Joshua A. Miele, a Berkeley resident for three decades, was named one of this year's MacArthur fellows on Tuesday.
Miele was recognized for his innovations in technology to help the blind navigate the digital and physical world.
"One of my stepfather's colleagues was in the first group of fellows and I’ve known about this fellowship from the time I was 11 years old," he said in an interview with Berkeleyside. "I've always held it in my mind as being the American Nobel, and thought that in my career, it would be a real mark of having achieved."
What's commonly called the "Genius Awards," grants winners $625,000 over five years, with no strings attached as to how it is used.
According to the MacArthur website, it goes to "individuals who show exceptional creativity in their work and the prospect for still more in the future. The fellowship is designed to provide recipients with the flexibility to pursue their own artistic, intellectual, and professional activities in the absence of specific obligations or reporting requirements."
Among the projects that the MacArthur Foundation cited for Miele's selection were his inventions: TMAP, or Tactile Map Automated Production, a web tool for producing street maps for the blind, making it possible for blind people to get free, immediate tactile street maps of anyplace in the country; YouDescribe, which allows sighted volunteers to add audio description to any YouTube video for free; and a glove that helped users type braille on any solid surface without the need for a keyboard or input device, in the days before dictation was the norm for smartphones.
Miele left academia a few years ago to work for Amazon as an accessibility researcher. He helps make Amazon’s devices and website more user-friendly for the visually disabled.
Miele credits the city of Berkeley itself for playing a role in his success.
"I am incredibly proud to be part of a long legacy of blind leaders who come from and call Berkeley their home," Miele said. "Berkeley is the city of the blind."
He's considering starting a nonprofit with the funding or updating some of his older inventions like YouDescribe. He also created an app called overTHERE, a finding tool for the blind, which needs significant updating too.
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