We are glad and honoured to host the third episode of the international Convention on Rehabilitation Engineering & Assistive Technology (i-CREATe) in Singapore. This year, i-CREATe is pleased to partner the International Conference on Accessible Tourism (ICAT) to bring you two conferences under one common banner --- Assistive Technology & Accessible Tourism (AT&AT). All registered delegates will have free access to all the programme of the two conferences.
Follow our successful showings of the first two i-CREATe (Singapore 2007, Bangkok 2008), the programme for this year's convention promises to be even more exciting. We have assembled 5 plenary speeches by decorated award-winning domain expert, prominent industrial leader, experienced expert user of assistive technology and renowned academics and physicians. There are more than 100 presentations, workshops and discussion forums covering a wide spectrum of topics, a comprehensive exhibition of the latest products and services by companies, research institutions and NGOs from more than 10 countries, and a showcase of more than 25 projects by the finalists of the IBM Assistive & Rehabilitative Technology Student Design Challenge.
Unlike most academic conferences in the Asia Pacific region, i-CREATe is not an usual annual meeting of academics and professionals to share their latest studies and research, it provides a much needed but glaringly missing platform for all relevant stakeholders to share information and experience. These include the medical practitioners, NGO executives, end users & caregivers, policy makers & government officials, industrial players, academicians, researchers, students and anyone interested in this field. In the past two events, we have been trying hard to strike a balance among the interests of these stakeholders. We want scientific rigor, but do not wish to shut out the people that do not speak equations, algorithms or Latin medical lingos; we want social relevance, but do not wish to make the technologists and medical professionals feel out of place; we want industrial participation, but do not wish to turn it into a hard selling session; we want to provide content for every relevant domain, but we wish even harder for free interaction and cross fertilization.
We wish that you will find i-CREATe 2009 enjoyable as it is useful.