How Assistive Technology Is Supporting Students Through the Pandemic

Assistive Technology Eases Remote Learning Struggles

In recent years, research has shown that assistive technology can improve reading and spelling skills, among others, for students, helping them reach their full potential. Assistive technology can help increase children’s self-reliance and sense of independence by giving them more of a voice — and choice — in their learning.

Today, students have access to traditional supportive technologies such as abbreviation expanders, alternative keyboards, audiobooks, graphic organizers, optical character recognition, portable word processors and variable-speed tape recorders. However, new developments in artificial intelligence and machine learning are also entering the K–12 space at an accelerated speed and have the potential to significantly enhance personalized learning.

The ongoing evolution of AI-driven breakthroughs has enabled the development of artificial vision technologies, which are particularly useful for assisting students with dyslexia and other related conditions. Scrambled letters, blurred words, moving text and letter reversals require intense concentration from such students, especially as longer texts become more common as education progresses. In particular, students with dyslexia may find themselves fatigued and nauseous on a regular basis as a result of this required effort. Until recently, the only tools developed specifically for reading and comprehension difficulties were found on computers, which can compromise mobility.

Recent Innovations Improve Assistive Technology

To make assistive technology truly accessible to those with reading and comprehension challenges, products need to be designed with the user in mind. Assistive technology should also meet the needs of all students today, spanning primary and secondary education and beyond, to support independent learning, comprehension and communication.

Thankfully, recent advancements are making these objectives a reality. For example, product developers are now innovating discreet wearable and handheld devices that inconspicuously read content in printed material or on digital screens. For the first time, texts in books and on computers and smartphones are accessible to those with language processing difficulties.

What’s more, these innovative technologies are constantly evolving to become “smarter,” incorporating natural language understanding technology. Some advances are even available today, including voice-activated features that allow users to quickly retrieve and identify specific information they need from a text.

This extraordinary year has placed a new focus on accessibility. As educators continue to teach in virtual classrooms, accessible learning for students with dyslexia and other related conditions must be a priority. With the latest innovations in hand, we can continue to identify and address remote learning challenges — and provide students who have learning disabilities the best chance at success, now and in the future.

Published at Sat, 14 Nov 2020 00:12:32 +0000

C3.ai, machine learning startup backed by software pioneer Tom Siebel, files for IPO

Tom Siebel, an early employee of database giant Oracle, later a billionaire after selling his eponymous software firm to Oracle, says his new venture, C3, has a bigger opportunity than either of those.

C3.ai, the artificial intelligence services company founded by software pioneer Tom Siebel, Friday evening filed for an initial public offering of $100 million worth of its shares, led by investment banks Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan, and Bank of America.

C3 plans to list under the ticker “AI” on The New York Stock Exchange. The number of shares to be offered and the price range for the proposed offering have not yet been determined, C3 said.

Siebel, who was recruited to database giant Oracle in 1983, later founded the eponymous enterprise customer relationship management software firm in 1993. He sold that company to Oracle in 2006 for $5.85 billion, and went on to found C3 in 2009.

C3 came out of philanthropic work Siebel was doing in 2007 and 2008, after selling to Oracle. He was concerned with making an impact on the planet’s energy and climate issues. He soon realized that being a for-profit company might ultimately have a greater impact.

Siebel, who is both chairman and CEO of C3, describes his ambition in the prospectus as being that of serving a $274 billion market that is a “magnitude larger than” either Oracle or Siebel’s was.

Siebel refers to a gaggle of technologies, including AI, that have come together to create a new kind of combination he calls a “step function of technologies” that is “substantially more impactful than anything we had seen before.”

They include, “elastic cloud computing, big data, the internet of things, and AI or predictive analytics.”

Says Siebel,

Today, at the confluence of these technology vectors we find the phenomenon of Enterprise AI and Digital Transformation, mandates that are rising to the top of every CEO’s agenda. The global IT market exceeds $2.3 trillion today.

Our singular focus is to leverage our technology leadership, first-mover advantage, and management leadership to establish and maintain a global leadership position in Enterprise AI. Should we succeed at that objective, we will have built C3.ai into one of the world’s great software companies.

The company bills itself as the “world’s largest enterprise AI production footprint.” It claims to be running 1.1 billion predictions per day for its clients, which have included large firms in banking and oil and gas and other industries.

Siebel has brought seasoned compatriots with him. The CTO of C3, Edward Abbo, was CTO of Siebel Systems. The company’s head of product, Houman Behzadi, was also a long-time Siebel executive.

The company generated $157 million in revenue in the fiscal year ended in April, it said, an increase of 71%, year over year. It lost $69 million on that revenue. Revenue in the three months ended in July rose 16%, year over year, to $40.5 million.

The company had an accumulated deficit of $293 million as of the end of July.

The prospectus indicates Siebel has heavily invested in the startup, but also sold stock worth tens of millions. In 2018, for example, the company sold stock to Siebel for a loan worth $25 million. Then in 2019, Siebel sold stock in two transactions worth $50 million each.