Deaf advocate from Ferndale to speak at national conference

Ferndale-based hearing advocate and musician Sean Forbes has already made a name for himself in the region. He's the co-founder of D-PAN, the Detroit Performance Arts Network, which makes popular music available to hearing-impaired audiences with the use of sign language videos (they've already created videos for songs by John Mayer, Christina Aguilera and others).

Forbes, who released his first rap single, "I'm Deaf," this spring, will speak at TEDxNASA, along with more than 20 notable artists, engineers and scientists.

Excerpt:

"It's really an honor to be part of such an amazing event such as TEDxNASA, which brings together artists, engineers, rocket scientists and musicians," says Forbes, a graduate of the Rochester (N.Y.) Institute of Technology. "I'm really excited about it."

The conference will be broadcast live at www.tedxnasa.com. Read the rest of the story here.