Life-altering events

During our Wisconsin Public Radio interview Wednesday my fellow guest Jay Martin happened to mention that he’d been in the assistive technology (AT) field for 11 years. AT is a relatively new field, so 11 years makes Jay somewhat of a pioneer.

Jay walked Hanni and me to the University of Wisconsin Union after our interview, and that gave me a chance to ask him one question that didn’t get asked over the radio. “What motivated you to get involved in assistive technology in the first place?“ That’s when he told me about his son’s accident. Liam, now age 26, was paralyzed in a diving accident in 1999. From a University of Wisconsin article:

At the time of Liam’s accident, Martin was director of UW–Madison’s Engine Research Center and had studied internal combustion for nearly 20 years. But upon returning to work after his son left the hospital, he found that disabilities, rather than engines, were constantly on his mind.

Jay talked to a mentor in the engineering department about switching his research focus to assistive technology. A number of his colleagues were interested in doing similar research, and in 2002 the Center for Rehabilitation Engineering and Assistive Technology (UW-CREATe) was born, taking an engineer’s approach to improving the lives of people with disabilities. Again from that UW article:

Today, more than 10 faculty and staff researchers and four times as many undergraduate and graduate students carry out the center’s academic goals of teaching, learning and research.

Jay urged me to come to AT Expo 2010 at the University of Wisconsin College of Engineering Thursday. “It focuses on mobility issues,” he acknowledged. “But we have a few sessions about vision, too.” I took up his offer, and I’m glad I did. Both sessions I attended yesterday were fantastic. Not simply because of the wonderment of the new technology, but because the presenters were honest about the limitations.

That's the BrainPort system, from their Web site.

BrainPort is a device that translates signals from a tiny camera into electrical pulses. Users put a device in their mouths and feel light zaps on their tongues in response to visual stimuli. The presenters yesterday admitted the challenges to using this device are significant. The BrainPort provides information in two dimensions,
like a line drawing on a piece of paper. User’s have to translate this information into things like perspective, dimension, and location. The presenters were proud to tell us that Erik Weihenmayer, the blind man who reached the top of Mount Everest, is experimenting with their device while he climbs. “But you know the thing he likes best about it?” they admitted with a shrug. “He can use it to figure out where his coffee cup is and grab it off the kitchen table.”

David Ross, a biomedical research engineer for the Department of Veteran Affairs, gave a presentation on cell phones that can scan things and read them aloud. David pointed out, however, that people who can see naturally narrow in on what is important to focus on in their line of vision. People who are blind and traveling through space, however, will have no idea where to point the phone to get a reading. As is, the technology could be useful in helping those of us who are blind confirm we’ve found what we’re looking for. “Those of us who are sighted use our vision to do this all the time,” he said. “We feel something with our hands, then look at it to make sure it’s what we thought it was.”

The best part of the afternoon? Meeting Jay Martin’s son. Liam finished high school with his graduating class and went on to receive a degree in psychology from University of Wisconsin. These days Liam works as a mentor for Midwest Alliance, an effort to encourage students with disabilities toward careers in science, technology, engineering and math.

Liam was manning the Midwest Alliance booth at the expo. He told me he likes his job there, but said his real interest is in music. And radio.

Our conversation took off from there. I told him how I got started at National Public Radio, he told me about the shows he’s put together for WORT, a community radio station in Madison. We talked about radio internships, whether a person could do a virtual internship, and if not, what cities in the United States have the most accessible public transportation. We’d been talking nearly an hour before I finally took out my phone to call for the hotel shuttle to pick me up.

“Would it be easier if we gave you a ride?” Liam asked. “I’ve gotta go back to my office anyway.” He and his colleague Chris ended up chauffeuring me to my next stop, a rendezvous with a Madison friend at a groovy coffee shop. We exchanged email addresses, and as Hanni led me to my cup of capucino, Chris and Liam took off in the conversion van.

Geez. The Vision Midwest conference hasn’t even started yet, and already I’ve met so many very talented – and very cool – people. What will today bring? I can’t wait to find out!