I only recently learned of the passing of a colleague of ours in 2008, Veli-Pekka Ttil, also known as Vellu. I never met him in person, but think he was a visually impaired university student from Finland whose interests included the Perl programming language, screen reader design, and products of Dolphin Systems.
Below I am pasting a few snippets about his passing that I found on the web. If anyone has more info to share, please do so.
Jamal From the web page http://www.yourdolphin.com/newsitem.asp?id=290 Sad loss of a dear colleague 13-Oct-2008On Friday afternoon we received tragic news of the sudden death of Veli-Pekka
Ttil.Aged only 24, Veli-Pekka was immensely talented. His contributions to Dolphin
and his support for other Dolphin software users spanned many years andincluded; beta testing, contributing to the Dolphin forums and more recently as
Dolphin's Script writer.Veli-Pekka's programming skills and dedication to excellence were recognized throughout the Dolphin group and by his visually impaired peers. His attention
to detail was second to none. Veli-Pekka will be greatly missed here at Dolphin and our thoughts and condolences remain with Veli-Pekka's parents at this tragic time. ---------- From the web page http://www.meridian-one.co.uk/news.html Oct 20th 2008: Sad News A short while ago we heard thevery sad news of the death of Veli-Pekka Ttil at the very young age of 24. I had spoken with Vellu over many years about speech, TTS for blind and visually impaired computer users, the Finnish language in particular and whatever else occurred. Latterly Vellu was helping test the latest betas of the new Orpheus. He was always most helpful, interested and engaging; he had so much he wanted to give. Vellu will be missed by many in the visually impaired and blind communities. My deepest sympathies go out to all his family, friends and colleagues. John Rye
---------- From the web page http://www.webbie.org.uk/Veli-Pekka/accessibility.html Articles on Accessibility by Veli-Pekka TtilVeli-Pekka was a student with a visual impairment who sadly died in 2008. I corresponded with him over WebbIE and other assistive technology subjects. His student website is now offline and I've taken the content from online archives and posted it here.
Alasdair King. __________View the list's information and change your settings at //www.freelists.org/list/programmingblind
