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My name is Mauricio Meza, and I'm the Co-Founder of Komodo Open Lab.
Komodo Open Lab develops technology to improve the lives of people with
disabilities.
So after completing my degree in biomedical engineering, I worked as an
assistant technology consultant working one-to-one with people with
disabilities and finding tecnology,
that could much their abilities and their goals. After working in that area
for a number of years, I got frustrated -- sometimes -- that the technology available
would not be affordable and would not be able to meet all the clients uh... needs.
So I decided to go back to school and I chose to do an MBA because I
wanted to learn how to take research and make it a product that is available
in the market. Needs in the market was to make smartphones and tablets
accessible for people with disabilities.
Because that's how everybody's interacting with technology now with
mobile devices. But for people with disabilities, there was no alternative
at the time.
So I start talking to people and I run into a friend that uh... we went to
school together,
and that he was working in the same uh... problem but from the academics side.
So that's when we decide to form the company to commercialize the product that
would make smart phones and tablets accessible to people with
very limited mobility.
So we have developed a hardware interface that we call the Tecla Shield.
The Tecla Shield allows someone with a very limited mobility,
so someone with a Spinal Cord injury, Multiple Sclerosis or Cerebral Palsy
to control uh... smartphone or tablet using very simple interfaces.
This can be a big button that someone can just press with their head
uh... it there can be a switch, which they can blow into, some switches where they can blink
or it can even integrate into a wheelchair and the user can use
the same control they used to control the wheelchair to control the smartphone.