RAS Member in the News: Ayanna Howard

Congratulations to Ayanna Howard and her Team at Zyrobotics, selected as the first grantee of MicroSoft's AI for Accessibility.  

In May 2018, Microsoft announced AI for Accessibility - a $25 million program that is aimed toward providing AI tools to developers in order to accelerate the creation of accessible solutions to benefit people with disabilities. The initiative is to be spanned over a period of five years.

Atlanta-based Zyrobotics has been cited by Microsoft as the first grantee of AI for Accessibility. The company develops science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) games and learning tools aimed towards education of young children, and it will be using Microsoft's help under the aforementioned program to develop AI solutions primarily centered around accessibility.

Zyrobotics' ambitions of creating technologies that would make reading easier for all students - regardless of whether they may or may not be facing learning disabilities.

Ayanna Howard is currently serving as Editor in Chief of the RAS ICRA Conference Editorial Board, is Professor and Chair of the School of Interactive Computing at Georgia Tech, and Founder & CTO at Zyrobotics.