I am sometimes asked why I am so interested in helping people with disabilities.

Ian Karten, MBE

It started with a smile – a smile of joy and pride in achievement which lit up the face of a young man paralysed from the neck down and rendered unable to speak by cerebral palsy. He had just completed the first letter he had ever written. I had watched him putting it together on a computer. He had a stiff collar round his neck, fitted with three large buttons which he was able to press with his chin. This, together with a special software programme in the computer, enabled him to create words on the monitor, each character followed by a pause while the programme scanned the alphabet for the next character.

What I had seen was a graphic demonstration of how computers, together with assistive devices such as those described above, and with appropriate training, can transform the lives of even the most severely disabled people. Assistive computer technology can enable them to communicate with others nearby or far away, provide mental stimulation for them, and in many cases enable them to be trained in computer-related occupations, and to be integrated in society.

The Ian Karten Charitable Trust is what is called a grant-making trust. In 1996 the Trustees decided to devote a substantial part of the Trust’s resources to the establishment of centres for disabled people for computer-aided vocational training, education and communication, to be known as CTEC Centres. What all the Centres share is firstly their determination to use assistive computer technology to provide training at the highest level of excellence to people with disabilities in order to improve their quality of life, and in suitable cases to improve their employability by vocational training; and secondly their commitment to exchange information with other Karten CTEC Centres and with the Trust in order to spread best practice and to benefit from each other’s pecialized expertise.

IAN H KARTEN MBE
Chairman of Trustees – The Ian Karten Charitable Trust