Overview

Accelerating accessibility

The Howe Innovation Center is designed to unlock the power of the entrepreneurial and disability communities to create purpose-built solutions for a more accessible world.

Companies in the disability-tech space face challenges: access to customers for primary market research and user testing, finding the best investors, and locating places to deploy and test products out in the wild. Perkins can connect real users to real entrepreneurs and technologists, and together, we can solve real accessibility problems.

A boy reads braille on a T3 Talking tablet

Our role

Amplify the lived experience

The practical challenges that our community must navigate daily are not widely understood. We will shine a spotlight on community-sourced top challenges ripe for innovative solutions.

Catalyze innovation

Innovation for people with disabilities, specifically those who are blind or visually impaired, has lagged the broader frontier of new product and service innovation. Our programs will remove friction points for startups, investors, and large corporates looking to move the needle on accessibility .

Connect and convene

The Howe Innovation Center will facilitate partnerships between our key ecosystem players: people with disabilities, startups, investors, research labs, academia, and big companies too. We are focused on helping entrepreneurs ground innovations in true problems while simultaneously removing friction points to get new products and services to market.

A girl with a white cane in a train station holding a small magnifier device to her eye

An ecosystem of accessibility innovation

Now is the time to meet the demand for disability innovation and accessibility.

Entrepreneurs

Together we can solve the most stubborn accessibility problems, in healthcare, assistive technology, and beyond.

People with disabilities

Together we can highlight barriers, and design solutions for true accessibility.

Investors

There is a huge and often overlooked total addressable market for disability innovation and accessibility.

Our team

Our team is composed of entrepreneurs, investors, and community builders who are all actively shaping the disability-tech market.

  • Headshot of Sandy K. Lacey

    Sandy K. Lacey

    Executive Director, Howe Innovation Center
    Meet Sandy
  • Headshot of Dylan Black

    Dylan Black

    Research and Data Analyst, Innovation Center
    Meet Dylan

Advisory group

The Howe Innovation Center Advisory Group is leveraging deep expertise across innovation, community building, and the lived experience to help us develop informed programming that will catalyze the disability tech market.

  • Headshot of William Budding

    William Budding

    Trustee, Talent Acquisition Specialist at Akeneo
    Meet William
  • Claire Chang

    Founder & General Partner of igniteXL Ventures
  • Vicky Wu Davis

    Investor and Ecosystem Builder, YouthCITIES
  • Manny Duran

    Startup Banking at Silicon Valley Bank
  • Carina Ho

    Musician, Accessibility Expert at AirBnB
  • Keith Kirkland

    Chief Haptics Officer at WearWorks
  • Charles LeClerq

    CEO at ARxVision
  • Idan Meir

    CEO at Right Hear
  • Charlotte Michailidis

    Founder & CEO, Parenthood Ventures
  • Brittany Palmer

    CEO at Beeyonder
  • Paul Ruvolo

    Educator & Engineer, Olin College of Engineering
  • Devon Sherman

    Ecosystem Builder

Join the Howe Innovation Center community

We are in the early stages of identifying entrepreneurs, angel investors, venture capitalists, accelerators and incubators, universities, and larger companies that are dedicated to creating an accessible and inclusive world for people with disabilities.

Sign up today to be a part of our growing community and have the opportunity to inform future programming. Get early access to our first market research report on innovation for the visually impaired.










A woman signs in American Sign Language.

Perkins Access

Meet the digital accessibility experts

Perkins School for the Blind is on a mission to improve the lives of people with visual impairment and other disabilities through education and innovation. We’re part of that mission alongside other initiatives, including Perkins Access, the expert team of digital accessibility consultants.

Perkins Access partners with organizations to provide strategic guidance for improving organization-wide accessibility, which includes ensuring websites, mobile apps, consumer products and other digital experiences, work for everyone, regardless of age, ability or means of access.

Get in touch

We can’t wait to meet you.

Let’s get started.

A young paraplegic woman going across a bridge using her wheel chair on a beautiful fall day

Join our community.

Help us accelerate accessibility for people with disabilities.