Tom Chau was 29 when he found the perfect job: using his engineering skills to develop technology for kids with disabilities. There was only one problem. The job didn't exist. That was 1999. Chau was working for IBM, earning a good salary but feeling uninspired. "At the end of the day, it wasn't very fulfilling. I needed something that had more of a human touch." So he called up the Bloorview MacMillan Children's Centre, a paediatric rehabilitation hospital in Toronto, and offered his services. "They told me not to quit my job," he remembers with a laugh, since they had no way of funding his plan. Undeterred, Chau left his corporate career anyway, and the hospital eventually found some money to start up his project. Working out of a basement lab for less than half his previous salary, he built a team of graduate students and began dreaming up ways to improve children's lives. He's most proud of his virtual musical instrument, which allows children with no fine-motor skills to play notes by moving their hands over coloured balls on a screen. At first, Chau figured they would simply have fun sounding random pitches, but the kids surprised him. He still remembers watching Kajan, a teenaged boy with muscular dystrophy, play a flawless "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star." "I was blown away. And his parents were speechless - they had no idea their son was so musically inclined." Chau, a father of three himself, is soft-spoken and modest. But don't try to tell him that some children are beyond help. He's confident that he can give every child the ability to say she's hungry, she's happy, or she wants to wear her blue socks today. His team has created a communication device that can be triggered by any part of the body - even by moving an eye. And for kids unable to do even that? He's researching a device that interprets brain activity, so kids can make their choices known just by thinking about them. Earlier this year, Chau moved out of the basement and into a state-of-the-art lab in Bloorview MacMillan's brand new building. "For the first time, I have sunlight," he says. Thanks to Chau's work, dozens of children are saying the same thing. Chosen charity: Sunny View Youth Involvement Association |
