In late 2006, Sean Randall of RandyLaptop.com conceptualised a 'blog written by blind people, for blind people. He envisaged it containing text reviews of products from a blindness perspective and described it as "Blind Cool Tech in text". He approached Mobeen, one of his fellow college students, and Matthew, a person with whom he has been friends for several years, with the idea and he received positive responses, so he established it with the name VITech: Technology from a Blindness Perspective, giving posting rites to himself, Mobeen and Matthew.
However, by March, 2007, it was clear that the blog was unsuccessful: no reviews had been posted to it and no attempts were made to advertise it. Sean, therefore, closed it.
At this point, Mobeen approached Sean and suggested the idea of a podcast about technology. He envisaged it replacing Sean's very successful Technicalish podcast which had not been updated since May, 2006, and which has now closed. After some discussion, Sean agreed to the idea and offered Mobeen use of the VITech name, Technicalish website code and free web space on RandyLaptop.com. He also suggested that Mobeen contact Matthew for more assistance and that Mobeen and Matthew both take responsibility for its management.
After much thought, Mobeen decided that the VITech podcast should concentrate on technology discussion in small groups rather than interviews or reviews, as he felt that there was too much competition in the latter category whilst there was very little in the former. In late May, 2007, having decided this, he contacted Matthew, who was very receptive to the idea.
After talking with Matthew, Mobeen decided that he would host and edit the podcasts and decide what topics should be discussed, and Matthew would produce and publish the podcasts and assist Sean with maintaining the website. Over the next two weeks, Mobeen assembled the core panel of Aedan, Brandon and Wayne, and Matthew assembled the podcast's website and chose a suitable piece of theme music.
The podcast launched at 19:00 UTC on Sunday, June 3, 2007.
VITech has undergone many changes since its launch on June 3, 2007, as you can see from our news page. However, its core objective remains the same: to provide a podcast which shares opinions on a variety of topics from the perspective of someone who is blind. Our logo, technology discussion with the blind in mind, hopes to emphasise this.
We hope to publish one episode per week, usually on Sunday at 19:00 UTC (3 PM Eastern, 12 PM Pacific), in which a topic will be discussed by several people, from several viewpoints. It is hoped that each of these will have a duration between thirty minutes and an hour, with an average duration of fourty-five minutes, although episodes with durations shorter or longer than this have, occasionally, been published. They are usually encoded at 56 KBPS, 22050 Hz, mono MP3, so they are rellatively small but retain their audio quality.
To supplament each episode, we endeavour to create detailed show notes, available through our website, which record the discussion textually, provide links to products, services and other websites mentioned and contain any additional text pertinent to the episode, such as the text of an E-mail which was received by VITech and read in an episode.
Occasionally, we may also publish episodes on other days during the week which contain content to supplament that week's episode. The need for show notes for these additional episodes will be assessed individually and they will then be created if necessary.
It is our hope that, in time, the VITech podcast and its website will become a large, respected resource offering a wealth of information and opinion which is of benefit to the blind community, and we always appreciate receiving feedback from our listeners as there is no doubt that it will assist us in attaining that goal.
This website and all associated data, including the VITech podcasts and show notes, is copyright 2007 - 2008 the VITech Team. It may not be reproduced or retransmitted in any form or by any means without express permission from the copyright holders.
This website is hosted by SteelTown Web Hosting and this domain name is registered through Dynadot, LLC.
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