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    Congratulations to Chieko Asakawa, one of IBM’s 8 new "Fellows"

    Mary Beth Raven  June 3 2009 07:33:33 PM
    I want to publically extend my congratulations to Chieko Asakawa on being promoted to the highest technical level at IBM: that of "IBM Fellow. " I have met Chieko several times. Almost every time, it was within the context of trying to make Lotus products more accessible (several other times it was simply in the context of internal research  conferences). My recollection of our first meeting about 10 years ago (in one of the conference rooms in Westford) was that she was there to help make Sametime (I was working on Sametime at the time) and Notes more accessible to the blind.  That was just before the Americans with disabilities act was passed (so it was a while ago!). I am ashamed to admit that the general reaction at the time (as I remembered it) was " Nice ideas, too much work, sorry, lady."  I also remember that she and I were the only women in the room-- and I remember feeling really really bad.

    Cheiko was polite and very professional at the meeting-- and most of all, she was not discouraged. We have made dramatic strides (and we still have improvements we want to make!), and she has influenced not only the Lotus products, but many IBM products. Congratulations, Chieko. You are an inspiration to us all.
    Image:Congratulations to Chieko Asakawa, one of IBM’s 8 new "Fellows"
    I have included blow the IBM write-up about Chieko and her path to "fellowship."
    At a tender age, Chieko Asakawa lost her sight – but not her vision.

    The petite research scientist in the Tokyo Research Lab perhaps has done more than any single person on the planet to make the wonders of the World Wide Web accessible to the visually impaired and others with special needs. Chieko was the lead designer of the IBM Home Page Reader, the talking Web browser launched in 1997 in Japanese and later produced in 11 languages and distributed worldwide. She continues to push the frontiers of the possible in accessibility technology.

    That one day she would reach the pinnacle of IBM's technical ranks as a Fellow would have scarcely seemed possible four decades ago to Chieko, then a scared, suddenly blind adolescent. A standout athlete growing up in Osaka, Chieko's world changed when she accidentally collided with the side of a pool while swimming, damaging her optic nerves. The accident happened when she was 11 years old. Three years later, Chieko was completely blind.

    "I was very worried about my future. I had no idea what people who can't see can do with their lives. It took a while to find out what I could do," Chieko recalled. "But I always knew I should try to make a difference for others with disabilities."

    Learning Braille, particularly with the complexities of the Japanese language, was difficult for the teenager. In college, she majored in English literature, reasoning that English would be easier to master in Braille and picking up the language would help her find a job.

    After a few years in a vocational school in Osaka for the blind learning optical character assembly and computer programming, Chieko was offered a job as a student researcher at the IBM Tokyo Research Lab. "Taking the job meant moving away from home for the first time – a big step when you're blind. But my father encouraged me, and joining IBM changed my life – and it's been changing my life ever since."

    Immediately, Chieko grasped the power of computers to broaden the horizons for people with disabilities. "One of my first projects was developing the Braille Editing System, which makes it easy to input and edit Braille using an ordinary keyboard and monitor. This has become a standard among Braille libraries in Japan."

    The explosion of the Internet put Chieko's career and influence into hyper-drive. "It was easy to grasp the potential of the Internet to improve the lives of people with disabilities, but there were obstacles to overcome."

    Chieko developed software specifically designed to handle coding used for Web pages. She inserted aural cues to help browsing, such as using a man's voice for text and a woman's voice for links.

    Changing the mindset of Web designers has been an ongoing mission for Chieko, who completed her doctorate in computer science at the University of Tokyo in 2004. aDesigner, one of Chieko's innovations, is a program that graphically shows Web designers how accessible their pages are – or are not –to those with poor sight. "As populations age in Japan and U.S. and other places, poor eyesight is going to increase," Chieko pointed out. "Web accessibility becomes more and more important."