communicATor

Cathy Bodine, PhD, CCC-SLP, Director, CIDE

This year, the Center for Innovative Design and Engineering turns thirty. I've been thinking about how to mark a milestone like that, and I keep landing in the same place: it’s not the technology, it’s the people.

When we started in 1996, as the Colorado Assistive Technology Program, the field looked very different. Assistive technology was often an afterthought, something families and clinicians pieced together on their own. What we believed then, and what three decades of work have confirmed, is that people with disabilities deserve more than workarounds. They deserve a seat at the design table.

Thirty years later, that belief has carried us further than I could have imagined. Our clinicians have helped thousands of Coloradans find the right technology for their lives. Our researchers and engineers have pushed accessible design into the mainstream. Our students are building careers on the principle that people with disabilities must be integral to the work. This year, that work was recognized on the Forbes Accessibility 200, a list of the top global innovators advancing accessibility. That honor belongs to every person who has ever been part of this center.

So let me say thank you. To our faculty and staff, past and present, who do this work with skill and heart. To our students, who keep us curious. To our community and industry partners, our advisory councils, and our funders, who make the work possible. And above all, to the individuals and families who have trusted us, shared their lived experiences, tested our prototypes, told us plainly when we got it wrong, and shown us what independence really means. You have taught us more than any classroom could.

Thirty years in, our vision hasn't changed: a world where people with disabilities and those aging into disability are engaged in life at home, school, work, and play without barriers and without boundaries. What has changed is how many of us are working toward it together.

Here's to the next thirty.

With gratitude,
Cathy Bodine, PhD, CCC-SLP
Director, Center for Innovative Design and Engineering
University of Colorado Denver