Browsealoud wins Innovation Award

Dateline: 21 July 2004

Browsealoud wins Innovation Award at the New Statesman New Media Awards 2004, in association with Atos Origin London 22nd July

The Rt Hon Peter Hain MP presented Browsealoud with the award for Innovation at the New Media Awards 2004. The awards were held at an exclusive ceremony in London and were hosted by the New Statesman, in association with Atos Origin, a major provider of IT and business services to the UK Government.

The judges thought that the Browsealoud application which enables website users to hear text displayed on the internet and designed for those with limited English proficiency and mild vision impairment should be praised for its simplicity.

With Browsealoud the website owner pays an annual charge and the end user accesses the technology for free. The TextHelp product allows the users to get the technology for free, and the information publishers share the cost of the development and hosting. This is a socially responsible method of providing assistive technology, which is very exciting.

Since 1998, The New Media awards have promoted projects that embrace new technology, fresh thinking and creative management in the UK. The key themes of this year’s awards were "innovation and efficiency".

“We hear a great deal about how the internet and such like will improve our lives,” says Peter Wilby, editor of the New Statesman. “Through its use of new media technology, Browsealoud is making a valuable and enriching contribution to society.”

Commenting on the award Managing Director of TextHelp the company behind the Browsealoud software, Mark McCusker said:

“We are delighted to receive this award as recognition of our innovative work in the specialised field of speech enabled software and the confidence in our product among our growing customer base across the UK, and North America.

TextHelp is established as one of the worlds leading suppliers of talking text through its Browsealoud product.

Browesaloud software is used by companies and organisations across Europe and the US in the fields of education, government, publishing, health and transport.

The company has been the recipient of numerous industry awards and ranked 131in the European Fast 500 technology awards. They are a Microsoft Gold Partner.

Browsealoud is aimed at "digital inclusion". It uses accessibility techniques to access and speak text from web sites. The office of the E Envoy commissioned research last year which found that about 17% of the population's functional literacy level was not sufficient to allow them to interact with Govt online. This is a huge slice of the population, and speech enabling electronic text is a proven means of improving comprehension.

Additionally, literacy levels are lower in populations with poorer socio-economic backgrounds.

TextHelp is a locally owned Northern Ireland Company