Chieko Asakawa
Chieko Asakawa is among 19 innovators who will be inducted this year into the National Inventors Hall of Fame.
Asakawa is the IBM Distinguished Service Professor in the Robotics Institute and an IBM Fellow at IBM Research. Asakawa, who has been blind since a swimming accident at age 14, has been instrumental in developing a number of technologies to aid people with visual impairments and other disabilities.
Asakawa is being honored for her invention of the Home Page Reader (HPR), the first practical voice browser providing internet access for blind and visually impaired computer users.
Asakawa and the rest of the 2019 class will be honored and inducted May 1-2 at a celebration in Washington, D.C., hosted by the Inventors Hall of Fame and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.