Boston Tea Party Ships & Museum partners with ReBokeh to provide free assistive tech for visitors and staff
- Cameron Hasbrouck
- 2 days ago
- 4 min read
Partnership will empower low vision visitors to fully immerse themselves in one of American history’s most iconic moments
BOSTON, MA - The Boston Tea Party Ships & Museum is launching an accessibility partnership with Baltimore-based ReBokeh Vision Technologies to offer free access to ReBokeh’s empowerment-driven assistive technology software for people with low vision. The partnership provides all museum guests and staff with free, automatic, and unlimited access to ReBokeh, a mobile-app based assistive tech software which helps people with low vision to adjust the appearance of the world around them in order to fit their specific needs.
Located at the site of one of colonial America’s defining moments, the Boston Tea Party Ships & Museum is a portal to revolutionary Boston. With multi-sensory experiences that include live actors, interactive exhibits, historic artifacts, and full-scale replica 18th-century sailing vessels, the museum offers visitors a first-hand glimpse at the event that sparked a nation. This partnership expands on the museum’s accessibility offerings, empowering the 90% of low vision individuals who retain functional vision to fully immerse themselves in the unique historical experience.
ReBokeh’s empowerment-driven approach creates a more accessible and enjoyable experience for visitors, since many low vision individuals struggle to capture information through sight-replacing options, like audio or tactile only options. It also provides visitors of any visual ability the option to customize their viewing experience in unique and creative ways.
"At the Boston Tea Party Ships & Museum, we're committed to ensuring that every visitor can fully experience the drama and significance of this pivotal moment in American history," said Shawn P. Ford, Executive Director of the Boston Tea Party Ships & Museum. "Our partnership with ReBokeh represents an important step forward in making our immersive exhibits, historic artifacts, and interactive experiences accessible to guests with low vision. By empowering visitors to customize their visual experience, we're honoring the revolutionary spirit of inclusion and ensuring that ‘the single most important event leading up to the American Revolution’ can be explored and appreciated by all."
ReBokeh’s technology works by allowing users to leverage the live camera feed from their mobile devices with overlayed, customized filters that adjust aspects like contrast, color hue, zoom, and lighting to meet the needs of low vision users. The software also offers the opportunity for lengthened interactions with ReBokeh’s custom-built AI tool. Users can ask ReBokeh AI personalized questions about what’s around them and what they’re seeing. ReBokeh AI also works in multiple languages and will default to whichever language is selected in the user’s general mobile device settings, allowing ReBokeh AI to work as a translation tool for signage, information, and visual surroundings.
By leveraging ReBokeh at the museum, visitors can improve their experience in terms of enjoyment and accessibility; low vision individuals can use the software to visually engage with each part of the museum more thoroughly, or to read navigational signs, information plaques, and more.
“The Boston Tea Party is an event that every American student learns about in school,” said Rebecca Rosenberg, the low-vision founder and CEO of ReBokeh. “Our team couldn’t be happier that our technology will help people of various visual abilities to relive one of our country’s most iconic moments in a more accessible and engaging way.”
ReBokeh is extending this partnership opportunity to other museums, zoos, travel hubs, and public spaces in an effort to make low vision accessibility the rule rather than the exception. Organizations who are interested in partnering with ReBokeh can contact the team at partnerships@rebokeh.com.
About ReBokeh Ⓡ Vision Technologies
Founded in 2019, ReBokeh is on a mission to provide millions of low vision individuals with assistive tech that’s reflective of their needs. ReBokeh’s flagship product, the ReBokeh mobile app, enables users to adjust the appearance of the world around them in order to help them navigate their specific visual condition. This approach empowers low vision individuals to make use of their functional vision, rather than trying to replace it with tactile or audio descriptions.
For more information, visit: https://rebokeh.com/
About the Boston Tea Party Ships & Museum
The Boston Tea Party, "the single most important event leading up to the American Revolution, occurred the night of Dec. 16, 1773. The Boston Tea Party Ships & Museum, owned and operated by Historic Tours of America, is dedicated to accurately reliving and representing a key time in history (1773-1775) through actors, tea throwing reenactments, high-tech interactive exhibits, authentic replica ships: the Beaver and the Eleanor and an award-winning multisensory film, Let it Begin Here. The Boston Tea Party Ships & Museum is open 7 days/week from 10 a.m.-5 p.m. (Summer/Spring) and from 10 a.m.-4 p.m. (Fall/Winter). Tours run every 30 minutes in the fall/winter and every 15 minutes in the spring/summer and last 1 hr. Closed on Thanksgiving and Christmas Day. The Boston Tea Party Ships & Museum was voted #1 ‘Best Patriotic Attraction’ in USA Today’s ‘10Best Readers' Choice Awards 2016’; voted ‘Best New Museum’ in 2012 and ‘Best Historical Experience’ in 2017 by Yankee magazine and ‘Best of the New 2012’ by Boston Globe Magazine. To learn more visit www.bostonteapartyship.com or call 1-855-(TEA)-1773. The Boston Tea Party Ships & Museum is located at 306 Congress St. on the Congress St. Bridge, Boston, MA 02210, over the same body of water where The Boston Tea Party took place more than 250 years ago.
