At 15 years old, Carlos Esteban Martínez Macías is one of our youngest NVDA Certified Experts. He is also our first NVDA Certified Expert from Ecuador, a South American country between Peru and Colombia.
Carlos shared some of his experiences and plans for the future, and we’re excited to bring them to you, in his own words:
Carlos Esteban Martínez Macías holding his NVDA Certified Expert Certificate and with his hand on PC keyboard
I began to use NVDA in December 2012, when I had 7 years old. The government in Ecuador gave a laptop for the blind people, and these computers had NVDA. Well, I knew that the name is NVDA in March 2013.
I used NVDA all the time in this laptop. In September 2014 this laptop was broke and I return to my first laptop, but now with NVDA. In this time, I don’t use internet and my version of NVDA was 2012.3.1.
In March 2016, I had a new laptop with Windows 10 and my father updated NVDA to the version 2016.1. In the years 2015 and 2016 I read the user guide and the what’s new section. I explored all functions of the NVDA core.
In my opinion, NVDA is the better screen reader for Windows.
In 2017 I began to use internet and began to install add-ons in NVDA. In October and November, I teaches the use of NVDA in a university of my City (Portoviejo), the UTM (Technical University of Manabí, in Spanish “Universidad Técnica de Manabí”) and began to write post in the website of NVDA in Spanish. I like help to the users with the use of this screen reader.
NVDA have a very good community. Some users says that NVDA yet need enhancements in Microsoft Office, for example, and the community of developers work always with enhancements, new features and corrections.
Now, NVDA is my first screen reader. I use NVDA in all moments in my laptop, and other commercial products not are necessary. I am 15 years old and use NVDA in the study with Office, in these moments also use NVDA for the videoconferencing of the virtual class. Also, I use NVDA in my house, and I recommend always this screen readers to all users.
Carlos, un ‘As’ de la Technologia (“Carlos, an ‘Ace’ of Technology” from El Diario Newspaper, 30/06/2020
My knowledge about NVDA led me pass the exam NVDA certified expert, and 17/06/2020, I received my certificate.
I am the first Ecuadorian that have the certification of NVDA expert. Thanks to NV Access!
Well, after of the school I go to study a career related to music, and also study computing. My objective is to help with accessibility consulting.
Thank you Carlos for sharing your inspirational story!
Carlos is a regular contributor to the Spanish NVDA site, Spanish Mailing List and the English NVDA mailing list. For Spanish speakers, Carlos can be heard here talking about the use of web applications with NVDA, and in particular Gmail:
If all that is not enough, Carlos is also an accomplished pianist. He has been recognised as one of the better classical pianists in Ecuador. So, to finish, here is a video from Facebook of Carlos Esteban Martínez Macías playing Flight of the Bumblebee.