Presentation Feedback

Today Moa gathered to listen to Joseph Reid speak about his life. What an inspiration he was. Joseph Reid has cerebral palsy, arrived in a wheelchair and entertained us with his sense of humour and bright mind. He told us about his birth, when he went to school and overcoming the many physical and mental challenges he faced. Cerebral Palsy means that Joseph can’t talk, so to communicate with us, the 25 year old used his eyes and a special computer to speak for him. His computer is programmed to respond to his eyes and the direction they look. On his computer he was able to look from one letter of the alphabet to another, to spell words, to form sentences, which the computer then read out. All of Moa enjoyed his presentation and thought what a truly amazing person Joseph was, with an inspirational message. To end the session, Joseph answered our many questions and then had a very challenging chess game against Duki for us all to see, beamed up on the TV screen. Well done Joseph for taking the win, and great job Duki for providing a tough game.

A great read. Very well thought out. Thanks for letting me read it.

Jemaine Clement – NZ comedian & actor

Jemaine Clement

Joseph – thank you so much for sharing it with me. I’m delighted that Twitter has played a part in your life. I’m incredibly proud to work for the company and hope that as we develop we can continue to make a difference to the world be it for individuals or groups.

Sunil Singhvi – Strategic Partnerships Manager, Instagram. (ex Twitter)

Sunil Singhvi

Hi Joseph just finished your presentation. Thank you so much for sharing. You are such an inspiration. Love that you are from Tauranga too.

T Mulligan– NZ musician & artist.

T Mulligan

Joseph is a remarkable young man who is using social media to be just that “social” in a world that will always see his wheelchair first and him second. With social media he can let the real Joe be seen first without peoples preconceived notions of who he is based on appearances.

With a variety of hobbies and interests, social media has become a two way street for Joseph to interact with others who share his likes in music and TV. A window to a world that isn’t always easy to make his way around offline.

Wendy Wings – NZ Twitter star

Really good stuff friend! Proud of you.

Stephen Christian – Musician, Anberlin & Anchor & Braille

STEPHEN CHRISTIAN

What an unbelievably amazing person you are! Your story is truly extraordinary.

Richard Ayoade– UK Comedian & Actor and Director

richard ayoade

Joseph Reid (ex-Omokoroa No 1 pupil) visited us today and made a presentation to our senior students. Joseph has cerebral palsy and his presentation showed us how he uses technology and social media to overcome his physical limitations.
Joseph has a dream to help businesses use social media platforms to further improve their market exposure.
Joseph has more than half a million twitter followers, some are famous people and the inventor of twitter! If you are a twitter follower, his name is @Defender1995. Joseph kept the senior students spellbound for half an hour with his wonderful presentation. He then showed how his ‘eyegaze’ programme works to allow him to use computers (faster than some of us can type), and answered some questions with his speech technology.

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