AT Champions

What It Is

AT Champions is a six-month-long program designed to empower youth and build connections with young disabled activists in the Mid-Atlantic region. AT Champions hires and supports disabled students as interns to develop content related to assistive technology, including social media videos and flyers.

2024-2025 Cohort

Bridges’ AT Champions

The Maryland Bridges Technical Assistance Center is proud to support Kayla and Marie as our two AT Champions for the 2024-2025 cohort. Bridges AT Champions will also work with AT Champions from other states in the mid-Atlantic region.

Monthly projects

Each month, our AT Champions participate in a workshop with AT Champions and state project leads in the mid-Atlantic region. AT Champions Program Lead Alanna Raffel and her team at TechOWL created the curriculum and lead each monthly workshop.

Check out the AT Champions playlist on our Bridges Helpdesk and Technical Center YouTube channel anytime!

October: Introduction and why I want to be an AT Champion

Bridges’ AT Champions
Kayla and her Braille Note Touch+

Check out Kayla’s YouTube video as she shares with us her favorite piece of assistive technology Braille Note Touch+.

Marie’s favorite braille writer

Check out Marie’s YouTube video as she shows us one of her favorite pieces of assistive technology: her braille writer.

More projects each month, through March 2025

Bridges’ AT Champions Project Leads

Carlton Anne Cook Walker, Project Director of the Bridges Technical Assistance Center

Chris Nusbaum, Project Coordinator of the Bridges Technical Assistance Center

More About the AT Champions Program

Purpose

There is significant disengagement of members of the disability community due to systemic social barriers. The purpose of the AT Champions program is to develop and implement an outreach strategy that will improve authentic engagement with assistive technology by disabled people in Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia.

Funding

This project was funded by the Mid-Atlantic ADA Center, operated by TransCen, Inc., which provides information, guidance, and training on the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) within the Mid-Atlantic region (DC, DE, MD, PA, VA, and WV). The Mid-Atlantic ADA Center is funded under a grant from the National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research (NIDILRR, grant #90DPAD0008). NIDILRR is a Center within the Administration for Community Living (ACL) in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The information, guidance, and/or materials provided are intended solely as informal guidance and do not necessarily represent the policy of NIDILRR, ACL, or HHS, and you should not assume endorsement by the federal government.