We are editing this chapter for a book. It begins as a readable piece and drops to the level of notes and sentence fragments.

This is a book about the future. It far exceeds the goal of informing about human navigation, and it goes well beyond our main objective, to showcase state-of-the-art technologies for blind wayfinding. At times, this book has the feel of a novel, it is populated by eccentric characters, inventors who are driven, and at times ironically blinded by their passions. It is about the frustration of turning around the industrial age ship that is now sailing on the grass in a wheat field in Nebraska; no longer relevant, but still in charge of most of the world's institutions.

This book will challenge your understanding of what it means to be blind and what it means to see. It will expose "visual prejudice" and introduce you to a few blind guys who can navigate the planet better than you can, with your Michelan maps, bird watcher binoculars, and 20/20 vision.

We did not want another dry textbook. We instructed the authors to mix in the history, the passion, and the frustration that accompanied their vision, their life's work. It is not easy to sell the future to industrial age entrenchments or to the Generals in command of these dry sea vessels. And there are plenty of consumers eager to call your passion crap and dismiss the whole effort without having a clue what you are talking about. We gave authors license to vent, as long as they did so diplomatically and only when it was relevant.

In October, 2005, a World Congress was held at the National Federation of the Blind (NFB) Jernigan Institute in Baltimore, Maryland, U.S.A. The Congress was supported through inkind funding provided by NFB, the Institute for Innovative Blind Navigation (IIBN), and primarily by NEC Foundation of America. As part of the grant, Congress delegates agreed to produce a monograph detailing the state-of-the-art of wayfinding technologies for the blind. This monograph will be an ongoing internet project and will also be published.

Vision for the book

Sell the book to the audience

Why it is needed

approach used

Content review