[NFB-DB] FW: [Tech-VI] Helen Keller Services Announces 2025 AccessAbility Awards Honoring Five Organizations Advancing Accessibility and Impact

Thu Oct 9 11:32:36 UTC 2025

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Subject: [Tech-VI] Helen Keller Services Announces 2025 AccessAbility Awards Honoring Five Organizations Advancing Accessibility and Impact

Helen Keller Services - Wednesday, October 8, 2025 at 12:18 PM

Helen Keller Services Announces 2025 AccessAbility Awards Honoring Five Organizations Advancing Accessibility and Impact

Fifth annual awards recognize leaders across technology, arts, infrastructure, and education for exceptional dedication to improving lives of individuals with disabilities

BROOKLYN, NY – October 8, 2025 – Helen Keller Services (HKS) today announced the five recipients of its 2025 AccessAbility Awards, recognizing organizations demonstrating exceptional commitment to advancing accessibility for individuals who are blind, DeafBlind, or have low vision and the broader disability community.  Now in their fifth year, the awards spotlight industry leaders who understand that accessibility is not just a compliance checkbox. It’s a catalyst for innovation that unlocks new markets, drives better design, and expands opportunities for individuals living with disabilities.

The 2025 honorees represent diverse industries united by their commitment to prioritizing accessibility across their products, services, and organizational culture: ADP, The Heckscher Museum of Art, Polara Enterprises, Tatum Robotics, and Teach Access. These organizations will be celebrated at an awards ceremony on Wednesday, October 15, 2025, at the Helen Keller National Center for DeafBlind Youths and Adults in Sands Point, NY.

“Each of this year’s recipients exemplifies what’s possible when organizations embrace accessibility as a core value rather than an afterthought,” said Dr. Susan Ruzenski, CEO of Helen Keller Services. “From groundbreaking robotic technology serving the DeafBlind community to comprehensive workplace accessibility initiatives, these organizations are breaking down barriers, demonstrating accessibility leadership, and setting new standards for their industries.”

The 2025 AccessAbility Award Recipients

ADP

ADP is receiving this award for its holistic company-wide commitment to accessibility under its “Always Designing for People” guiding principle and commitment to build and deliver solutions for its clients. From compliance to accessibility, they are committed to making their products easy, smart, and human.  As a global leader in HR and payroll solutions serving more than 1.1 million clients across 140+ countries, ADP recognizes its unique opportunity to help organizations create workplaces where every voice is heard and every individual feels valued, helping clients drive sustainable business results and empowering all people to obtain and maintain employment through inclusivity. Throughout ADP, associates receive accessibility training based on their roles and responsibilities to fully integrate accessibility into their work. ADP’s disability Business Resource Group actively shapes a culture that builds community and educates about disability, accessibility, and inclusion, demonstrating that creating a fully accessible company requires dedicated and unified efforts from the top down.

The Heckscher Museum of Art

The Heckscher Museum of Art is being recognized for its comprehensive approach to making arts and culture accessible to all visitors. The Long Island institution, founded in 1920 with more than 2,500 works in a National Register of Historic Places building, offers free admission and became fully bilingual in Spanish and English to serve the area’s growing Hispanic population.

The museum, with input from its Accessibility Advisory Group, which includes Helen Keller Services’ participation, created accessible outdoor Soundwalks and developed a free digital guide in the Bloomberg Connects App offering content in 40 languages with transcripts, captioning, alt text, and verbal descriptions. Multi-sensory touch stations, ASL interpretation at all public events with fifty or more participants, and thoughtful accessibility planning demonstrate how the museum enhances experiences for all visitors while preserving artistic integrity.

Polara Enterprises

Polara Enterprises is being honored for nearly three decades of pioneering work making intersections safer, more accessible, and more equitable for all pedestrians, especially those with blindness or limited vision, including people who are DeafBlind. With hundreds of thousands of Accessible Pedestrian Signals (APS) and push buttons installed across North America, Polara’s APS technologies incorporate audible, vibrotactile, and visual cues designed with universal access in mind, helping cities meet ADA and PROWAG compliance standards.

Expanding into digital accessibility solutions, Polara developed the PedApp® mobile application providing real-time access to pedestrian signal status, and recently acquired OKO, a trusted navigation app, making the strategic decision to make it completely free for all users—eliminating barriers to access and ensuring this vital tool remains available to anyone who needs it.

Tatum Robotics

Tatum Robotics is receiving this recognition for developing Tatum1, the first assistive communication system that translates English into tactile signs, the primary communication method for people with profound deafblindness. This groundbreaking tactile fingerspelling robotic hand provides real-time access to calling, messaging, news, and weather, serving as a personal computer that allows DeafBlind individuals to access their conversational language when interpreters cannot be present. Designed alongside DeafBlind individuals of varying demographics, the customizable system accommodates language preference, speed, and user interface variations.

Tatum Robotics was founded in 2021 by Samantha Johnson after developing initial prototypes of signing robotics with the DeafBlind community in Boston, MA. This summer, Tatum Robotics launched Tatum1 after testing with 200+ DeafBlind people across the USA, creating an all-in-one accessible computer for the DeafBlind community while recognizing the irreplaceable value of interpreter services.

Teach Access

Teach Access is being honored for its national leadership in embedding accessibility education across university curricula, directly addressing the “Accessible Technology Skills Gap” — the disconnect between the growing demand for accessible products and services and the shortage of graduates with digital accessibility expertise.

The nonprofit has already reached more than 1.5 million students, five years ahead of its ambitious 2030 goal, through free curriculum resources, student academies, faculty grants, fellowships, and over a dozen self-paced courses for educators across various disciplines.

Since 2018, Teach Access has created the Teach Access Curriculum Repository, a collection of more than 300 free materials that help educators integrate accessibility education into their teaching. The organization has also awarded $360,500 in faculty grants to educators to further expand accessibility instruction in higher education.

With industry partners including Verizon, Google, Meta, and Microsoft, Teach Access continues to advance accessibility learning at scale. Recently, the organization collaborated with Microsoft to develop a comprehensive accessibility course, which launched on Microsoft Learn in early 2025. Teach Access continues to provide resources, including the Accessibility Skills Hiring Toolkit and the Student Academy Program, to strengthen the pipeline of accessibility-skilled graduates.

Building on a Legacy of Recognition

The AccessAbility Awards have honored industry leaders across diverse sectors since 2021. Past recipients include Apple, United Airlines, LEGO, Be My Eyes, Procter & Gamble, Kellanova, Netflix, Microsoft, and The Viscardi Center, among others. These organizations have demonstrated that accessibility drives innovation, enhances customer experiences, and contributes to a more equitable society.

In 2024, the awards expanded to include a virtual Accessibility Symposium that reached over 3,000 viewers worldwide, featuring speakers including Sumaira Latif from Procter & Gamble, Beth Foor from Kellanova, and award-winning producer Joe Strechay.

Why Accessibility Matters

With one in five people worldwide living with a disability, the global market represents $7 trillion in annual disposable income—an often underserved opportunity for businesses that prioritize accessibility. Yet beyond the compelling business case, accessibility is fundamentally about creating a world where everyone can fully participate in society.

“What shapes our perspective is our daily work with individuals who are blind, DeafBlind, and have low vision, helping them develop skills, pursue careers, and build independent lives,” added Dr. Ruzenski. “Our awards recognize companies that are making a difference, but they’re part of a larger conversation about creating opportunities. Every accessible workplace, every inclusive design choice, every thoughtful approach opens doors for the individuals we serve and the broader disability community.”

About Helen Keller Services
For over 130 years, Helen Keller Services has empowered individuals who are blind, DeafBlind, or have low vision to achieve their full potential and live, work, and thrive in the communities of their choice.

Operating through two divisions—Helen Keller National Center for DeafBlind Youths and Adults (HKNC) and Helen Keller Services for the Blind (HKSB)—the organization provides comprehensive services from early childhood through senior years. HKNC serves as the nation’s only comprehensive vocational and rehabilitation program exclusively serving DeafBlind individuals, while HKSB provides vision rehabilitation services, assistive technology training, a preschool program, a summer camp on Long Island, and employment programs for adults throughout the New York metropolitan area.

Learn more at www.HelenKeller.org <http://www.HelenKeller.org>  or visit www.helenkeller.org/accessabilityawards <http://www.helenkeller.org/accessabilityawards>  for information about past recipients and the awards program.

About ADP
ADP has been shaping the world of work with innovation and expertise for more than 75 years. As a global leader in HR and payroll solutions, ADP continuously works to solve business challenges for our clients and their workers, from simple, easy-to-use tools for small businesses to fully integrated platforms for global enterprises—and everything in between. Always Designing for People means we’re focused on just that—people. We use our unmatched AI-driven insights and proven expertise to design innovative solutions that help people achieve greater success at work. More than 1.1 million clients across 140+ countries rely on ADP’s exceptional service to support their people and drive their business forward. HR, Talent, Time Management, Benefits, Compliance, and Payroll. Learn more at ADP.com <http://ADP.com> .

About The Heckscher Museum of Art
The Heckscher Museum of Art is in its second century as a source of art and inspiration on Long Island. Through its exhibitions, programs, and events, the Museum creates opportunities for everyone to experience art that broadens understanding of the past, fosters community connections to the present, and creates diverse possibilities for the future. Founded by philanthropists Anna and August Heckscher in 1920, the Museum’s collection comprises more than 2,500 works from the 16th to the 21st century, including European and American painting, sculpture, works on paper, and photography. Located in scenic Heckscher Park in Huntington, the building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Visit Heckscher.org <http://Heckscher.org> .

About Polara Enterprises
Polara designs and manufactures the most technologically advanced and durable ADA-compliant and pedestrian-friendly crosswalk devices on the market. With hundreds of thousands of Accessible Pedestrian Signals (APS) and push buttons installed across North America, Polara is one of the most trusted names in pedestrian safety. For more information, visit polara.com <http://polara.com> .

About Synapse ITS
Uniting industry-leading brands Polara Enterprises, Carmanah Technologies, Eberle Design (EDI), GovComm, Diablo Controls, and Availed Technologies, Synapse ITS is a comprehensive transportation technology company focused on increasing roadway safety, accessibility, and efficiency through innovative infrastructure. From intersections to highways, crosswalks to parking areas, Synapse ITS products leverage durable, dependable hardware alongside state-of-the-art software and data collection to provide agencies with intelligent solutions to complex transportation challenges. For more information, visit synapse-its.com <http://synapse-its.com> .

About Tatum Robotics
Tatum Robotics developed a first-of-its-kind assistive communication system for the DeafBlind community. Without independent communication tools, they are often cut off from the abled world’s resources. Tatum’s products are the first communication devices that translate English into tactile signs, the primary communication method for people with severe deafblindness.

About Teach Access
Founded in 2016, Teach Access is closing the Accessible Technology Skills Gap by preparing the next generation of designers, developers, and content creators to build inclusive technology. We partner directly with faculty to integrate accessibility into core college curricula, ensuring students graduate with the skills industry needs. Our unique model bridges the gap between education and industry, reducing training costs for employers and helping address accessibility challenges. In June 2025, Teach Access surpassed 1.5 million students in 17+ countries through free curriculum, student academies, faculty grants, and fellowships. This milestone surpasses its 2020 goal of 1 million students by 2030, almost 5 years ahead of schedule. Teach Access programs create a scalable, talent-ready pipeline of accessibility-aware professionals. For more information, visit teachaccess.org <http://teachaccess.org> .

Media Contact
Matt Salaverry
Helen Keller Services
516.393.7553
Msalaverry at helenkeller.org

https://www.helenkeller.org/helen-keller-services-announces-2025-accessability-awards/

David Goldfield,

Blindness Assistive Technology Specialist

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