Vision Loss Advocate Won ​​A MacArthur Foundation Grant

Joshua Miele was blinded at the age of four when his neighbor poured sulfuric acid on him. For the last forty years, he has been advocating for the blind and visually impaired. Miele has also worked on several projects to improve the lives of those living with vision loss. Those projects include:

• Fire tablets that are Braille-compatible, and a "Show and Tell" feature on Echo devices that can identify different foods and pantry items
• "Tactile maps" for the Bay Area's BART train—known for ferrying tech workers to and from San Francisco and the suburbs—that users can explore with their fingers and an audio smart pen
• “YouDescribe,” a platform that crowdsources audio descriptions for popular videos

Due to his contribution to the blind community, the vision loss advocate won a MacArthur Foundation grant. Miele is one of 25 to be awarded $625,000. He told the NYT in 2013:

"I want to be famous for the right reasons, for the work I've done, and not for some stupid thing that happened to me 40 years ago."

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"MacArthur Fellow Joshua Miele Creates Technology for the Blind"