Jacob Rush took over his stepfather’s business, Triple Knot Productions, in 2020, after the company had more than 14 years and several documentaries under its belt. Their original goal was to tell inspirational, educational and motivational true stories of people who thrive despite their circumstances, having produced documentaries on people with autism, spinal cord injuries and brain trauma.
Now 24 years old, Rush is expanding Triple Knot’s mission to not just tell others’ stories—but also personally make impactful changes. He’s blogging about developments in accessibility and inclusion, working directly with senior advisors on disability at large tech companies, and—above all—looking for ways to collaborate with the companies who make the software he uses every day.
**Problem**
Having cerebral palsy himself, Rush struggles to use creative software that isn’t inclusively designed. As creative technology continues to evolve, particularly in the cloud and AI spaces, Rush knows a better solution can exist—and has ideas for how it should work—but wants to be a ground-floor community member whose voice is heard and appreciated.
**Goals**
• Help design an accessible platform for creators with disabilities
Join a community that listens and responds to his ideas
Streamline his company’s workflow to replace clunky file-sharing and collaboration tools
**Solution**
Rush, an enthusiastic Apple user, discovered Alteon.io at the FCP Global Summit in Orlando in Nov. 2022. Alteon’s co-founder and CEO, Matt Cimaglia, was the event’s keynote speaker; Cimaglia presented on how Alteon’s workflow extension for FCP is connecting Apple’s NLE to the cloud and democratizing once-lofty creative technology for creators of all backgrounds.
Sitting in the audience, Rush was intrigued. After the talk, he struck up a conversation with Cimaglia, and was later introduced to Brian Meaney, Alteon’s head of product, with whom he began corresponding regularly. Whenever he sent them a suggestion for improvement, the Alteon team actually listened.
With a simpler UI than the competition and intuitive integrations with accessible technology platforms (including Apple VoiceOver, which natively works with Alteon’s workflow extension for FCP), Alteon has emerged as a preferred platform for creators with disabilities. The company has been living up to its stated mandate of making creative technology available to everyone.
From a product standpoint, Rush has saved time and reduced stress in the collaboration process. He appreciates the faster upload speeds available with Alteon Accelerator, and has been using Alteon exclusively with one client he met at the 2023 NAB Show. “It’s been amazing to have different marker types, different colors, being able to tag media,” he explains. Without Alteon, if he wanted clear feedback on his footage, he suspects he “would have probably sent him an XML from FCP to make his comments on the FCP timeline, to be able to mark what he wanted to change—and then have him send me the XML back—which was a total tedious process. With Alteon, it’s obviously a lot more seamless to do time-stamped comments.”
Rush has since met with Cimaglia several more times, including at the 2023 NAB Show (where Alteon picked up Product of the Year and Best of Show awards), to continue the discussion in-person about the platform’s advancements in accessibility. He sees lots of ways the whole suite of tools can continue improving workflows for creators like himself—and he’s committed to help make it happen.