White House/VA Conference
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“Targeted medicines that reduce or eliminate side effects, new materials for strong but lightweight mobility devices, and distributed autonomous sensors are some of the ways technology can enhance the lives and daily activities of people with disabilities.”—Dr. John H. Marburger III |
Thank you, Mr. Secretary. And thank you and the organizers of this conference for inviting me to say a few words this morning. Two broad trends are occurring in society that are good news for all of us here today who are interested in emerging technologies for people with disabilities. The first trend is a marked elevation of awareness of the needs and capabilities of people with disabilities throughout society. Accommodations that were required under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990 have had an enormous impact on the architectural and design standards for a wide array of buildings and workplaces, products and services. These new designs and practices make daily life easier for everyone, including people with disabilities. But they’ve also added to an attitude of awareness. We see it everywhere, in the curb cuts and in the new accommodations in public buildings and in private places of business. More and more, people today are aware that there’s a large population among us of people with disabilities who need to be incorporated to the fullest extent into society at large in order for us to remain economically competitive and vigorous as a nation. |
 Dr. John H. Marburger III was born on Staten Island, N.Y., grew up in Maryland near Washington, D.C., and attended Princeton University (BA, Physics, 1962) and Stanford University (PhD, Applied Physics, 1967). Before his appointment in the Executive Office of the President, he served as Director of Brookhaven National Laboratory from 1998, and as the third President of the State University at Stony Brook (1980-1994). While serving as a Professor of Physics and Electrical Engineering at the University of Southern California, Marburger contributed to the rapidly growing field of nonlinear optics, a subject created by the invention of the laser in 1960. He developed theory for various laser phenomena and was a cofounder of the University of Southern California’s Center for Laser Studies. |
The President’s New Freedom Initiative, announced in February 2001, pledges full enforcement of the ADA, identifies new areas of need, and establishes important new programs that will accelerate the transformation of the systems of everyday life to accommodate people with disabilities. The cumulative effect of these and other federal programs, reinforced by a growing number of advocacy and assistance programs for people with disabilities, is a mega-trend amounting almost to a revolution in society’s expectations of the physical capacity of all its members. It’s getting easier for people with a wider spectrum of physical disabilities to live their lives. As this audience is aware, however, much more needs to be done to realize the President’s vision of tearing down the barriers to equality that Americans with disabilities face today. The second significant development is an even more profound recognition in an area sometimes inadequately called “information technology.” The impact of miniaturization of electronic components in the 1960s and ’70s, followed by powerful, inexpensive computers in the 1980s and ’90s, has been far deeper, broader, and faster than anyone could have predicted three decades ago. High bandwidth wireless communications, cell phones, global positioning devices, and incredible small-scale computing power are not just stand-alone applications, but part of an interacting system of devices and processes that have transformed our environment for living and working. Of course, there’s the Internet, which is easy to define as a set of wires and computers, but whose function in society has become so diverse as to defy description. Technological advances are being made that can offer real improvements in the quality of life and care for people with disabilities. Already available are products that incorporate advanced information technology for managing medical records, miniaturized electronics, inexpensive sensors used for information processing, enhanced connectivity via telecommunications and the Internet. Emerging technologies, such as nanotechnology, promise advances that will assist everyone, not just people with disabilities. Targeted medicines that reduce or eliminate side effects, new materials for strong but lightweight mobility devices, and distributed autonomous sensors are some of the ways technology can enhance the lives and daily activities of people with disabilities. Investments are being made by this administration to take advantage of this emerging technology, in the applied and related technologies that provide the generic science, and in the technology infrastructure upon which specific disability issues may be addressed. The nation’s R&D investment in assistive technology is not collected systematically across agencies, but federal spending in this area has been increasing, particularly in Health and Human Services (HHS), the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Department of Veterans’ Affairs (VA), the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research (NIDRR), and the Department of Education (DOE). In addition to research aimed specifically at disability and rehabilitation, federally funded research is scattered throughout the federal R&D portfolio, including $132 billion in the current presidential request for science, breaking all records for support for research and development. For example, this funding may result in—and all of this may have assistive technology applications—robotic research by NASA, lightweight battery research in the Department of Defense (DOD), and nanotechnology research at the National Science Foundation on materials that are many times stronger yet much lighter than steel. The challenge is to link research results and relevant technologies to specific products, and to raise awareness among providers and consumers of their availability. It doesn’t do any good if the technology is there but not incorporated into products that serve the disabled populations. The President’s New Freedom Initiative includes proposals for increasing research on and access to assistive and universally designed technologies, and it is part of the responsibility of my office to bring together this diverse set of capabilities within the federal agencies, and encourage them to talk to each other and share information about the possible applications of their work to these critical needs of society. The Interagency Committee on Disability Research, for example, authorized many years ago by the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, promotes coordination and cooperation among federal agencies conducting disability and rehabilitation research programs. Representatives from more than 30 agencies regularly participate in this interagency group. The current chair, Steven Tingus, is also the director of the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research (NIDRR). Among the committee’s goals is the coordination of government-wide activities in support of the New Freedom Initiative, and in particular to prioritize the immediate assistive and universally designed technology needs of the disability community, as well as foster collaborative projects between the federal laboratories and the private sector. The committee is essentially an intergovernmental counterpart of the Center for Applied Special Technology (CAST), one of the sponsoring organizations for a conference on aging that occurred earlier this year. Through a number of activities, we attempt to coordinate these diverse federal research and development initiatives and bring them to bear on disability problems. I’m very pleased to be part of this initiative, and I’m encouraged by the tremendous reaction to efforts to bring people together and focus on these issues. I look forward to seeing even more results as a consequence of the enormous investments that this administration has made in technologies, many of which can be turned to advantages for people with disabilities. You can see from these investments and activities that the challenges of providing for the rapidly emerging needs of the disabled population are receiving much attention from this administration. I’m grateful to the Department of Veterans Affairs and other organizers of this conference for bringing this diverse group together, and I look forward to seeing the results of this conference. Thank you very much. |
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