Blind Japanese woman receives IBM’s top award

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Computer giant IBM has named Chieko Asakawa as the first blind engineer — as well as the first Japanese female — to receive the company’s highest technical honor.

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Asakawa, 50, was named this week as one of eight Japanese to win the title of IBM Fellow for her achievements in making the Internet widely accessible for visually impaired people.

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It is IBM’s most prestigious honor for an engineer, a title given to only 218 technicians in the company’s more than century-long history.

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“Asakawa’s crucial contributions in the area of accessibility technology have enabled IBM to become a worldwide leader in the field,” the company said in a statement. “She has helped to establish awareness, both within and outside IBM, while leading the creation of technologies that have changed the way disabled individuals communicate and interact.”

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Asakawa developed accessibility software called the “Homepage Reader” which reads aloud words that appear on an Internet window and is now available in 11 languages including English and Japanese.

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“I am very happy about the nomination,” Asakawa said in a statement. “I will continue working hard toward an even more accessible society.”

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Asakawa, who lost her vision as a teenager, joined the computer maker in 1985 and has since worked to increase computer accessibility not only for the disabled but also for the elderly and novices.

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