in my office University our lab at the
Department of cognitive science and
psychology and asked us to help her we
were a little bit surprised because we
have been doing at the time fundamental
research using eye-tracking bio
recordings and other type of devices but
she said we are the only people in log
area who knows something about eye
tracking and so her son had cerebral
palsy and cannot use his hand you know
speak and she said you must help us
because in Bulgaria nobody cares about
it nobody knows about it so this
actually changed our lives three years
later when we founded the NGO which
promotes and popularizes hydrating based
assistive technologies and also other
high-tech technologies in Bulgaria and
it was not planned in our lives with a
colleague of mine and we are now
crossing Bulgaria and doing campaigns
seminars and so on and so forth and we
saw a lot of problems out there but we
met also wonderful people wonderful
children this is dieter who is the son
of this lady this is Alexander who
turned out to be the first user of such
technology in Bulgaria starting nine
years ago but normally could help him so
his family basically was doing and he’s
going now but they can then he is
some acquaintances of us it’s a great
pleasure very inspiring for us because
she’s extremely smart and Angela
pendulum who started with us from the
very beginning because she’s actress in
the theater at the new began University
for disabled people so she was the first
to come into our office and she started
writing right away using an eye tracker
and watch her all the first time was
when people see me they think that I
don’t have feelings and I don’t have
opinions that this is not true so it is
very important for these people to have
access to such type of assistive
technologies so this group of people
including so famous and well-known to
use even talking is a group of people
with severe physical disabilities some
of these people are not so well
cognitively which is not a problem at
all but some of them are not only
preserved cognitively that are at a
higher length of the IQ spectrum so
Stephen Hawking is one of the famous
users of try technological assistive
technologies using muscle of his cheek
and using a device with a scanning
facility which can write again there are
stories about black holes about the
universe but also recently about the
dangers of artificial intelligence and
so people like that are really millions
in the world so this is just about
disabilities more than 750 meters
globally but of course disabilities can
also be minor continue to age and so on
so forth but still there is a group of
people putting aside people with
blindness or deaf people there are a lot
of diseases and conditions that are
unfortunately statistical they can
strike anybody and some of them are
related to excellence so all of us can
more or less be victims of it and of
course we always age and Creed age
our problems and disabilities coming so
you can see how many of them so cerebral
palsy I mentioned it already but also
the autistic spectrum the spinal cord
injuries which are lead to accidents to
sportrack two car accidents muscle
dystrophy affecting children mostly male
children and ALS amyotrophic lateral
sclerosis so-called Steven Hawkings
disease so put together all these
diseases give about 2% of the population
all in the area there are 145 thousand
people with it fortunately some of these
disabilities are minor but of course
within this group there it is 7,000
people proxy making which needs
assistive technology advanced assistive
technology in order to be able develop a
dog to communicate with their parents
and friends around so what is done in
the field of assistive technology there
of course prospects that are really out
there for instance the prosthetic eye
which is something developed by several
companies this one based on the research
wonderful research by shield Nuremberg
who could crack the code of sending
signals between the human retina and
rain so now this can be substituted by
camera doing the same job and doing
creating a very nice stuff and more will
be with this type of assistive
technologies like for instance the skin
tracker where the movements of the head
you can control computer mouse or if you
cannot do that you can put this into
your mouth with your tongue you can
write the text or you can again control
computer or with your finger the one
that you can move over very often people
just one finger and the more fashionable
and already on the market
brain to computer interfaces Missy is
that the law as it’s usually advertised
to write with your thought it’s not
exactly like this but still this is
something that allows people who cannot
move even their eyes unfortunately
they’re subject cases to write and
communicate with others and this is of
course very important for people who
have physical disabilities there are
solutions that are starting merging by
the exoskeleton so this one is within
the mind worker project of University of
Twente so its control with I guess so
you can control your movement by moving
your eyes but also by a brain computer
interface where it can add because this
is for people who are fully paralyzed so
in a sense in order to make these
movements they need to have conscious
commands about any of them these
movements so this is something that also
is developed more recently cars for
white people
of course smart cars probably are better
but still discuss transformed signals
from from the environment to signals
that white people can receive through
their to these gloves and through the
special devices that are mounted on them
and even more recently enhanced learning
by stimulating the brain based on the
brain of people who have a skill so we
can stimulate a person who doesn’t have
this skill when you grow very much
training and learning so there are
examples although relatively rare of
people who help by such assistive
technologies can lead relatively normal
lives and catherine lammle
is one such example she uses an eye
tracking device which is mounted with a
computer which is mounted on her
wheelchair so she has a bachelor degree
already she’s the
master’s program she has a website which
is promoting assistive technology a
consultancies for people with
disabilities there are also sorry CQ who
is a painter and she has ALS Stephen
Hawking’s disease and at some point she
was completely paralyzed she could not
talk but still continue to paint with
her eyes and you can follow her on
Twitter and see watch things about life
she is also selling her paintings and
helps people with the same disease with
the earnings from from these lenses and
Angela Bachelor Bulgaria who I mentioned
she’s arrived she wrote a book about her
life in very difficult conditions using
just her left thumb
she could move with a lot of
difficulties but still she did it she’s
really with a huge wish to express
herself and at the same time she’s for
an actress and maybe the first actress
of the world using a sistah device
networking you can see her with a
well-known Bulgarian actress young
marine over in a play that is based on
her autobiographical book my life having
a left thumb and you can see her working
demonstrating the capabilities of this
eye tracker which is here for her eyes
so with her eyes she’s using this screen
mouse of reason she selected here
scrolling the scroll silence here when
she looks up she goes up when she looked
up under this sign she goes down so now
she’s praying to complete her high
school studies because she couldn’t do
this when she was young she is now 49
and she probably doing because
she’s doing this very systematically and
here shows all the capabilities of the
itraq in the system technology which is
very mature at the moment so the price
is not very high you can basically work
with Windows and all the software which
is there and there is also software
which is adopted for people using their
eyes because it’s a little bit more
difficult than using your hands so I
want just you to pay attention to this
weight here with the rope
I don’t know if you can see it so it was
used when she was typing with her left
thumb
because she needed to make common key
combinations for instance shift for
capital letter or control she just took
this way and put it on shift or ctrl and
then pressed the respective button and
she wanted really to write corrects or
use capital letters which which is
amazing so this is Alexander I presented
you before the first user who is a gamer
he’s playing games computer games
surfing the web but he has seen
difficulties in writing so his parents
are preparing some exercises for him so
his gaze is the red point that you see
here and there he’s selecting an object
here it’s pronounced you can hear it
here and he must write it using the
letters so you see the gaze going here
and there dizzy yet record and after
completing this it’s a difficult work
because there are lot of consonants in
it he will check it and then the
software will give him feedback about
his achievements and this is Annie
who started working with such a device
this year and it was her mother actually
took care of her very very well and she
was trained on a tablet with good model
basically how
kans and selecting different options she
started playing again she seeks to pay
right but at the beginning of being
presented with this device she’s six
years old
it turned out that she can count she can
write her name with her eyes using a
keyboard and we hope that she will be
general school next year because now she
has such a device with her
so all these examples are a little bit
on the side of access to computer
education professional future
professionals on and so forth but
besides all this great opportunities
resist it acknowledge if the right
communication is a central one and
people who don’t have these problems
they underestimate the possibility to
express your feelings to say that you
disagree with something and to be spoken
to because sometimes people spoke to the
assistance of these people because they
think that if they cannot talk they
don’t have any opinion or anything to
say so this is important and of course
all this is already in the UN Convention
on the Rights of persons with disability
where all the rights people with
disabilities are expected to be granted
but of course you know to be able to
realize is in life which is not the case
you need more powerful assistive
technologies and this more powerful
assistive technologies in general must
be based on the result revolutionary
advances in artificial intelligence and
robotics which are some of them there
are some of them are expected to occur
so these are all the brain projects
human brain projects Google brain they
try to understand the human brain by
simulating it so there is some
expectation that by 2050 the human brain
will be understood at the molecular and
so if this is the case then some people
already are prepared to be worked on in
the future
uploading their consciousnesses into
computers so one of these stinkers ray
pulls fellow who drawing down the term
the singularity point this is the point
when AI will be as powerful as as the
human mind and so at this point they
will be like instead of doing problems
which are potentially dangerous probably
we must against ourselves and achieve
happiness by superpowers that that you
might we might have and all this is
great so remember that the timings but
many people are afraid of this progress
and recent studies show the sixty
percent of people are scattered is
scared of this huge development
including Stephen Hawking who in a sense
is interested in this in this
development and movies kind of sustain
or express these fears of people in
different forms but let’s come back to
the documents the strategies that exist
right now about people with disabilities
so all these documents they mention
people with disabilities their equal
rights and they hear that these people
have the same rights as everybody else
but on the other hand if you read these
documents you’ll see that the Cystic
technologies are mentioned as something
that of course is mean that should be
there but nothing else as much and it is
obvious that it is not enough and this
is the case because there are models
behind all these documents models of
disability as I said though and these
models start with that with the medical
model of disability which is the first
one pretty disabilities as diseases as
something that must be cured these
people as patients that require
specialist
simulations and so on and so forth so
fortunately this model is not more used
and at first it was substituted by the
social model it is going a little bit to
the other extreme and painting that any
disabilities basically do to society
which puts barriers in front of these
peoples or disabilities do not exist if
you take some measures if you have
appropriate transportation access and
assistive technologies and nowadays
there are more balanced more the way the
one of the World Health Organization the
bio psychosocial model which accounts
for all the spectrum of needs and
conditions and situations but of course
it’s not so widely used in practice and
also we have the so-called human rights
model disability that is behind the
Convention on the Rights of persons with
disabilities
so what is the next model so I would
suggest I would advocate for a so-called
transhumanist model disability
transwomen is coming from the idea of
enhancing human capacities which is
something that is coming when of course
it seemed that this is consistent with
the opinion of still talking in another
context and in order to do so what is
needed of course is formulating this
model and get the right documents so
that at some point the people I
mentioned today like on you like deter
life Alexander have a future because now
there are teenagers or children so what
will happen to them in 10 years or 20
years these are exactly dears this
children’s in AI that will be there
available so then you will be like in
order for them to benefit from from it
all this type of work has to be the dis
model these models have to be formulated
these documents has to be
strategies have to be changed because if
we refer to ban ki-moon said when he was
Secretary General UN some time ago for
the strategy of the equipment
development in the next 30 years he said
we are going on the right path and
nobody will be left behind meaning
people with disabilities so I would say
that in order for this transition to
transform a needs to be really
humanistic really successful the people
with disabilities must be put forward or
at the center of these developments and
all strategies needed for that must be there based on transhumanist molar of