Hello all,
Old user back from the dead, so I thought I might as well introduce myself again.
My name is Andréas Karlsson and I live in Sweden. The reason why I’m here is because my 13 year old son has spinal muscular atrophy and his special need have always been a few levels higher than what the healthcare providers can offer. They simply don’t understand that sometimes it is the millimeters that makes the difference for what works and what don’t.
Luckily, I’ve always been interested in adapting and tweaking my sons equipments to make sure he can be so independent as possible. I mean, I honestly feel that there is an huge gap of available products in the market. And the things that do exist are often not very well thought out. Basic features that should be available to enhance individual independence haven't even been considered by the manufacturers. Speciellt when it comes to assistive devices for children!!
I also want to take the opportunity to share some cool news from me and my sons latest adventure. Back in 2021 I contacted a company called 8BitDo about making an accessible gamepad for my son. A looong story short. My son loves gaming but have always been limited to what he could play due to his muscle being very weak. We sent our design and ideas. 8BitDo accepted the challenge and we managed to make the gamepad in less than a year. DHL got word of our story and wanted us to be in their yearly “Connecting stories” - where we were “connecting gamers”. So a team from BBC came to our house and were here shooting for 3 days - which in all resulted in a video that is around 2 min long hahah. it aired on all channels in the BBC Network world wide. This summer we received word that we won bronze price in IDSA’s International Design Excellence Awards 2023. So in august we were flown in to New York to receive the price together with the team from 8BitDo. My son is the youngest contestant ever to receive this award, so pretty cool I must say!