Diversity & Inclusive Month Spotlight: HumanWare
Wednesday, April 8 2020 | 09 h 30 min | News, Press Release
HumanWare Inc is the global leader in assistive technology for the blind and visually impaired, and part of the Essilor Group since 2013. Its mission is to empower those with vision loss to fully participate with their sighted peers.
Essilor acquired a majority interest in HumanWare Inc. in 2013 and accelerated its partnership with HumanWare in 2014 to boost investment in research and development to offer new and innovative high-quality products for the 3% of the world population suffering from blindness and low vision.
Who is HumanWare?
For more than 30 years,
HumanWare has been developing a wide range of advanced, connected and
intelligent devices that help people with vision loss to overcome the digital
divide that most of the visually impaired community experience and allow them
to participate in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics)
activities, achieve higher education and access to jobs in the new economy.
Some examples include the BrailleNote Touch Plus, first Google-certified
braille tablet, the iOS compatible Brailliant braille displays, Victor Reader®, and more, all designed to help
users stay productive in their daily life.
To date, HumanWare markets its products in 50 countries throughout North
America, Europe, Australia, Africa, the Middle East and in certain parts of
Asia.
Inclusion: A ‘Raison d’être’
In line with its business which is oriented towards empowering the autonomy of
the visually impaired, HumanWare’s efforts to tackle high unemployment rates within
the BVI community include:
- Targeting to have 10-15% of visually impaired employees.
- Launching a successful internship program to provide training and work experience to visually impaired students.
By leveraging innovation, the company aims to bring the latest advanced technology for disability inclusion:
- HumanWare has its R&D hub based in Montréal, a world leading center of excellence for cutting-edge research in areas such as Augmented Reality and Artificial Intelligence.
- Thanks to a partnership with MILA (Quebec’s Institute for Artificial Intelligence), HumanWare is leading research into new ways and products which will improve the lives of people with visual impairment in the future.
Last October, the Quebec Technology Association named HumanWare SME of the year 2019 for its innovation in the tech industry.
For more information about the solutions available for low vision, visit https://www.essilor.com/en/brands-and-solutions/for-low-vision/.
Click HERE for the full press release.
