Jake is one of the 16 recipients of the 2026 Vision Australia Further Education Bursary, a funding scheme which lifts the barriers that could otherwise prevent people who are blind or have low vision from following their chosen career paths.

The bursary provides funding for assistive technology that can ensure that recipients can keep up with the workload of their chosen field of study.

Born with eyes that were under-developed, Jake underwent several surgeries when he was young due to infections in his left eye that slowly started to spread to his right eye.

As a result of this, his left eye was removed and replaced with an artificial eye, and he currently only possesses 10% of vision in his right eye.

“I can see light, shapes, shadows, that sort of thing” Jake said. “I use my cane for navigation as I can only see a few feet in front of me, and even then I can only really see things that are quite prominent.”

Jake is studying a Bachelor of Politics, Philosophy and Economics and is currently in the second trimester of his first year. He still has a long time to decide his major, but he is leaning towards politics.

“I currently have no major, but I feel I’ll end up doing politics because it’s probably a little more practical, even though I enjoy studying philosophy very much” Jake said.

“I enjoy exploring questions such as the best way to govern a society. In philosophy I like exploring some very difficult to answer questions, what makes a fulfilling life, what is the nature of love, things like that.”

His passion for politics began during childhood, where he remembers having long conversations with his grandmother about politics. He would later study it in high school and now into university.

Through the bursary, Jake has received funding for JAWS, a screen reader software, a BrailleSense 6 and a pair of Meta AI glasses. This combination of equipment and software have made Jake’s university life much more manageable.

With the BrailleSense 6 Jake is able to take notes matching the speed of the rest of his class. The JAWS program makes navigating his laptop a breeze and his Meta glasses make navigation to and from his university campus much simpler than before, with the glasses acting as a headset with an app tracking where along the bus route he is.

Jake is working hard to reach his goals, and with the help of Vision Australia’s Further Education Bursary, he has the technology he needs to keep up and make them a reality.