July 7, 2025 • 10 mins
Sam speaks to Vision Australia volunteer partnership coordinator Jordan Ashby about this month's Winter Webinar Series taking place through Telelink every Monday this July.
To find out about this month's speakers and to register, head to this link on the Vision Australia website.
You can also give Telelink a call on 1800 458 555 or email them at Telelinkinfo@visionaustralia.org.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
S1 (00:13):
This month, Telelink is proud to present a series of
four webinars featuring four different individuals achieving great things within
the blind and low vision community. They're taking place every
Monday this July, and to find out a bit more
about each webinar, it's my great pleasure to welcome Volunteer
(00:36):
Partnerships Coordinator from Vision Australia, Jordan Ashby, to tell us
all about them. Jordan, welcome back to Talking Vision. Thank
you very much for your time.
S2 (00:46):
Thank you for having me again, Sam.
S1 (00:48):
Now we're here today to talk about the winter webinar
series happening through Telelink. So tell us a bit about
this year's series for July.
S2 (00:58):
Yeah. So look, this year's series, I've actually taken a
bit of a page out of the Vision Australia playbook,
and I've gone for speakers that can talk on the
four pillars that we have advertised in the past that
are hugely beneficial for our organisation's values. So those are education, employment,
social inclusion and independence. Um, so all of the speakers
are kind of talking on one of those particular pillars. Uh, and, uh, yeah,
(01:23):
that's been the focus of this particular webinar series.
S1 (01:26):
Tell us a bit about the four speakers that we've
got lined up this year. So I'm quite exciting. Different personalities,
especially one of them, has got quite a lot to offer.
S2 (01:38):
Yeah, definitely. Um, look, all of our speakers have bring
a wealth of knowledge, whether they're at the start of
their vision loss journey or they're obviously come out the
other side of a lot of these sort of things.
But I guess what I've tried to encourage from the
speakers that we've got along is a wealth of knowledge
in different areas and, and different, uh, ways of looking
at different perspectives. Or our speaker this afternoon, Joe, when
(02:01):
this goes to air, we've already had that webinar. But
Joe is a fantastic speaker in the social inclusion space
with a very long career in the education sector, based
up in Queensland, up in Hervey Bay, quite a community
activist and doing a lot of work around helping others
with sight loss. Advocate for themselves. Quite a unique perspective
in the sense of how she goes about it. Got
(02:23):
a teaching background so she's very, very comfortable talking to counsel.
Different sort of organizers within the area as well, and
building that community spirit, which is often sometimes lacking in
some of these more rural areas. So fantastic speaker. A
speaker on Monday next week is the one that you
kind of alluded to. Um, huge, huge resume. She's coming
(02:46):
to us from her home in Ireland at 11:00 at night.
So making a huge commitment to come and speak to
our listeners. It'll be 9 a.m. Monday next week for
our listeners and our participants in the webinar. However, um,
she she it'll be, uh, 11:00 on a Sunday for her.
She is, as I said, one of those speakers where
(03:07):
I've had the privilege of speaking to a many number
of people over the years doing these sorts of things.
But I guess every now and then you come across
one particular speaker that just seems to have a different
perspective on pretty much everything. Fascinating character. Very, very great speaker.
Then Ted talks all around the world. Businesswoman. Activist. She's
actually the founder of an organization called the valuable 500,
(03:31):
which is the largest CEO collective in business move for
disability inclusion around the globe. She actually launched this particular
movement at the World Economic Forum Davos summit in 2019.
And she's since signed up 500 multinational organizations, biggest CEOs
in the world, 46 of the fortune 500. And they've
(03:51):
all committed to trying to put on the leadership agenda,
employing people with disabilities. So very, very heavy in the
employment pillar. And she's obviously an adventurer as well. She
traveled all around India on the back of an elephant. Um,
so very fascinating speaker. Really looking forward to that one.
I think it's going to be an absolute joy. And
as I said, I think the benefit of these webinars
(04:12):
is that you get to provide people with different perspectives.
And she's got an incredible life story and a really,
really great perspective. And, you know, if you can get
some of the largest organizations, CEOs in a room and
not come across preachy and have them join up to
some of these disability goals that she's put in place
with this organization. I think that kind of tells you
volumes about a person.
S1 (04:32):
And that name for people out there. That's Caroline Casey.
If you're interested in signing up to head along to
that webinar and lots of valuable insights and absolutely, it'll
be unforgettable. So certainly go check it out for everyone
out there for sure next Monday that's coming up now.
There's also a couple more later on in the month. Jordan.
(04:55):
So tell us a bit about those ones.
S2 (04:58):
Yeah, so our third speaker on the next Monday at
2:00 is a is a gentleman by the name of
David Walker. Uh, he's joining us from Victoria, quite a
very well known and distinguished Australian cultural historian. Uh, he's
a professor of Australian studies at Deakin University and a
fellow Academy of Social Sciences and Australian Academy of Humanities,
(05:18):
also known for like visiting universities in the US and
all around the world. Very distinguished author as well, once
again at a different point in his sight loss journey.
So he lost his sight back in 2004 as a
result of macular degeneration. As a and he was already
a published historian who had written many books at that
particular point in time, but then obviously going legally blind,
(05:39):
it kind of changed his perspective on things, especially the
education sector, and how he could teach other people with disability.
And he also went on to write. After he obviously
regained some of that confidence, he went back to writing.
And rather than turning around and doing like he'd done
in the past, where he, you know, written about the
rise of Asia or other sort of history, cultural history,
(06:00):
he decided to take a more personal perspective and write
about his own family. And, you know, this guy is
a very, very skilled researcher. Obviously, whenever you go into
trying to discover your own history, there's a lot of
research and a lot of work that has to go
into that. And his is no exception. That was his book,
Not Dark Yet, which is in the Vision Australia Library.
(06:22):
Fantastic read and how much he goes into depth and
how far he tracks back his lineage in South Australia
to just in the late 19th century. He goes back
that far, but I guess what we're trying to get
across in the education pillar is this is a gentleman
that was quite distinguished in his field, that lost his sight,
and that also gained him the ability to better teach
(06:43):
other people wanting to learn history at Deakin Uni.
S1 (06:47):
And there's also a final guest for people out there
this July.
S2 (06:51):
Yeah, definitely. Um, quite a once again, a rather interesting gentleman,
not somebody that's experienced sight loss. Funnily enough, he is
actually a, uh, renowned specialist gaming developer, but he was
the engineering lead of AR gaming at Meta for many,
many years back in 2023. He decided, you know what?
I'm noticing a bit of a gap in the field.
(07:13):
There's just not a lot of inclusive games out there
for people with disability that are accessible, that are what
you would call low stress sort of games that aren't
trying to exploit with different things like different purchases and
stuff like that on these games. So he decided he's
going to leave that field, and he created his own
organization called Split Atom Labs, with a focus on creating inclusive,
(07:38):
casual games. And in 2025, his game Land of Libya,
which is a fantastic game for anyone who hasn't given
it a go. Definitely. I'd encourage you to. It's on
the App Store on Apple, very inclusive. It actually was
actually a finalist of the Apple Design Awards because it's
a slow paced, exploration, first role playing game that rewards
(07:58):
people to do things in their own time and doesn't
look to exploit people with ads and different games and
different things like that, that some.
S1 (08:05):
Aaron Vernon I'm going to be chatting to Aaron in
just a week's time, actually. Jordan. So he's going to
be making an appearance on Talking Vision. So you'll hear
quite a lot of him if you head along to
the webinar and then tune in to Talking Vision. And yeah,
hear a little bit more about him. Might might be
talking about a little bit of different stuff, and we'll
(08:27):
have a bit of a chat then, so that'll be
quite exciting. Now, how can people find out a little
bit more about each guest, or find out a bit
more about the webinars? Or maybe they'd love to sign up.
They're hearing this and thinking, oh my God, yeah, no,
that sounds absolutely fantastic. I'd love to head along to
1 or 2 or all of the remaining webinars. What's
(08:48):
the best way for them to do that?
S2 (08:50):
Yeah, so you're probably going to be seeing well, people
are probably going to be seeing a lot of sort
of social media stuff out there about the webinars as well.
It is on the Vision Australia website. Also, if you'd
like to go in, if you look up tele link
webinar series on the Vision Australia website, that will bring
you through to these webinars and a registration link where
you can register anyone's free to register for these. Um,
(09:12):
they're not specific. So you can you can turn around,
you know, even if you haven't accessed Vision Australia services
in a little while or something like that. Anyone is
free to register for these webinars if you're social media inclined. There.
As I said, there are some stuff going up on
Facebook with the link as well that you can follow
straight through to the registration page as well. My best
bet would be to go on the Vision Australia website
(09:33):
and look up tele link webinars winter series.
S1 (09:35):
Okay. And also you can get in touch with Telelink
through phone and email. So if people would like to
contact the tele link team, you can head to one
800 458 555. That's one 800 458 555 or email
(09:57):
tele link info at Vision Australia. That's Telelink info Vision Australia.
I've been speaking today with volunteer partnerships coordinator Jordan Ashby
from Vision Australia here to chat to me about this
month's series of winter webinars happening through Telelink. Jordan, thank
(10:21):
you so much for your time today. It was great
to catch up with you again and chat about the webinars.
S2 (10:27):
Amazing. Thank you for having me again, Sam.
This month, Telelink is proud to present a series of
four webinars featuring four different individuals achieving great things within
the blind and low vision community. They're taking place every
Monday this July, and to find out a bit more
about each webinar, it's my great pleasure to welcome Volunteer
(00:36):
Partnerships Coordinator from Vision Australia, Jordan Ashby, to tell us
all about them. Jordan, welcome back to Talking Vision. Thank
you very much for your time.
S2 (00:46):
Thank you for having me again, Sam.
S1 (00:48):
Now we're here today to talk about the winter webinar
series happening through Telelink. So tell us a bit about
this year's series for July.
S2 (00:58):
Yeah. So look, this year's series, I've actually taken a
bit of a page out of the Vision Australia playbook,
and I've gone for speakers that can talk on the
four pillars that we have advertised in the past that
are hugely beneficial for our organisation's values. So those are education, employment,
social inclusion and independence. Um, so all of the speakers
are kind of talking on one of those particular pillars. Uh, and, uh, yeah,
(01:23):
that's been the focus of this particular webinar series.
S1 (01:26):
Tell us a bit about the four speakers that we've
got lined up this year. So I'm quite exciting. Different personalities,
especially one of them, has got quite a lot to offer.
S2 (01:38):
Yeah, definitely. Um, look, all of our speakers have bring
a wealth of knowledge, whether they're at the start of
their vision loss journey or they're obviously come out the
other side of a lot of these sort of things.
But I guess what I've tried to encourage from the
speakers that we've got along is a wealth of knowledge
in different areas and, and different, uh, ways of looking
at different perspectives. Or our speaker this afternoon, Joe, when
(02:01):
this goes to air, we've already had that webinar. But
Joe is a fantastic speaker in the social inclusion space
with a very long career in the education sector, based
up in Queensland, up in Hervey Bay, quite a community
activist and doing a lot of work around helping others
with sight loss. Advocate for themselves. Quite a unique perspective
in the sense of how she goes about it. Got
(02:23):
a teaching background so she's very, very comfortable talking to counsel.
Different sort of organizers within the area as well, and
building that community spirit, which is often sometimes lacking in
some of these more rural areas. So fantastic speaker. A
speaker on Monday next week is the one that you
kind of alluded to. Um, huge, huge resume. She's coming
(02:46):
to us from her home in Ireland at 11:00 at night.
So making a huge commitment to come and speak to
our listeners. It'll be 9 a.m. Monday next week for
our listeners and our participants in the webinar. However, um,
she she it'll be, uh, 11:00 on a Sunday for her.
She is, as I said, one of those speakers where
(03:07):
I've had the privilege of speaking to a many number
of people over the years doing these sorts of things.
But I guess every now and then you come across
one particular speaker that just seems to have a different
perspective on pretty much everything. Fascinating character. Very, very great speaker.
Then Ted talks all around the world. Businesswoman. Activist. She's
actually the founder of an organization called the valuable 500,
(03:31):
which is the largest CEO collective in business move for
disability inclusion around the globe. She actually launched this particular
movement at the World Economic Forum Davos summit in 2019.
And she's since signed up 500 multinational organizations, biggest CEOs
in the world, 46 of the fortune 500. And they've
(03:51):
all committed to trying to put on the leadership agenda,
employing people with disabilities. So very, very heavy in the
employment pillar. And she's obviously an adventurer as well. She
traveled all around India on the back of an elephant. Um,
so very fascinating speaker. Really looking forward to that one.
I think it's going to be an absolute joy. And
as I said, I think the benefit of these webinars
(04:12):
is that you get to provide people with different perspectives.
And she's got an incredible life story and a really,
really great perspective. And, you know, if you can get
some of the largest organizations, CEOs in a room and
not come across preachy and have them join up to
some of these disability goals that she's put in place
with this organization. I think that kind of tells you
volumes about a person.
S1 (04:32):
And that name for people out there. That's Caroline Casey.
If you're interested in signing up to head along to
that webinar and lots of valuable insights and absolutely, it'll
be unforgettable. So certainly go check it out for everyone
out there for sure next Monday that's coming up now.
There's also a couple more later on in the month. Jordan.
(04:55):
So tell us a bit about those ones.
S2 (04:58):
Yeah, so our third speaker on the next Monday at
2:00 is a is a gentleman by the name of
David Walker. Uh, he's joining us from Victoria, quite a
very well known and distinguished Australian cultural historian. Uh, he's
a professor of Australian studies at Deakin University and a
fellow Academy of Social Sciences and Australian Academy of Humanities,
(05:18):
also known for like visiting universities in the US and
all around the world. Very distinguished author as well, once
again at a different point in his sight loss journey.
So he lost his sight back in 2004 as a
result of macular degeneration. As a and he was already
a published historian who had written many books at that
particular point in time, but then obviously going legally blind,
(05:39):
it kind of changed his perspective on things, especially the
education sector, and how he could teach other people with disability.
And he also went on to write. After he obviously
regained some of that confidence, he went back to writing.
And rather than turning around and doing like he'd done
in the past, where he, you know, written about the
rise of Asia or other sort of history, cultural history,
(06:00):
he decided to take a more personal perspective and write
about his own family. And, you know, this guy is
a very, very skilled researcher. Obviously, whenever you go into
trying to discover your own history, there's a lot of
research and a lot of work that has to go
into that. And his is no exception. That was his book,
Not Dark Yet, which is in the Vision Australia Library.
(06:22):
Fantastic read and how much he goes into depth and
how far he tracks back his lineage in South Australia
to just in the late 19th century. He goes back
that far, but I guess what we're trying to get
across in the education pillar is this is a gentleman
that was quite distinguished in his field, that lost his sight,
and that also gained him the ability to better teach
(06:43):
other people wanting to learn history at Deakin Uni.
S1 (06:47):
And there's also a final guest for people out there
this July.
S2 (06:51):
Yeah, definitely. Um, quite a once again, a rather interesting gentleman,
not somebody that's experienced sight loss. Funnily enough, he is
actually a, uh, renowned specialist gaming developer, but he was
the engineering lead of AR gaming at Meta for many,
many years back in 2023. He decided, you know what?
I'm noticing a bit of a gap in the field.
(07:13):
There's just not a lot of inclusive games out there
for people with disability that are accessible, that are what
you would call low stress sort of games that aren't
trying to exploit with different things like different purchases and
stuff like that on these games. So he decided he's
going to leave that field, and he created his own
organization called Split Atom Labs, with a focus on creating inclusive,
(07:38):
casual games. And in 2025, his game Land of Libya,
which is a fantastic game for anyone who hasn't given
it a go. Definitely. I'd encourage you to. It's on
the App Store on Apple, very inclusive. It actually was
actually a finalist of the Apple Design Awards because it's
a slow paced, exploration, first role playing game that rewards
(07:58):
people to do things in their own time and doesn't
look to exploit people with ads and different games and
different things like that, that some.
S1 (08:05):
Aaron Vernon I'm going to be chatting to Aaron in
just a week's time, actually. Jordan. So he's going to
be making an appearance on Talking Vision. So you'll hear
quite a lot of him if you head along to
the webinar and then tune in to Talking Vision. And yeah,
hear a little bit more about him. Might might be
talking about a little bit of different stuff, and we'll
(08:27):
have a bit of a chat then, so that'll be
quite exciting. Now, how can people find out a little
bit more about each guest, or find out a bit
more about the webinars? Or maybe they'd love to sign up.
They're hearing this and thinking, oh my God, yeah, no,
that sounds absolutely fantastic. I'd love to head along to
1 or 2 or all of the remaining webinars. What's
(08:48):
the best way for them to do that?
S2 (08:50):
Yeah, so you're probably going to be seeing well, people
are probably going to be seeing a lot of sort
of social media stuff out there about the webinars as well.
It is on the Vision Australia website. Also, if you'd
like to go in, if you look up tele link
webinar series on the Vision Australia website, that will bring
you through to these webinars and a registration link where
you can register anyone's free to register for these. Um,
(09:12):
they're not specific. So you can you can turn around,
you know, even if you haven't accessed Vision Australia services
in a little while or something like that. Anyone is
free to register for these webinars if you're social media inclined. There.
As I said, there are some stuff going up on
Facebook with the link as well that you can follow
straight through to the registration page as well. My best
bet would be to go on the Vision Australia website
(09:33):
and look up tele link webinars winter series.
S1 (09:35):
Okay. And also you can get in touch with Telelink
through phone and email. So if people would like to
contact the tele link team, you can head to one
800 458 555. That's one 800 458 555 or email
(09:57):
tele link info at Vision Australia. That's Telelink info Vision Australia.
I've been speaking today with volunteer partnerships coordinator Jordan Ashby
from Vision Australia here to chat to me about this
month's series of winter webinars happening through Telelink. Jordan, thank
(10:21):
you so much for your time today. It was great
to catch up with you again and chat about the webinars.
S2 (10:27):
Amazing. Thank you for having me again, Sam.
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