Chieko Asakawa: Inventor, Scientist, Technologist
In 1969, 11-year-old Chieko Asakawa was a talented youngster dreaming of qualifying for her country’s Olympic swimming team when a freak accident dashed her hopes. Slamming into a wall in a swimming pool, she damaged her optic nerve in one eye, an injury that led to total blindness in both eyes three years later.
That single event changed Asakawa’s life forever. She wouldn’t win an Olympic gold medal but her misfortune led her to be a champion for visually impaired people all over the world.
Asakawa’s personal journey to independence is the motivation behind her inventions and innovations. When she lost her sight, there was no such thing as assistive or accessibility technology. The most common aids for the blind were the white cane and a guide dog. At 14, unlike most adolescents who were testing the boundaries of independence, she was forced to rely on family members to accompany her everywhere and help her do the simplest things.
She quickly learned Braille, so that when her two brothers read textbooks to her, she could translate them in order to complete homework and keep up with school assignments. And while she managed to be a good student, the prospects for college and beyond seemed bleak.
In many interviews, she has said that blind people in 1970s Japan had little hope of a professional career. The most common jobs for them were to be a masseuse or acupuncturist.
“I didn’t want somebody else to decide my job,” Asakawa said in a 2012 interview with the IEEE (the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers). “So, I made it my goal to find a new type of job as a blind person.”
Asakawa attended Otemon Gakuin University in her hometown of Osaka and graduated in 1980 with a bachelor’s degree in English literature. Two years later she learned about a computer program for the blind at the Nippon Institute and she jumped at the chance to enroll. The program used a machine called Optacon (Optical to Tactile Converter). A camera would scan words and convert them to vibrations that traced the letters in the words. Using a finger pad, users could then “read” the letters.
It was a process that mimicked reading Braille with the addition of two devices. In an interview for an internal IBM publication many years later, Askawa recalled “You put your left index finger into a machine that had a vibration board. In your right hand you held a camera that read what was on the screen, or on paper.” It wasn’t an easy or natural process, but once she mastered Optacon, she learned the basics of computer coding. In essence, she was simultaneously learning, translating and developing three distinctly different languages, a challenging task for anyone, blind or sighted.
The 1980s were an exciting time when computers were becoming part of the business world. “I had an idea,” Asakawa recalls, “that a computer could help to bridge the gap between sighted and blind people. I thought I could effectively use my own experience as a blind person working in science and technology to make it come true.”
In 1984, when Asakawa completed her classes at the Nippon Institute, she was hired as a student researcher at IBM’s Tokyo office and a year later, she became a full-time employee. The timing could not have been better.
The company had just developed a voice synthesizer that could read email and write code, making it easier for Asakawa to develop her ideas for computer apps for the blind. But she wasn’t trained as a scientist and turned to her colleagues to teach her how to conduct research and help her get published and apply for patents to get professional recognition.
Over the next decade Asakawa created three inventions that had a profound impact. The first invention was a digital Braille editor, a word processor that allowed users to directly input and edit Braille symbols just like any Word document. Then came Braille Forum Network, a system for users to upload and share Braille books, periodicals, and documents. The third invention was a digital Braille dictionary system.
With these inventions, blind users were able to participate in the computer revolution that the rest of society was experiencing. As for Asakawa, it was the beginning of her career as a groundbreaking inventor of assistive or accessibility technology.
By the mid-nineties, as internet access exploded, Asakawa turned her attention to developing a way to give users instant access without relying on Braille translation. Her solution was the Home Page Reader (HPR), a text to voice browser that could not only read web content to users, but also describe in detail the visual elements, such as maps, charts, tables, photos and captions. Using different voices, the HPR also could let users know if they were reading plain text or hyperlinks.
Although IBM had been working on technology solutions for the blind and deaf, there was nothing like HPR available at the time. First rolled out in Japan in 1997, it was an instant hit and eventually became available in 11 languages. “Home Page Reader was a real turning point for me,” Asakawa said. “My vision got much wider, much deeper.” In 2001, Asakawa received a patent for her invention.
Although HPR provided the new field of accessibility technology a real boost, it proved that “one size fits all” technology was not going to work in a world moving toward embracing diversity, equity and inclusion in the workplace.
No longer used today, HPR instead has given birth to dozens of screen readers with voice synthesizers that are capable of advanced search and command functions.
While she was developing HPR, Asakawa realized that most web developers never even considered the needs of the visually impaired. So, she created a program for them: aDesigner, software that allowed developers to experience their sites the way a blind person would while providing tools and tips on creating more accessible and user friendly sites.
By 2004, Asakawa was 46 and had been at IBM for twenty years. She was married and the mother of two daughters. Her inventions had changed the lives of millions, but technology was evolving more quickly than ever. To expand her technical skills and knowledge she went back to school and earned a Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Tokyo.
Again, Asakawa’s timing was good. She was working at IBM in 2007, when the company launched Watson, the grandfather of artificial intelligence. The new technology influenced the next round of her inventions.
Through a partnership with Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Asakawa assembled a team to create a series of smartphone apps including NavCog, a GPS-like Bluetooth app for users to find and navigate indoor locations, including buildings on college and corporate campuses, stores, malls and even airports.
Asakawa’s most ambitious project now is the AI suitcase, a rolling suitcase that could really deliver solo travel independence for the visually impaired. The invention combines the best smart technologies that comprise AI. Users activate the suitcase’s motorized wheels by gripping on the handle. Voice commands and instructions actively describe the environment, noting the physical obstacles and people as it guides the user from one location to another. Users wearing ear buds can communicate with the suitcase and ask about travel details such as the ETA of a train or flight, gate and terminal information, the number of check in kiosks, the length of check-in queues as well locations of restrooms and airport facilities.
Throughout her remarkable, nearly four-decade career, Asakawa has never lost her passion for making the world a better place for those with impaired vision.
“Accessibility is about enabling human capability through innovation,” she has said, “so that everyone can reach their full potential, regardless of age or ability.”
She holds the patents to 43 inventions. She was inducted into the Women in Technology Hall of Fame in 2003 and was honored by the Society of Women Engineers in 2010. In 2019, She was inducted into the National Inventor’s Hall of Fame. In addition to working at IBM, where she is a Fellow, she also is a distinguished Service Professor at Carnegie Mellon Robotics Institute and is the director of Japan’s National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation, also known as Miraikan.
— Alice Look
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