Speaker 1: Do you see those words down there? They're the same words that I'm speaking out loud right now. And they're called captions. Captions for broadcast television were invented right here at the WGBH Educational Foundation back in 1972. And of course, captions are used by people who are deaf or hard of hearing. Worldwide, over 360 million people have a disabling hearing loss. But you might be surprised to know that the majority of caption users don't have any hearing loss. Captions are read by people in places where the audio is turned off, like in airports, fitness clubs, waiting rooms, and even office cubicles. Captions are read by people who are learning English as a second language. And captions can be helpful when dialects or accents are difficult to understand. When the subject matter is complex, captions can assist with concentration and comprehension. Because captions are essentially a transcript of a video, they boost search engine optimization, making videos that much easier to find. Since captions are important, the federal government has passed laws requiring that TV shows, the news, and other broadcasts be captioned, whether they're delivered over the air or on the internet. While TV networks and other media companies can afford professional captioning software and staff, there remains a huge need for do-it-yourself captions, especially for schools, government agencies, colleges and universities, nonprofits, and even for-profit companies. Because captions benefit so many people, and for so many reasons, the National Center for Accessible Media at WGBH, NCAM, created a free caption editor called MagPi. The software was written by professional caption writers and software engineers with decades of experience in the field of quality broadcast captions. Since MagPi was free and easy to use, it was quickly adopted, and MagPi's thousands of users proved that a simple and affordable tool can greatly increase the number of online captioned videos. Why am I here talking to you? Because that was nearly 15 years ago, and everything about digital media and the web has changed. Today, NCAM is poised to introduce CADET, the Caption and Description Editing Tool. CADET will enable you to easily and affordably produce high-quality caption files that are compatible with any media player on any web browser. Why is it important to have a low-cost, versatile, and easy-to-use tool for authoring and embedding captions? The facts are simple. The majority of online videos are user-generated, with original content that is not accessible to millions of people who are deaf or hard of hearing because the videos were poorly captioned, if they were even captioned at all. Automated speech-to-text captioning does not provide reliable access. Federal regulations and court rulings will continue to dramatically increase the number of online videos that are required to have high-quality captions. Our goal is simple. We want to increase the number of online videos that have accurate and readable captions. What is needed is a caption authoring tool that is simple to use, affordable, and versatile enough to work across today's complex digital environment. Fifteen years ago, NCAM created MagPi with great success, and we're ready to do it again. But developing this type of software costs money, so we're looking to you, caption authors and caption users, to help fund the creation of CADET, the Caption and Description Editing Tool. As a contributor, you will have access to beta versions of CADET to test, so we can make it as robust and user-friendly as possible. And all contributors will be recognized within the software itself on a dedicated credits page. Most importantly, you'll be helping to fund access for millions of children and adults who watch captioned videos at school, at work, at home, or anywhere, at any time. Please donate now to help fund CADET, the Caption and Description Editing Tool. Thank you.