Dear Ms. Neal, and Members of the Board of the Mc Nally Fund,

We were especially pleased to see your letter of notification concerning the Margaret Mc Nally Memorial Fund. Last year, because of the grant we received from you, we were able to purchase and test the KASPA vision substitution system. Three blind students from Saginaw County continue to test and to use KASPA. We were also able to repair the system twice, and to purchase additional support equipment. Thanks to you, we had a positive and successful year.

We know that the Mc Nally Trust is targeted at blind children from Saginaw County. We are the only agency in Michigan specializing in navigational technology for blind children. As I say in each of my letters to you, I believe The Institute for Innovative Blind Navigation is what Mrs. Mc Nally had in mind when she set up this trust. We owe her our energy and dedication; we need to carry out the mandate that she enabled.

Last year we talked about our hopes and goals. This year, we are proud to point to our accomplishments. We received recognition and funding from the Saginaw Community Foundation to employ three blind students to test two emerging navigational technologies for the blind. These funds expire in June, 1999.

We also received a grant from the Saginaw Intermediate School System to purchase a laptop computer for our proposed study and testing of a global positioning satellite system for the blind. This grant also came with a webcam, a video system to be used with another video-to-sound navigation system developed in the Netherlands. This system, called The vOICe, also needs a laptop computer to operate.

A small amount of operating funds were made available by a donation from United Commercial Travelers.

My office is now in the Special Needs Clinic at the Millet Learning Center; all office expenses are presently being assumed by the Clinic.

Our largest and most significant grant, of course, came from you, the trustees of the Margaret Mc Nally Memorial Fund. Without KASPA, we would have had no technology to test. We would also not have the video tapes of blind children using KASPA. I am convinced that it was these tapes that moved people to support the Institute.

In October, I will be addressing a regional conference of blind rehabilitation specialists, and in November, I am presenting at a State conference of blindness professionals. In both presentations, the topic is the future and the impact of new technologies. The Institute is assuming a leadership role on a state and national level.

We have a wish list for this coming year, and we are deeply hopeful that you will continue to help fund The Institute for Innovative Blind Navigation. Here is a prioritized list of our current needs:

1. We are excited about a technology coming out of Australia called the Sonic Pathfinder. This system costs only about half as much as KASPA, and is lighter. It has built-in artificial intelligence. The Sonic Pathfinder is between $1,700 and $2,000 depending on the exchange rate with the Australian currency, and the cost of accessories.

2. We need funds to repair and upgrade the emerging technologies that we are beta testing. Every time I mailed KASPA back to New Zealand, we paid $100.00 in postage and in US Customs fees. KASPA also needed a battery fix and rewiring this year. Since we are testing emerging technologies, the repair and upgrade costs are significant, but expected, as we work out the bugs. Five hundred dollars covered last years repair costs.

3. The Institute would like to purchase two desktop computers as training systems for teaching blind children to navigate in cyberspace, on the internet. The students who have been hired by the Institute through the Saginaw Community Foundation grant are part of a team designing the Blind Childrens Web Center on the World Wide Web. For these students to participate in this activity, they must be trained to use modern communications technology. These two computers would be equipped with state-of-the art talking software. We can purchase these computers for less than $1,000.00 each. We are asking the Nc Nally trust to grant us funds for purchasing these systems.

4. We need a small amount of funds for office supplies (postage, copy paper, new stationery with our logo, etc.). Presently, Dr. Baldwin is picking up a lot of the Institute’s expenses. Two hundred dollars would adequately cover the years expenses.

Sonic Pathfinder, case, charger, monitor: $2,000.00

Repairs and upgrades: $ 500.00

Training Computers $2,000.00

Office expenses: $ 200.00

Total: $4,700.00

We know that the Mc Nally Trust has limited funding, and that our needs exceed what you can provide. What we learned from last year was how very significant (and large!) your grant to us turned out to be!

We also request that the wish list below be submitted to the New Business and Grants Committee, in the hope that some of our needs can be picked up by other funding trusts. I have included the Common Grant Application form that you provided me. Thank you for giving us this option.

1. We would like to purchase another KASPA system from New Zealand. Presently, our one KASPA unit has to be traded between the three blind student interns. Every time there is a need for repair, there is no backup system. KASPA cost between $3,000 and $3,500 depending on the exchange rate between the New Zealand dollar and the US dollar. If we had just one more, it would keep us going when our original unit needed repairs and upgrades.

2. We will need funds for specialized talking software to be used with our training computers. We are talking with several venders but have not decided which company to go with yet. The software for any of the companies runs between $500 and $1,000. We would like to have a grant to cover the cost of purchasing these systems. The software we will probably use, a talking system called Artic, costs $800.00.

3. To connect the blind children to the internet requires that we sign on with an internet service provider like Concentric Research (the company we will use). The families of the blind children who are participating in our internship program do not have financial resources that enable them to make these months payments. We would like to pick up the bill for a one year trial period for these families. Monthly access fees are $20, times two students is $40.00 a month, times 12 months, for a total of $480.00.

4. We are developing a head mounted substrate for The vOICe system. The cost of the current model we are considering is about $100.00.

5. We would like to have funds to extend the internship program beyond the one year period covered by the Saginaw Community grant. Presently, because we have only one KASPA system that must be shared, student expenses are only running about $60.00 a month each (for three students, for a total of $180.00). We would like to extend the grant period for the student internships through December 1999. Since the Saginaw Foundation grant runs through July of 1999, we are looking to fund an additional five months, for a total of $940.00.

KASPA $3,200.00

Internet service provider fees $ 480.00

for one year Artic speech access software $ 800.00

Head mounted unit to hold The vOICe $ 100.00

Extend internship grant five months $ 940.00

Total: $5,520.00

The Institute for Innovative Blind Navigation is working on three internet web centers. Presently, these experimental (very new) sites can be accessed at the following internet address:

http://isd.saginaw.k12.mi.us/~mobility/

My Electronic Book is called “Teaching Orientation and Mobility to Blind Students.” This is the web page that you arrive at when you select the address above. This page has allowed us to communicate with parents of blind children from all over the planet. We would like to develop the sophistication and depth of this site.

The second web center is for the Institute. This can be explored from the opening page of the electronic book. A simple outline structure is in place, but the plans for this site are much larger.

The third web center, and the least developed of the web sites presently, is the Blind Children’s Web Center. This can be accessed from the Institute’s webpage. Feel free to explore these sites to get a greater understanding of the scope of our work.

We also have video tapes of blind students from Saginaw County using KASPA if you would like to see these. Student interns are also available to demonstrate emerging technologies (KASPA and The vOICe right now).

Our application for non-profit status is still pending. There was a miscommunication during the past year with the IRS, so we are still waiting for the official paper work to crawl through the legal system. Because of this, we are still using the Special Needs Clinic’s non-profit umbrella to receive grants (as we did last year). There has been no problem with this approach previously; we remain a sister organization to the Special Needs Clinic, with full support from their board.

Thank you very much

Sincerely,

Doug Baldwin
Institute for Innovative Blind Navigation
Special Needs Clinic/Millet Learning Center
3660 Southfield Drive
Saginaw, Michigan 48601