 |
|
|
|
|
|||||||||||
 |
|
|
|||||||||||
|
TDI to Honor Vinton Cerf, Ben Soukup, Richard Ellis, Harry Lang and Prestigious Law Firm of Swidler Berlin Shereff & Friedman, LLP in 2001 Awards Luncheon |
|||||||||||||
|
SILVER SPRING, MD July 2, 2001 -- TDI announces the distinguished winners of their biennial awards for telecommunications and media access in the year 2001. The five awards from TDI honor individuals and companies who have given extraordinary efforts in different areas promoting equal access to telecommunications and media for consumers who are deaf, hard of hearing, late deafened or deaf-blind. The 2001 award winners are: Andrew Saks Engineering Award: Dr. Vinton Gray Cerf, Senior Vice President for Internet Architecture & Technology WorldCom Corporation This award honors Dr. Cerf for his numerous contributions to the development of the Internet. Upon receiving news of the award, he said that this award has special significance for him because Andrew Saks was one of his good friends. Though both are pioneers in telecommunications, Cerf has always had high esteem for his friend's work. In the early 1970s, Dr. Cerf and his colleague, Dr. Robert E. Kahn, designed the architecture of the Internet and developed the TCP/IP protocols that are now used by hundreds of millions of people on today's Internet. Use of these protocols has leveled the communications playing field for persons with disabilities. The use of e-mail enabled him to communicate with ease with his peers as well as his then deaf wife, Sigrid, who now has a cochlear implant. Dr. Cerf first joined MCI in October 1982, where he worked on MCI Mail which became the first commercial electronic email service to be linked to the Internet. After an 8-year stint with the Corporation for National Research Initiatives from 1986 to 1994, with his colleague, Robert Kahn, Dr. Cerf re-joined MCI. Rising through the ranks, at what is now WorldCom Corporation, he has become one of the world's respected experts on the development of the Internet. Dr. Cerf's life revolves around the future of the Internet. In addition to his duties at WorldCom, he is the Chairman of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). Also, he is a distinguished visiting scientist working on the architecture and design of an Interplanetary Internet at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory of the California Institute of Technology. Dr. Cerf holds both a Ph.D. degree and a Master of Science degree in Computer Science from the University of California, Los Angeles, as well as a Bachelor of Science degree in Mathematics from Stanford University in California. I. Lee Brody Lifetime Achievement Award: Dr. Benjamin J. Soukup, Jr., Chief Executive Officer Communication Service for the Deaf, Inc. The I. Lee Brody Lifetime Achievement Award honors Ben Soukup as a strong leader, a visionary, as well as an advocate for deaf and hard of hearing citizens of South Dakota and throughout the country. Dr. Soukup is the founder and chief executive officer of Communication Service for the Deaf (CSD), based in Sioux Falls, South Dakota and has 21 offices in ten states, serving a total of 27 states in relay operations and human services. He has built a reputation as an entrepreneur, humanitarian, lobbyist and political activist, educator, inspirational role model and leader in the area of disability services. Under Dr. Soukup's direction, CSD has made groundbreaking strides in the area of relay services - subcontracting with Sprint, the largest TRS provider to man call centers across America; operating California's equipment distribution program; and implementing one of the first commercial applications of video relay services in the country. Last year, the governor of South Dakota, William J. Janklow proclaimed the week of May 7, the Benjamin J. Soukup, Jr. Week to honor his lifelong commitment to the welfare of people with disabilities. Robert H. Weitbrecht Telecommunications Access Award: Richard T. Ellis, Director of Federal Affairs Verizon Government Relations While Robert Weitbrecht battled the old telephone monopolies in the early days of the TTY network, today Richard Ellis works within one of the leading telephone service provider organizations to ensure equal access to telecommunications across Verizon's nationwide realm of services. Richard T. Ellis is Director of Federal Affairs at Verizon's Government Relations Office in Washington, D.C. In this position he serves as the primary liaison to national Consumer, Disability and Senior Citizen advocacy organizations, working together in areas of mutual interest. Mr. Ellis serves as a core team member of Verizon's Universal Design and Accessibility team, a committee made up of members from all departments of the company that ensures Verizon is in compliance with its commitments on accessibility issues. He was a key player in efforts to ensure that the company resulting from the merger of Bell Atlantic and NYNEX would adopt the NYNEX Universal Design Principles. These principles committed Bell Atlantic to proactive efforts to ensure that its products and services were accessible to and usable by as many people as possible, including people with disabilities. And when Bell Atlantic merged with GTE to become the nation's largest local telecommunications company, he worked to ensure that our commitment to accessibility was one of the first "best practices" to be adopted by Verizon, the new company formed at the merger. When putting together National Consumer Advisory Boards for Bell Atlantic and Verizon, Mr. Ellis worked to ensure disability representation on those panels. Richard was also involved in Bell Atlantic's effort to become the first regional phone company to implement 711 access to relay centers. Bell Atlantic completed this undertaking in 2000 without requesting reimbursement from state relay center funds. Based on the Bell Atlantic experience, the FCC concluded that 711 dialing to relay centers was an achievable goal, and mandated nationwide 711 access to relay. Verizon continues cooperative efforts with the dominant carriers in each state it serves to implement 711 dialing in the former GTE territory. Richard Ellis is a member of the FCC's Consumer/Disability Telecommunications Advisory Committee. He has also served as a key Verizon liaison to national disability organizations in his previous role as Director of Strategic Alliances. In this capacity, he worked with groups on special projects of mutual interest, including Internet cafes, conference sponsorships, conference presentations and technology demonstrations. James C. Marsters Promotion Award: Dr. Harry G. Lang, Professor/Research Associate in Center for Research, Teaching & Learning National Technical Institute for the Deaf at Rochester Institute of Technology The James Marsters Promotion Award honors individuals that made others aware of the potential benefits that accessible telecommunications and media can bring. The 2001 award honors a prolific author who has written a book chronicling the history of the TTY, which parallels pretty much the history of TDI. According to Booklist, A PHONE OF OUR OWN: The Deaf Insurrection Against Ma Bell "... chronicles a most important leap for deaf communication from the 1960s through the 1990s, of which many of the hearing population are unaware." Publisher's Weekly calls it "Inspiring" and Silent News declares, "History at its best!" Research for this book took five years with support from the National Science Foundation and TDI, as well as Dr. James C. Marsters, Jean Saks and her daughter Andrea Saks. Like Robert Weitbrecht who developed the TTY modem, Harry Lang is a deaf physicist. He also has a degree in electrical engineering and a doctorate in education. He has been a physics teacher and educational researcher at NTID/RIT for 31 years. Lang has completed five books and has lectured around the world on many topics related to the history of deaf men and women. Lang's first book briefly highlighted the telecommunications struggle in "Silence of the Spheres - The Deaf Experience in the History of Science". His second book, "Deaf Persons in the Arts and Sciences" with his wife, Bonnie Meath-Lang, included the contributions of deaf people in the history of the TTY and closed captioning. H. Latham Breunig Humanitarian Award: Swidler Berlin Shereff & Friedman, LLP The H. Latham Breunig Humanitarian Award recognizes individuals and corporations who have contributed their time and effort to TDI programs and activities, such as Swidler Berlin Shereff & Friedman, LLP, a law firm with offices in New York City and Washington, D.C. Over the past few years, Andrew Lipman, Michael Mendelson, Lawrence Walke and other attorneys have given invaluable pro-bono counsel and advice to TDI on legal matters and helped TDI by arranging meetings with key people at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to improve telecommunications and media access. Attorneys at Swidler Berlin Shereff & Friedman, LLP have helped TDI influence some regulatory steps toward access when they wrote comments and petitions to the FCC on telecommunication issues such as compatibility of analog and digital cell phones with hearing aids and TTYs; and numerous TRS improvements. To ensure access in this era of converging technologies of computers and television, TDI with the help of this law firm also filed comments on closed captioning standards for analog and digital television; public interest obligations of television broadcast licensees and future interactive television services. TDI also filed comments supporting the blind community's access to television through video description of programming. In recognition of the growing influence of the Internet, TDI supported MCI WorldCom's petition regarding Internet Protocol Relay. To ensure that we have the full range of programming options, TDI filed comments strongly opposing petitions for waiv er of closed captioning rules by the Home Shopping Club, Outland Sports, Inc. and Wild Outdoors, Inc. Although the petitions by the two cable outdoor television shows remain pending, the FCC concurred with TDI when they issued its denial of the close captioning waiver to the cable television shopping network. These awards will be presented during the Awards Luncheon Tuesday July 10, 2001 at the Sioux Falls Sheraton Hotel and Convention Center in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, where TDI's 14th Biennial International Conference and Expo takes place. |
|||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||
| |
|
Info for: Advertisers/Writers/Press | Terms of use | Privacy Policy | Recommend us | Let's "Hear" from you! | |
