Great Moments: CanAssist

CanAssist: empowering people with disabilities

In the late 1990s, an occupational therapist asked Dr. Nigel Livingston if he might be able to design a switch to help a young man with multiple disabilities control a tape recorder on his own. That single interaction — and the delight of one young man for the bit of autonomy the device gave him — lit a spark. “What came to me was that there was a real need for devices like this,” explains Livingston, who went on to found UVic’s CanAssist program in 1999. Developing a truly impressive range of technologies, programs and services for people with disabilities, CanAssist has become a shining example of how ingenuity, passion and teamwork can improve our world — providing hundreds of custom solutions and improving thousands of lives along the way.

One technology that stands out for CanAssist’s engineering team is a device that enables people with very challenging disabilities to control their own music using an iPod and a large button they can push with their hand, head or any other part of their body over which they have control. Today, the system is being used by more than 200 children in the BC school system who are deemed the most severely disabled, as a teaching tool and to promote a sense of inclusion. The device is now available internationally through a US-based distributor of assistive technologies. Delivering the system in 2010 to kids in schools inspired Carl Spani, the project’s lead engineer. “The first time the kids pressed the button to turn on the iPod and play their own music, it was as if they’d just performed magic.”