GyeongGi-Do Assistive Technology Research & Assistance Center, Seoul, Korea, in Cooperation

The Research Center for Ars Vivendi of Ritsumeikan University is now preparing for having an official agreement with the GyeongGi-Do Assistive Technology Research & Assistance Center in Seoul, Korea.

Let us describe how we have established the relationship with the Center.

Our members visited GyeongGi-Do Assistive Technology Research & Assistance Center in June.

On June 30, 2011, several members of the Research Center for Ars Vivendi visited the GyeongGi-Do Assistive Technology Research and Assistance Center, and exchanged the information on employment, barrier free, and supportive technology of the people with disabilities. Ms. Hyosuk Ahn, who is a graduate student of the Graduate School of Core Ethics and Frontier Sciences of Ritsumeikan University as well as a member of the “Switch Ken” (Study Group on Switches), coordinated this research trip. Eight students and researchers including our program member Prof. Yoko Matsubara took part in this project. The “Switch-Ken” is a group in which our graduate students and postdoctoral fellows make “switches” to support communications of the people with severe disabilities, by collaborating with NPO “Ar”.

The GyeongGi-Do Assistive Technology Research & Assistance Center, founded in 2004, aims at “giving wings to the life of the people with disabilities and the aged.” The center owns as many as 1000 supportive tools. The center, which consists of about 300 professional rehabilitation engineers, offered us a lot of valuable practical knowledge. In exchange, our “Switch-Ken” members also offered them our own experiences with people with disabilities in Japan.

The GyeongGi-Do Assistive Technology Research & Assistance Center showed us various supportive tools they invented.

From this exchange onward, the Research Center for Ars Vivendi keeps cooperating with the GyeongGi-Do Assistive Technology Research & Assistance Center. we will exchange an official agreement for cooperative research on assistive technology in Korea and Japan in November 2011. We strongly believe our international cooperation will benefit the development of assistive technology not only for the two countries – Korea and Japan— but also for other East Asian countries and beyond. We have just started this wonderful journey.