On National Inventors’ Day, Celebrating IBM’s Innovators; Forbes, February 11, 2020

Dario Gil, Director of IBM Research, Forbes; On National Inventors’ Day, Celebrating IBM’s Innovators

"It all boils down to the culture, and the diverse global network of human beings who drive it. As Chieko Asakawa, who lost her eyesight at age 14 and went on to pioneer technologies that open the wonders of the Internet to visually impaired users, puts it: “IBM has a culture that respects each person’s own perspective. It’s a culture of listening, discussion and thinking about ideas together.”

Asakawa was recently inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame for her work to create the Home Page Reader, a web-to-speech system, improving internet accessibility and usability for the visually impaired. 

“When I started working for IBM,” she reflects, “my blindness became my strength.”

And her strength—along with the talent of all her inventive colleagues—is one of IBM’s greatest assets."