The WWW Consortium is working on guidelines to help Web designers do a better job. Achieving quality, real-time video would permit signing as an alternative to typing. We need to find ways to interface TTYs [phone lines where people can type message to each other] to Internet, or at least provide translation between TTY and ASCII. I'd like to get rid of TTYs, but there are technical reasons why TTYs are still useful in real-time, multiparty situations especially. Q: Can the Internet be an educational tool for hearing-impaired, deaf people, or disabled people in general? A: Absolutely. The Internet can be used as an educational tool. Don't limit its educational value to just deaf and hearing-impaired individuals. Many remote-learning programs can be implemented using Web-based services. As long as the material can be delivered visually, it can be a useful tool. The Internet is also an excellent medium for doing research -- there is an enormous quantity of information on the Net, although it takes some serious work to find it and to separate the good quality material from bad. Q: Does MCI WorldCom develop any accessible telecommunications products or offer any services for disabled people? A: Yes. MCI WorldCom offers advanced Telecommunications Relay Services for disabled people with hearing or speech impediments. Q: Do you think the Internet can create jobs for disabled people? A: Yes -- especially for people who might need to work from home or who might find it easier to use text rather than speech as a means of communicating. Disabled people are just like anyone else except there may be a few things they cannot do as well or possibly at all. For the most part, they carry a talent base similar to the general population. The Internet is also a distance-learning tool. Scores of disabled people can be taught online simultaneously. It's access they need. Give them access, and you give them opportunity. Give them opportunity, and you give them hope and jobs. Telecommuting is an example of the power of the Internet for disabled people in the job market arena. Q: Telecommuting has been hailed as a breakthrough in people with disabilities getting jobs. What opportunities does telecommuting provide for disabled people? A: For the mobility-impaired, there are opportunities, although this gets harder if the impairment interferes with use of keyboard, mouse, or display. I think we could find many deaf or severely hard-of-hearing programmers working remotely from home. It should also be apparent that these same tools work when you are traveling. Q: More than 80% of college graduates with disabilities are not hired. What do you think can be done to reverse this trend? Do you think employers have a responsibility to learn about the benefits of assistive technology to disabled people? A: I think we need to work harder to make entrepreneurial opportunities more equally accessible to people with various physical challenges. I think disabled employees need to take the initiative to educate management about assistive devices. Of course, management is obligated to respond once they understand the opportunities that assistive technology and networking offer to people who would otherwise not reach their productive potential. Q: Does the Internet pose a danger to people with disabilities if they depend on it solely or so much that they might remain indoors and become hermits? A: No. The Internet allows people to interact with one another and often is the stimulus for getting people to travel, to meet with one another, etc. Q: Is technology via the Internet an equalizer for disabled people or is it just a tool to help them compensate for their disability? A: I see technology as a powerful equalizer for people with disabilities. My wife's successful cochlear implant is a spectacular example of this. However, I think the term "great equalizer" is an over-generalization. For certain types of disabilities, computers and the access they provide to the Internet can create opportunities. The problem is the equalization isn't perfect. If you can't type, using a computer is not a trivial exercise. Or, if you have poor hand/eye coordination, computers offer incredible challenges. Manufacturers of assistive technology must change the way the interfaces work to minimize the side effcets of the disability. This is hard to do, and many of the designers pay too little attention to the problem. Either they are completely unfamiliar with the range and nature of disabilities or they come to the most callous conclusion that it is such as small market to sell to that it isn't worth it. The Internet, that is assistive technology, provides people with disabilities equal opportunities for information access. Disabled people must have equal access to the Web. Software and hardware developers must provide disabled people with equal access to the Internet before it can truly be called a powerful equalizer. Q: What advice would you give to people developing software for the Web relative to accessibility? A: Tim Berners-Lee, the director of the W3C, says, "The power of the Web is in its universality. Access by everyone regard of disability is an essential aspect." We must start with that philosophy. Look at the WWW Consortium report on this subject at www.w3c.org. I know the W3C is committed to providing a high degree of usability for people with disabilities. I know the Web Accessibility Initiative is working to provide Web accessibility in technology, guidelines, education and outreach, and R&D. In the technology field, improving accessibility means guaranteeing the Web technologies support accessibility. Web accessibility guidelines are essential for Web-site development and for applications development. Tools for evaluation, repair, and proxy conversions will facilitate accessibility to the WWW. Education and outreach are important. Research and development are important. Q: What advice would you give to disabled people when they are first introduced to the power of computers and the Internet? A: Take your time, get use to the facilities, find a pen pal for E-mail, surf the Net. Benefit from the Web. Use your creativity. Your imagination. Your drive. Learn how to use it to your advantage. Learn what you need to access it. Part II of Cerf's conversation with John Williams will appear at a later date Share your opinion of Bowe's new book on BW Online's Assistive Tech Forum. Or, if you have a question about assistive technology, write to John at JMMAW@aol.com EDITED BY DOUGLAS HARBRECHT |
