400 Participants in Montreal to Discuss Innovation in Visual Impairment

Wednesday, August 5 2015 | 00 h 00 min | Latest News

More than 400 educators, practitioners and researchers in orientation and mobility for people with visual impairment met this summer in Montreal for the 2015 International Mobility Conference.

Jointly organized by the Institut Nazareth and Louis-Braille (INLB) and the University of Montreal’s School of Optometry, IMC15 also received active support from the Canadian National Institute for the Blind (CNIB), the MIRA Foundation and Accessibilité Média Inc., a non-profit organization that provides accessible media.

The major trend in the presentations this year was the growing accessibility to new technology like GPS, WiFi, radio-frequency identification (RFID) and 3D printing. Since most people already have a smart phone or tablet, it is becoming much easier for those with low vision to access and use applications to help them know where they are and to get around safely. Many of these types of applications were presented at the conference.

For a summary of the presentations, see http://imc15.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/IMC15_AbstractBook.pdf