Mastodawn

@andrewleland A suggestion, a podcast series, or book project on 20 or 25 yerars of the truly Blind screen reader, NVDA project?
There are lots of work done on other libre and wiki celebrations, 30 years of linux, wikipedia related books and podcast,
I guess we need a good profile about #nvda working through the internals and stories, across the years, I don't think so an episode of a podcast interview can do justice for the incredible workd done by @NVAccess folks.
#screenReader #nvda #Blind

Matt Campbell 3d ago

@kaveinthran @NVAccess @andrewleland Such an oral history project should certainly feature the role that Prof. Gary Bishop's team in the computer science department at the University of North Carolina, particularly Peter Parente, played in producing open-source Python libraries that helped NVDA get started. Three libraries in particular, though this group did others as well: pyAA, pyHook, and pyTTS. Those same libraries also helped me start developing Serotek's System Access.

kaveinthran 3d ago

@matt @NVAccess @andrewleland Agreed

kaveinthran 3d ago

@matt @NVAccess @andrewleland Btw, I really love your two parter exploration of screen reader history
Part1 https://youtu.be/b9GVJg0LRX4?si=lMXvyj-ZM-wLsKA_
Partt2 https://youtu.be/-ZRv6EHaQYM?si=ymmYkmwYjUiQ-tyD
New year 2021 20 Years of Access Technology Development, Matt Campbell, https://www.youtube.com/live/H6aJ03hXplo?si=ikgsl-suWD9xx4ll
#screenReader

Twitter Space 8/30/2021 -- A brief history of talking computers

YouTube

David Goldfield 3d ago

@kaveinthran @NVAccess @andrewleland I think we need a special #NVDACon to celebrate this milestone. I hesitate to even suggest this because I know that it's easy to toss an idea to people and much harder to help make it happen. Right now, I'm at a point in my life where I don't have the bandwidth to assist with this and so I hate even suggesting it ... but there you are.

kaveinthran 3d ago

@DavidGoldfield @NVAccess @andrewleland I really love to help out, but I don't know where to start and what to do

David Goldfield 3d ago

@kaveinthran @NVAccess @andrewleland Another thing I'd love to see is a campaign aimed at both individuals and corporations to raise awareness about NVDA. one of the goals would be to generate donations from those who otherwise might not have been even aware of what a screen reader is and how NV Access helps to solve the problem of expensive access by providing free access to Windows.

Joseph Lee 3d ago

@DavidGoldfield @kaveinthran @NVAccess @andrewleland Ideally, it would have been held in April 2026 to coincide with the actual anniversary date. If people start planning now, it might be possible to do one in December.

Joseph Lee 3d ago

@DavidGoldfield @kaveinthran @NVAccess @andrewleland I say aim for December because you need a committee and time to organize this. Advice: work backwards through the timeline, then plan things accordingly (a well organized conference/convention gathering takes at least a year to organize). 1/

Joseph Lee 3d ago

@DavidGoldfield @kaveinthran @NVAccess @andrewleland Ideal timeline:
* March 2026: form a committee, including leadership. The first meting should be devoted to defining what NVDACon 2026 would be like and the overall responsibiilty of the committee.
* April 2026: seek support from relevant stakeholders, including NV Access and key members of the NVDA community.
* May 2026: look for event venues.
* June 2026: choose a theme and a rough event date range. 2/

Joseph Lee 3d ago

@DavidGoldfield @kaveinthran @NVAccess @andrewleland Ideal timeline cont:
* July 2026: test the venue and finalize the event dates.
* August 2026: post calls for presenters/topic proposals. This is when the overall event format, including how many session you are looking to host, session format, and assign topic experts within the committee.
* September 2026: call for presentations/topics closes. Start reviewing submissions and ask authors clarifying questions. 3/

Joseph Lee 3d ago

@DavidGoldfield @kaveinthran @NVAccess @andrewleland Ideal timeline (cont):
* October 2026: do a test/mock conference event to test the venue. Send acceptance/rejection letters.
* November 2026: start promoting the conference. While the dates and venue are set, detailed scedule should wait until late November in case presenters say they cnanot attend it. This is also when you should ask NV Access about keynote content (be sure to reserve a spot for it). 4/

Joseph Lee 3d ago

@DavidGoldfield @kaveinthran @NVAccess @andrewleland Ideal time line (cont):
* Four weeks before the conference: publish the final event schedule (somewhere)
* Three weeks before the event: do another mock conference event to test the venue and conference schedule.
* Two weeks before the event: invite presenters to the committee meeting to discuss logistics and let them test their setup. The conference should be good to go - beyond this point, there is no going back. 5/

Joseph Lee 3d ago

@DavidGoldfield @kaveinthran @NVAccess @andrewleland Ideal timeline (cont):
* Seven days before the event: do one last event test - check audio/video settings, streaming settings. Things should be lined up - presenters, straemers, translators (if any), community sponsorships, notes from other communities/stakeholders.
* Three days before the event: event countdown begins. At this point, there is realy no going back. 6/

Joseph Lee 3d ago

@DavidGoldfield @kaveinthran @NVAccess @andrewleland Ideal timeline (cont):
* 24 hours before the start of the first event: streaming links should go live if the event is streamed.
* Two hours before the first event: have one final pre-event committee meeting to check the venue (the leader should thank comittee members with event organization).
* One hour before the event: the first presenter(s) should enter the venue and start the event countdown.
* Event starts: introduce the event. 7/

Joseph Lee 3d ago

@DavidGoldfield @kaveinthran @NVAccess @andrewleland Ideal timeline (cont):
* Throughout the event: monitor the venue, attend presentations, and anser questions and troubleshoot issues.
* Before the final event/presentation: start the post-event debrief planning, including lessons learned and what can be done better in the future.
* A week after the event: do a comittee-level debrief, thank presenters and attendees. 8/

Joseph Lee 3d ago

@DavidGoldfield @kaveinthran @NVAccess @andrewleland Ideal timeline (cont):
* No later than a month after the event: publish the event recordings unless the presenter said no to recordings. Keynote presentation(s) should be published first.
Good luck. 9/

David Goldfield 3d ago

@joslee @kaveinthran @NVAccess @andrewleland Yes, I believe that previous NVDACon events were all virtual. I'm sorry that I can't assist with planning but I simply have no availability or bandwidth.

kaveinthran 3d ago

@joslee @DavidGoldfield @NVAccess @andrewleland Thank you so much for this broad planning. I guess it'd be better to have this global conference virtually so that everyone can participate and the logistics would be easier to produce recordings for those who could not attend it, particularly people that are from different time zones. Also, we can afford to run this earlier or multiple conferences, such as for users, developers, or with different regional themes. It'll allow for better participation and high-quality material rather than investing time and effort for a physical venue conference. Do you think?

Joseph Lee 3d ago

@kaveinthran @DavidGoldfield @NVAccess @andrewleland Virtual gathering is a must unless local communities wish to organize something on their own (physical conference is no go for reasons including geopolitical ones). I advise against separate events for different user groups, or if you wish to do that, ask people to plan it on days when the conference won't be held (this works best if the conference is done over two weekends).

Joseph Lee 3d ago

@kaveinthran @DavidGoldfield @NVAccess @andrewleland Another reason for going against multiple conferences at once is conference fatigue - people need to rest between events, and attending multiple conferences in a really short time can be exhausting (I limit (academic) conference attendance to two to three a year because of this).

Joseph Lee 3d ago

@kaveinthran @DavidGoldfield @NVAccess @andrewleland One last reason against organizing multiple conferences: the organizing comittee, especially the committee chair(s), must endure queries from arond the world about various aspects of the event; doing so for one conference is hard (trust me, I was bedridden in the middle of organizing NVDACon 2016 partly due to me chairing that conference and some extra work I did then).

kaveinthran 3d ago

@joslee @DavidGoldfield @NVAccess @andrewleland thank you so much for all this valuable input. I should look at archives of past nvdaCcons to understand how things happens in the past and yeah you're right only one conference is enough

Joseph Lee 3d ago

@kaveinthran @DavidGoldfield @NVAccess @andrewleland Sure. I also heard talks of an oral history project, and yes, I can answer some questions about NVDACon - after all, NVDACon was inspired by more established tech events like Apple's WWDC and the annual CSUN conference; NVDACon's keynote address presentation by NV Access was modeled after annual WWDC keynote by Apple executives.

kaveinthran 3d ago

@joslee @DavidGoldfield @NVAccess @andrewleland Let me email you to schedule a meet and we can talk further

Joseph Lee 3d ago

@kaveinthran @DavidGoldfield @NVAccess @andrewleland I am unavailable for interviews until June 2026 at the earliest.

kaveinthran 3d ago

@joslee @DavidGoldfield @NVAccess @andrewleland No worries, I'll reach out to you after June then
Meanwhile if you can share any resources that you or any other community members have created in the past like planning documents or even the sites that is used that contains past events and recordings it would be very good.

Joseph Lee 3d ago

@kaveinthran @DavidGoldfield @NVAccess @andrewleland The NVDA community hosted on groups.io should have messages from the 2016 conference planners.

kaveinthran 3d ago

@joslee @DavidGoldfield @andrewleland Will check, do you have pointers on what are other NVDA con that had happened in the past @NVAccess

Joseph Lee 3d ago

@kaveinthran @DavidGoldfield @andrewleland @NVAccess I created NVDACon back in 2014, then chaired the organizing committee for 2015 and 2016. Derek Riemer led the 2017 edition, then there was another one in 2020 or 2021 (don't remember exactly). We also had regional and country specific versions as well.

Joseph Lee 3d ago

@kaveinthran @DavidGoldfield @NVAccess @andrewleland In summary: event planning, especially planning a global virtual event is hard, and you need both a clear vision and a team of people to make this a success.