The 2007 Touch of Genius Prize for Innovation was awarded to Karen Gourgey and Steven Landau for their submission of the Talking Tactile Tablet.
The Talking Tactile Tablet is an inexpensive and simple computer peripheral device that acts as a viewer for tactile diagrams, maps, and illustrations. Users place one of many overlay sheets on the Talking Tactile Tablet device and can explore a graphic using touch sense and/or vision. Dr. Gourgey and Mr. Landau have created a library of software programs for the Talking Tactile Table system, all promoting tactile literacy.
The recipients presented their device at a symposium at Massachusetts Institute of Technology on October 25, 2007.
Dr. Karen Gourgey comes from a teaching background, having taught English at the high school level for some three years, and then served as an instructor in the Columbia Teachers' College Department of Special Education, where she received her doctorate in 1983. In that same year, she began as the Director of the Computer Center for Visually Impaired People (CCVIP) at Baruch College, City University of New York.
Steven Landau is Director of Research at Touch Graphics, Inc., a company Mr. Landau founded in 1997 for the purpose of commercializing research on audio-tactile interactive computing, to create new products for the blind and low vision markets. The company has been the recipient of numerous US government R&D grants, and has brought to market a Talking Tactile Tablet (TTT), a low-cost computer peripheral device that acts as a "viewer" for images produced in tactile (raised-line and textured) format. In 2006, the TTT won a Gold Medal in the IDEA Awards competition.
