Strategic Partnership to Improve Online Access to Digital Documents for the Visually Impaired

NEWTON, Mass. (April 29, 2019) The Carroll Center for the Blind of Newton, Mass., and Open Access Technologies, Inc. (OAT) of Hollis, N.H., have entered into a Distribution Partnership Agreement whereby The Carroll Center’s Accessibility Services Department will actively support and sell accessible digital document creation and remediation service offerings of OAT to The Carroll Center’s diverse Accessibility Services customers. The two organizations are partnering to provide turnkey, end-to-end accessible solutions that will ultimately provide a fully accessible digital experience for blind and visually impaired consumers.

“When it comes to full inclusion for persons with disabilities, a core component that often remains inaccessible are digital documents,” said Gregory J. Donnelly, President and CEO of The Carroll Center for the Blind. “In the evolution of digital accessibility requirements, we see OAT’s services as a vital complement to the web accessibility services The Carroll Center is already providing to companies, colleges, financial and health care institutions, and e-commerce website operators.”

OAT, through its cloud-based EnableAccess document remediation desktop platform, will enable customers to create or remediate either single, or high volume, document files created in a wide variety of formats.

Howard Berke, Chairman, CEO and co-founder of OAT, expressed his enthusiasm about the collaboration between OAT and the Carroll Center: “We are honored and privileged to partner with The Carroll Center in support of its longstanding community-centric mission. Together, we look to provide technologies, software tools and services that assure documents of all types, data and information are rendered fully accessible and compliant.”

For more information about this collaboration and the services offered, please contact Bruce Howell, Accessibility Services Manager at The Carroll Center for the Blind, at 617-969-6200, ext. 210, or by email.

About Open Access Technologies

Open Access Technologies (OAT) is an innovative provider of accessibility e-publishing services & solutions. Open Access Technologies is dedicated to helping organizations build fully accessible and usable digital document libraries through its suite of robust document accessibility tools that help organizations convert and remediate PDF, ePub, Word, Excel, and PowerPoint documents to better serve their customers. For additional information, visit https://www.openaccesstech.com/.

About The Carroll Center for the Blind

Established in 1936, The Carroll Center for the Blind empowers those who are blind and visually impaired to achieve independence and to lead a fulfilling life. The nonprofit organization provides services for individuals of all ages including vision rehabilitation services, vocational and transition programs, assistive technology training, educational support, services for seniors, and an optical shop. For more information, visit www.carroll.org.