COLONY – On Friday afternoon at the Educational Complex in Colony, Gaylon Ponder, owner and president of Words+, gave a presentation on his company and the abilities the software and hardware Words+ sells is able to provide.
Ponder gave his presentation to a room of 28 students and several adults in attendance. His presentation was the last educational activity in Colony’s annual summer program, focused on space science, a program that has seen the students make a visit to the U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville.
Ponder started off his presentation by explaining what it means to be able to get a job, outlining the main things that a person must be able to do to enter the workforce. Then he explained that some, due to physical defects, diseases and afflictions, are unable to attend college and enter the workforce because of their inability to interact properly with their surroundings. Ponder then introduced Words+ as the company able to help those with physical obstacles triumph.
“If you are going to help people with disabilities get on with life, you’re going to have to get them educated and get them a job,” Ponder said. “If you target with a job, ‘what am I going to do?’ everything else falls into place. I give this same presentation all over the country. But this presentation is just as important to this audience of kids because they’re never really taught that, that if you’re going to have a job, any job, these are the general skills you’re going to need.”
Although Ponder usually does not give presentations to school children in a setting like the one on Friday afternoon, he is no stranger to presentations.
“I’m usually off in California, or New York or Louisiana giving presentations,” Ponder said. “I just got back from a six-day trip, and I’m leaving again tomorrow on another. Usually when I’m doing a presentation of this length (45 minutes), I’m with a single client and we are trying to figure out one or two things, working with a speech pathologist.”
The last half of the presentation was spent giving the students in attendance the opportunity to test out the revolutionary software. Some got to play solitaire on the computer, using just their eyes to move the cards on the screen. And some tested out spelling letters using Morse Code.
When 11-year-old Brosnan was asked about the presentation he said, “It was good,” adding, “my favorite part was the gadget part.”
