Shell Programming Was RE: Searching for blind programmer to start a school for blind programmers

  • From: "Homme, James" <james.homme@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: "programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Fri, 8 Apr 2011 07:23:39 -0400

Hay Storm,
I thought I read that the Blinux project needs shell programmers. Is that 
correct?

Jim

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From: programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx 
[mailto:programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Storm Dragon
Sent: Thursday, April 07, 2011 3:30 PM
To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: Searching for blind programmer to start a school for blind 
programmers

Hi,
If this gets going I would like to teach. Maybe entry level shell programming 
(Bash). sounds like a great idea.
Thanks
Storm
--



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Iron Maiden

On Thu, 2011-04-07 at 12:02 -0400, Bill Cox wrote:



This is still in the dumb-idea phase, and I don't have any funding

lined up to get this started.  That said...



I have not been able to find any on-line school for teaching blind

people to become professional programmers.  I feel the world needs

such an organization.  I am not able to start such a school myself,

but I would be interested in assisting social entrepreneurs in

starting such a venture.  I it would best be implemented as a

for-profit social entrepreneurial venture.  You can read about social

entrepreneurs here:



http://www.ashoka.org/social_entrepreneur

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_entrepreneurship



I'm thinking it could be a Low Profit Corporation (LPC) founded to run

the school for a profit.  Everyone hired in teaching or management

would be vision impaired or blind.  Students would attend classes

on-line, and could be anywhere in the world.  Classes would not be

free (maybe $1,000 per 1-semester course?).  Students who are too poor

to pay would be expected to do well in their courses and make up their

fees by assisting teaching of those courses in later semesters.  They

might also be required to work for an associated consulting company to

earn tuition.  Students would be encouraged to help mentor each other

in any case.



Associated with the school could be a software consulting services

company.  The company would only hire vision impaired programmers, and

students wanting to work for the company could take classes designed

to train them in the skills they'll need.  The company might encourage

it's employees to spend one day a week on FOSS projects of their

interest, which hopefully would include improving accessibility.



Rough numbers to back up the idea:  There are around 15 million people

with "severe" vision impairments in the US.  Roughly half of those

people are too old.  Half of the rest may have other impairments that

would prevent them from becoming programmers.  In the general

population, there are 1 programmer out of every 500 people in the US.

I would expect a ratio at least that high among the blind, or about

7,500 professional programmers in the US alone.  If we took 20 years

to train that many, it'd be 375 new students per year, and assuming a

two year program, we'd have 750 students.  If only half paid the class

fees, but took three classes at a time (a full load), that'd be

$3,000*750*2 = $4.5 million per year.  My kids go to a school which

happens to have about 750 students and a budget of just over $4

million per year, and that includes paying for a school.  So, that

math seems to work out, but we're not talking about anyone making a

billion dollars in this effort.  This is not a VC-fundable idea, but

it might attract funding from groups that invest in socially

beneficial startups.



I know a couple of good candidates to start this school, and one might

be interested in actually doing it.  Are there any good blind or

vision impaired people you guys could recommend for me to talk to?  I

think the key would be finding the right couple of guys.



Thanks,

Bill

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