Former NFL Player Steve Gleason Who Starred In The Surface Pro Commercial Joins Microsoft Hackathon Event

Microsoft’s last year Super bowl commercial celebrated what technology can do, as told by Steve Gleason, a former pro football player who is living with ALS. He uses a Surface Pro running Tobii’s eye gazer technology to speak, and do many other kind of activities. He is visiting Microsoft’s campus this week for attending the hackathon. A team is working on a solution that would allow people like Gleason to turn their Surface On/Off using the eye gaze.

As powerful as the Surface Pro 3 is, Gleason knows it can be even more accessible. Since the Super Bowl, he has sent Microsoft a list of proposed improvements, including better predictive typing software and larger fonts. His ideas reflect the spirit of this week’s company-wide hackathon, when our employees team up to challenge, adapt and improve our products and services with more than 2,000 suggested hacks.

Microsoft listened and invited Gleason to the hackathon to explore his ideas in work hosted by the Microsoft Ability Community. Gleason will work with a diverse team of Microsoft engineers and accessibility experts to fix one of his biggest challenges, turning his Surface on and off with his eyes. Gleason will be at the heart of the Ability Hackathon, meeting with members of the Surface team, as well as internal and external members of the disability community considering dozens of proposed hacks that could help people with disabilities.

Read more on it here.