Assistive Technology Update - A fast-paced weekly update for AT professionals and enthusiasts
ATU693 - ATDev with Owen Kent
Your weekly dose of information that keeps you up to date on the latest developments in the field of technology designed to assist people with disabilities and special needs. Special Guest: Owen Kent - Co-Founder - ATDev Website: assistivetech.dev Website: atdev.tech Email: owen@assistivetech.dev Learn more about Bridging Apps: bridgingapps.org Sign up for our Full Day Training: https://www.eastersealstech.com/our-services/fulldaytraining/ —————————— If you have an AT question, leave us a voice mail at: 317-721-7124 or email tech@eastersealscrossroads.org Check out our web site: http://www.eastersealstech.com Follow us on Twitter: @INDATAproject Like us on Facebook: www.Facebook.com/INDATA
Hi, I'm Owen Kent, the co-founder of the EQ Dev. This is your assistive technology update. Hello and welcome to your assistive technology update. Oh, weekly dose of information that keeps you up to date on the latest developments in the field of technology designed to assist individuals with disabilities and special needs. I'm your host Josh Anderson with the INDATA Project at Easterseals Crossroads in beautiful Indianapolis, Indiana. Welcome to episode 693 of assistive technology update. It is scheduled to be released on September 6th, 2024. Today's show, we are super excited to welcome Owen Kent, the co-founder at AT Dev on the show to talk about a really cool accommodation that they're working on, and just talk about all the other great things they're doing. We're also happy to welcome back Amy Berry with bridging apps with an app worth mentioning. Don't forget that you can always reach out to us. We look forward to hearing from you with your questions, your comments, or even your suggestions for folks that we should have on the show. You can send us an email at tech@eastersealscrossroads.org or call our listener line at 317-721-7124. Our guest today Owen Kent actually came as a suggestion from another guest so just know that we do take suggestions for guests from not just our previous guests but also our listeners. It's hard to stay up on AT and know exactly who to try to get on the show so we always value your recommendations, your comments, your questions, and anything else that you'd like to send. So don't forget you can send us an email at tech@eastersealscrossroads.org or call our listener line at 317-721-7124. Thank you again for taking time out of your day to give us a listen. Now let's go ahead and get on with the show. Listeners, we are super excited to partner with our employment program here at Easterseals Crossroads to offer assistive technology and employment full day training coming up on Thursday, October 3rd from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Eastern Time. This marks our final full day training of the year here for us here at INDATA and as I said we're very excited to partner with our employment program here at Easterseals Crossroads in honor of National Disability Employment Awareness Month. During this training we are super excited to welcome folks from JAN to present on inclusive strategies for welcoming applicants and including employees with disabilities. I'll also present on assistive technology, job placement, job accommodation and all that fun stuff and then we will welcome the folks from our employment program here at Easterseals Crossroads for a whole seminar on the job search as well as an employer panel featuring representatives from some employers here in Indiana and how they work to employ individuals with disabilities. So we're very, very excited for this training and as I said it will happen on October 3rd to kick off National Disability Employment Awareness Month. If you are interested in attending any of our trainings but especially this one coming up on October 3rd you can go over to eastersealstech.com check out our full day trainings and sign up right there. It is free to attend but you do have to register especially if you need any of those continuing education units or CEUs. This training is available both online and in person so if you're not able to make it here to Indianapolis you can always join us online or if you happen to be in the neighborhood please do stop by we always love having folks in person now that that is again a possibility. So if you're interested in learning more about assistive technology and employment please do join us for our full day training on Thursday October 3rd from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Eastern here at Easterseals Crossroads and online. You can check that out at eastersealstech.com I will also put a link down in the show notes where you can go and secure your tickets. Don't forget it is free to attend but you do have to register in order to be able to attend that day both in person and online. We look forward to seeing you there. Listers up next we are very excited to welcome back Amy Berry from Bridging Apps to the show with an app worth mentioning. Take it away Amy. This is Amy Berry with Bridging Apps and this is an app worth mentioning. This week's featured app is called Peak Brain Training. The Peak Brain Training app features short daily workout for your brain that focus on things like memory, coordination, language, problem solving and more. The workouts are different each day and get more challenging as your skills improve. These short daily workouts and personalized games adapt to your skill level helping users improve cognitive performance while in-depth performance analytics track your progress. Some of the great features of this app are that it sets a reminder for you to play one to seven days a week and a time that works for you. The activities in the app are clearly categorized by the skill they are meant to improve allowing users to see which types of skills they're doing well in as well as which areas they may need more practice. We think this app is great for older adults and anyone who wants to exercise their brain. Studies have shown that small declines in the area of memory both visual and verbal may occur along with some short-term memory loss as you age. The brain, like any muscle, needs exercise to stay in shape. The more exercise the brain gets, the better it is at processing information. Memory exercises for seniors can help short and long-term memory recall. Peak Brain Training is currently available for both Android and iOS devices and it's free to download with optional and app purchases. For more information on this app and others like it visit bridgingapps.org. Listeners today I am excited to welcome Owen Kent the co-founder of AT Dev to the show to tell us all about the exciting work that they are doing. Owen, welcome to the show. Tell our listeners a little bit about yourself? Sure, yeah. I am Owen. I am in Colorado, a little bit north of Denver. I have spinal muscular atrophy so I have actually been involved with Easterseals for a good part of my life. I was a camper back when I was in middle school probably out in the Colorado plant and that was just a really wonderful experience I had there. Yeah, after I graduated high school I went out to UC Berkeley where I got my degree in chill which I like to say which is why I run a robotics company now. Yeah, I'm a life-long wheelchair user, power wheelchair and yeah, I have just been really fortunate to benefit from some of the advances in technology throughout my lifetime. I was born in the early 90s and so just kind of seeing the trajectory of what was available to me when I was a kid versus what was available to me today is just something that was really inspired me and ultimately led me to want to step my own company to build some of the more groundbreaking technologies. Nice and I'm so glad you put all that in there because yeah for every kid whose parents says that that degree in film is never going to do anything for you. You can show them, you can show them that it can get you a job at a robotics company but I love the way you put that. Oh and I guess this kind of leads me on to kind of what is AT Dev? Yeah, so AT Dev is out my company that stands for Assistive Technology Development and we intentionally wanted to leave the name pretty blue sky because our mission is to really build the future of mobility devices so we started we're starting out with the at-home physical therapy device. My co-founder Todd Roberts, he is an exoskeleton designer and mechanical engineer so we were actually roommates at UC Berkeley and came to find out that we shared a mutual compassion for building assistive technology and I pitched to him the idea of using robotics to do at-home physical therapy because as a wheelchair user and someone with chronic atrophy in my joints I've always had struggles accessing the amount of physical therapy that I wanted whether that was from a lack of reinsurance reimbursement or just simply you know the registration challenges or having to go to the office and get on my chair and yeah for an hour appointment and I only get 10 or 15 minutes of actual therapy and so yeah the idea really really caught on and that was back in 2019 when we met, we incorporated our company in 2020 and received some early grant funding through the National Science Foundation and then later SBIR from the NIH so yeah that was kind of the you know the inception of our company but you know in the future we have a number of plans and ideas on how to allow people to live independently regardless of their age or disability. That's great, I want to dig in a little bit deeper, you kind of said you know using robotics for at-home physical therapy, can you tell me at least as much as you can what the device or kind of the thought behind the device you're working on is? Yeah sure so the device is called reflux and it's a single trying to knee exoskeleton designed for doing rehabilitation following a total knee replacement or really any knee surgery so it's a you know adjunct therapy for the physical therapist to prescribe on the patient with being at home with them and the device is able to provide passive range of motion as well as active resistance training and really is very exciting is also is telehealth enabled so it's able to send real-time updates to the clinician in order to monitor the patient's progress which we really think is going to help improve outcomes and enable physical therapists to be more efficient and the patients that they serve. And that's wonderful because I've known I've known more people than I can think that actually have had some sort of knee surgery and sometimes it goes really well and sometimes it doesn't and I don't know how much of that is them not doing the things they're supposed to be doing afterwards and and everything so I'm sure from a physical therapy or physical therapist standpoint that's great because you know are they doing their exercises are they doing the everything that they need to do to get back up to strength but also like you said with having the data of if something isn't working or is going wrong you've got that in real time as opposed to the just I don't know I'm never good at telling the doctor anything you know it is well it hurt last Tuesday or oh this didn't seem okay but actually to have that data I'm sure is a would be an amazing help to them as well as just probably bring down the amount of time that people need to to recuperate from the surgery itself. Exactly yeah you know from some of the research we have done you know compliance for at home physical therapy is around 30 percent and those numbers are you know it's also like one of the dentists asks you how often you brush your teeth you know you tend to exaggerate the numbers but yeah you know we've been uh yeah really fortunate to partner with a number of academic universities and hospitals to run some studies and yeah as well as signing some distribution agreements so yeah we we hope to do a limited market release in the US actually later this fall. Oh very cool that was going to be kind of my next question was what phase of kind of R&D or you in but it sounds like it's at least limited going to maybe be out there where some folks can can try to try to start using it. Yeah that's right yeah we're you know like I said limited market release we're starting with the VA and workers comp yeah we decided the distribution agreement with Apex Health Group and their national and national groups so we're really very excited to be able to yeah start starting helping people yeah recovery recovery faster. That's great I can see that going a lot of places beyond just just the knee you know as when the technology works and everything I can really see that going to so many different places I've got to admit when you first set exoskeletons and at home physical therapy I had this picture of just an evil robot physical therapist yelling at you to do your exercises and it always always scared me and I love that you brought up the not lying but you know always over exaggerating maybe how much you actually complied with the the treatment plan because I don't think anything could be further from the truth. The folks who seem to do the best in physical therapy hate their physical therapists because they're actually doing the work so yeah exactly yeah and you know I mean I think it's a it's a cool example of you know how you know myself is something with a pretty significant disability has been able to you know use technology in a new way so yeah and it's really I had the idea because I have a Canova J-Care robotic arm on my chair and I was noticing that I was using it to stretch my body and that's where the idea came from and then you know as we went through a number of different startup accelerators we realized that the problem space is actually far larger than just people with neuromuscular conditions um and that's what I was gonna realize is to focus on code on the replacements as our our beach head market so I really like that that journey. Oh definitely definitely and I want you you kind of said a little bit and I want to just kind of kind of push it a little bit where do you see A.T. Dev going in the future? I mean this is a great starting off point but where can you really see it going as it just continues to progress? So yeah like I said our mission is to deal with the future of mobility and doing what that means to me is allowing people to raise as independently as they want with the support of technology rather they have mobility issues from you know a chronic disability like I do or an acquired disability or just simply from aging you know a lot of my family you know I want to see them age and place in their home and be comfortable and not have to go to a nursing home if they don't want to um and so our our vision is to build a ecosystem of robotic devices primarily at home that are enabling people to live independently um and with a specific focus on mobility um and giving people you know rehabilitative posture as well as developing the next generation of robotic real shows and designing very young what the future of mobility is. Nice very very cool and while I do love this device also just can't wait to see just how far it it all goes. Oh and is somebody that's that's well not done assistive technology since the 90s but you kind of just mentioned a little bit and I always like to to find out about folks journeys but you talked about the difference in technology from when you were younger to to kind of today what's the biggest difference that you see or I guess that you experience from back then to to now and in really in access or accessibility or in the technology that you you can use. Yeah I mean you know when I I grew up in a house where we didn't have EV and I grew up in the mountains of Colorado and so um you know I think I got my first computer when I was you know four or five and I don't even know if we had the internet until later and so you know for someone with a disability is just the amount of you know independence I've been able to get through something as simple as a Bluetooth mouse it was something that you know has a mirror with me to you know not only read independently but go through college and graduate and ultimately start my own startup which is you know pretty challenging for anyone to do later on someone with some real mobility issues and you know what I'm particularly excited about is to be building a platform technology where a lot of these different innovations like smart home technology for example can be working you know in concert with other assistive technology devices to be able to really influence independence and also improve the experience for at-home caregivers as well. Yeah that's a that's a problem that most people don't really talk about it's kind of the at-home caregivers and just the shortness that they're they're the shortage of those that there is I'm not sure how is it is how it is in Colorado but I assume it's like everywhere I know here in Indiana there's some pockets especially of the state you know you kind of brought up rural Colorado here in rural Indiana it's hit or miss whether there's anyone kind of to be able to assist or anything that can take the burden off that well that whole yeah that whole group of folks yeah and that's really the problem that we're aiming to solve at at-home you know currently in the US 15 million people require at-home care of varying degrees that number is expected to double about 20 or 20 as the population ages so you know as you know there's already a caregiver shortage and some real serious funding issues and you know in just a few years that's going to be at least twice a severe and so I really think that we have to leverage these new technologies to reduce the burden on caregivers to be able to you know provide effective and quality in home care yeah and anything we can do to well and you brought it up earlier you know allow people to be independent in their homes as long as pause long as they they want to be you know and and yeah and really can and like you brought up you know there's already a caregiver shortage it's going to get worse so we don't want that to be the barrier that makes folks not be able to live independently so any tools we can do and we're happy that AT devs working on tools to be able to help folks be able to just stay stay home and stay independent and and do what it is that they they really want to do oh and just because I have you on so I I have to ask because I hopefully this will kind of help other folks out there but like you said kind of starting a startup is is really rough for anybody so if anybody out there I don't know is a film student and their roommates a robotics student and they think they have a good idea for a startup what kind of advice can you can you kind of give to them just from the experiences you've had doing this yeah well for me I've really been you know been blessed to have a really wonderful co-founder um so that has made the experience extremely tolerable you know I really want to work with the best people that you can um because that's uh you know ultimately what is gonna you know it's like it's like being married yeah except for I think you spend more time with the with the co-founder that you get to with uh with your your spouse yeah exactly um but you know I think also you know you really need to be able to you know take rejection yeah yeah you want to be able to you know you still believe in yourself and um you're what you're doing and you know believe that you're um yeah well for me yeah I'm definitely driven by wanting to make a positive impact and around you know I don't think that I would be as satisfied just running a you know uh and our database management company for banks or you know whatever it would be I was uh maybe the funding would be easier um you know I'm particularly very motivated by building technology that you know will improve my life somewhat selfishly but also improve your lives as you know other people yeah that's I think that's that's awesome advice awesome advice well oh one of our listeners want to find out more about at dev and all the the cool things that you're up to what's a good way for them to do that yeah so you know we're we're on LinkedIn um you can go to our website assistivetechnology.gov um or etdogs.tech um and um yeah you're feel free to to email me um my email is orin@assistivetech.gov um and um yeah I'd be happy to to chat um anytime awesome we'll put all that information down in the show notes we'll oh and thank you so much for coming on today for telling us about about at dev and really also just for giving us some insights on on kind of what it takes to start up such a uh I want to say ambitious idea and be able to get a a product to where it is and just uh I love hearing about the motivation to get it all started and then just the I don't know the luck fate whatever to be able to to partner with a co-founder who has some of the other skills and drive and so you can work together to make these cool things we're looking forward to seeing everything that comes out of it in the future as well so thank you so much for coming on yeah I thank you gosh my pleasure do you have a question about assistive technology do you have a suggestion for someone we should interview on assistive technology update if so call our listener line at 317-721-7124 send us an email at tech@eastersealscrossroads.org or shoot us a note on twitter @indataproject our captions and transcripts for the show are sponsored by the indiana telephone relay access corporation or intrac you can find out more about intrac at relayindiana.com a special thanks to nakul Prieto for scheduling our amazing guests and making a mess of my schedule today's show was produced edited hosted and fraud over by yours truly the opinions expressed by our guests are their own and may or may not reflect those of the indata project easterseals crossroads are supporting partners or this host this was your assistive technology update non-josh anderson with the indata project at easterseals crossroads and beautiful indianapolis indiana we look forward to seeing you next time bye bye