Interfaces, Volume 3, Number 2, Fall 1996

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A Message From Board Member Jim Westra

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ULT provides CAST with an effective outlet for distributing its software, while not affecting CAST's non-profit status. As CAST continues to pursue its primary mission of expanding opportunities for people with disabilities, ULT will play an integral role in the organization's growth, and in the future of universally accessible technology -- technology that provides access to information for everyone, including those with disabilities, low-level reading skills, and English as a second language.

With today's service- and technology-driven economy requiring a more highly literate workforce than ever before, those with physical disabilities, learning disabilities, or cultural and language barriers are often severely limited in their ability to take advantage of educational and financial opportunities. Organizations like CAST are striving to meet the challenges of the education and inclusion of these individuals by providing software and other learning tools to support all users, regardless of ability.

ULT will help CAST reach this goal. Over the past few years, CAST's board and staff have realized that in order to place our technology into the marketplace quickly and effectively, we must distribute it to a wider audience. The success of Wiggleworks^TM, highly accessible early reading software co-developed by CAST and Scholastic Inc., has shown that there is a broad commercial market for universally accessible products. To commercialize its technology, CAST needed people who had experience in developing new business ventures and who could focus on marketing and distribution, rather than research and development. In forming a separate entity with ULT's President and CEO, Carol A. Vallone, who not only believes in CAST's mission but also has a proven track record of commercializing technologies, CAST has created an organized and efficient way to disseminate its products. ULT also promises to provide an additional source of revenue for CAST, which CAST will put directly back into research and development.