Author | Nian Suqing
Editor in charge | Wang Xiaoman
Production | Program Life (ID: coder _life)
Chieko Asakawa is a blind female computer scientist and an IBM academician. She was blind as a teenager, but she was tenacious. Not only did she earn a Bachelor of Arts and a Ph.D. in Computer Science, she also made outstanding contributions to the development of the IBM homepage browser. The "Accessible Internet Browser" And other network resources are converted from text images to speech, so that blind people can smoothly "read" the Internet. Asakawa has been committed to using modern technology to help visually impaired people like her to have a more convenient life.
The dream of an athlete who died due to blindness
Tomoeko Asakawa was born in Osaka, Japan in 1958. When she was 11 years old when she was in elementary school, she accidentally hit her head against the swimming pool wall, injuring the optic nerve and causing loss of vision. By the age of 14, she was completely blind.
Vanishing with her vision is her dream of an athlete. Before the blindness, Asakawa's ideal was to participate in the Olympics as an athlete, and her sports performance has always been very good.
Asakawa later recalled: "At that time I was very painful because I had to give up my dream of being an athlete." What made her even more painful was that she had to start learning Braille from scratch, and she was close to 15 years old at that time. I missed the best age to learn Braille.
But Asakawa is an optimistic person. Under the enlightenment of her parents, she quickly stopped worrying and decided not to worry about what she had lost, but began to think about how to go next. Asakawa entered a high school for the blind, where she discovered that she still had a lot to do. Although there are many difficulties in life in the future, we must try our best to overcome them. Asakawa said: "I didn't plan myself well at that time. The beginning of the journey to truly explore life was after blindness."
With tenacious perseverance and unremitting efforts, Asakawa Tomoeko not only learned braille, but also received a bachelor's degree in English Literature from Osame Gakuin University in Osaka in 1982.
Work for the blind
At that time, the employment rate of graduates majoring in literature was not optimistic, so in the next two years, Tomoeko Asakawa used a blind electronic reader to learn computer programming.
In 1984, Tomoeko Asakawa entered the IBM Tokyo Research Laboratory as an intern. At the time, he participated in a project mainly for computers to automatically translate data into Braille.
Tomoeko Asakawa feels very lucky: "After completing this year's internship, IBM hired me as a full-time employee so that I can continue my research on the braille system."
In 1987, IBM Japan branch promoted a braille network nationwide, and Asakawa was in charge of the editing system. Enter text into the workstation through this system, then correct the error and print. This makes it unnecessary to make a mistake when printing Braille and only restart from the beginning, and you can use the normal keyboard.
Regarding this work, Asakawa proudly said: "I think this is the most memorable job I have done so far."
Developed a voice browser
Later, Asakawa plans to improve the heavy Braille books. The volume of a braille book is about 20 to 30 times that of ordinary books, and storage and use are extremely difficult. There are 500 volumes of a Braille dictionary, which almost occupies a whole wall of space. Under her leadership, IBM finally designed a machine that can display bumps on the display. The entire 500-volume book can be displayed on a small display.
Later, Asakawa made further expansion on the basis of this machine, and gave birth to a reader that can help blind people to read. The user can connect the reader to the computer, and when reading a certain line, the blind spot of braille is displayed, and then it can be read by touch. Such a system has greatly changed the lives of blind people, and eventually even evolved into a standard system.
Asakawa’s most well-known achievement is the "Accessible Internet Browser" developed by her team.
In 1997, a research team led by Tomoeko Asakawa in IBM (Japan) developed a voice browser that can read web content by voice, enabling blind people to browse the Internet by synthesizing voice from web content. Since its inception, the browser has been popularized in 11 languages, sending the gospel to many blind people in the world.
A blind user once excitedly told Asakawa Tomoko that this voice browser opened the window of the world for them. After more than 20 years of development, the browser’s voice has been greatly improved, the accent is also clearer, and even some emotions are rendered during the broadcast according to the content, so that the blind have a better experience.
Regarding these scientific and technological achievements, Asakawa said: "I hope that technology can fill the lack of vision and help blind people cope with real life freely. Blind people want to live independently, and I hope to help them realize this dream."
Because of these outstanding achievements, Asakawa was successively named "IBM Outstanding Engineer" and IBM Academician.
"Never give up, we can turn the impossible into possible"
With the deepening of his work at IBM, Asakawa intends to study for a PhD in computer science at Tokyo University, but this is extremely difficult for a blind person. Asakawa researches barrier-free technology at the company during the day, and concentrates on studying for a doctorate at night. Sometimes he can only sleep three hours a day. Finally, Asakawa obtained a doctorate from the University of Tokyo in 2004. Talking about that experience, Asakawa smiled and said, "I don't know how to survive."
For Asakawa, life is a process of constantly overcoming difficulties and constantly challenging himself. Asakawa believes that various challenges may be encountered in his work, but as long as he does not give up and continues to pursue his goals, he will always be successful. It is not easy to maintain a high morale at all times, but not forgetting the original intention and moving forward is the meaning of life.
Asakawa has a famous saying: "We can make the impossible possible by nevergiving up. (Never give up, we can make the impossible possible.)" This is undoubtedly an important factor in Asakawa's success.
When she first went blind, Asakawa was depressed and depressed, but soon she realized that instead of continuing to sink, she should turn her grief and anger into strength and turn bad things into good things. "Maybe these obstacles can help me to achieve goals that I could not achieve before, no matter the environment is good or bad, I have to accept it."
Enjoy team life
Asakawa’s experience is full of inspirational significance. Many people with physical disabilities regard her as their role model. Asakawa tells them two points: First, disability is not terrible, and mastering a skill can lead a good life; second, enjoy team life .
Tomoeko Asakawa, who was born in liberal arts, did not have a solid foundation in computer science, and there were not many job opportunities for blind people at that time. When someone asked how she successfully transformed from a "liberal arts student" to an inventor, Asakawa replied to herself She is not so smart. She has learned a lot of skills in practice, and she is very grateful to the team for their support. "The rest of my team are people with normal vision and they are very smart. I can observe things they can't notice. When using those non-visual interfaces, I often have to generalize the difficulties."
Asakawa said: "The most important thing is to learn team communication skills and learn collaboration skills. Team members must understand what kind of support I need, so that everyone can communicate and work together very happily. "
Reference link:
http://www.360doc.com/content/15/1107/06/28923264_511345601.shtml
http://news.sciencenet.cn/sbhtmlnews/2014/4/286307.shtm
#Welcome to leave a message#
Top three with the most comments
Program Life Hand in Hand [Peking University Press] Giveaway
"R language data analysis and visualization from entry to master" a book
As of 14:00 on October 22
更多精彩推荐
☞什么才是真正的程序员？
☞求伯君领衔 5 代技术人对话，00 后浪来袭 1024 程序员节
☞国行 iPhone 12/Pro/Max双卡模式支持5G网络；支付宝推出「晚点付」功能；MySQL 8.0.22 GA|极客头条
☞强化学习是针对优化数据的监督学习？
☞对话阿里云：开源与自研如何共处？
☞10 月中旬的 Medalla 测试网失常：如何开始，将如何结束？
点分享点点赞点在看