Yeoh Siew Hoon has her eyes opened to the unsung heroes of Assistive and Rehabilitative Technology.

At WIT, we mainly talk about technology and how it changes our lives as social beings and as consumers.

Recently, I have been exposed to another form of technology, – the kind that truly changes lives by improving the way the less fortunate among us live.

The finest example of Assistive and Rehabilitative Technology at work is of course embodied by Professor Stephen Hawking, the brains behind “A Brief History of Time” and “The Big Bang” and other such groundbreaking works.

In the new year, I was invited to speak at a conference on Assistive and Rehabilitative Technology in Singapore. My topic was on how tourism could be made more accessible to all but I found myself learning more than I could ever hope to in a morning.

Just the day before, I had read of TV Raman, a computer scientist and engineer at Google, who became blind at 14 and has since become “a leading thinker on accessibility issues”.

Raman’s creations include a Rubik’s Cube covered in Braille, a software programme that can take complex mathematical formulas and read them aloud and a version of Google’s search service tailored for the blind. He is now working on a touch-screen phone which could help blind people navigate the world.

“The thing I am most interested in,” he says, “is all of the stuff moving to the mobile world because it is a big life-changer.”

That morning at the conference, I learnt of students working on devices that will help in the rehabilitation of stroke patients. Ang Wei Tech, who specialises in Robotics Technology at the Nanyang Technological University, is working on “wearable bands thin enough to be covered by sleeves” that can detect hand tremors and help the individual reach steadily for a cup of water.

Apparently, 5-9% of the population in Singapore aged over 40 suffer from some form of tremor.

Ang also shared details of a project, Pro Balance, that has made it into the commercial space – a device that helps ankle injury rehabilitation and is able to predict the onset of ankle injury.

Assistive and Rehabilitative Technology is a growing field in Singapore, because of the ageing population. According to statistics shared, 8.1% of the local population are aged 65 and above. In Australia, it’s 12%, US 12.4%, UK, 15.7%, Germany 18.3%, Japan 19% and Italy 19.1%.

In Asia, by 2015, 7.8% of the population will be aged 65 and above while 1.4% will be aged over 80. By 2030, the corresponding percentages would be 12% and 2.3%.

Thierry Do, Senior Lecturer, School of Design at Singapore Polytechnic, who led a design project called “50+ Designing for the 50+”, said that “50+ are living healthier, more active and productive lives than ever before” and as such, product designs had to be evolve and had to take their changing needs into consideration.

He calls it “designing with the 50+ in mind, not for the 50+”. The project he leads involves gathering ideas from the users themselves.

So some products and ideas the group has come up with include an all-in-one cooking pot and pan, a social space where people can gather to share time and ideas as well as eat and cook together, a pre-paid food ordering booth and a mobile phone with a basic healthcare detector.

So if you are interested in providing services and products for the 50+, Do has these design tips to share.

1. Products need to be perceived not for their value, but for their experiential factor
2. Target your market by their tastes, aspirations and affinities, not their age
3. Comfort-oriented devices are the first steps to living well
4. Subtlety is the key
5. And of course, manufacturability

Do shared a few products designed by students.

• Touched pillows which uses thermal changing technology. “It sends feelings of love to the person holding it, a grandmother missing her grandchild, for instance,” said Do.
• A sugar spoon made of recyclable material.
• Need-e-less – a needle that has an ingenious knot attached to the eye that allows long-sighted folks to thread the needle “without frustration”.

As I sat in the audience with my left leg in a cast propped up on a cushion, I realised these are the unsung heroes of the technology world – the men and women who toil away in dark labs for years on end and on inventions that will never create the hype of an iPod or an iPhone but make all the difference to individual lives.

Yes, my friends, we will all need them someday.