Mr. Jim Goes to Washington (Again)
As part of the large national award we received from the Department of Education, we are spending a lot more time in Washington. I talk to lots of folks: congressional staff, members of Congress, folks at the Department of Education, the publishers, disability activists and so on. I hope to provide a little flavor of what this is like, since as an engineer and not-very-political-guy, this is new to me. But, like many social entrepreneurs, I'm beginning to figure out that being absent from the halls of policy is not serving our mission. I had the chance to meet with Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa last month, and tell him about Bookshare.org for ten minutes. I was surprised to find he was aware of the controversy around the big Bookshare.org award and asked sharp questions about how we were dealing with challenges around delivering on this. He is a huge figure in disability policy, and it was an honor to get to talk to him about what we're doing. The biggest issue I'm still ...