Since its announcement in early June, eager contestants have entered and anticipated the drawing for the Serotek Summer Sizzle, a contest offering $2000 worth of products comprising a Digital Lifestyle Makeover for the lucky winner. Nearly 2000 people from some 30 countries entered the online drawing, simply by completing a survey identifying personal styles and preferences as blind computer users.
As anticipated, the winner was announced on the Marlaina Show, a program of ACB Radio, Sunday evening, September 7. The lucky winner, Amy Ruell, is known to many in the blind community for her work in the areas of technology and braille literacy. In addition to her work distributing materials through the ReadBooks program for National Braille Press, Boston, and hosting webinars for parents of blind children for that agency, Ruell is also passionate about her work as president of a Boston area computer users group, VIBUG (Visually Impaired Blind Users Group.) Either directly or indirectly, her Summer Sizzle prize will benefit the VIBUG community, which is dedicated to demonstrating new products and providing information on both mainstream and adaptive technology.
“I’ve been a user of SA To GO for a long time,” Ruell commented, explaining that she often uses the free online version of System Access when traveling. It is so much easier to use the computer offered in a hotel business center, she said, than to carry her own somewhat heavy equipment.
“It will be wonderful to have the System Access software available to me all the time now,” she said, “and to demonstrate it to others.”
As winner of Serotek’s Summer Sizzle, Ruell’s prize included An ASUS 8G 2 pound Netbook PC with 1 gigabyte of main memory and an 8 gigabyte hard drive fully equipped for accessible, wireless networking A complete Serotek SAS package including System Access Mobile; four years of System Access Mobile Network; and Neo Speech
Victor Reader Stream audio book player Zen Stone MP3 Player
And choice of any MobileSpeak screen reader courtesy of CodeFactory.
Serotek CEO Mike Calvo also surprised ten lucky runners-up in the Summer Sizzle contest, each of whom received a one-year subscription to the System Access Mobile Network. The runners-up are: Pat Lenahan, John Manchester, David Taylor, Mike Nicol, Roger Fordham, Jay Pellis, Jessica Miller, Shawn Bever, Brandon Bracey, and Marjolijn Terlingen.
“We’ve learned a great deal from the Summer Sizzle survey,” Calvo commented, “but primarily what this proves is that blind people want the digital lifestyle and accessibility anywhere that is Serotek’s mission.”
For more information about Serotek and System Access products, go to www.serotek.com.
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