August 30, 2014 It was mid-morning on April 14, 2014, when I received an iMessage from my former manager at AMAC (Georgia Institute of Technology) asking if I would be able to help her with GPS apps on iPhone. Tamara Rorie knew I use to work with the pioneers and trail blazers' in accessible GPS, Sendero Group, and we have always picked each other's brains. I gave Tamara a call ASAP, where in the conversation she told me about her colleague Judy Dixon who wrote a book about taking pictures with the iPhone, and about a particular section within Judy's book that talked about a template she created that allowed her to use banking apps to deposit checks using the iPhone camera. The details of the book are as follows: "Get the Picture! Viewing the World with the iPhone Camera (GETPIC) Judith M. Dixon" Almost exactly two years earlier, 2012...It was while I was in Atlanta, GA, working under Tamara at AMAC, where I told her about Chase Quick Deposit allowing one to deposit a check without having to go to the bank or ATM. Both Tamara and I are blind, so we had to both depend on sighted assistance whenever using the iPhone Chase Quick Deposit feature, as it required aligning the check within the blue frame, nearly perfect stability, and to focus on a clear image of the check. This was in the Spring of 2012... Fast-forward to the afternoon of 4/14/14, Janice Messier and I connected via Lyft. The first two destinations for the afternoon were Chase Bank and Michaels Arts & Crafts. Neither one of us knew that we would end up bonding over a stabilization stand/box, experience love & lost in our personal/professional lives, become best friends, lovers, soul mates, and are now inseparable. We built our relationship on the principles of trust, belief, and commitment to each other for life until 3005. These exact same tenant's is how we approach rescuing lives, saving people, changing the world, and improving the quality of lives for people with disabilities. Janice's career has been as a private hospice care nurse in the healthcare industry for clients who are elderly and who have cognitive disabilities/learning challenges. Between the resources I had available at JPMC corporate and retail branch I was having difficulty finding someone who was able to help me make the check holder found in "Get the Picture! Viewing the World with the iPhone Camera". Fortunately and luckily, while we were at Michaels, Janice asked me about the project I was trying to create, where I told her about the idea, and that I was unable to do it by myself due to being visually impaired. She quickly piped up very enthusiastically, "I'm artsey fartsey", so let me give it a try. I showed her the excerpt from Judy's book, we dashed around in the Arts & Crafts store, got the required supplies, and went back to my former home branch (they very graciously allowed us to use the back-office that was available) to start making this check holder/template. We are both inclusive in our design and perfectionist in our presentation. I wanted to make sure that it worked with all the different sizes of checks, and she wanted to build the walls and roof...I only wanted the floor/base, but she was focused on completing the job, so I got more than just the grounding platform and received a stabilization stand that we have called the Mobile Scanning Solution (MSS). The way the top was designed was around the principles of universal access, where I wanted to ensure that it worked with iPad Mini/iPhone and Janice wanted to ensure that it worked with Samsung Galaxy Note/S. We were ruthless in our testing and experiments, which included materials, size dimensions, and being very open to all suggestions our friends/colleagues provided us. The final product that we ended up making available around the world to people who are blind/visually impaired has: a base that grounds paper documents (e.g. 8.5" x 11", mail, hand-outs/flyers, brochures, checks, etc.); is made out of Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene (ABS) Plastic; and is a stabilization stand for all mobile devices that are 7.9" or smaller. The range of places that the Mobile Scanning Solution resides is quite diverse (blindness agencies, community colleges/universities, K-12/primary education, assistive technology labs, independent blind professionals, blind vets, Department of Veterans Affairs, Department of Rehabilitation, etc.). All of the blind/visually impaired people who have the Mobile Scanning Solution (MSS) have shared with the Pro Money Image team: Wow! This has changed my life 100% at home; The MSS is so much easier than using my desktop OCR scanning solution at work; The Mobile Scanning Solution is much more simple than the overhead camera with my laptop OCR solution for college; This is very cool and I cannot believe it's so affordable!; It's so simple, easy, and accessible reading my mail and depositing my checks now!; I don't ever want to go back to the historic past without my MSS...
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