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| Vol. 17, No. 28 | April 23, 1998 |
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| Vol. 17, No. 28 | April 23, 1998 |
Steve Jacobs, senior technology consultant for the NCR Corp. in Dayton, Ohio, and an advocate of assistive technology for employees with disabilities, will be the keynote speaker at a conference scheduled on Monday, April 27, at the University.
Members of Delaware's Congressional delegation-Sens. William V. Roth Jr. and Joseph R. Biden Jr. and Rep. Michael N. Castle- will join University of Delaware President David P. Roselle in hosting "Assistive Technology: Innovative Concepts at Work." The event begins at 9:30 a.m. in the Multipurpose Rooms of the Trabant University Center.
Morning sessions are by invitation only, but the event will be opened to the public, at no charge, from noon to 2 p.m.
Jacobs will discuss the business benefits of accessibility in product and workplace design.
In addition to his formal workplace responsibilities, Jacobs has assumed a leadership role in promoting the business benefits of accessible information technology designed to support consumers with disabilities. He is president of NCR IDEAL, a group focused on meeting the needs of NCR employees with disabilities.
His activities over the past several years have included participation in AT&T's Consumer Advisory Panel on Disability Issues, serving as a member of the Telecommunications Access Advisory Committee and working as one of the authors of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which requires that telecommunications services and equipment be made accessible to individuals with disabilities.
He also is a member of the White House Web Accessibility Initiative, created to coordinate World Wide Web-related activities in support of people with disabilities, and he helped author the Unified Web Site Accessibility Guidelines.
Jacobs also designed and managed the implementation of an accessible information technology resource center for the 53rd Presidential Inauguration and for First Lady Hillary Clinton's International Leadership Forum for Women with Disabilities.
He also managed the integration of accessible information technology in the Department of Labor's Model One-Stop Office of the Future.
Additionally, he serves as a member of the National Information Standard Organization's digital talking book standards development committee, the group defining the functional requirements for the next generation of digital talking books.
He has testified as an expert witness before congress about the business benefits of transferring federal laboratory and rehabilitation engineering research center technologies to the private sector.
Prior to his work at NCR, Jacobs managed a technical education, support and software development organization; was a hardware product marketing manager and a commercial industry marketing manager.
-Beth Thomas
