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Ability Tech A Civic & Citizen Science Project

In citizen science, citizens and researchers join forces to make a societal positive impact. Part of the University of Twente’s mission is to strengthen society by providing sustainable solutions to current problems. Last year, the Citizen Science Hub Twente made a call for citizens and researchers to submit their research ideas for the start of a new programme “Civic and Citizen Science”. This programme aims to strengthen citizen participation in scientific research. Five projects were selected and received a grant to work on the project for the next two years. Citizen Science Hub Twente sat down with the researchers and citizens of each project to give an update on how it is proceeding.

 Autonomy. It’s something most of us have, in different ways. Making your own decisions on where to go, what to do. Having the freedom to do this can be taken for granted. What if you don’t have the autonomy to do this? What if you can’t walk, move, or communicate the way you want? What if your day-to-day life is confronted with barriers?

Meet Andrei Fokkink. He was born with a disability, which makes using his hands, legs, and talking more difficult, and even not possible sometimes. He doesn’t have control over his movements, except for his eyes. It’s easy to get caught up in this. Andrei has a certain way to look at his life despite all of this: Looking at things as ‘Glass half full’. He looks at what he can do, what he wants to do, and what he will do in the future. Andrei doesn’t let the fact that he can only use his eyes stop him from living a full life. He uses his eyes to make art and he sells it to raise money for charity. You can see his art here. 

His dad, Arie is working on ‘building a better life’ for him. He explains how grateful he is some days for the resources they have for Arie, such as wheelchairs, or MyTobii, which is a software that helps Andrei to communicate through tracking his eye movement. “But some days you think, why don’t we have certain technologies at our disposal?” Around 8 years ago, a friend asked him a question that changed life for the both of them. “If Tesla is building self-driving cars, why don’t you build a self-driving wheelchair?” 

After looking into it a bit, Arie decided to start with small steps through student projects. He reached out to IT students, and they started brainstorming. When you look at where they are today, you’d be proud. This project transformed into a study here at the UT. Together with different students and professors, they were able to create a working prototype of a self-driving wheelchair. Andrei can control the wheelchair using software he can control with his eyes. For now, this wheelchair helps Andrei to decide where he wants to go and gives him the power to do so. Eventually, the goal is to make this technology applicable to all wheelchairs.

The team of Arie, Andrei, students, and professors turned into a community that work together to contribute to the innovation and creation of practical and smart tools for people with disabilities. They call themselves ‘Ability Tech’, and the innovation goes further than self-driving wheelchairs. They are working on different development themes, such assistive robots, robot arms, and game controllers to make life more accessible for people.

Bas van der Boom joined the Ability Tech team a few years ago to work on the self-driving wheelchair for his minor, and he hasn’t left since. “It brings me so much joy to see that we can make a difference in Andrei’s life. To see him happy about the chances he’s getting now is priceless.”

 Innovation in the assistive technology sector is slow to reach users. Ability Tech hopes to change that by encouraging structural attention and fostering innovation, both in educational institutions and in the rest of society.

To achieve this, they are seeking collaboration in the areas of knowledge, creativity, materials, and funding. Together, we can make life more accessible for Andrei and people like him.