Last year -> this year

Entering a new year always makes me ponder the challenges and goals for the year ahead. The past year has been the usual treading the lines of technology, inclusivity and running so the year ahead will cover those bases but in new ways.

Last year my two technology highlights were creating an eye gaze control system and working on user led accessible hackathons. The eye gaze system saw its first use in a real time painting robot, its applications however, are much broader and would be great to see it integrated with environmental control in 2019.

The hackathons were also a fantastic success. There was a careful and thoughtful focus in the projects being user led. This allowed a number of disabled people to nengage, highlight a goal they had and be a key driver during the hackathon. This is something we hope to grow not only this year but in future years.

This year I intend to work on the sonification of data to enable greater inclusivity within computer science and particularly machine learning. Interpreting and analysing data is an important step and the current tools are somewhat lacking. This will form my MSc dissertation project and looking forward to getting stuck in.

Through exposure to some incredibly interesting projects through the hackathon work, i also intend to do a few side projects around switch access. With a focus on zero force switch access, i.e. trigger switches without.a physical press of a button.

The inevitable over eating at Christmas has also ensured i commit to some running. My favourite side of running nowadays is helping others achieve those goals. So in the first half of this year i will be training with a few friends and crossing the finish line alongside them on their first races.

There is of course always the thought of pushing the boundaries, something that is never too far away. All i need is for LIDR to drop in price and that line of possibility will be moved forward once more.

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