Canadian nonprofit answers call for assistive IT

Computerworld Canada - As it often happens, it was Nigel Livingston's own differently abled child who inspired him to form CanAssist, the non-profit assistive technology group that, earlier this month, was recognized for its efforts with a $750,000 Canadian ($704,000 U.S.) grant from the provincial government.

CanAssist is run out of and is partially funded by the University of Victoria, where the eight-year organization got off the ground with a simple request from a community member.

Having suffered a near-drowning accident in childhood, a young man became blind and experienced spasms where his finger would lock into place. Due to his interest in the differently abled space, Livingston (formerly a University of Victoria biology professor before he took up running CanAssist full-time last summer) and a technician in his lab crafted a pressure-detecting ball connected to a small pump that would push back on the finger when it became locked. The device was used by the young man to operate a cassette player and listen to his favourite music.

This was the first of around 150 projects that CanAssist has worked on over the last eight years. The organization is staffed by students, staff, and community members who contribute all kinds of expertise, from engineering to kinesiology, and even music. Each project is inspired by a request from the differently abled community, which has resulted in a wide variety of devices and software.

One area that CanAssist focuses on is human-computer interaction. Said Livingston: "The computer was designed for people who are fully functional, but what if you can't use a keyboard or see the screen?"

They have written a software program, via a Mozilla extension, that allows those unable to pilot a mouse to navigate a Web page. It will show all the selectable items, and you either type or say (courtesy of a voice recognition engine), for instance, 'charlie,' if the link you wanted began with c. If there are multiple c-words, the program will list them, and then you would type or say the number you wanted. For those who find it difficult to type, CanAssist has developed an on-screen keyboard.

A transparent overlay on-screen would be utilized with a head-activated "mouse." There are several boxes of letters that the user can choose, and from there the Web prediction engine would offer choices to help speed up the process. These software packages are already being used by the differently abled community, and Livingston hopes to one day launch the program as readily available freeware.

Livingston and his team have also