I want to share with you an important
and life-changing promise I made to my
son and I’m gonna show you how I’m using
some exciting low-cost emerging
technology that anyone can use you can
go to the store and buy it right now
called the Internet of Things and how
I’m using that technology to keep that
promise to my son but before we do that
I want to give you a little information
about myself in fact it’s kind of a
little bit of an uncomfortable truth and
unless you knew me you wouldn’t
necessarily know that about me and it
was something I dreaded to share as I
went on a first date about five years
ago and I’m and I’m going on this date
and I’m meeting this this amazing
looking nurse and she’s about ten years
younger than I am and and we sit down at
the restaurant and and we’re going
through all of the normal pleasantries
that you go through in a first date you
know I’m lying about how much I work out
she’s lying about how much she likes
dating short guys you know and it’s
going it’s going really well and I say
okay now now is the time now is now is
the time I need to drop this bomb
because it’s going really well and I
said I I need to let you know that I
Drive a minivan and the reason I was
driving a minivan that night was because
I only had one vehicle and that vehicle
needed to fit my son’s wheelchair you
see I was going on a date that night as
a single dad raising my three year old
son with complex special needs
completely on my own so let me introduce
you to Adrian this is Adrian now Adrian
is eight years old in this picture but
or six or seven but no one knows
and adrian is a great great kid he loves
football and he loves sports and he
loves all these normal things that
typical kids love but adrian was born at
28 weeks he was born two pounds nine
ounces
he was an identical twin and his brother
blaze passed away the day after
Christmas in 2008 adrian has global
developmental delays cerebral palsy
adrian is unable to walk or talk and he
will require complete and total care for
the rest of his life so as I was a
single dad raising Adrian we had a lot
of adventures together and some weeks
were good and some weeks were bad or
hard but every night I would rock Adrian
asleep in a rocking chair I would tell
him what we would do the next day how
much I loved him and how I promised him
I would always take care of him as long
as I could
now that was five years ago a lot can
happen in five years for example I I
went on that date and you can imagine
how well the date went
we uh we got married
and that’s my wife Bree there that’s my
three-year-old charlie
and there’s Adrian and and you know
what’s really exciting is that we’re
actually expecting a baby in three weeks
what’s even funnier is that we moved out
of our hosts today and and we move in to
our new house tomorrow and as my wife
reminded me this was an excellent
excellent time to prepare for a TED talk
but we’ve talked about Adrian for a
little bit but let’s talk about Charlie
now there’s Charlie when he was a little
baby he’s three now and Charlie is an
awesome awesome kid he is analytical and
he is intelligent and he challenges us
and we worry we worry about Charlie
you know we worry about all of the the
typical things that parents worry about
we worry about where he’ll go to school
what kind of friends he’ll have where
he’ll go to college what we’ll do at
this room when he moves out
you’re all those things but for Adrienne
when we talk about his future it’s a
little bit different and I want to show
you an interesting slide here in that
this is what I’m calling care intensity
and so as we know when all children are
born they start off with a high degree
of care intensity but as they learn new
skills and learn to become more
independent such as changing their
clothes and you know don’t need to be
changed anymore and all these things
that level of care intensity starts to
go down over time but for Adrienne that
level of care starts high and continues
to go higher as he gets older now the
good news is though that we live in a
society where we care about kids and
families like mine and kids like
Adrienne I’m pretty sure we still do and
there are amazing organizations out
there whose sole mission is to support
my family and improve the quality of
life for kids like Adrienne but the
problem is that they’re in crisis too
and my family has been on a waiting list
for two years for in-home help and
support so as an engineer I’ve had to
rethink and re-engineer how we think
about providing that level of care and
we can do this with something called the
Internet of Things the Internet of
Things is basically very simply almost
anything that can be turned on or off
can be connected to the Internet and
controlled from your cell phone
frightening but also exhilarating at the
same time and these are
all kinds of different things these are
wireless outlets and temperature sensors
and cameras and voice assistance like
the Amazon adopt or echo or Google home
there’s even wireless network connected
lightbulbs so what I want to do is I
want to take you on a short little
journey if you will with me on a typical
night time sleeping morning time routine
in our home and I think that you will be
able to relate to a few things and a few
other things I’m gonna highlight some
interesting challenges that might be new
to you and so let’s start let’s start
with the dreaded bedtime routine right
so bedtime in our house runs between 30
minutes and 8 hours
kind of depends depends on when we start
a nature certainly enough our
three-year-old turns into sort of this
dehydrated philosopher
it’s very very thirsty yeah ask
someone’s life’s deepest deepest
questions but for Adrian that
conversation it’s a little bit different
so what we worry about when we put him
to bed is a really basic but really hard
question to answer is he too hot or is
he too cold now think about it for a
second when I put him to bed every night
and I put the covers on him he can’t
take those covers off he can’t tell me
he’s too hot he can’t get up out of bed
so it’s something I again eyes over you
know how do we know if he’s too hot or
cold when he sleeps so what we do is we
take this really interesting little
sensor here and this sensor is made to
read the temperature in your home and it
connects your smartphone really really
easily it’s just a press of a button in
it and it connects in there and it tells
you the temperature easy enough but what
I do is I put it in Adrian’s bed so at
night I can check it anytime and I can
see if he’s too hot or he’s too cold in
addition it can alert my phone and
vibrate if he’s too hot but we can also
take it one step further and use a
wireless outlet like this that it says
if he’s too cold
turn on the space heater and when he’s
at just the right temperature turn it
off again so what’s really cool about
this is this is a $30 sensor and we just
answered a really basic but difficult
question for $30 now let’s talk about
and all the kids are in bed and they’re
sleeping
and as everyone knows all children
always sleep through the night for some
reason we put Charlie in bed and then we
wake up in the morning and he’s in bed
with us and we’re not really sure how
that happens it’s amazing but for Adrian
again really basic question how do we
know that he slept okay I mean how do we
know that because Adrian doesn’t
understand the concept of time he could
wake up at 11 p.m. and thinks it’s a new
day and he could be up for the next 24
hours so we need to know if he’s
sleeping okay and we can do that by
using this interesting device here this
is a wireless network camera connects
into your Wi-Fi at home again just a
simple app you install on your phone and
this camera it has infrared capabilities
can see at night can also be controlled
so it can move 360 degrees and it can
also record so what we do is we put this
in his room we put it up there and it
watches and while he sleeps and it also
detects if there’s movement so if
there’s movement it can let us know in
addition it also takes recordings so
that we can check the next day to see if
he’s sleeping okay or what kind of night
he had or even if there was any seizure
activity now this camera is $60 so we
just added the ability to see if he’s
sleeping okay and possibly see if their
seizures happening at night for $60 but
so the kids have been asleep they wake
up in the morning and all kids are
always happy whenever they wake up
in the interest of full disclosure if
you don’t have kids that is a complete
falsehood that is not true
but for Charlie if he’s upset in the
morning we can give him options we can
ask him what kind of cereal he wants if
he wants to color if he wants to do
things that were basically sort of ease
that that transition as he starts his
day but again for Adrian it’s a little
bit different because when Adrian gets
upset he doesn’t always know how to calm
himself down so it’s really important
that we create a sensory room that’s
familiar relaxing and something that he
really really enjoys so before I get
Adrian up out of bed every day I press a
button on my on my cell phone and it
does a number of things and what it does
is it tells this network connected light
bulb to turn on and set at a certain
level in addition it also tells this
Amazon echo here to play sound and his
favorite music it also turns on his
cartoons so as we bring him out into the
world every day he is greeted to a warm
relaxing friendly environment and really
starts his day off right
but we’re not gonna stop there we’re
gonna keep going and I want to show you
something really interesting now this is
something that Adrian is working on
right now and he just started on it and
this is called a Tobii DynaVox and this
device operates only through eye gaze
meaning that it operates only off of
where you look on the screen and it’s
really cool because it can tell all of
these things what to do it can turn on
light bulbs it can adjust the
temperature it can talk integrates with
Facebook
all those things so it’s really really
exciting it’s really really exciting now
it’s estimated by the year 2020
there will be over 1 billion Internet of
Things devices connected to the Internet
as long as these things remain
affordable easy-to-use and accessible
the way we think about how we provide
care to our kids and our family and
friends with disabilities it’s really
really bright it’s really bright so I
want to leave you with two points
tonight there are three point nine
million children born in the United
States each year of those a few thousand
we’ll share a story just like Adrian’s
imagine if we funded agencies and we let
them fulfill their missions and we they
enabled families and we passed along
this knowledge and the innovation and
the training and we continue to innovate
together think about the possibility I
mean it’s right in front of us it’s
right there let’s be let’s be brutally
honest for a second it’s all right this
is a free open venue of ideas but let’s
be honest Adrian will never go to
college he’ll never be married he’ll
never have a job and it will always cost
society more to provide to him that he
will ever ever be able to give back so
why should you care and the answer for
you I hope is that the dignity of human
life matters and how we take care of
those most vulnerable in our society
that’s
that’s how future generations will judge
us but the answer for me the answer for
me it’s love and I made a promise
thank you
you
and life-changing promise I made to my
son and I’m gonna show you how I’m using
some exciting low-cost emerging
technology that anyone can use you can
go to the store and buy it right now
called the Internet of Things and how
I’m using that technology to keep that
promise to my son but before we do that
I want to give you a little information
about myself in fact it’s kind of a
little bit of an uncomfortable truth and
unless you knew me you wouldn’t
necessarily know that about me and it
was something I dreaded to share as I
went on a first date about five years
ago and I’m and I’m going on this date
and I’m meeting this this amazing
looking nurse and she’s about ten years
younger than I am and and we sit down at
the restaurant and and we’re going
through all of the normal pleasantries
that you go through in a first date you
know I’m lying about how much I work out
she’s lying about how much she likes
dating short guys you know and it’s
going it’s going really well and I say
okay now now is the time now is now is
the time I need to drop this bomb
because it’s going really well and I
said I I need to let you know that I
Drive a minivan and the reason I was
driving a minivan that night was because
I only had one vehicle and that vehicle
needed to fit my son’s wheelchair you
see I was going on a date that night as
a single dad raising my three year old
son with complex special needs
completely on my own so let me introduce
you to Adrian this is Adrian now Adrian
is eight years old in this picture but
or six or seven but no one knows
and adrian is a great great kid he loves
football and he loves sports and he
loves all these normal things that
typical kids love but adrian was born at
28 weeks he was born two pounds nine
ounces
he was an identical twin and his brother
blaze passed away the day after
Christmas in 2008 adrian has global
developmental delays cerebral palsy
adrian is unable to walk or talk and he
will require complete and total care for
the rest of his life so as I was a
single dad raising Adrian we had a lot
of adventures together and some weeks
were good and some weeks were bad or
hard but every night I would rock Adrian
asleep in a rocking chair I would tell
him what we would do the next day how
much I loved him and how I promised him
I would always take care of him as long
as I could
now that was five years ago a lot can
happen in five years for example I I
went on that date and you can imagine
how well the date went
we uh we got married
and that’s my wife Bree there that’s my
three-year-old charlie
and there’s Adrian and and you know
what’s really exciting is that we’re
actually expecting a baby in three weeks
what’s even funnier is that we moved out
of our hosts today and and we move in to
our new house tomorrow and as my wife
reminded me this was an excellent
excellent time to prepare for a TED talk
but we’ve talked about Adrian for a
little bit but let’s talk about Charlie
now there’s Charlie when he was a little
baby he’s three now and Charlie is an
awesome awesome kid he is analytical and
he is intelligent and he challenges us
and we worry we worry about Charlie
you know we worry about all of the the
typical things that parents worry about
we worry about where he’ll go to school
what kind of friends he’ll have where
he’ll go to college what we’ll do at
this room when he moves out
you’re all those things but for Adrienne
when we talk about his future it’s a
little bit different and I want to show
you an interesting slide here in that
this is what I’m calling care intensity
and so as we know when all children are
born they start off with a high degree
of care intensity but as they learn new
skills and learn to become more
independent such as changing their
clothes and you know don’t need to be
changed anymore and all these things
that level of care intensity starts to
go down over time but for Adrienne that
level of care starts high and continues
to go higher as he gets older now the
good news is though that we live in a
society where we care about kids and
families like mine and kids like
Adrienne I’m pretty sure we still do and
there are amazing organizations out
there whose sole mission is to support
my family and improve the quality of
life for kids like Adrienne but the
problem is that they’re in crisis too
and my family has been on a waiting list
for two years for in-home help and
support so as an engineer I’ve had to
rethink and re-engineer how we think
about providing that level of care and
we can do this with something called the
Internet of Things the Internet of
Things is basically very simply almost
anything that can be turned on or off
can be connected to the Internet and
controlled from your cell phone
frightening but also exhilarating at the
same time and these are
all kinds of different things these are
wireless outlets and temperature sensors
and cameras and voice assistance like
the Amazon adopt or echo or Google home
there’s even wireless network connected
lightbulbs so what I want to do is I
want to take you on a short little
journey if you will with me on a typical
night time sleeping morning time routine
in our home and I think that you will be
able to relate to a few things and a few
other things I’m gonna highlight some
interesting challenges that might be new
to you and so let’s start let’s start
with the dreaded bedtime routine right
so bedtime in our house runs between 30
minutes and 8 hours
kind of depends depends on when we start
a nature certainly enough our
three-year-old turns into sort of this
dehydrated philosopher
it’s very very thirsty yeah ask
someone’s life’s deepest deepest
questions but for Adrian that
conversation it’s a little bit different
so what we worry about when we put him
to bed is a really basic but really hard
question to answer is he too hot or is
he too cold now think about it for a
second when I put him to bed every night
and I put the covers on him he can’t
take those covers off he can’t tell me
he’s too hot he can’t get up out of bed
so it’s something I again eyes over you
know how do we know if he’s too hot or
cold when he sleeps so what we do is we
take this really interesting little
sensor here and this sensor is made to
read the temperature in your home and it
connects your smartphone really really
easily it’s just a press of a button in
it and it connects in there and it tells
you the temperature easy enough but what
I do is I put it in Adrian’s bed so at
night I can check it anytime and I can
see if he’s too hot or he’s too cold in
addition it can alert my phone and
vibrate if he’s too hot but we can also
take it one step further and use a
wireless outlet like this that it says
if he’s too cold
turn on the space heater and when he’s
at just the right temperature turn it
off again so what’s really cool about
this is this is a $30 sensor and we just
answered a really basic but difficult
question for $30 now let’s talk about
and all the kids are in bed and they’re
sleeping
and as everyone knows all children
always sleep through the night for some
reason we put Charlie in bed and then we
wake up in the morning and he’s in bed
with us and we’re not really sure how
that happens it’s amazing but for Adrian
again really basic question how do we
know that he slept okay I mean how do we
know that because Adrian doesn’t
understand the concept of time he could
wake up at 11 p.m. and thinks it’s a new
day and he could be up for the next 24
hours so we need to know if he’s
sleeping okay and we can do that by
using this interesting device here this
is a wireless network camera connects
into your Wi-Fi at home again just a
simple app you install on your phone and
this camera it has infrared capabilities
can see at night can also be controlled
so it can move 360 degrees and it can
also record so what we do is we put this
in his room we put it up there and it
watches and while he sleeps and it also
detects if there’s movement so if
there’s movement it can let us know in
addition it also takes recordings so
that we can check the next day to see if
he’s sleeping okay or what kind of night
he had or even if there was any seizure
activity now this camera is $60 so we
just added the ability to see if he’s
sleeping okay and possibly see if their
seizures happening at night for $60 but
so the kids have been asleep they wake
up in the morning and all kids are
always happy whenever they wake up
in the interest of full disclosure if
you don’t have kids that is a complete
falsehood that is not true
but for Charlie if he’s upset in the
morning we can give him options we can
ask him what kind of cereal he wants if
he wants to color if he wants to do
things that were basically sort of ease
that that transition as he starts his
day but again for Adrian it’s a little
bit different because when Adrian gets
upset he doesn’t always know how to calm
himself down so it’s really important
that we create a sensory room that’s
familiar relaxing and something that he
really really enjoys so before I get
Adrian up out of bed every day I press a
button on my on my cell phone and it
does a number of things and what it does
is it tells this network connected light
bulb to turn on and set at a certain
level in addition it also tells this
Amazon echo here to play sound and his
favorite music it also turns on his
cartoons so as we bring him out into the
world every day he is greeted to a warm
relaxing friendly environment and really
starts his day off right
but we’re not gonna stop there we’re
gonna keep going and I want to show you
something really interesting now this is
something that Adrian is working on
right now and he just started on it and
this is called a Tobii DynaVox and this
device operates only through eye gaze
meaning that it operates only off of
where you look on the screen and it’s
really cool because it can tell all of
these things what to do it can turn on
light bulbs it can adjust the
temperature it can talk integrates with
all those things so it’s really really
exciting it’s really really exciting now
it’s estimated by the year 2020
there will be over 1 billion Internet of
Things devices connected to the Internet
as long as these things remain
affordable easy-to-use and accessible
the way we think about how we provide
care to our kids and our family and
friends with disabilities it’s really
really bright it’s really bright so I
want to leave you with two points
tonight there are three point nine
million children born in the United
States each year of those a few thousand
we’ll share a story just like Adrian’s
imagine if we funded agencies and we let
them fulfill their missions and we they
enabled families and we passed along
this knowledge and the innovation and
the training and we continue to innovate
together think about the possibility I
mean it’s right in front of us it’s
right there let’s be let’s be brutally
honest for a second it’s all right this
is a free open venue of ideas but let’s
be honest Adrian will never go to
college he’ll never be married he’ll
never have a job and it will always cost
society more to provide to him that he
will ever ever be able to give back so
why should you care and the answer for
you I hope is that the dignity of human
life matters and how we take care of
those most vulnerable in our society
that’s
that’s how future generations will judge
us but the answer for me the answer for
me it’s love and I made a promise
thank you
you
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