You can see this style of leadership in all great projects. NASA spent seven years and 3 billion dollars to send a satellite to Saturn. With global cooperation and billions of dollars, human beings wiped out small pox, cracked the genetic code, and mapped the universe of stars.

When the resolve is in place, societies will spend massive amounts of money. We pay sports heroes millions of dollars a year so we can build great teams. We spend billions to develop blockbuster drugs. The political parties spent one billion dollars on advertising in the 2004 election. When the chemistry is right; when there is a vision, a sense of purpose, and a firm resolve, then the planning, the cooperation, and the funding follow.

Great accomplishments require great teamwork. You cannot send a satellite to Saturn by yourself. You do not have the funds, the time, or the knowledge. It took a great team to send the Cassini probe to Saturn. A single astronomer cannot map the universe alone; neither can a single agency. There are too many stars, too little time, the cost is too great, and too much diverse expertise is needed. Great teams have to be built.

The Jernigan Institute is a magnetic center, where leaders come to dream, to share, and to plan. "If you build it, they will come". The NFB has built it, and we have come. The question is "What will the best and brightest accomplish at this gathering? Can we build a great team to address blind wayfinding? Will it be just another sharing opportunity, or will we start on a journey together down a long road with a bold vision and a growing sense of fellowship?

If we want to do great things, we can do great things. There are no excuses about lacking the funds, or the failings of technology, or the inadequacy of existing institutions. We either have the vision, the will power, the sense of purpose, the mandate, and the resolve, or we don't.

NFB realized long before anyone else in this field the importance of the ideas articulated by Raymond Kurzweil. They rode Ray's futuristic wave and they did something about it; they created this building, they filled the open spaces with dreams and visions, they took the reigns of power, and they are leading the way into the future. Sighted guys can help, but they have no long range credibility. Everything that we do as a team will revolve around a consumer heart beat. The test pilots for our great accomplishments will be blind astronauts.

There are strong analogies that can be made between NASA astronauts who move in unknown space through hazardous environments, and blind astronauts who will test pilot the technologies that will enable them to travel through challenging environments on earth. There is a famous quote in the blindness community, written by a blind man who was an expert in technology, Emerson Foulke. He said that we know more about what is involved in getting a man to the moon than about what is involved in getting a blind person across a street.

To get astronauts into space and all the way to the moon required three things. First, there had to be a sophisticated vehicle that would travel the distance efficiently and safely. Secondly, there had to be space suits that protected the astronauts in the hostile regions of space. And third, there had to be communication systems that enabled the astronauts to talk to each other, to control the vehicle, and to connect with the networks back on earth. The vehicle, the space suit and the communications systems had to be smarter than anything ever built up to that time; computers (ie. intelligence) had to be embedded into everything for the goal to be accomplished.

To create a navigation system for the blind here on earth, we will need to build a vehicle, a space suit, and a communications network. We will have to invent a smarter car, a smarter suit of clothes, and a smarter environment; smarter than anything yet created. The experts in smart vehicles will have to communicate and cooperate with the experts in smart environments. The experts in wearable computing will have to share and collaborate with the experts in robotics. Consumers will need to test the vehicles, the space suits, and the smart environments. It is going to take a very sophisticated multidisciplinary team to pull this off.

When NASA develops technologies, there are spins offs, benefits to the society in general as the technologies are applied in other areas outside space exploration. The same will be true as we focus on blind navigation technologies. “Spill over” will occur in four ways:

1. Far to near: As we develop systems for handling space navigation (far point perception), we will find that we have also developed systems for handling problems at near point. For example, if we create a wearable processor (in a head mount) that uses Optical Character Recognition software for reading signs, it could also be used for reading print.

2. Blind to Sighted: Technologies that enable the blind to pilot vehicles would also allow the elderly to maintain independence longer, enable people with physical disabilities to drive easier, and would allow for smarter wheelchairs, Segways, bicycles, etc. The sighted population has been speculating about the wearable revolution for quite some time. Advances in blind navigation technology (the space suit) would demonstrate how one group of consumers took the concept forward.

3. Blind to VI: Most people who are labeled blind are really visually impaired. They have complex combinations of vision loss. If we invent a new kind of eyeglass technology, for example digital eye glasses, the same software that allows for machine vision, could also digitally mediate or augment visual images. A revolution would begin for vision correction; even for bionic vision.

4. Normal to Special Ed: Smart environments, wearable computers (disability suits), and autonomous vehicles will help not only the blind but all other disability groups.

How do we go for the moon? How do we think in large enough terms? How can we be bold enough and dream big enough? How do we get a global strategy and how do we implement global cooperation? We are determined to accomplish the following:

1. We will help assemble a coalition of cooperating agencies and individuals who will move wayfinding forward using advanced technologies

2. We will help write a state of the art document/monograph (knowledge management in cyberspace) with planning suggestions for the future

3. We will lobby for the land astronaut program and help with the design and implementation, hopefully in association with NASA

4. We will help establish additional World Congresses

5. We will work to make the NFB Jernigan Research Institute into the next "Nottingham Blind Mobility Research Institute".

7. We will help initiate long range research to determine if travel vision can become as fluid as Braille vision (alternative perception)

8. We will help create a long range strategy for developing wayfinding technologies

We are talking about alternative perception, digital eyeglasses, and perception equal to and in ways better than sighted perception

We are talking about choice, options, wave after wave of opportunity

Examine the question whether or not humanistic intelligence (the melding of digital technology with the brain in the loop over a long period) can result in a new kind of perception/intelligence/sensing system (like Braille is a new kind of perception); this requires long range research

The Jernigan Institute can do the long range studies needed to verify whether alternative perception will work for navigation as it has for Braille; they can also address the training issues and upgrade and repair issues that have plagued the inventors from the beginning.

The world is focused on medical issues as a priority, no one will champion blindness issues of rehabilitation, training, research, and especially high tech development unless it is a coalition of people who are lead by consumers (all factions) but including foundations, private and non-profit agencies, universities, business leaders, sections of government.

For-profit groups will not lead the way; they are narrowly product focused, they are financially focused; they are focused on being first. They can give sincere support to consumer need, but monetary and product concerns are the heart of the business model. They also are reluctant to share information out of fear that a competitor will steal their ideas and undercut their business. Only non-profits can keep the focus on the consumer, on the common good, and on open communication. There has to be a partnership with the business community because competition and urgency tend to push the business models to creation faster and more efficiently than the non-profit model (where committees can bog down innovation and action). Businesses however can move too fast without enough oversight or compassion or social concern. Non-profits can move too slow because they are overcautious and have no urgency to get to the product stage. There is also no great pressure to create the best product. The bottom line is a need for a combined business and non-profit model.

It costs 3.3 billion dollars and took almost seven years to get Cassini to Saturn. The question is not “Why was this a priority, why was it worth the time and money. The question is “Why aren't we spending that kind of time and money on projects that directly impact human beings”. Why don't we have a long range project directed at technologies that help blind individuals?

Ray Kurzweil is a visionary, a rare breed; rare, because his visions come true every few years. The proof is on the table. So, Dr. Kurzweil is a special man to have on our team, and for some fortunate reason he decided as a young man to be a friend of our consumer and professional worlds, the blindness community I call it. He does not have this unique, long standing relationship with many others. There is an opportunity then to stand on the foundation of his vision and to apply his awareness to the blindness community. In other words, we need a vision of the future for our community, one that is in harmony with a larger global vision. Our quest at this World Congress is to articulate our vision of the blindness community and to outline a path into the future where our dreams can come true.

We live in a unique time, one in which it is possible to invent the future. So, I challenge you today to participate in the task of shaping potential futures. I ask you to summon the courage to think on a very large scale and with a strong resolve. I also ask that you move outside your individual passions and allow the dreams of the others to blend with your own. The next three days are not about building fences; the next three days are about taking down fences and building roads between our intellectual worlds.

And our worlds are connected. Let me illustrate this by using the experimental car for blind individuals. This vehicle represents the collaboration of NASA, Darpa, Carnegie Mellon University, and the National Federation of the Blind. First, obviously this is a powerful coalition of agencies; wouldn't we all like to have that team joined with our own. It takes a lot of brain power and a lot of administrative logistics to tackle the big challenges. Secondly, the heart of this project is NFB, consumers. The test pilots for these new inventions will have to be blind astronauts; otherwise the project will lose credibility. Thirdly, the expertise that the scientists have is about space travel, safe and efficient movement through challenging environments. That sounds very much like the definition of orientation and mobility, my profession.

There is a comparison then between travel in hostile outer space environments and blind travel through the challenging spaces on earth- the sophisticated intersections of urban communities, chaotic airport terminals, mountain pathways through the national parks, through dangerous neighborhoods in the evenings, in three story shopping malls, indeed through any unknown, unexplored terrain.

To move through complex often unknown space requires special vehicles, space suits, the invention of new tools, and new communication systems. In other words, the robotic car will work a whole lot better if it is moving through a smart environment and if the blind pilot of the vehicle is wearing some kind of space suit.

Political will is the real wild card

List the challenges:

1. Can we make an invisible space suit for the blind traveler?
2. Can we create travel vision equal to Braille vision?
3. Can we create smart and friendly environments that seamlessly blend with the space suit and the robots?
4. Can we assemble a team of blind pilots to test the new technologies?
5. Can we ride the wave of technology and continually refine our developments; can we institutionalize this work?

I looked over the landscape of services and organizations in the United States and in the world and I asked myself: Where in the blindness community would we find support for dreaming on the edge, who would have the courage to stand at the edges of innovation, unafraid of criticism, not afraid of setbacks, not afraid of admitting occasional failures of design or vision; who would be the champion of vehicles that blind people could use for transportation, for blind space suits, blind cyborgs, for alternative and at times superior bionic perception, for leading the sighted into the brave new world of smart environments. It turns out that the champions and defenders of non-digital technology, of canes and of Braille, turn out also to be the champions of innovation and of the pioneering, entrepreneurial spirit. I am referring to NFB's Jernigan Research Institute.

I am not excluding ACB or individuals who belong to no consumer group, when I say that it is the consumers who must lead the revolution for blind technology

Lance Armstrong won the tour de France over and over again not only because he is a great athlete with very strong will power. He also has incredible technology backing his team. He has bicycles that are engineered to be light and fast; he has a high tech vehicle. He also has clothing that is special; a biking suit that is light and aerodynamic. He also has a communication network and a well thought out plan to tackle the routes he races over. This is the same formula that is needed with blind wayfinding technology: smart vehicles; smart clothing, smart environments.

Another example, is the grocery store of the future in Germany. Shoppers have smart cards (their smart probe) that they activate when entering the store. The shopping carts are smart vehicles. The environment is smart, from the smart shelves that track the merchandize to the cameras that track the movement of the shopper. Any space can be made smart so that a blind traveler could easily move about. The environment watches and offers suggestions when needed (as requested). The environment knows individuals, their habits, their usual routes, where they might need assistance.