Today’s episode of Dot Complicated is especially near and dear to my heart because it combines my favorite passion, live theater, with a passion project I built when I worked at a tiny, little company known as Facebook. Facebook Live came to me during an all-night hackathon. It combined my passion— live performance — with people. Little did I know when I first unveiled it to a whopping TWO viewers — my parents — that it eventually would be used by billions of people around the world. And even more amazing, that Facebook Live would be used to open up the airwaves to communities who are usually unable to access radio broadcasts such as this one.
The American School for the Deaf (or ASD) was the first school for the deaf in the country and it’s also the birthplace of American Sign Language (ASL). In April 2017 ASD celebrated their 200th anniversary and in January, ASD partnered NPR affiliate, WNPR, to broadcast an ASL-interpreted radio show through Facebook Live.
Here with me today to discuss how technology is providing access and ability to the Deaf community is Jeff Bravin, the Executive Director of the American School of the Deaf. Also with us is Yonat Burlin the CEO of GalaPrompter, a free app that provides captioning to deaf and hearing-impaired theatergoers.
Jeff is deaf so his interpreter will be speaking on his behalf. Also, for those who are hard of hearing and want to follow along for the show, we are on Facebook Live and live tweeting so follow me @Randi Zuckerberg to join in the conversation. Yay! Technology!
Yonat Burlin
Jeff Bravin
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