At only 21 Yasser Tamer is a strong disability advocate and researcher with a deep interest in exploring the interplay between disability and accessibility. His achievements in openness are less about resources and content and more as an active communicator in public online spaces. For example, Yasser participates in Twitter/X conversations related to disability not in a way that shames people like “shame on you for not putting alt text” but in a way that “calls people in not calling them out”. This advocacy helps truly move conversations forward.
In 2022 Yasser came as be a participant in Equity Unbound’s MYFest (mid year festival, the open professional development program) and joined many conversations. Building on this experience, in January, 2023 he became a co-facilitator of the IEH (Intentionally Equitable Hospitality) series at Equity Unbound. In this role he helped participants understand and notice what it would be like to design for and with a facilitator who is blind.
Yasser continued as a co-organizer of MYFest23 helping conceptualize it and supporting other facilitators and participants. His presence and contributions remind everyone of his capabilities and the challenges people may have towards three marginalized/minority groups in this context: undergraduate students (most others are educators or grad students), visually impaired, and Egyptian/Global South.
Currently Yasser is pursuing an undergraduate degree in English and Comparative Literature at the American University in Cairo.
Yasser has raised the level of awareness and understanding of accessibility in a most caring way and has grown quickly from a participant in the online programs of Equity Unbound to a facilitator and session leader.
Award Nominator
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OEG Voices
Open Education Global’s podcast featuring practitioners of open education from around the world.
OEG Voices 059: Yasser Tamer on the Individual Student OE Award of Excellence
In this conversation, Yasser shares his passion for learning and research, constructively helping to grow their awareness and understanding of accessibility, and how he applies these practices in both social media and as a co-facilitator of the faculty development programs of Equity Unbound. Listen in to our conversation and you will come to expect to see one day Yasser with his PhD leading teaching and research in higher education.
In the OEG Voices Studio with Yasser Tamer (left) and Alan Levine (right)
This Episode
FYI: This section of show notes alone was generated by AI Actions in the Descript editor we use to produce OEG Voices
In this podcast episode, host Alan Levine speaks with Yasser Tamer, a student award winner from the Open Education Global. Yasser shares his journey as a blind student in Egypt, who aims to become an educator and normalize the presence of educators with disabilities. Discussing his academics, his activism on Twitter, his views on using AI in education, and his love for football, Yasser paints a vivid picture of multifaceted growth and determination. He touches on the important role that Open Education plays in improving accessibility and promoting inclusivity.
00:07 Introduction and Podcast Kickoff 00:57 Getting to Know Yasser Tamer 01:32 Yasser’s Background and Life in Cairo 02:53 Yasser’s Journey in Education and Advocacy 04:42 Yasser’s Motivation and Influences 05:57 Yasser’s Experience with Twitter and Online Activism 18:01 Yasser’s Future Goals and Aspirations 22:29 Yasser’s Perspective on Artificial Intelligence 27:31 Yasser’s Hobbies and Personal Interests 31:06 Yasser’s Thoughts on Open Education and Recognition 32:40 Podcast Wrap-up and Closing Remarks
I want to just normalize the idea of students coming to a classroom, finding a professor who’s blind, different from them. And then I want to remove the idea of the stigma of how he’s going to teach us. No, he’s going to teach us by doing the same that other professors do.
And I’ve been trying to explore what is happening in the other parts of the world that we’re kind of deprived from seeing due to the financial limited resources or the lack of support around conferences .
Being able to speak English is a privilege because you’ll get to read blogs, you’ll get to speak with people, you’ll get to understand their mentality. Then you’ll get to transform that experiential learning to Egyptian communities and to unprivileged youth. And Twitter has been a great step towards that.
Yasser Tamer
I hopefully will get a lot of other publications in the future. But this has been a kind of a dream. Like what prohibits me from publishing? What bans me from doing that. From reflecting on what I learned on MyFest. I’ve been leading sessions with educators. I have futurized the course at my institution that possibly can be taught in 20 years.
This was another episode we used Descript for transcribing and editing audio that has greatly enhanced our ability to produce show.We have been exploring some of the other AI features in Descript, but our posts remain human authored unless indicated otherwise.Just for interest, you can review a blog post drafted by the Descript AI action.
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About Student Award
This award honors the outstanding endeavors of a student who has advocated for or benefitted academically from the use of open educational resources (OER). The award is presented to the student whose achievements may inspire others to pursue degree programs that utilize open resources and/or someone who played a prominent role in advocating successfully for the promotion and advancement of OER and open education.
