I received permission from Nimer regarding the following letter:

Hello NVDA community,

First, I hope you are staying safe and healthy.

One day in early 2012, I came across a question posed on an NVDA list (it could have been this list which was hosted on a different forum platform then): can NVDA read Korean? That question led to an adventure that span nine years: translations, writing documentation, founding an international gathering of a community, releasing countless add-ons, moderating several NVDA lists and communities, and learning to incorporate lessons I have learned from the community in the next chapter of my life. In the midst of contributions, I recently hinted that I plan to retire from the community, and that golden opportunity has come:

On May 10, 2021, I was offered and accepted admission to master of arts (graduate school) program in communication studies at California State University, Los Angeles after graduating with highest honors (summa cum laude) from the same university.

After observing discussions between graduate students and thinking about balancing between graduate seminars, coaching speech and debate teams, and NVDA code contributions, I decided that school should take highest of highest of priorities. Graduate school is harder than undergraduate (college) education, especially when adding responsibility of teaching and coaching students competing in collegiate speech and debate tournaments. As much as I love programming and contributing to NVDA community, I cannot forget my immediate responsibilities of being a student and public speaking coach.

Therefore, I’m retiring from NVDA community contributions, effective September 1, 2021. This means:

• I do have work to finish which might end up in NVDA as early as 2021.2, and I plan to dedicate this summer to completing outstanding pull requests.
• I’m handing over most of my add-ons to the NVDA add-ons community for further maintenance. I do plan to maintain Add-on Updater and Windows 10 App Essentials – Add-on Updater is needed until NVDA comes with add-ons store, and Windows 10 App Essentials is needed to respond to ever-changing nature of Windows 10 ecosystem and to keep up with changes in NVDA development from time to time.
• For NVDACon attendees and organizers, I will not be able to (and I really cannot) participate in NVDACon for a while.
• For add-ons community, I will be stepping down as your chief admin and add-on reviewer this summer (details will be sent to add-ons list).

Several thank you’s:

• Mick and Jamie: for starting it all fifteen years ago – April 2006 signaled the birth of a movement, which endures today.
• NV Access staff, past and present: so many discussions, teaching me about life, programming, and group work.
• Mesar Hameed: for teaching me about NVDA translation process and making sure community add-ons website was ready for the world in 2013.
• Many NvDA users and enthusiasts in South Korea: for giving me an updated picture on Korean blindness community and help formulating strategies on translations and outreach nine years ago.
• Many translators: for helping me adjust to the NVDA community when I was a novice translator in 2012.
• Thousands of users: for teaching me many things – forum discussions, direct feedback, and countless other venues.
• Nimer and NVDA Users list moderators, past and present: many collaborations and helpful advice.
• For users of my add-ons: countless feedback, megabytes of debug logs (all were destroyed after analyses because they contain private information), and so many other things that made add-ons useful to this day.
• NVDA supporters outside this forum: for your continued enthusiasm and support.
• Microsoft engineers and fellow Windows Insiders: many opportunities to connect and learn from.
• Folks from Mozilla, Google, and other organizations: for meeting new friends and colleagues.

One advice for future NVDA contributors: listen a lot. You can’t write effective add-ons and NVDA pull requests without listening to what others have to say. Before writing Python, sit down and have a conversation with users. Collaboration is the key, especially when talking to people online.

Although I’m retiring as a code contributor, I look forward to helping the NVDA community in other ways. Until then, graduate school is calling me – feel free to reach out if you seek advice on accessibility advocacy, programming in general, public speaking, and what not.

Before I close, I would like to take this time to invite resident high school and college students to invest in public speaking, or if you want, compete in speech and debate tournaments. You can’t just sit and ask others to advocate for you – you must do it yourself at some point in your life. One way to do so is learning public speaking and debate skills, and one venue is through competing in high school or college speech and debate tournaments. What strengthened my own advocacy skills was competing in speech tournaments, which also provided opportunities to tell the world about NVDA project – I even talked about NVDA and accessibility advocacy at a national speech tournament.

Advocacy will be important, especially as the world moves onto digital ways to accomplish more tasks: virtual reality, artificial intelligence, biometrics, web-based workplace, and telehealth. As high school and college students, you are in a place to inform and persuade people about baking accessibility into products. Right now, there aren’t many blind students competing in high school or college speech and debate tournaments, and I want to sincerely ask you to change the big picture. I’m willing to coach public speaking events (see the message header for contact email); this speech coaching offer from a nationally recognized former speech competitor and now an apprentice coach extends to any blind high school or college student (not only on NVDA Users list, but also in other communities).

Farewell, NVDA community. Thank you for teaching me many lessons over the last nine years, and for giving me opportunities to make a difference in the lives of many as an undergraduate college student and a volunteer code contributor. Love you all, and stay safe and healthy.

Sincerely,

Joseph S. Lee

NVDA Certified Expert, 2019

Volunteer translator, code contributor, and add-ons reviewer, NVDA screen reader project (June 2012 to September 2021)

Founding chair, NVDA Users and developers Conference (NVDACon) (March 2014 to April 2016)

Member, NVDA Council

Former moderator, NVDA Users list (2013 to 2016)

I received permission from Nimer regarding the following letter:

Hello NVDA community,

First, I hope you are staying safe and healthy.

One day in early 2012, I came across a question posed on an NVDA list (it could have been this list which was hosted on a different forum platform then): can NVDA read Korean? That question led to an adventure that span nine years: translations, writing documentation, founding an international gathering of a community, releasing countless add-ons, moderating several NVDA lists and communities, and learning to incorporate lessons I have learned from the community in the next chapter of my life. In the midst of contributions, I recently hinted that I plan to retire from the community, and that golden opportunity has come:

On May 10, 2021, I was offered and accepted admission to master of arts (graduate school) program in communication studies at California State University, Los Angeles after graduating with highest honors (summa cum laude) from the same university.

After observing discussions between graduate students and thinking about balancing between graduate seminars, coaching speech and debate teams, and NVDA code contributions, I decided that school should take highest of highest of priorities. Graduate school is harder than undergraduate (college) education, especially when adding responsibility of teaching and coaching students competing in collegiate speech and debate tournaments. As much as I love programming and contributing to NVDA community, I cannot forget my immediate responsibilities of being a student and public speaking coach.

Therefore, I’m retiring from NVDA community contributions, effective September 1, 2021. This means:

* I do have work to finish which might end up in NVDA as early as
2021.2, and I plan to dedicate this summer to completing
outstanding pull requests.
* I’m handing over most of my add-ons to the NVDA add-ons community
for further maintenance. I do plan to maintain Add-on Updater and
Windows 10 App Essentials – Add-on Updater is needed until NVDA
comes with add-ons store, and Windows 10 App Essentials is needed
to respond to ever-changing nature of Windows 10 ecosystem and to
keep up with changes in NVDA development from time to time.
* For NVDACon attendees and organizers, I will not be able to (and I
really cannot) participate in NVDACon for a while.
* For add-ons community, I will be stepping down as your chief admin
and add-on reviewer this summer (details will be sent to add-ons
list).

Several thank you’s:

* Mick and Jamie: for starting it all fifteen years ago – April 2006
signaled the birth of a movement, which endures today.
* NV Access staff, past and present: so many discussions, teaching
me about life, programming, and group work.
* Mesar Hameed: for teaching me about NVDA translation process and
making sure community add-ons website was ready for the world in 2013.
* Many NvDA users and enthusiasts in South Korea: for giving me an
updated picture on Korean blindness community and help formulating
strategies on translations and outreach nine years ago.
* Many translators: for helping me adjust to the NVDA community when
I was a novice translator in 2012.
* Thousands of users: for teaching me many things – forum
discussions, direct feedback, and countless other venues.
* Nimer and NVDA Users list moderators, past and present: many
collaborations and helpful advice.
* For users of my add-ons: countless feedback, megabytes of debug
logs (all were destroyed after analyses because they contain
private information), and so many other things that made add-ons
useful to this day.
* NVDA supporters outside this forum: for your continued enthusiasm
and support.
* Microsoft engineers and fellow Windows Insiders: many
opportunities to connect and learn from.
* Folks from Mozilla, Google, and other organizations: for meeting
new friends and colleagues.

One advice for future NVDA contributors: listen a lot. You can’t write effective add-ons and NVDA pull requests without listening to what others have to say. Before writing Python, sit down and have a conversation with users. Collaboration is the key, especially when talking to people online.

Although I’m retiring as a code contributor, I look forward to helping the NVDA community in other ways. Until then, graduate school is calling me – feel free to reach out if you seek advice on accessibility advocacy, programming in general, public speaking, and what not.

Before I close, I would like to take this time to invite resident high school and college students to invest in public speaking, or if you want, compete in speech and debate tournaments. You can’t just sit and ask others to advocate for you – you must do it yourself at some point in your life. One way to do so is learning public speaking and debate skills, and one venue is through competing in high school or college speech and debate tournaments. What strengthened my own advocacy skills was competing in speech tournaments, which also provided opportunities to tell the world about NVDA project – I even talked about NVDA and accessibility advocacy at a national speech tournament.

Advocacy will be important, especially as the world moves onto digital ways to accomplish more tasks: virtual reality, artificial intelligence, biometrics, web-based workplace, and telehealth. As high school and college students, you are in a place to inform and persuade people about baking accessibility into products. Right now, there aren’t many blind students competing in high school or college speech and debate tournaments, and I want to sincerely ask you to change the big picture. I’m willing to coach public speaking events (see the message header for contact email); this speech coaching offer from a nationally recognized former speech competitor and now an apprentice coach extends to any blind high school or college student (not only on NVDA Users list, but also in other communities).

Farewell, NVDA community. Thank you for teaching me many lessons over the last nine years, and for giving me opportunities to make a difference in the lives of many as an undergraduate college student and a volunteer code contributor. Love you all, and stay safe and healthy.

Sincerely,

Joseph S. Lee

NVDA Certified Expert, 2019

Volunteer translator, code contributor, and add-ons reviewer, NVDA screen reader project (June 2012 to September 2021)

Founding chair, NVDA Users and developers Conference (NVDACon) (March 2014 to April 2016)

Member, NVDA Council

Former moderator, NVDA Users list (2013 to 2016)

Hello Joseph,


Congratx on your new assignment! I have learned to know and appreciate
your work over all these nine years, and I take the liberty to say here,
publicly, that I believe you deserve that "golden opportunity" that has
been offered to you.


We'll miss you, but you deserve it all.


Blessings, stay safe!

Ollie



On 10/05/2021 11:48, Joseph Lee wrote:

I received permission from Nimer regarding the following letter:

Hello NVDA community,

First, I hope you are staying safe and healthy.

One day in early 2012, I came across a question posed on an NVDA list
(it could have been this list which was hosted on a different forum
platform then): can NVDA read Korean? That question led to an
adventure that span nine years: translations, writing documentation,
founding an international gathering of a community, releasing
countless add-ons, moderating several NVDA lists and communities, and
learning to incorporate lessons I have learned from the community in
the next chapter of my life. In the midst of contributions, I recently
hinted that I plan to retire from the community, and that golden
opportunity has come:

On May 10, 2021, I was offered and accepted admission to master of
arts (graduate school) program in communication studies at California
State University, Los Angeles after graduating with highest honors
(summa cum laude) from the same university.

After observing discussions between graduate students and thinking
about balancing between graduate seminars, coaching speech and debate
teams, and NVDA code contributions, I decided that school should take
highest of highest of priorities. Graduate school is harder than
undergraduate (college) education, especially when adding
responsibility of teaching and coaching students competing in
collegiate speech and debate tournaments. As much as I love
programming and contributing to NVDA community, I cannot forget my
immediate responsibilities of being a student and public speaking coach.

Therefore, I’m retiring from NVDA community contributions, effective
September 1, 2021. This means:

* I do have work to finish which might end up in NVDA as early as
2021.2, and I plan to dedicate this summer to completing
outstanding pull requests.
* I’m handing over most of my add-ons to the NVDA add-ons community
for further maintenance. I do plan to maintain Add-on Updater and
Windows 10 App Essentials – Add-on Updater is needed until NVDA
comes with add-ons store, and Windows 10 App Essentials is needed
to respond to ever-changing nature of Windows 10 ecosystem and to
keep up with changes in NVDA development from time to time.
* For NVDACon attendees and organizers, I will not be able to (and I
really cannot) participate in NVDACon for a while.
* For add-ons community, I will be stepping down as your chief admin
and add-on reviewer this summer (details will be sent to add-ons
list).

Several thank you’s:

* Mick and Jamie: for starting it all fifteen years ago – April 2006
signaled the birth of a movement, which endures today.
* NV Access staff, past and present: so many discussions, teaching
me about life, programming, and group work.
* Mesar Hameed: for teaching me about NVDA translation process and
making sure community add-ons website was ready for the world in
2013.
* Many NvDA users and enthusiasts in South Korea: for giving me an
updated picture on Korean blindness community and help formulating
strategies on translations and outreach nine years ago.
* Many translators: for helping me adjust to the NVDA community when
I was a novice translator in 2012.
* Thousands of users: for teaching me many things – forum
discussions, direct feedback, and countless other venues.
* Nimer and NVDA Users list moderators, past and present: many
collaborations and helpful advice.
* For users of my add-ons: countless feedback, megabytes of debug
logs (all were destroyed after analyses because they contain
private information), and so many other things that made add-ons
useful to this day.
* NVDA supporters outside this forum: for your continued enthusiasm
and support.
* Microsoft engineers and fellow Windows Insiders: many
opportunities to connect and learn from.
* Folks from Mozilla, Google, and other organizations: for meeting
new friends and colleagues.

One advice for future NVDA contributors: listen a lot. You can’t write
effective add-ons and NVDA pull requests without listening to what
others have to say. Before writing Python, sit down and have a
conversation with users. Collaboration is the key, especially when
talking to people online.

Although I’m retiring as a code contributor, I look forward to helping
the NVDA community in other ways. Until then, graduate school is
calling me – feel free to reach out if you seek advice on
accessibility advocacy, programming in general, public speaking, and
what not.

Before I close, I would like to take this time to invite resident high
school and college students to invest in public speaking, or if you
want, compete in speech and debate tournaments. You can’t just sit and
ask others to advocate for you – you must do it yourself at some point
in your life. One way to do so is learning public speaking and debate
skills, and one venue is through competing in high school or college
speech and debate tournaments. What strengthened my own advocacy
skills was competing in speech tournaments, which also provided
opportunities to tell the world about NVDA project – I even talked
about NVDA and accessibility advocacy at a national speech tournament.

Advocacy will be important, especially as the world moves onto digital
ways to accomplish more tasks: virtual reality, artificial
intelligence, biometrics, web-based workplace, and telehealth. As high
school and college students, you are in a place to inform and persuade
people about baking accessibility into products. Right now, there
aren’t many blind students competing in high school or college speech
and debate tournaments, and I want to sincerely ask you to change the
big picture. I’m willing to coach public speaking events (see the
message header for contact email); this speech coaching offer from a
nationally recognized former speech competitor and now an apprentice
coach extends to any blind high school or college student (not only on
NVDA Users list, but also in other communities).

Farewell, NVDA community. Thank you for teaching me many lessons over
the last nine years, and for giving me opportunities to make a
difference in the lives of many as an undergraduate college student
and a volunteer code contributor. Love you all, and stay safe and
healthy.

Sincerely,

Joseph S. Lee

NVDA Certified Expert, 2019

Volunteer translator, code contributor, and add-ons reviewer, NVDA
screen reader project (June 2012 to September 2021)

Founding chair, NVDA Users and developers Conference (NVDACon) (March
2014 to April 2016)

Member, NVDA Council

Former moderator, NVDA Users list (2013 to 2016)

I received permission from Nimer regarding the following letter:

Hello NVDA community,

First, I hope you are staying safe and healthy.

One day in early 2012, I came across a question posed on an NVDA list (it could have been this list which was hosted on a different forum platform then): can NVDA read Korean? That question led to an adventure that span nine years: translations, writing documentation, founding an international gathering of a community, releasing countless add-ons, moderating several NVDA lists and communities, and learning to incorporate lessons I have learned from the community in the next chapter of my life. In the midst of contributions, I recently hinted that I plan to retire from the community, and that golden opportunity has come:

On May 10, 2021, I was offered and accepted admission to master of arts (graduate school) program in communication studies at California State University, Los Angeles after graduating with highest honors (summa cum laude) from the same university.

After observing discussions between graduate students and thinking about balancing between graduate seminars, coaching speech and debate teams, and NVDA code contributions, I decided that school should take highest of highest of priorities. Graduate school is harder than undergraduate (college) education, especially when adding responsibility of teaching and coaching students competing in collegiate speech and debate tournaments. As much as I love programming and contributing to NVDA community, I cannot forget my immediate responsibilities of being a student and public speaking coach.

Therefore, I’m retiring from NVDA community contributions, effective September 1, 2021. This means:

• I do have work to finish which might end up in NVDA as early as 2021.2, and I plan to dedicate this summer to completing outstanding pull requests.
• I’m handing over most of my add-ons to the NVDA add-ons community for further maintenance. I do plan to maintain Add-on Updater and Windows 10 App Essentials – Add-on Updater is needed until NVDA comes with add-ons store, and Windows 10 App Essentials is needed to respond to ever-changing nature of Windows 10 ecosystem and to keep up with changes in NVDA development from time to time.
• For NVDACon attendees and organizers, I will not be able to (and I really cannot) participate in NVDACon for a while.
• For add-ons community, I will be stepping down as your chief admin and add-on reviewer this summer (details will be sent to add-ons list).

Several thank you’s:

• Mick and Jamie: for starting it all fifteen years ago – April 2006 signaled the birth of a movement, which endures today.
• NV Access staff, past and present: so many discussions, teaching me about life, programming, and group work.
• Mesar Hameed: for teaching me about NVDA translation process and making sure community add-ons website was ready for the world in 2013.
• Many NvDA users and enthusiasts in South Korea: for giving me an updated picture on Korean blindness community and help formulating strategies on translations and outreach nine years ago.
• Many translators: for helping me adjust to the NVDA community when I was a novice translator in 2012.
• Thousands of users: for teaching me many things – forum discussions, direct feedback, and countless other venues.
• Nimer and NVDA Users list moderators, past and present: many collaborations and helpful advice.
• For users of my add-ons: countless feedback, megabytes of debug logs (all were destroyed after analyses because they contain private information), and so many other things that made add-ons useful to this day.
• NVDA supporters outside this forum: for your continued enthusiasm and support.
• Microsoft engineers and fellow Windows Insiders: many opportunities to connect and learn from.
• Folks from Mozilla, Google, and other organizations: for meeting new friends and colleagues.

One advice for future NVDA contributors: listen a lot. You can’t write effective add-ons and NVDA pull requests without listening to what others have to say. Before writing Python, sit down and have a conversation with users. Collaboration is the key, especially when talking to people online.

Although I’m retiring as a code contributor, I look forward to helping the NVDA community in other ways. Until then, graduate school is calling me – feel free to reach out if you seek advice on accessibility advocacy, programming in general, public speaking, and what not.

Before I close, I would like to take this time to invite resident high school and college students to invest in public speaking, or if you want, compete in speech and debate tournaments. You can’t just sit and ask others to advocate for you – you must do it yourself at some point in your life. One way to do so is learning public speaking and debate skills, and one venue is through competing in high school or college speech and debate tournaments. What strengthened my own advocacy skills was competing in speech tournaments, which also provided opportunities to tell the world about NVDA project – I even talked about NVDA and accessibility advocacy at a national speech tournament.

Advocacy will be important, especially as the world moves onto digital ways to accomplish more tasks: virtual reality, artificial intelligence, biometrics, web-based workplace, and telehealth. As high school and college students, you are in a place to inform and persuade people about baking accessibility into products. Right now, there aren’t many blind students competing in high school or college speech and debate tournaments, and I want to sincerely ask you to change the big picture. I’m willing to coach public speaking events (see the message header for contact email); this speech coaching offer from a nationally recognized former speech competitor and now an apprentice coach extends to any blind high school or college student (not only on NVDA Users list, but also in other communities).

Farewell, NVDA community. Thank you for teaching me many lessons over the last nine years, and for giving me opportunities to make a difference in the lives of many as an undergraduate college student and a volunteer code contributor. Love you all, and stay safe and healthy.

Sincerely,

Joseph S. Lee

NVDA Certified Expert, 2019

Volunteer translator, code contributor, and add-ons reviewer, NVDA screen reader project (June 2012 to September 2021)

Founding chair, NVDA Users and developers Conference (NVDACon) (March 2014 to April 2016)

Member, NVDA Council

Former moderator, NVDA Users list (2013 to 2016)

I received permission from Nimer regarding the following letter:

Hello NVDA community,

First, I hope you are staying safe and healthy.

One day in early 2012, I came across a question posed on an NVDA list (it could have been this list which was hosted on a different forum platform then): can NVDA read Korean? That question led to an adventure that span nine years: translations, writing documentation, founding an international gathering of a community, releasing countless add-ons, moderating several NVDA lists and communities, and learning to incorporate lessons I have learned from the community in the next chapter of my life. In the midst of contributions, I recently hinted that I plan to retire from the community, and that golden opportunity has come:

On May 10, 2021, I was offered and accepted admission to master of arts (graduate school) program in communication studies at California State University, Los Angeles after graduating with highest honors (summa cum laude) from the same university.

After observing discussions between graduate students and thinking about balancing between graduate seminars, coaching speech and debate teams, and NVDA code contributions, I decided that school should take highest of highest of priorities. Graduate school is harder than undergraduate (college) education, especially when adding responsibility of teaching and coaching students competing in collegiate speech and debate tournaments. As much as I love programming and contributing to NVDA community, I cannot forget my immediate responsibilities of being a student and public speaking coach.

Therefore, I’m retiring from NVDA community contributions, effective September 1, 2021. This means:

·         I do have work to finish which might end up in NVDA as early as 2021.2, and I plan to dedicate this summer to completing outstanding pull requests.

·         I’m handing over most of my add-ons to the NVDA add-ons community for further maintenance. I do plan to maintain Add-on Updater and Windows 10 App Essentials – Add-on Updater is needed until NVDA comes with add-ons store, and Windows 10 App Essentials is needed to respond to ever-changing nature of Windows 10 ecosystem and to keep up with changes in NVDA development from time to time.

·         For NVDACon attendees and organizers, I will not be able to (and I really cannot) participate in NVDACon for a while.

·         For add-ons community, I will be stepping down as your chief admin and add-on reviewer this summer (details will be sent to add-ons list).

Several thank you’s:

·         Mick and Jamie: for starting it all fifteen years ago – April 2006 signaled the birth of a movement, which endures today.

·         NV Access staff, past and present: so many discussions, teaching me about life, programming, and group work.

·         Mesar Hameed: for teaching me about NVDA translation process and making sure community add-ons website was ready for the world in 2013.

·         Many NvDA users and enthusiasts in South Korea: for giving me an updated picture on Korean blindness community and help formulating strategies on translations and outreach nine years ago.

·         Many translators: for helping me adjust to the NVDA community when I was a novice translator in 2012.

·         Thousands of users: for teaching me many things – forum discussions, direct feedback, and countless other venues.

·         Nimer and NVDA Users list moderators, past and present: many collaborations and helpful advice.

·         For users of my add-ons: countless feedback, megabytes of debug logs (all were destroyed after analyses because they contain private information), and so many other things that made add-ons useful to this day.

·         NVDA supporters outside this forum: for your continued enthusiasm and support.

·         Microsoft engineers and fellow Windows Insiders: many opportunities to connect and learn from.

·         Folks from Mozilla, Google, and other organizations: for meeting new friends and colleagues.

One advice for future NVDA contributors: listen a lot. You can’t write effective add-ons and NVDA pull requests without listening to what others have to say. Before writing Python, sit down and have a conversation with users. Collaboration is the key, especially when talking to people online.

Although I’m retiring as a code contributor, I look forward to helping the NVDA community in other ways. Until then, graduate school is calling me – feel free to reach out if you seek advice on accessibility advocacy, programming in general, public speaking, and what not.

Before I close, I would like to take this time to invite resident high school and college students to invest in public speaking, or if you want, compete in speech and debate tournaments. You can’t just sit and ask others to advocate for you – you must do it yourself at some point in your life. One way to do so is learning public speaking and debate skills, and one venue is through competing in high school or college speech and debate tournaments. What strengthened my own advocacy skills was competing in speech tournaments, which also provided opportunities to tell the world about NVDA project – I even talked about NVDA and accessibility advocacy at a national speech tournament.

Advocacy will be important, especially as the world moves onto digital ways to accomplish more tasks: virtual reality, artificial intelligence, biometrics, web-based workplace, and telehealth. As high school and college students, you are in a place to inform and persuade people about baking accessibility into products. Right now, there aren’t many blind students competing in high school or college speech and debate tournaments, and I want to sincerely ask you to change the big picture. I’m willing to coach public speaking events (see the message header for contact email); this speech coaching offer from a nationally recognized former speech competitor and now an apprentice coach extends to any blind high school or college student (not only on NVDA Users list, but also in other communities).

Farewell, NVDA community. Thank you for teaching me many lessons over the last nine years, and for giving me opportunities to make a difference in the lives of many as an undergraduate college student and a volunteer code contributor. Love you all, and stay safe and healthy.

Sincerely,

Joseph S. Lee

NVDA Certified Expert, 2019

Volunteer translator, code contributor, and add-ons reviewer, NVDA screen reader project (June 2012 to September 2021)

Founding chair, NVDA Users and developers Conference (NVDACon) (March 2014 to April 2016)

Member, NVDA Council

Former moderator, NVDA Users list (2013 to 2016)

I received permission from Nimer regarding the following letter:

Hello NVDA community,

First, I hope you are staying safe and healthy.

One day in early 2012, I came across a question posed on an NVDA list (it could have been this list which was hosted on a different forum platform then): can NVDA read Korean? That question led to an adventure that span nine years: translations, writing documentation, founding an international gathering of a community, releasing countless add-ons, moderating several NVDA lists and communities, and learning to incorporate lessons I have learned from the community in the next chapter of my life. In the midst of contributions, I recently hinted that I plan to retire from the community, and that golden opportunity has come:

On May 10, 2021, I was offered and accepted admission to master of arts (graduate school) program in communication studies at California State University, Los Angeles after graduating with highest honors (summa cum laude) from the same university.

After observing discussions between graduate students and thinking about balancing between graduate seminars, coaching speech and debate teams, and NVDA code contributions, I decided that school should take highest of highest of priorities. Graduate school is harder than undergraduate (college) education, especially when adding responsibility of teaching and coaching students competing in collegiate speech and debate tournaments. As much as I love programming and contributing to NVDA community, I cannot forget my immediate responsibilities of being a student and public speaking coach.

Therefore, I’m retiring from NVDA community contributions, effective September 1, 2021. This means:

• I do have work to finish which might end up in NVDA as early as 2021.2, and I plan to dedicate this summer to completing outstanding pull requests.
• I’m handing over most of my add-ons to the NVDA add-ons community for further maintenance. I do plan to maintain Add-on Updater and Windows 10 App Essentials – Add-on Updater is needed until NVDA comes with add-ons store, and Windows 10 App Essentials is needed to respond to ever-changing nature of Windows 10 ecosystem and to keep up with changes in NVDA development from time to time.
• For NVDACon attendees and organizers, I will not be able to (and I really cannot) participate in NVDACon for a while.
• For add-ons community, I will be stepping down as your chief admin and add-on reviewer this summer (details will be sent to add-ons list).

 

Several thank you’s:

• Mick and Jamie: for starting it all fifteen years ago – April 2006 signaled the birth of a movement, which endures today.
• NV Access staff, past and present: so many discussions, teaching me about life, programming, and group work.
• Mesar Hameed: for teaching me about NVDA translation process and making sure community add-ons website was ready for the world in 2013.
• Many NvDA users and enthusiasts in South Korea: for giving me an updated picture on Korean blindness community and help formulating strategies on translations and outreach nine years ago.
• Many translators: for helping me adjust to the NVDA community when I was a novice translator in 2012.
• Thousands of users: for teaching me many things – forum discussions, direct feedback, and countless other venues.
• Nimer and NVDA Users list moderators, past and present: many collaborations and helpful advice.
• For users of my add-ons: countless feedback, megabytes of debug logs (all were destroyed after analyses because they contain private information), and so many other things that made add-ons useful to this day.
• NVDA supporters outside this forum: for your continued enthusiasm and support.
• Microsoft engineers and fellow Windows Insiders: many opportunities to connect and learn from.
• Folks from Mozilla, Google, and other organizations: for meeting new friends and colleagues.

 

One advice for future NVDA contributors: listen a lot. You can’t write effective add-ons and NVDA pull requests without listening to what others have to say. Before writing Python, sit down and have a conversation with users. Collaboration is the key, especially when talking to people online.

 

Although I’m retiring as a code contributor, I look forward to helping the NVDA community in other ways. Until then, graduate school is calling me – feel free to reach out if you seek advice on accessibility advocacy, programming in general, public speaking, and what not.

 

Before I close, I would like to take this time to invite resident high school and college students to invest in public speaking, or if you want, compete in speech and debate tournaments. You can’t just sit and ask others to advocate for you – you must do it yourself at some point in your life. One way to do so is learning public speaking and debate skills, and one venue is through competing in high school or college speech and debate tournaments. What strengthened my own advocacy skills was competing in speech tournaments, which also provided opportunities to tell the world about NVDA project – I even talked about NVDA and accessibility advocacy at a national speech tournament.

 

Advocacy will be important, especially as the world moves onto digital ways to accomplish more tasks: virtual reality, artificial intelligence, biometrics, web-based workplace, and telehealth. As high school and college students, you are in a place to inform and persuade people about baking accessibility into products. Right now, there aren’t many blind students competing in high school or college speech and debate tournaments, and I want to sincerely ask you to change the big picture. I’m willing to coach public speaking events (see the message header for contact email); this speech coaching offer from a nationally recognized former speech competitor and now an apprentice coach extends to any blind high school or college student (not only on NVDA Users list, but also in other communities).

 

Farewell, NVDA community. Thank you for teaching me many lessons over the last nine years, and for giving me opportunities to make a difference in the lives of many as an undergraduate college student and a volunteer code contributor. Love you all, and stay safe and healthy.

Sincerely,

Joseph S. Lee

NVDA Certified Expert, 2019

Volunteer translator, code contributor, and add-ons reviewer, NVDA screen reader project (June 2012 to September 2021)

Founding chair, NVDA Users and developers Conference (NVDACon) (March 2014 to April 2016)

Member, NVDA Council

Former moderator, NVDA Users list (2013 to 2016)

I received permission from Nimer regarding the following letter:

Hello NVDA community,

First, I hope you are staying safe and healthy.

One day in early 2012, I came across a question posed on an NVDA list (it could have been this list which was hosted on a different forum platform then): can NVDA read Korean? That question led to an adventure that span nine years: translations, writing documentation, founding an international gathering of a community, releasing countless add-ons, moderating several NVDA lists and communities, and learning to incorporate lessons I have learned from the community in the next chapter of my life. In the midst of contributions, I recently hinted that I plan to retire from the community, and that golden opportunity has come:

On May 10, 2021, I was offered and accepted admission to master of arts (graduate school) program in communication studies at California State University, Los Angeles after graduating with highest honors (summa cum laude) from the same university.

After observing discussions between graduate students and thinking about balancing between graduate seminars, coaching speech and debate teams, and NVDA code contributions, I decided that school should take highest of highest of priorities. Graduate school is harder than undergraduate (college) education, especially when adding responsibility of teaching and coaching students competing in collegiate speech and debate tournaments. As much as I love programming and contributing to NVDA community, I cannot forget my immediate responsibilities of being a student and public speaking coach.

Therefore, I’m retiring from NVDA community contributions, effective September 1, 2021. This means:

• I do have work to finish which might end up in NVDA as early as 2021.2, and I plan to dedicate this summer to completing outstanding pull requests.
• I’m handing over most of my add-ons to the NVDA add-ons community for further maintenance. I do plan to maintain Add-on Updater and Windows 10 App Essentials – Add-on Updater is needed until NVDA comes with add-ons store, and Windows 10 App Essentials is needed to respond to ever-changing nature of Windows 10 ecosystem and to keep up with changes in NVDA development from time to time.
• For NVDACon attendees and organizers, I will not be able to (and I really cannot) participate in NVDACon for a while.
• For add-ons community, I will be stepping down as your chief admin and add-on reviewer this summer (details will be sent to add-ons list).

Several thank you’s:

• Mick and Jamie: for starting it all fifteen years ago – April 2006 signaled the birth of a movement, which endures today.
• NV Access staff, past and present: so many discussions, teaching me about life, programming, and group work.
• Mesar Hameed: for teaching me about NVDA translation process and making sure community add-ons website was ready for the world in 2013.
• Many NvDA users and enthusiasts in South Korea: for giving me an updated picture on Korean blindness community and help formulating strategies on translations and outreach nine years ago.
• Many translators: for helping me adjust to the NVDA community when I was a novice translator in 2012.
• Thousands of users: for teaching me many things – forum discussions, direct feedback, and countless other venues.
• Nimer and NVDA Users list moderators, past and present: many collaborations and helpful advice.
• For users of my add-ons: countless feedback, megabytes of debug logs (all were destroyed after analyses because they contain private information), and so many other things that made add-ons useful to this day.
• NVDA supporters outside this forum: for your continued enthusiasm and support.
• Microsoft engineers and fellow Windows Insiders: many opportunities to connect and learn from.
• Folks from Mozilla, Google, and other organizations: for meeting new friends and colleagues.

One advice for future NVDA contributors: listen a lot. You can’t write effective add-ons and NVDA pull requests without listening to what others have to say. Before writing Python, sit down and have a conversation with users. Collaboration is the key, especially when talking to people online.

Although I’m retiring as a code contributor, I look forward to helping the NVDA community in other ways. Until then, graduate school is calling me – feel free to reach out if you seek advice on accessibility advocacy, programming in general, public speaking, and what not.

Before I close, I would like to take this time to invite resident high school and college students to invest in public speaking, or if you want, compete in speech and debate tournaments. You can’t just sit and ask others to advocate for you – you must do it yourself at some point in your life. One way to do so is learning public speaking and debate skills, and one venue is through competing in high school or college speech and debate tournaments. What strengthened my own advocacy skills was competing in speech tournaments, which also provided opportunities to tell the world about NVDA project – I even talked about NVDA and accessibility advocacy at a national speech tournament.

Advocacy will be important, especially as the world moves onto digital ways to accomplish more tasks: virtual reality, artificial intelligence, biometrics, web-based workplace, and telehealth. As high school and college students, you are in a place to inform and persuade people about baking accessibility into products. Right now, there aren’t many blind students competing in high school or college speech and debate tournaments, and I want to sincerely ask you to change the big picture. I’m willing to coach public speaking events (see the message header for contact email); this speech coaching offer from a nationally recognized former speech competitor and now an apprentice coach extends to any blind high school or college student (not only on NVDA Users list, but also in other communities).

Farewell, NVDA community. Thank you for teaching me many lessons over the last nine years, and for giving me opportunities to make a difference in the lives of many as an undergraduate college student and a volunteer code contributor. Love you all, and stay safe and healthy.

Sincerely,

Joseph S. Lee

NVDA Certified Expert, 2019

Volunteer translator, code contributor, and add-ons reviewer, NVDA screen reader project (June 2012 to September 2021)

Founding chair, NVDA Users and developers Conference (NVDACon) (March 2014 to April 2016)

Member, NVDA Council

Former moderator, NVDA Users list (2013 to 2016)

Virus-free. www.avast.com

I received permission from Nimer regarding the following letter:

Hello NVDA community,

First, I hope you are staying safe and healthy.

One day in early 2012, I came across a question posed on an NVDA list (it
could have been this list which was hosted on a different forum platform
then): can NVDA read Korean? That question led to an adventure that span
nine years: translations, writing documentation, founding an international
gathering of a community, releasing countless add-ons, moderating several
NVDA lists and communities, and learning to incorporate lessons I have
learned from the community in the next chapter of my life. In the midst of
contributions, I recently hinted that I plan to retire from the community,
and that golden opportunity has come:

On May 10, 2021, I was offered and accepted admission to master of arts
(graduate school) program in communication studies at California State
University, Los Angeles after graduating with highest honors (summa cum
laude) from the same university.

After observing discussions between graduate students and thinking about
balancing between graduate seminars, coaching speech and debate teams, and
NVDA code contributions, I decided that school should take highest of
highest of priorities. Graduate school is harder than undergraduate
(college) education, especially when adding responsibility of teaching and
coaching students competing in collegiate speech and debate tournaments. As
much as I love programming and contributing to NVDA community, I cannot
forget my immediate responsibilities of being a student and public speaking
coach.

Therefore, I'm retiring from NVDA community contributions, effective
September 1, 2021. This means:

* I do have work to finish which might end up in NVDA as early as
2021.2, and I plan to dedicate this summer to completing outstanding pull
requests.
* I'm handing over most of my add-ons to the NVDA add-ons community
for further maintenance. I do plan to maintain Add-on Updater and Windows
10
App Essentials - Add-on Updater is needed until NVDA comes with add-ons
store, and Windows 10 App Essentials is needed to respond to ever-changing
nature of Windows 10 ecosystem and to keep up with changes in NVDA
development from time to time.
* For NVDACon attendees and organizers, I will not be able to (and I
really cannot) participate in NVDACon for a while.
* For add-ons community, I will be stepping down as your chief admin
and add-on reviewer this summer (details will be sent to add-ons list).



Several thank you's:

* Mick and Jamie: for starting it all fifteen years ago - April 2006
signaled the birth of a movement, which endures today.
* NV Access staff, past and present: so many discussions, teaching me
about life, programming, and group work.
* Mesar Hameed: for teaching me about NVDA translation process and
making sure community add-ons website was ready for the world in 2013.
* Many NvDA users and enthusiasts in South Korea: for giving me an
updated picture on Korean blindness community and help formulating
strategies on translations and outreach nine years ago.
* Many translators: for helping me adjust to the NVDA community when I
was a novice translator in 2012.
* Thousands of users: for teaching me many things - forum discussions,
direct feedback, and countless other venues.
* Nimer and NVDA Users list moderators, past and present: many
collaborations and helpful advice.
* For users of my add-ons: countless feedback, megabytes of debug logs
(all were destroyed after analyses because they contain private
information), and so many other things that made add-ons useful to this
day.
* NVDA supporters outside this forum: for your continued enthusiasm
and support.
* Microsoft engineers and fellow Windows Insiders: many opportunities
to connect and learn from.
* Folks from Mozilla, Google, and other organizations: for meeting new
friends and colleagues.



One advice for future NVDA contributors: listen a lot. You can't write
effective add-ons and NVDA pull requests without listening to what others
have to say. Before writing Python, sit down and have a conversation with
users. Collaboration is the key, especially when talking to people online.



Although I'm retiring as a code contributor, I look forward to helping the
NVDA community in other ways. Until then, graduate school is calling me -
feel free to reach out if you seek advice on accessibility advocacy,
programming in general, public speaking, and what not.



Before I close, I would like to take this time to invite resident high
school and college students to invest in public speaking, or if you want,
compete in speech and debate tournaments. You can't just sit and ask others
to advocate for you - you must do it yourself at some point in your life.
One way to do so is learning public speaking and debate skills, and one
venue is through competing in high school or college speech and debate
tournaments. What strengthened my own advocacy skills was competing in
speech tournaments, which also provided opportunities to tell the world
about NVDA project - I even talked about NVDA and accessibility advocacy at
a national speech tournament.



Advocacy will be important, especially as the world moves onto digital ways
to accomplish more tasks: virtual reality, artificial intelligence,
biometrics, web-based workplace, and telehealth. As high school and college
students, you are in a place to inform and persuade people about baking
accessibility into products. Right now, there aren't many blind students
competing in high school or college speech and debate tournaments, and I
want to sincerely ask you to change the big picture. I'm willing to coach
public speaking events (see the message header for contact email); this
speech coaching offer from a nationally recognized former speech competitor
and now an apprentice coach extends to any blind high school or college
student (not only on NVDA Users list, but also in other communities).



Farewell, NVDA community. Thank you for teaching me many lessons over the
last nine years, and for giving me opportunities to make a difference in
the
lives of many as an undergraduate college student and a volunteer code
contributor. Love you all, and stay safe and healthy.

Sincerely,

Joseph S. Lee

NVDA Certified Expert, 2019

Volunteer translator, code contributor, and add-ons reviewer, NVDA screen
reader project (June 2012 to September 2021)

Founding chair, NVDA Users and developers Conference (NVDACon) (March 2014
to April 2016)

Member, NVDA Council

Former moderator, NVDA Users list (2013 to 2016)

I received permission from Nimer regarding the following letter:

Hello NVDA community,

First, I hope you are staying safe and healthy.

One day in early 2012, I came across a question posed on an NVDA list (it could have been this list which was hosted on a different forum platform then): can NVDA read Korean? That question led to an adventure that span nine years: translations, writing documentation, founding an international gathering of a community, releasing countless add-ons, moderating several NVDA lists and communities, and learning to incorporate lessons I have learned from the community in the next chapter of my life. In the midst of contributions, I recently hinted that I plan to retire from the community, and that golden opportunity has come:

On May 10, 2021, I was offered and accepted admission to master of arts (graduate school) program in communication studies at California State University, Los Angeles after graduating with highest honors (summa cum laude) from the same university.

After observing discussions between graduate students and thinking about balancing between graduate seminars, coaching speech and debate teams, and NVDA code contributions, I decided that school should take highest of highest of priorities. Graduate school is harder than undergraduate (college) education, especially when adding responsibility of teaching and coaching students competing in collegiate speech and debate tournaments. As much as I love programming and contributing to NVDA community, I cannot forget my immediate responsibilities of being a student and public speaking coach.

Therefore, I’m retiring from NVDA community contributions, effective September 1, 2021. This means:

• I do have work to finish which might end up in NVDA as early as 2021.2, and I plan to dedicate this summer to completing outstanding pull requests.
• I’m handing over most of my add-ons to the NVDA add-ons community for further maintenance. I do plan to maintain Add-on Updater and Windows 10 App Essentials – Add-on Updater is needed until NVDA comes with add-ons store, and Windows 10 App Essentials is needed to respond to ever-changing nature of Windows 10 ecosystem and to keep up with changes in NVDA development from time to time.
• For NVDACon attendees and organizers, I will not be able to (and I really cannot) participate in NVDACon for a while.
• For add-ons community, I will be stepping down as your chief admin and add-on reviewer this summer (details will be sent to add-ons list).

 

Several thank you’s:

• Mick and Jamie: for starting it all fifteen years ago – April 2006 signaled the birth of a movement, which endures today.
• NV Access staff, past and present: so many discussions, teaching me about life, programming, and group work.
• Mesar Hameed: for teaching me about NVDA translation process and making sure community add-ons website was ready for the world in 2013.
• Many NvDA users and enthusiasts in South Korea: for giving me an updated picture on Korean blindness community and help formulating strategies on translations and outreach nine years ago.
• Many translators: for helping me adjust to the NVDA community when I was a novice translator in 2012.
• Thousands of users: for teaching me many things – forum discussions, direct feedback, and countless other venues.
• Nimer and NVDA Users list moderators, past and present: many collaborations and helpful advice.
• For users of my add-ons: countless feedback, megabytes of debug logs (all were destroyed after analyses because they contain private information), and so many other things that made add-ons useful to this day.
• NVDA supporters outside this forum: for your continued enthusiasm and support.
• Microsoft engineers and fellow Windows Insiders: many opportunities to connect and learn from.
• Folks from Mozilla, Google, and other organizations: for meeting new friends and colleagues.

 

One advice for future NVDA contributors: listen a lot. You can’t write effective add-ons and NVDA pull requests without listening to what others have to say. Before writing Python, sit down and have a conversation with users. Collaboration is the key, especially when talking to people online.

 

Although I’m retiring as a code contributor, I look forward to helping the NVDA community in other ways. Until then, graduate school is calling me – feel free to reach out if you seek advice on accessibility advocacy, programming in general, public speaking, and what not.

 

Before I close, I would like to take this time to invite resident high school and college students to invest in public speaking, or if you want, compete in speech and debate tournaments. You can’t just sit and ask others to advocate for you – you must do it yourself at some point in your life. One way to do so is learning public speaking and debate skills, and one venue is through competing in high school or college speech and debate tournaments. What strengthened my own advocacy skills was competing in speech tournaments, which also provided opportunities to tell the world about NVDA project – I even talked about NVDA and accessibility advocacy at a national speech tournament.

 

Advocacy will be important, especially as the world moves onto digital ways to accomplish more tasks: virtual reality, artificial intelligence, biometrics, web-based workplace, and telehealth. As high school and college students, you are in a place to inform and persuade people about baking accessibility into products. Right now, there aren’t many blind students competing in high school or college speech and debate tournaments, and I want to sincerely ask you to change the big picture. I’m willing to coach public speaking events (see the message header for contact email); this speech coaching offer from a nationally recognized former speech competitor and now an apprentice coach extends to any blind high school or college student (not only on NVDA Users list, but also in other communities).

 

Farewell, NVDA community. Thank you for teaching me many lessons over the last nine years, and for giving me opportunities to make a difference in the lives of many as an undergraduate college student and a volunteer code contributor. Love you all, and stay safe and healthy.

Sincerely,

Joseph S. Lee

NVDA Certified Expert, 2019

Volunteer translator, code contributor, and add-ons reviewer, NVDA screen reader project (June 2012 to September 2021)

Founding chair, NVDA Users and developers Conference (NVDACon) (March 2014 to April 2016)

Member, NVDA Council

Former moderator, NVDA Users list (2013 to 2016)

Hi Joseph,

Congratulations on your new future. We will miss you a lot. Who will be taking over your work?  Has anyone been selected yet or is that still in the works?

I received permission from Nimer regarding the following letter:

Hello NVDA community,

First, I hope you are staying safe and healthy.

One day in early 2012, I came across a question posed on an NVDA list (it could have been this list which was hosted on a different forum platform then): can NVDA read Korean? That question led to an adventure that span nine years: translations, writing documentation, founding an international gathering of a community, releasing countless add-ons, moderating several NVDA lists and communities, and learning to incorporate lessons I have learned from the community in the next chapter of my life. In the midst of contributions, I recently hinted that I plan to retire from the community, and that golden opportunity has come:

On May 10, 2021, I was offered and accepted admission to master of arts (graduate school) program in communication studies at California State University, Los Angeles after graduating with highest honors (summa cum laude) from the same university.

After observing discussions between graduate students and thinking about balancing between graduate seminars, coaching speech and debate teams, and NVDA code contributions, I decided that school should take highest of highest of priorities. Graduate school is harder than undergraduate (college) education, especially when adding responsibility of teaching and coaching students competing in collegiate speech and debate tournaments. As much as I love programming and contributing to NVDA community, I cannot forget my immediate responsibilities of being a student and public speaking coach.

Therefore, I’m retiring from NVDA community contributions, effective September 1, 2021. This means:

• I do have work to finish which might end up in NVDA as early as 2021.2, and I plan to dedicate this summer to completing outstanding pull requests.
• I’m handing over most of my add-ons to the NVDA add-ons community for further maintenance. I do plan to maintain Add-on Updater and Windows 10 App Essentials – Add-on Updater is needed until NVDA comes with add-ons store, and Windows 10 App Essentials is needed to respond to ever-changing nature of Windows 10 ecosystem and to keep up with changes in NVDA development from time to time.
• For NVDACon attendees and organizers, I will not be able to (and I really cannot) participate in NVDACon for a while.
• For add-ons community, I will be stepping down as your chief admin and add-on reviewer this summer (details will be sent to add-ons list).

 

Several thank you’s:

• Mick and Jamie: for starting it all fifteen years ago – April 2006 signaled the birth of a movement, which endures today.
• NV Access staff, past and present: so many discussions, teaching me about life, programming, and group work.
• Mesar Hameed: for teaching me about NVDA translation process and making sure community add-ons website was ready for the world in 2013.
• Many NvDA users and enthusiasts in South Korea: for giving me an updated picture on Korean blindness community and help formulating strategies on translations and outreach nine years ago.
• Many translators: for helping me adjust to the NVDA community when I was a novice translator in 2012.
• Thousands of users: for teaching me many things – forum discussions, direct feedback, and countless other venues.
• Nimer and NVDA Users list moderators, past and present: many collaborations and helpful advice.
• For users of my add-ons: countless feedback, megabytes of debug logs (all were destroyed after analyses because they contain private information), and so many other things that made add-ons useful to this day.
• NVDA supporters outside this forum: for your continued enthusiasm and support.
• Microsoft engineers and fellow Windows Insiders: many opportunities to connect and learn from.
• Folks from Mozilla, Google, and other organizations: for meeting new friends and colleagues.

 

One advice for future NVDA contributors: listen a lot. You can’t write effective add-ons and NVDA pull requests without listening to what others have to say. Before writing Python, sit down and have a conversation with users. Collaboration is the key, especially when talking to people online.

 

Although I’m retiring as a code contributor, I look forward to helping the NVDA community in other ways. Until then, graduate school is calling me – feel free to reach out if you seek advice on accessibility advocacy, programming in general, public speaking, and what not.

 

Before I close, I would like to take this time to invite resident high school and college students to invest in public speaking, or if you want, compete in speech and debate tournaments. You can’t just sit and ask others to advocate for you – you must do it yourself at some point in your life. One way to do so is learning public speaking and debate skills, and one venue is through competing in high school or college speech and debate tournaments. What strengthened my own advocacy skills was competing in speech tournaments, which also provided opportunities to tell the world about NVDA project – I even talked about NVDA and accessibility advocacy at a national speech tournament.

 

Advocacy will be important, especially as the world moves onto digital ways to accomplish more tasks: virtual reality, artificial intelligence, biometrics, web-based workplace, and telehealth. As high school and college students, you are in a place to inform and persuade people about baking accessibility into products. Right now, there aren’t many blind students competing in high school or college speech and debate tournaments, and I want to sincerely ask you to change the big picture. I’m willing to coach public speaking events (see the message header for contact email); this speech coaching offer from a nationally recognized former speech competitor and now an apprentice coach extends to any blind high school or college student (not only on NVDA Users list, but also in other communities).

 

Farewell, NVDA community. Thank you for teaching me many lessons over the last nine years, and for giving me opportunities to make a difference in the lives of many as an undergraduate college student and a volunteer code contributor. Love you all, and stay safe and healthy.

Sincerely,

Joseph S. Lee

NVDA Certified Expert, 2019

Volunteer translator, code contributor, and add-ons reviewer, NVDA screen reader project (June 2012 to September 2021)

Founding chair, NVDA Users and developers Conference (NVDACon) (March 2014 to April 2016)

Member, NVDA Council

Former moderator, NVDA Users list (2013 to 2016)

-- 

They Ask Me If I'm Happy; I say Yes.

They ask: "How Happy are You?"

I Say: "I'm as happy as a stow away chimpanzee on a banana boat!"

Well lets hope the community can continue to keep your standard you have shown us how to keep.

However its good that you are going places.

Over this last year or so due to covid and its ongoing goings on, a lot of my research projects at university especially one of my biggest ones have stopped.

There were a flurry of online jobs last year as everything got started but not so much.

Even my main job may or may not go ahead due to part of it coming from india.

And while technically that part is back to normal, there may not be anything left to do that needs me to do anything.

So yeah, congrats from all of us I think anyway.

Even though we have had our disagreements and such I have the highest respect for you and other mods on here.

Of course since my last drama, I don't tend to talk much on here even on win10 I respond privately to people if I need to otherwise I will just lerk here and watch.

I am always watching though.

I received permission from Nimer regarding the following letter:

Hello NVDA community,

First, I hope you are staying safe and healthy.

One day in early 2012, I came across a question posed on an NVDA list (it could have been this list which was hosted on a different forum platform then): can NVDA read Korean? That question led to an adventure that span nine years: translations, writing documentation, founding an international gathering of a community, releasing countless add-ons, moderating several NVDA lists and communities, and learning to incorporate lessons I have learned from the community in the next chapter of my life. In the midst of contributions, I recently hinted that I plan to retire from the community, and that golden opportunity has come:

On May 10, 2021, I was offered and accepted admission to master of arts (graduate school) program in communication studies at California State University, Los Angeles after graduating with highest honors (summa cum laude) from the same university.

After observing discussions between graduate students and thinking about balancing between graduate seminars, coaching speech and debate teams, and NVDA code contributions, I decided that school should take highest of highest of priorities. Graduate school is harder than undergraduate (college) education, especially when adding responsibility of teaching and coaching students competing in collegiate speech and debate tournaments. As much as I love programming and contributing to NVDA community, I cannot forget my immediate responsibilities of being a student and public speaking coach.

Therefore, I’m retiring from NVDA community contributions, effective September 1, 2021. This means:

• I do have work to finish which might end up in NVDA as early as 2021.2, and I plan to dedicate this summer to completing outstanding pull requests.
• I’m handing over most of my add-ons to the NVDA add-ons community for further maintenance. I do plan to maintain Add-on Updater and Windows 10 App Essentials – Add-on Updater is needed until NVDA comes with add-ons store, and Windows 10 App Essentials is needed to respond to ever-changing nature of Windows 10 ecosystem and to keep up with changes in NVDA development from time to time.
• For NVDACon attendees and organizers, I will not be able to (and I really cannot) participate in NVDACon for a while.
• For add-ons community, I will be stepping down as your chief admin and add-on reviewer this summer (details will be sent to add-ons list).

 

Several thank you’s:

• Mick and Jamie: for starting it all fifteen years ago – April 2006 signaled the birth of a movement, which endures today.
• NV Access staff, past and present: so many discussions, teaching me about life, programming, and group work.
• Mesar Hameed: for teaching me about NVDA translation process and making sure community add-ons website was ready for the world in 2013.
• Many NvDA users and enthusiasts in South Korea: for giving me an updated picture on Korean blindness community and help formulating strategies on translations and outreach nine years ago.
• Many translators: for helping me adjust to the NVDA community when I was a novice translator in 2012.
• Thousands of users: for teaching me many things – forum discussions, direct feedback, and countless other venues.
• Nimer and NVDA Users list moderators, past and present: many collaborations and helpful advice.
• For users of my add-ons: countless feedback, megabytes of debug logs (all were destroyed after analyses because they contain private information), and so many other things that made add-ons useful to this day.
• NVDA supporters outside this forum: for your continued enthusiasm and support.
• Microsoft engineers and fellow Windows Insiders: many opportunities to connect and learn from.
• Folks from Mozilla, Google, and other organizations: for meeting new friends and colleagues.

 

One advice for future NVDA contributors: listen a lot. You can’t write effective add-ons and NVDA pull requests without listening to what others have to say. Before writing Python, sit down and have a conversation with users. Collaboration is the key, especially when talking to people online.

 

Although I’m retiring as a code contributor, I look forward to helping the NVDA community in other ways. Until then, graduate school is calling me – feel free to reach out if you seek advice on accessibility advocacy, programming in general, public speaking, and what not.

 

Before I close, I would like to take this time to invite resident high school and college students to invest in public speaking, or if you want, compete in speech and debate tournaments. You can’t just sit and ask others to advocate for you – you must do it yourself at some point in your life. One way to do so is learning public speaking and debate skills, and one venue is through competing in high school or college speech and debate tournaments. What strengthened my own advocacy skills was competing in speech tournaments, which also provided opportunities to tell the world about NVDA project – I even talked about NVDA and accessibility advocacy at a national speech tournament.

 

Advocacy will be important, especially as the world moves onto digital ways to accomplish more tasks: virtual reality, artificial intelligence, biometrics, web-based workplace, and telehealth. As high school and college students, you are in a place to inform and persuade people about baking accessibility into products. Right now, there aren’t many blind students competing in high school or college speech and debate tournaments, and I want to sincerely ask you to change the big picture. I’m willing to coach public speaking events (see the message header for contact email); this speech coaching offer from a nationally recognized former speech competitor and now an apprentice coach extends to any blind high school or college student (not only on NVDA Users list, but also in other communities).

 

Farewell, NVDA community. Thank you for teaching me many lessons over the last nine years, and for giving me opportunities to make a difference in the lives of many as an undergraduate college student and a volunteer code contributor. Love you all, and stay safe and healthy.

Sincerely,

Joseph S. Lee

NVDA Certified Expert, 2019

Volunteer translator, code contributor, and add-ons reviewer, NVDA screen reader project (June 2012 to September 2021)

Founding chair, NVDA Users and developers Conference (NVDACon) (March 2014 to April 2016)

Member, NVDA Council

Former moderator, NVDA Users list (2013 to 2016)

----- Original Message -----

From: Joseph Lee

To: nvda@nvda.groups.io

Sent: Monday, May 10, 2021 3:48 AM

Subject: [nvda] Farewell, NVDA community: retiring from NVDA contributions, effective September 1, 2021

I received permission from Nimer regarding the following letter:

Hello NVDA community,

First, I hope you are staying safe and healthy.

One day in early 2012, I came across a question posed on an NVDA list (it could have been this list which was hosted on a different forum platform then): can NVDA read Korean? That question led to an adventure that span nine years: translations, writing documentation, founding an international gathering of a community, releasing countless add-ons, moderating several NVDA lists and communities, and learning to incorporate lessons I have learned from the community in the next chapter of my life. In the midst of contributions, I recently hinted that I plan to retire from the community, and that golden opportunity has come:

On May 10, 2021, I was offered and accepted admission to master of arts (graduate school) program in communication studies at California State University, Los Angeles after graduating with highest honors (summa cum laude) from the same university.

After observing discussions between graduate students and thinking about balancing between graduate seminars, coaching speech and debate teams, and NVDA code contributions, I decided that school should take highest of highest of priorities. Graduate school is harder than undergraduate (college) education, especially when adding responsibility of teaching and coaching students competing in collegiate speech and debate tournaments. As much as I love programming and contributing to NVDA community, I cannot forget my immediate responsibilities of being a student and public speaking coach.

Therefore, I’m retiring from NVDA community contributions, effective September 1, 2021. This means:

• I do have work to finish which might end up in NVDA as early as 2021.2, and I plan to dedicate this summer to completing outstanding pull requests.
• I’m handing over most of my add-ons to the NVDA add-ons community for further maintenance. I do plan to maintain Add-on Updater and Windows 10 App Essentials – Add-on Updater is needed until NVDA comes with add-ons store, and Windows 10 App Essentials is needed to respond to ever-changing nature of Windows 10 ecosystem and to keep up with changes in NVDA development from time to time.
• For NVDACon attendees and organizers, I will not be able to (and I really cannot) participate in NVDACon for a while.
• For add-ons community, I will be stepping down as your chief admin and add-on reviewer this summer (details will be sent to add-ons list).

 

Several thank you’s:

• Mick and Jamie: for starting it all fifteen years ago – April 2006 signaled the birth of a movement, which endures today.
• NV Access staff, past and present: so many discussions, teaching me about life, programming, and group work.
• Mesar Hameed: for teaching me about NVDA translation process and making sure community add-ons website was ready for the world in 2013.
• Many NvDA users and enthusiasts in South Korea: for giving me an updated picture on Korean blindness community and help formulating strategies on translations and outreach nine years ago.
• Many translators: for helping me adjust to the NVDA community when I was a novice translator in 2012.
• Thousands of users: for teaching me many things – forum discussions, direct feedback, and countless other venues.
• Nimer and NVDA Users list moderators, past and present: many collaborations and helpful advice.
• For users of my add-ons: countless feedback, megabytes of debug logs (all were destroyed after analyses because they contain private information), and so many other things that made add-ons useful to this day.
• NVDA supporters outside this forum: for your continued enthusiasm and support.
• Microsoft engineers and fellow Windows Insiders: many opportunities to connect and learn from.
• Folks from Mozilla, Google, and other organizations: for meeting new friends and colleagues.

 

One advice for future NVDA contributors: listen a lot. You can’t write effective add-ons and NVDA pull requests without listening to what others have to say. Before writing Python, sit down and have a conversation with users. Collaboration is the key, especially when talking to people online.

 

Although I’m retiring as a code contributor, I look forward to helping the NVDA community in other ways. Until then, graduate school is calling me – feel free to reach out if you seek advice on accessibility advocacy, programming in general, public speaking, and what not.

 

Before I close, I would like to take this time to invite resident high school and college students to invest in public speaking, or if you want, compete in speech and debate tournaments. You can’t just sit and ask others to advocate for you – you must do it yourself at some point in your life. One way to do so is learning public speaking and debate skills, and one venue is through competing in high school or college speech and debate tournaments. What strengthened my own advocacy skills was competing in speech tournaments, which also provided opportunities to tell the world about NVDA project – I even talked about NVDA and accessibility advocacy at a national speech tournament.

 

Advocacy will be important, especially as the world moves onto digital ways to accomplish more tasks: virtual reality, artificial intelligence, biometrics, web-based workplace, and telehealth. As high school and college students, you are in a place to inform and persuade people about baking accessibility into products. Right now, there aren’t many blind students competing in high school or college speech and debate tournaments, and I want to sincerely ask you to change the big picture. I’m willing to coach public speaking events (see the message header for contact email); this speech coaching offer from a nationally recognized former speech competitor and now an apprentice coach extends to any blind high school or college student (not only on NVDA Users list, but also in other communities).

 

Farewell, NVDA community. Thank you for teaching me many lessons over the last nine years, and for giving me opportunities to make a difference in the lives of many as an undergraduate college student and a volunteer code contributor. Love you all, and stay safe and healthy.

Sincerely,

Joseph S. Lee

NVDA Certified Expert, 2019

Volunteer translator, code contributor, and add-ons reviewer, NVDA screen reader project (June 2012 to September 2021)

Founding chair, NVDA Users and developers Conference (NVDACon) (March 2014 to April 2016)

Member, NVDA Council

Former moderator, NVDA Users list (2013 to 2016)

Hi Joseph,

I wish you all the best in all your future endeavors.

I received permission from Nimer regarding the following letter:

Hello NVDA community,

First, I hope you are staying safe and healthy.

One day in early 2012, I came across a question posed on an NVDA list (it could have been this list which was hosted on a different forum platform then): can NVDA read Korean? That question led to an adventure that span nine years: translations, writing documentation, founding an international gathering of a community, releasing countless add-ons, moderating several NVDA lists and communities, and learning to incorporate lessons I have learned from the community in the next chapter of my life. In the midst of contributions, I recently hinted that I plan to retire from the community, and that golden opportunity has come:

On May 10, 2021, I was offered and accepted admission to master of arts (graduate school) program in communication studies at California State University, Los Angeles after graduating with highest honors (summa cum laude) from the same university.

After observing discussions between graduate students and thinking about balancing between graduate seminars, coaching speech and debate teams, and NVDA code contributions, I decided that school should take highest of highest of priorities. Graduate school is harder than undergraduate (college) education, especially when adding responsibility of teaching and coaching students competing in collegiate speech and debate tournaments. As much as I love programming and contributing to NVDA community, I cannot forget my immediate responsibilities of being a student and public speaking coach.

Therefore, I’m retiring from NVDA community contributions, effective September 1, 2021. This means:

• I do have work to finish which might end up in NVDA as early as 2021.2, and I plan to dedicate this summer to completing outstanding pull requests.
• I’m handing over most of my add-ons to the NVDA add-ons community for further maintenance. I do plan to maintain Add-on Updater and Windows 10 App Essentials – Add-on Updater is needed until NVDA comes with add-ons store, and Windows 10 App Essentials is needed to respond to ever-changing nature of Windows 10 ecosystem and to keep up with changes in NVDA development from time to time.
• For NVDACon attendees and organizers, I will not be able to (and I really cannot) participate in NVDACon for a while.
• For add-ons community, I will be stepping down as your chief admin and add-on reviewer this summer (details will be sent to add-ons list).

Several thank you’s:

• Mick and Jamie: for starting it all fifteen years ago – April 2006 signaled the birth of a movement, which endures today.
• NV Access staff, past and present: so many discussions, teaching me about life, programming, and group work.
• Mesar Hameed: for teaching me about NVDA translation process and making sure community add-ons website was ready for the world in 2013.
• Many NvDA users and enthusiasts in South Korea: for giving me an updated picture on Korean blindness community and help formulating strategies on translations and outreach nine years ago.
• Many translators: for helping me adjust to the NVDA community when I was a novice translator in 2012.
• Thousands of users: for teaching me many things – forum discussions, direct feedback, and countless other venues.
• Nimer and NVDA Users list moderators, past and present: many collaborations and helpful advice.
• For users of my add-ons: countless feedback, megabytes of debug logs (all were destroyed after analyses because they contain private information), and so many other things that made add-ons useful to this day.
• NVDA supporters outside this forum: for your continued enthusiasm and support.
• Microsoft engineers and fellow Windows Insiders: many opportunities to connect and learn from.
• Folks from Mozilla, Google, and other organizations: for meeting new friends and colleagues.

One advice for future NVDA contributors: listen a lot. You can’t write effective add-ons and NVDA pull requests without listening to what others have to say. Before writing Python, sit down and have a conversation with users. Collaboration is the key, especially when talking to people online.

Although I’m retiring as a code contributor, I look forward to helping the NVDA community in other ways. Until then, graduate school is calling me – feel free to reach out if you seek advice on accessibility advocacy, programming in general, public speaking, and what not.

Before I close, I would like to take this time to invite resident high school and college students to invest in public speaking, or if you want, compete in speech and debate tournaments. You can’t just sit and ask others to advocate for you – you must do it yourself at some point in your life. One way to do so is learning public speaking and debate skills, and one venue is through competing in high school or college speech and debate tournaments. What strengthened my own advocacy skills was competing in speech tournaments, which also provided opportunities to tell the world about NVDA project – I even talked about NVDA and accessibility advocacy at a national speech tournament.

Advocacy will be important, especially as the world moves onto digital ways to accomplish more tasks: virtual reality, artificial intelligence, biometrics, web-based workplace, and telehealth. As high school and college students, you are in a place to inform and persuade people about baking accessibility into products. Right now, there aren’t many blind students competing in high school or college speech and debate tournaments, and I want to sincerely ask you to change the big picture. I’m willing to coach public speaking events (see the message header for contact email); this speech coaching offer from a nationally recognized former speech competitor and now an apprentice coach extends to any blind high school or college student (not only on NVDA Users list, but also in other communities).

Farewell, NVDA community. Thank you for teaching me many lessons over the last nine years, and for giving me opportunities to make a difference in the lives of many as an undergraduate college student and a volunteer code contributor. Love you all, and stay safe and healthy.

Sincerely,

Joseph S. Lee

NVDA Certified Expert, 2019

Volunteer translator, code contributor, and add-ons reviewer, NVDA screen reader project (June 2012 to September 2021)

Founding chair, NVDA Users and developers Conference (NVDACon) (March 2014 to April 2016)

Member, NVDA Council

Former moderator, NVDA Users list (2013 to 2016)

Hello,
Thanks for all your contributions making NVDA better; It goes without
saying - you did a fantastic job there! Not only that, your efforts in
Windows 10 development and tutoring are also unforgetable! Thank you
for all advices, guidelines and tutorials given to the blind community
around the world! I wish you good luck anytime and anywhere in your
future! :-)
Best regards,
Paulius