Re: [sudo-discuss] Fwd: [sudo-info] reaching out from google.org regarding an assistive technology hackathon

Things that scare me about stuff like this is that it inevitably becomes not about the needs of the disabled community and instead becomes more about what people think the disabled community wants. I know they want to get the "need-knowers" in the same room (and I'm really not sure why the family of disabled folks are "need-knowers" as they are often just as bad about this), but there tends to be an overwhelming number of people who just want to help out of a misguided sense of pity. So it becomes a gross ego-stroking mess less about actually helping out disabled folks, and more about able-bodied, neurotypical folks wanting to do their "good deed" for the day. Even the language on their page really skeeves me out. They're focusing on the 10 year scale, when they have the power to affect the here and now. Why doesn't Google Maps track where there are curb cuts? WIth street view, they could pretty easily go through and identify intersections where there aren't curb cuts. Then, they could parse that into Maps and identify walking directions that work for people in wheelchairs. But that's not as sexy as 3D-printed prostheses or exoskeletons. In fact, they specifically say they want solutions that use "cutting-edge" technology. But why use cutting-edge technology, when we aren't even using what we have at hand? Sure, if you come up with an "innovative" idea it's fine, but they don't want to make existing approaches better for folks with disabilities. In fact, they specifically say that they want "entirely new solutions and approaches." Which just feeds into the social model of disability. Why do we need an entirely new solution for me, when we could make the current solution feasible? It breaks all the principles of Universal Design, which goes far beyond architecture.