Ray Kurzweil, inventor of the original Kurzweil Reading Machine, will present the annual scholarship awards from Kurzweil Educational Systems, Inc., at the National Federation of the Blind (NFB) Convention in Louisville, Kentucky on July 8.
Kurzweil Educational is an innovator of reading-technology solutions for individuals with learning and visual disabilities.

The company also announced the Kurzweil 1000 Version 7. This device helps people with severe visual impairments access virtually any printed or electronic publication by making text audible.

With Version 7, Kurzweil Educational has added online access to books (using Via Voice text-to-speech from IBM), educational tools that promote more active reading, and home office productivity, using the new FineReader™ version 6.0 OCR Engine from ABBYY Software House.