Page 19 - Mobility Management, May/June 2022

Jered said LUCI’s team is actively collaborating on initiatives to advance technology: “We’re working on some things to get open APIs [Application Programming Interfaces] out there to use for research. We just helped submit and start a new committee on the standards board at RESNA to look at driver assistance systems and to start developing standards in cooperation with other companies.”
Jered added that he’s fielded questions on why LUCI is working on projects that aren’t mandatory. “Well, because that’s how you develop technology in a mature industry,” he noted. “We’re doing what we can to push, but I do think those are toxic behaviors that are built into the functioning of this industry that need to change.”
PART OF THE SOLUTION
Barry said part of LUCI’s drive comes from wanting to make
the most of the support the new company has received. “We’ve found a lot of like-minded individuals,” he said. “We’ve met a
lot of people who I think understood the heart of our team, and then joined us and taught us. Those kinds of people willing to walk alongside us and teach us and let us be new to this industry, but not kick us out. That’s a really big deal. And we feel that and honestly, we’re trying to honor it. There are certainly lots of parts
of the journey.”
“We feel that as pressure to continue to push,” Jered agreed.
“That’s [behind] many of the updates we’re working on — our direct responses to the amazing people that we get to work with that provide feedback, that have been encouraging and [supportive] along the way.”
As far as consumers’ and caregivers’ roles in helping to create tomorrow’s technology — Barry noted that while of course, they should be at the heart of innovation, the industry’s current environment doesn’t always support that kind of brainstorming.
“I went through a certain kind of education,” he said, explaining that initially, his strategy was “Just talk to the user. The user will tell you what they need. And there’s nothing wrong with that thought.
“But the fact is sometimes we, as an industry, are so far behind, it’s a cop out to put it all on the user. Sometimes
the ecosystem is dysfunctional in some way that is keeping innovation out, and it’s not fair to ask the user to do the lifting of helping to visualize the future. Not when it’s ‘Can you get me my wheelchair in six months?’ ‘No, I cannot.’ So it’s hard to sit down with that group of people and say, ‘Dream with me,’ because they’re going to say, ‘I’m dreaming of not being trapped in my bed while I wait for some sort of [repair] cycle to occur.’” m
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