What do you think?
Rate this book
The Ability Hacks
The Ability Hacks is the story of two Microsoft hackathon teams, one in the summer of 2014 and one the following summer of 2015. The first would pioneer new software to revolutionize the mobility of tens of thousands of people who live with severe paralysis caused by ALS, Parkinson’s, cerebral palsy and traumatic neurological injuries. The second team would pioneer software to help kids with dyslexia read and love learning for the first time in their lives. This is the story of two small groups of driven, focused and passionate software engineers, program managers, marketers and advocates. It’s the story of realizing the transformative power of technology for people with disabilities, not just for traditional consumer and industrial markets. It’s the story of doing something truly great — improving outcomes for everyone, discovering a design ethos and blazing a new trail for accessibility.
Read more:
More than one billion people around the world live with a disability of some kind, and it’s estimated two-thirds of us know someone with a disability. Almost everyone will be temporarily or permanently impaired at some point in life, and those who survive to old age will experience increasing difficulties in functioning, according to the World Health Organization. This book explores an optimistic belief that computer software and hardware can empower people with disabilities in a multitude of scenarios.
As one engineer interviewed for The Ability Hacks said, “It’s not about the technology. It’s about the people.”
Read more:
More than one billion people around the world live with a disability of some kind, and it’s estimated two-thirds of us know someone with a disability. Almost everyone will be temporarily or permanently impaired at some point in life, and those who survive to old age will experience increasing difficulties in functioning, according to the World Health Organization. This book explores an optimistic belief that computer software and hardware can empower people with disabilities in a multitude of scenarios.
As one engineer interviewed for The Ability Hacks said, “It’s not about the technology. It’s about the people.”
147 pages, ebook
Published January 1, 2018
3 people are currently reading
21 people want to read
About the author
Greg Shaw
39 books3 followersGreg Shaw (January 1949 – October 19, 2004) was an American writer, publisher, magazine editor, music historian and record executive.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
July 26, 2018
A fascinating account of how a hackathon turned into a product leveraging eye gaze technology in Microsoft. Shows how technology can be an enabler for the disabled and differently abled.
A must read for all those who are fascinating in building accessible products and devices.
A must read for all those who are fascinating in building accessible products and devices.
August 8, 2018
I don't know exactly what I expected from this book when I started reading, but I was nonetheless disappointed. The subject itself sounds really good, sort of how in a huge corporation like Microsoft, innovations could arise from the grassroots but in the end, there's just too much working against the story.
The book details two hackathon projects (a hackathon is where employees are given free reins to "hack" together a project without having any influence from their regular work) where the projects ended up helping people with disabilities. The first project was to improve the life quality of people with ALS, which was influenced by former NFL player Steve Gleason. The other project was to help people with dyslexia learn better using OneNote. Both are fascinating tales in itself but I felt the writing took so much away from the story that it ceased to be a good story and rather felt like corporate propaganda.
Throughout the very short book, the writing's just sloppy. There's changes in tense between paragraphs, too many characters mentioned who simply don't figure in the story after their mention, change in perspective in a paragraph. The structuring of the two stories was not good either. In the first story, there's a technical section which is much more technical than what it should have been. This section seems like it's potentially skippable, except there's actual related information to the story at the end of the section. There are huge jumps in the timeline, from the hackathon in 2015 to present day 2018. What happened in between?
I really hoped this book would be good and show how in a corporation, innovation comes from anywhere and how important it is that everyone regardless of disability can be empowered. Sadly the writing subtracted too much from the cases. Ultimately it feels like a cheap marketing ploy from Microsoft instead of a story about how engineers in a huge corporation found a way to improve people's lives directly through their innovations.
The book details two hackathon projects (a hackathon is where employees are given free reins to "hack" together a project without having any influence from their regular work) where the projects ended up helping people with disabilities. The first project was to improve the life quality of people with ALS, which was influenced by former NFL player Steve Gleason. The other project was to help people with dyslexia learn better using OneNote. Both are fascinating tales in itself but I felt the writing took so much away from the story that it ceased to be a good story and rather felt like corporate propaganda.
Throughout the very short book, the writing's just sloppy. There's changes in tense between paragraphs, too many characters mentioned who simply don't figure in the story after their mention, change in perspective in a paragraph. The structuring of the two stories was not good either. In the first story, there's a technical section which is much more technical than what it should have been. This section seems like it's potentially skippable, except there's actual related information to the story at the end of the section. There are huge jumps in the timeline, from the hackathon in 2015 to present day 2018. What happened in between?
I really hoped this book would be good and show how in a corporation, innovation comes from anywhere and how important it is that everyone regardless of disability can be empowered. Sadly the writing subtracted too much from the cases. Ultimately it feels like a cheap marketing ploy from Microsoft instead of a story about how engineers in a huge corporation found a way to improve people's lives directly through their innovations.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews