Innovative Engineering to Alleviate Disabilities

Welcome
Professor John Senior	Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Research), University of Hertfordshire
Chair
Lord Jamie Borwick	The fifth Baron Hawkshead
Speakers
Ian Jones	Executive Committee member, The British Association of Prosthetists and Orthotists (BAPO)
Professor David Spalton FRCS FRCP FRCOphth	Consultant Ophthalmic Surgeon, St Thomas' Hospital
Charles Lowe	President, Telemedicine & eHealth Section, Royal Society of Medicine
Vote of Thanks
John Lamb	Publisher and editor Ability magazine, Executive Director British Assistive Technology Association (BATA) Ltd.
Synopsis

The 2014 EEESTA Seminar “Engineering for the Disabled” – EEESTA’s sixteenth annual prestige seminar – took place on the evening of Wednesday 12th November 2014, at the University of Hertfordshire. Although there were fewer attendees than in previous years, the Seminar was a great success. Despite some no-shows there were over 200 delegates, including students from schools in the region and the University of Hertfordshire.

University of Hertfordshire provided a selection of tasty sandwiches in the Atrium for the delegates to enjoy; unfortunately there were not enough for everyone. Networking with other delegates including a number of HELC members was very enjoyable.

The Seminar was opened by Professor John Senior, Pro-Vice Chancellor (Research), University of Hertfordshire who gave a short welcome address and then handed over to the Chairman, Lord Jamie Borwick , 5th Baron Borwick of Hawkshead.

Before the main business of the evening the Chairman had two pleasant tasks to fulfill for EEESTA: he presented the EEESTA Innovation Award, and acknowledge a Friend of EEESTA.

The EEESTA Innovation Award was inaugurated in 2008 to celebrate the 10th annual Prestige Seminar at the University of Hertfordshire. This year the EEESTA Innovation Award went Theodore Gheorghiu of Chigwell School, Essex, an outstanding Arkwright Scholar from the region. The Arkwright Trust is a charity which aims to promote engineering to young people and now has several hundred scholars each year across the whole country.

EEESTA owes a deep debt of gratitude to a few individuals who have helped in their various ways to make these seminars a success over these last 14 years. The Chairman welcomed Professor Professor John Senior as Friend of EEESTA. Many years ago Professor John Senior provided facilities for a couple of annual seminars organised by East Anglian Engineering Council Regional Organisation. EEESTA was formed following their demise, and University of Hertfordshire continued to host these annual seminars, and in this excellent auditorium for the last 10 years. John Senior has been supportive of these seminars and on many occasions has been prominent in giving the welcome on behalf of UoH.

The Chairman then set the scene for the Seminar, and introduced each speaker.

The first speaker, Mr Ian Jones: Executive Committee member The British Association of Prosthetists and Orthotists, gave a fascinating, if on occasion slightly gory, talk about ‘Prosthetics’, with many physical examples that he had on stage.

 

 

The second talk entitled ‘Vision’ was given by Professor David Spalton FRCS FRCP FRCOphth: Consultant Ophthalmic Surgeon, St Thomas’ Hospital. This included many fascinating video clips of cataract operations, where the flexible lens is inserted into the patients eye via a 2mm diameter tube. He also showed many graphs illustrating the optical properties of different types of inter-ocular lenses.

 

 

The third speaker, Mr. Charles Lowe; President, Telemedicine & eHealth Section, Royal Society of Medicine, talked about ‘Digital Health’. This talk had less technical content than the others.

The seminar ended with a question and answer session which provided further interesting insights from all the speakers. This was well managed by the Chairman who had a question of his own for each of the speakers.

 

The Vote of Thanks was given by Mr. John Lamb; Publisher and editor Ability magazine, Executive Director British Assistive Technology Association (BATA) Ltd.

This was the third year that EEESTA streamed the seminar live to the Internet, thanks to the technology and generosity of Missing Link Live and Global Teleports, and SES, who provided the space segment.

Photographs on this page by Will Dennehy Photography. Text by Ian Williamson.