Tuesday 26 September 2017

Harnessing the power of technology to improve lives: The AAATE Congress came to Sheffield this September.


CATCH welcomed hundreds of world leading scientists and health care professionals, who are helping to improve lives through revolutionary technology, to Sheffield this month for the AAATE Congress 12th - 15th September

The Congress combined the 14th AAATE Conference, and, satellite events that covered assistive technology practice and service implementation, and also included the T4I2017 Conference and a Student Tournament addressing real world challenges.

The Congress welcomed almost 400 delegates to Sheffield across the 4 days from a range of academic disciplines, health and social care professionals, policy makers, and industry who discussed challenges from around the world where Assistive Technology could deliver benefits to the increasing population of people with disabilities and the ageing society.

With a programme of well over 200 talks there was a wide array of technology and research on show and the event proved a fantastic opportunity to find out what is happening not just in Europe but also in the far East and North America as well.

Paul Timmers previously from the European Commission, now an independent consultant, gave his perspective on innovation over the last and next 10 years in the opening keynote presentation. Highlighting not just the challenges but the opportunities there are for collaborative and more integrated responses from the innovation communities.

Lord Chris Holmes presented a closing plenary talk. He is very active in the disability field and is the chair of the Global Disability Innovation Hub, spoke about the challenges faced by people with disabilities in today’s world. Lord Holmes explained just how transformational assistive technology has been to him personally and spoke generally about the potential of assistive technology to remove barriers, unlock opportunities and unleash talent and reminded us all why it is so important. Delegates resoundingly left inspired.

To find out more about the Association for the Advancement of Assistive Technology in Europe visit their website.

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