People once thought of as disabled will come together in Miami with scientists working on devices to help them overcome physical limitations.
The No Barriers Festival is scheduled for this weekend, The Miami Herald reports.
One of those in attendance will be Erik Weihenmayer of Colorado, president of No Barriers USA, who has been blind since he was 13. Weihenmayer is using one of three prototype BrainPorts, which gives him enough vision to make out letters and to see his 8-year-old daughter, although so far only in black and white.
”I can’t tell you how amazing and surreal it has been,” Weihenmayer said of the BrainPort. ”This sort of technology is not just ahead of the curve, it’s miles ahead of anything we’ve seen before.”
The festival will feature other high-tech devices, like global positioning systems for the blind and prosthetic limbs that respond to brain signals. But Weihenmayer and others say changing attitudes is as important as technology.
There was a time not that long ago when most people might see someone like me — a paraplegic in a wheelchair — and automatically assume ‘disabled,’
said Harry Horgan.
Horgan founded Shake-a-Leg Miami, a center for sailing and aquatic sports and the host of the festival.
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