SignCasts
Award
$15,000
Winner
Brein McNamara
Organization
Signcasts - Sign Language Community Journalism Initiative
Location
Summary
Brein McNamara will blog about ways to empower deaf people to become citizen
journalists. He will write about the digital information needs of deaf people, including his own proposal to integrate a web-based video capture system with the videophones popular among the hearing-impaired. The blog also will highlight the gaps not being filled by current technology.
Winner Bio
Brein McNamara is the technology coordinator at the Minnesota North Star Academy, a bilingual charter school for the deaf in the Twin Cities. He received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Minnesota in communication studies
with an emphasis in new media. Deaf himself, McNamara is heavily involved in the deaf community and is driven to provide this minority group with equitable
access to the tools of citizen journalism in American Sign Language.