Episode 345: Chris Bugaj & Rachel Madel: ATIA 2025 Recap

In this episode, Rachel Madel and Chris Bugaj recap their experiences at ATIA 2025, highlighting the value of community-building during the pre-conference and the growing impact of generative AI in AAC and assistive technology. They discuss exciting new tools like Symbol Creator AI and Flex Speak, and reflect on key sessions around policy advocacy, emphasizing the power of personal stories in influencing change. The episode underscores the importance of collaboration, innovation, and using your voice to make a difference in the assistive tech space.

Key Ideas This Episode:

Collaborative Learning and Connection at Pre-Conference and Sessions
Chris & Rachel emphasized how the ATIA pre-conference fostered rich conversations and collaboration, particularly for professionals who often feel isolated in the AAC field. Participants valued the chance to share insights, ask questions, and build lasting relationships. The extended format of 1.5 days allowed for deeper dives into topics like coaching and core AAC strategies, enhancing both learning and community-building.

Generative AI and Accessibility Innovations
A major theme was the evolving role of generative AI in assistive technology. Presentations explored how AI could enhance AAC use—like suggesting dialogue based on context or location (e.g., at Starbucks)—and improve communication speed and flexibility. Tools like Microsoft’s Accessibility Insights, the Flex Speak app for multilingual AAC, and Symbol Creator AI from Global Symbols were highlighted as promising developments that support more inclusive and customizable communication.

Empowerment Through Policy, Advocacy, and Storytelling
Amidst concerns over funding and administrative changes, attendees were encouraged to advocate for assistive technology by directly engaging policymakers. A standout session by ATIA’s policy advisor Laura Kaloi underscored the impact of personal stories in influencing legislation. The episode closed with a reminder that every professional’s and user's voice matters in shaping future access and innovation in the field.

Transcript of the Episode

Please Note: This transcript was generated using speech recognition & AI tools; it may contain some grammatical and/or spelling errors.

00:00:08 Rachel Madel
Welcome to Talking with Tech. I'm your host, Rachel Madel, joined as always by Chris Bugaj. Chris, we have a special episode today.

00:00:15 Chris Bugaj
We do, we do, we do. It's one of my favorite ones where we always get together and we chat about our experiences at the Assistive Technology Industry Association conference that took place earlier this year where you and I go, we get to pal around, spend some time together. We stayed together at a like this apartment thing that was super awesome. And then we went to the conference, we did our pre conference and I mean there's a bunch of stuff to react to. You had to leave early so you didn't get to stay as long as you as you'd like. And we missed you in those, those, those final days. But this is that moment. We're going to share some of our takeaways.

00:00:52 Rachel Madel
Yes, I was so sad to leave early but I was going to hang out with so my brother, my twin brother is getting married and his wife to be his fiance had a Bachelorette weekend in Florida. And so I was like this is literally could not be more perfect. She sent me the dates she said it's going to be in Florida and I said you won't believe this I'm going to be in Florida that weekend. But it did mean that I had to leave HA early, which was really sad. But I did get in to enjoy some of the fun.

00:01:21 Chris Bugaj
That's that's awesome. I'm glad you had fun, but we did miss you. But the time we did get to spend together, we started off with our pre conference. So we've been doing the pre conference for several years now. We had the largest turn out ever right then than we ever we've ever had before.

00:01:38 Rachel Madel
It was, it was a lot. There was a lot of people we kept seeing like the numbers keep ticking up. And I was like, wow, this is amazing.

00:01:46 Chris Bugaj
Something different that they did this year at ATIA is they had us do a day and 1/2. So you spend an entire day and then you know, do whatever that night and then come back for another half day and then I think the conference started that day. So you leave your pre conference and the conference sort of starts in the afternoon, right? And so that was a different format for people. And taking a peek at our evaluation feedback, it was so interesting. One person said, yeah, 1.5 days is at the beginning of a conference is just too much. Another person said we could have used 2 full days.

00:02:21 Rachel Madel
I know it is really funny when you read the feedback because it's like sometimes things are in direct opposition, but it just everyone has their own experience and we appreciate the feedback because that helps us do better at what we do.

00:02:34 Chris Bugaj
Yeah. Some of the other feedback that we got was, you know, our sessions are designed around having conversations about topics. And so that people really appreciated that the conversations and questions asked by participants was one of our favorite parts. The way the presenters took the time to answer them and we can collaborate with other professionals in the room was awesome. There was great discussions with the presentations and the other attendees. The content and resources were awesome. And people said they appreciated some new takeaways, including how to teach grammar, like the concept of core themes, thinking about client and ACE user perspectives, and getting their insights on making informed decisions. The least dangerous assumption people specifically called out and they loved, absolutely loved the coaching portion where you know you, we did this demo and talked about how you know what that was like. And so overall, really positive feedback.

00:03:34 Rachel Madel
Yeah, I always feel like, Chris, one day isn't enough to go through all the content. We're always kind of rushing at the end and during our lunch break figuring out like, what are we going to cut because we didn't have enough time. And so I really loved having the extra kind of half day. It was so great. And I feel like we actually got to really dive into coaching and that is something that sometimes we have to not fully dive into. And so it was such a great, such a great pre conference. I like love it because we have the opportunity to really make and build relationships with the people in that room. After you spend a pre conference with us, we're seeing you out. We're seeing you at the the AJA party. We're like hanging out. We're friends. And that is so great to kind of start off the conference with a core group of people that you have, you know, interacted and engaged with and become friends with. So if you're, you know, going to the conference alone and you don't, you know, have anyone there with you, I feel like like doing a pre conference is a really good way to make some connections. And then you can, you know, pal around and have some people to go to sessions with.

00:04:42 Chris Bugaj
Yeah, for sure, for sure. I agree. I liked having the extra time to breathe. You know, you didn't feel the pressure of the clock ticking behind you saying, you know, OK, let's hurry this conversation up, right? You, you we had time to really go deep in a lot of in a lot of topics as usual, you know, there's a lot of slides that we knew we wouldn't get to and we just didn't get to. But that's OK, That's OK. Building the relationship with people is definitely the the best part of the pre con experience, for me anyway.

00:05:12 Rachel Madel
Totally. And I just think that having those conversations are always really engaging. And I think that I hope that people leave our pre conference feeling like, wow, I actually know more about AAC than I thought I did. And I'm not alone in my struggles. And I think that, you know, when you're out in the field doing this work, you're not always interfacing with people who are doing AAC. You're the one responsible for teaching everyone about AAC. And I know based on, you know, the conversations that we had in our group, that was a lot of the people in our free conference were responsible for teaching others about AAC. And so it's just like when you're the teacher, you don't have the opportunity always to have conversations with other people who are doing this work in such a, you know, niche way. And so I feel like that's the best part is just like, you can be with your people. Like those people are my people. You know, AAC people are my people. And so it just was really amazing to spend time talking and collaborating with them.

00:06:16 Chris Bugaj
Now I know you did get to go to some sessions because sometimes you and I were shoulder partners as we were in these sessions. I got to go to see some other ones as well. Maybe he's on someday. So in no particular order, I I wrote some down here to sort of talk about how does that sound.

00:06:30 Rachel Madel
That sounds great.

00:06:32 Chris Bugaj
Well, didn't you and I go to the Microsoft session together? I think you were sitting there with me, right? Yes. And we, so we went to a session on Microsoft that sort of was championing their, their innovations around generative AI. And I, sorry, Microsoft, I left a little disappointed because a lot of the stuff that they were sharing, if you hadn't seen it, if you hadn't experienced these tools before, it was going to knock your socks off for sure. But I had seen them before. So I was like, well, I know about seeing AI, the app that's allows you to, allows people to turn it on sort of like a, a camera and it points to things and then it sort of describes what you're seeing. There's more features than that for and they were highlighting some new features, but just I knew about that app already. I think you knew about it already. Is that fair? Yeah. They mentioned that they have some add on tools to Windows called power toys, which I have played with before and it makes me wonder why do you have to go and get them as add-ons? Why aren't they built in? There's probably some reason, but they these power toys that you can get through the Microsoft add some additional accessibility features. And so again, I knew about it. The other thing that I didn't know about and I got excited about is sort of they slipped in in in sort of it wasn't part of the actual content. It was just sort of side sidebar mentioned this thing called accessibility insights. And I was like, oh, what's this? I haven't heard of accessibility insights. And so I went and looked at it later and again, I was, sadly, it's not something that I would use, but what it is, and we know that we have developers that listen to this podcast. Well, it's a developer tool that is open source so that if you're developing whatever you're developing, you can use this accessibility insights from Microsoft to sort of learn about accessibility for the tool or whatever thing you're designing. So that was exciting on one and to learn about that. There was something out there for developers, but it wasn't really for me and what's going to impact my day-to-day. So that was the Microsoft session. And then one of the things we did do is I Had you met the All Access Life guys yet?

00:08:48 Rachel Madel
No, Chris and I was so excited. We were at the ATIA party, which is so fun, and you're like, you have to meet these guys. And I was like, OK, who? And I met them Daniel O'Connor and Bradley Heaven, their social media handle is all access life so much fun. I like really loved hanging out with them for a little bit. I'm so mad. We took a picture, but it got it was so dark in there that like you can't really see it. But yes, like 2 amazing men doing really amazing things in the space of assistive technology and showcasing AT and AAC. And yes, was super excited you had the end and introduce me.

00:09:35 Chris Bugaj
If you want to learn more about them, there's a episode, right? We have a Talking with Tech episode where I interview them and we chat for a long time, so definitely check them out. I also got to spend a little time with them after you left because they were presenting at the makerspace and they were doing stuff on accessible gaming. Brad had challenged me to a this game where you use switches to fight each other, you kind of jump and kick. And so, you know, he and I went one toe to toe and sorry, Brad, I want I just I edged him out just like like my health was just so but but it was a great time. We had a lot of fun together. It definitely check those guys out.

00:10:15 Rachel Madel
Absolutely. It was, yeah. The ATA party in general was like really fun. I feel like it's a way to kind of connect socially with people. And of course there's conversations around assistive technology and, and the reason that we're all kind of there. But I think that it's nice to have the social element because so often at conferences you're just kind of super focused on just like the content and the education and the sessions and it's nice to kind of like let loose a little bit. I was dancing on the dance floor and there's lots of yummy food and yeah, it was a it was a really fun night.

00:10:52 Chris Bugaj
So there's some other sessions that I went to and Speaking of friends that we saw, I, I know you saw her too. Mailing Chan was there and we, I went to a session hosted by Chris Gibbons from smart box, all about generative AI. And it was a packed room with standing room only in the back, right? Like people in, you know, those sorts of sessions and mailing was right there next to me. And so we were chatting during the session because Chris designed in a way where it started out where he talked a little bit about the history of generative AI, but are really the history of AAC and technology leading up to generative AI. But then he invited conversation sort of like, you know, put a question up and reflect on it. And so Meiling and I, you know, we're, we're bantering back and forth. Like one of the things that came up is, is when we're thinking about AAC and how generative AI can be used to support someone who uses AAC. One of the things that were sort of thought about is, well, what if you went to a place that you maybe go routinely, let's say Starbucks? Could you, could the AI be listening to the barista or whoever you're talking to and already know, be able to react back to the barista so that the user then see some options of of dialogue that has come up and then chooses fully formed phrases or sentences, right? As opposed to maybe generating word by word or having pre programmed them yourselves, Could it could it react by listening to someone else? And Mei Ling had said this was such a great insight by her. She was like, you wouldn't have to necessarily think about like where you are going and program that. Like, OK, if I knew I'd go to Starbucks every Monday. So I'm going to make sure I turn on my AI want to go to Starbucks every Monday. What she said is it could be location based. You could turn on location based, sort of like a location based reminders. So when I get to these coordinates, it automatically comes on. So I don't actually have to go through the step of turning it on when I get there, right? Which I thought was a really good insight. And then some other things we just talked about is, you know, for a long time is something that has been, that I've learned about AAC has been by someone named Richard Ellenson, who his son is. He's actually an actor. And they had a hand in out of my mind, but also the creator of the Talk Suite app. But a point that he would often tell me in our, in our conversations was, yes, it's about generating things like generating word by word. That's the thing. It's got to be a thing. But don't leave out and don't minimalize the importance of speed. People want speed and they want to have ongoing conversations, so not just one or two exchanges. And so that gets prolonged. Those exchanges get prolonged if you can be fast. And that means maybe having fully formed phrases that you use more frequently than generating word by word all the time, right? And so that sort of spoke to me in this session where we're talking about AI listening to a conversation, listening to a communication partner, giving you options and then you selecting from those options. Again, you, you're still as the, as the user, you still get to choose what you want. And maybe you make a choice and you can make some adjustments to it. So. So not saying that the AI is doing it for you, but again, as a partner with you, how could that help you be faster?

00:14:32 Rachel Madel
I really love the idea of the location based setting that what a great insight. And I think that, you know, we're all kind of creatures of habit. We kind of have the same routines. We do kind of the same things on the same days. And so like as you mentioned, I think one of the biggest challenges for individual who uses AAC is the length of time it takes to create a message and the seed in which they do that. And that's based off of having many AAC users come on the podcast and share that. And so I think any way that we can make communication more seamless and, and a lot easier, I think is really incredible. And I think that is the power of generative AI in thinking through the lens of AAC is that, you know, we now have such an amazing predictive ability and a tool that keeps learning an individual and a user over time. And I think that's such a such a great game changer for the field. Of course, you know, we have to be careful because I think that if you're working with a young child who maybe doesn't have fully formed generative language yet, then, yeah. I feel like we've all worked with the kid where we've put on the word prediction. And they just start kind of like building all these sentences that don't necessarily make sense because they see all these words pop up. And it's like, you know, there's a lot of teaching that needs to happen around that. But let's not throw out the baby with the bathwater because I feel like such power comes from the generative AI and AAC like intersection. And I'm really excited to see kind of how the app developers and the companies start really integrating that into their systems.

00:16:23 Chris Bugaj
I'm glad you brought up younger users because that also is resonating with me as I was having these conversations with people and thinking about it afterwards is that there are privacy concerns, just larger privacy concerns like, hey, is it OK that I'm that the AI is there listening to other people? How would they feel about that? But there's many restrictions, especially for kids that you have to be over the age of 18, right to, to even access these tools. And so that's a challenge for developers to, to say, well, how would we built the walls with privacy for kids and the rules around them and saying specifically speaking in the United States, right? But how do you mitigate that? Because if we're trying to teach kids how to learn these tools from a young age, but they're prevented from using them at a young age because you have to be over 18, then you can see there's a, there's a, there's a problem there.

00:17:14 Rachel Madel
Yeah. I mean, I think that that is something that I'm seeing in my own clinical work, all the restrictions around technology and it like really is everyone's throwing the baby out with the bathwater and I'm like, wait a second, but this kid has assistive technology written into his IP. Like why does he have to put a phone in his pouch every day, you know, and, and lose access to his phone, which is like a tool that he needs in order to access his curriculum. So I do think that, you know, navigating all of the restrictions and some of the boundaries that are being put in place from, you know, districts and, you know, even just more generally, I think is definitely a concern and something to kind of consider.

00:17:55 Chris Bugaj
Now, while I was standing there with Mei Ling, there was another gentleman there with us and she knew him. I think his name was Alan Vu, and he is the creator of the Flex Speak app, which is an app I wasn't really familiar with. But she's like you, Chris, you have, you've not seen this app. Definitely go check it out. And so you know, one of the other things you and I did together as we walked up and down the vendor hall, talking to different people, running in different people. And I spent some time over there at the Flex Peak booth. One of the things that was impressive about this particular tool and you know, on this podcast, we are pretty app agnostic. But when there's specific features that that that only some apps have, it's good to call them out sometimes. And this one in particular had was, was leaning into the multilingual options, right? There's not many options out there for for different languages when it comes to AAC. And this was one of them. So without going too deep into it, I would say if you haven't heard of Flex Speak, go check it out. I did. They have a thing where if you're a professional, you can fill out a little Google form and you can get a license to explore on your own. You can check it out for yourself.

00:19:04 Rachel Madel
That sounds great, I actually haven't heard of it so I feel like I'm eager to explore it.

00:19:10 Chris Bugaj
Now, Speaking of different languages, one of the and different cultures, one of the sessions, one of my favorite sessions actually was a session I went to that was by David Baines and our friend Charlie Danger, right? So they work with an organization called Global Symbols and they were there demonstrating a tool they've been working with that they're working on developing called Symbol Creator AI. They were able to get a Microsoft Innovations in Accessibility grant and they've been building this Symbol Creator AI tool for the last year. But generally what it is, is if you were to go to the Global Symbols website, they have already built with something called a board builder. It's a place where you can go and it's an open source thing where you can click on it and you can create different boards and you can pull in different symbol sets. Again, open symbol sets that are used across the. Worlds, right? They have them all listed there, and you even have the ability to make your own symbol sets. I started to play a little bit as I was learning, but one of the problems with symbols in general is that they don't necessarily represent you where you are geographically or your perception of, of the world or doesn't necessarily reflect your, the, the culture that you are in, right? So if for instance, one of the examples they used is like church, right? Well, someone church might look like a have a steeple and a cross at the top, and that's the symbol for church for anyone which is not everybody's, you know, religion. So that was just an example. But then how do you find one or make one if one doesn't exist? And so that was the idea behind symbol crater is that you could use prompts to generate and actually use other images. You can upload images to it and use that as a as a reference to say, create a symbol based on this image and this this prompt. And so I was really excited about it and they thought, OK, what Charlie, David, where are you going with this? Like are you going to be selling some sort of product? That's the symbol creator AI. And no, it's not. They're working on creating it as I mean, right now it's a you can write them and get access. I mean, actually, I wrote them and I haven't gotten access yet, but I'm sure they're still working out some bugs. It's the first year, right? They're still, they still got things to, to work on. My point is there what their aim is, is to develop it with an API, which means and and make it free and open source, which means that you could build it into to your tool, right? So let's say you were a company like Lesson Picks that was already had symbol sets and made your own symbol sets. But you know, again, you can only make so many and you couldn't represent necessarily everybody across the globe, but you want your tool used across the globe. Well, we also integrate with symbol creators. So if you don't see a symbol you like and you want to create one your own, you could use this tool as well. So I left extremely excited about this.

00:22:20 Rachel Madel
I'm obsessed with this. As soon as you were like, it's open source, I was like, stop it. I think that's so important because we all have been in the situation where someone's like, we don't like the symbol for fill in the blank, right? Which, you know, it opens a broader discussion of like, well, a child will learn the symbol that we put in front of them. Everything, you know, feels arbitrary at 1st and then we learn the symbol. However, I do like the idea of customizing like we're living in a time. If technology can instantly, you know, reference a photo and all of a sudden make a symbol out of it that's salient and relevant to an individual, then absolutely. Like, why not? And so I just love the idea of this. And I think it's so great that they're creating this in a way that's accessible and open source. That's even better.

00:23:13 Chris Bugaj
So check it out, it's global symbols. Just do a Google search for global, global symbols and then you can go explore from there. We got to go to Ed camp. Did you get to go to Ed camp? I don't know you. You missed it, right?

00:23:25 Rachel Madel
I did give away AI, gave away a license to AAC Ally at Ed camp, but I unfortunately was not able to to be there.

00:23:33 Chris Bugaj
It's funny that you mentioned AAC Ally, because one of the sessions that I went to sessions, it's not really a session, it's just a, you know, get together and have a discussion was on. People wanted to talk about sort of the assistive technology evaluation process and compare notes about how that's done in different areas. And who was sitting next to me was Doctor Lauren Kravitz Bonnet. And we learned kind of quickly as people were sharing how they do it, that we do it in our neck of the woods a little bit differently, sort of aligns with how I think we talked about AAC. But I'm, we were talking more about assistive technology in general, about how you consider things and how you make it a collaborative discussion and you get everybody's input, including the family. And then we leave on the same page. But a lot of people are still not doing it that way, where it is maybe a person going, doing an evaluation, writing up a report and sending it to people. So it was just a nice healthy discussion about the differences and maybe sharing like you don't have to do it that old way that there's some places that have evolved to this more collaborative model.

00:24:37 Rachel Madel
I also want to share Chris speaking to this point, all the people that came up to me and you talking about the specific language system first approach and the session that we attended. Just to kind of give some behind the scenes. I'm sitting there with Chris and we're looking at sessions and trying to decide where we're going. And I, I show you look, there's a session on the specific language system 1st and you didn't even know it was happening. So I'm like, of course, we have to go to this. So I was really excited about that session. We sat in that session. It was very collaborative and there was a really rich discussion around it. And I just was really amazed and impressed about all the people that were talking about it and all the people that had, you know, come up to both me and you sharing how effective it's been in their district and how they've completely shifted and changed the way that they're doing assessments and seeing so much success with it. And so that was a really exciting thing for me. And I'm of course I'm guessing for you too.

00:25:40 Chris Bugaj
Oh yeah, super exciting. In fact, I think there were two sessions on it. One of them I couldn't even make it to. But something I learned in that session was there have been, you know, as as we've evolved to the specific language system first approach, there been people that have been nervous about it, right. You've heard this before. We aren't we pre determining or aren't we? What are all the things right? But one of the biggest detractors was in that room and we had a conversation afterwards and said, you know, I've I get it. I actually like it. I just don't like it when people do it wrong. And what that means is there are some places that are doing it wrong where they're saying we only use this tool. We don't use anything else. And that's not the model. The model is we use this tool mostly and we customize from there. It's a multi tiered system of supports. And then to what you're saying that so so that was really like, yes, right. It's not that the approach is broken, it's that people do it wrong and that that that was a, a, a great aha moment for me. And the other thing that I just to, to, to put a cap on that whole conversation was it does feel like it's moving towards a default mode now, meaning more places I think are doing it that way where they're thinking, yeah, we sort of have a robust tool or we're trying to move to a robust tool that we sort of use as our primary thing and we make adjustments from there. And that's just how it's done. And just as a follow up to that, just recently I got an e-mail from someone who's on the podcast years ago asking questions about how do we develop that couple years down the line now, wrote to me and said, Chris, hundreds of people, you have helped hundreds of people by us adopting that approach. And it was, you know, it was a it was a cheerful moment of like, yeah, right, that's awesome. That's awesome that that that that's helping so many people.

00:27:33 Rachel Madel
Yeah, it was really exciting to hear all the all the people sharing about their experience. We also had so many listeners of our podcast come up to us and say, I'm a big fan of your podcast and we took selfies and it's just always so nice to meet listeners. So if you're listening out there like and you ever see us, don't be afraid. I, I have to share a really quick story And there was Heidi Lestraco from Speak for yourself. She had one of her colleagues who was a big fan of my work, who was afraid to come up to me. And I was like, absolutely not. So Heidi texted me and I was like, yes, tell her to meet me outside of the session. It was right before I ended up hopping on an airplane and, and, and leaving ATIA. But this is just a gentle reminder, like do not be afraid to come up and say hi to us. We are so happy to meet the people that listen to this podcast and who appreciate our work and it's such a great opportunity to make connections. And so that's one of the, the great things about ATIA is that we have a lot of listeners of, of talking with tech and people who follow our work. And it was so great to meet all of you guys.

00:28:42 Chris Bugaj
Many times they come up with it and go and and and I have subscribed to AAC Ally and I'm a Patreon supporter and it's like, yes, awesome. Thank you for supporting us in that way. Speaking of that, that was sort of a a take away from me from this Atia is that I found myself being in a role of connecting just like Heidi was. This kept happening to me throughout the entire course of the conference. One of them was actually a listener and actually someone who's been on the podcast before. He stopped us in the the vendor hall and said, Hey, you know something I'm maybe you guys know, like something I'm looking for is, is some travel and maybe I'm thinking of going to work in different countries. What I was like, Oh, you got to talk to Charlie Danger. He was just over in Thailand and Laos and, and he can, he's, he's the person in the in the know there. And so I found myself like that. That was an example. There's a cast is, has a conference coming up in Washington, DC in July, UDL Con, I think it's called. And they were looking for presenters. I can't be there. I'll be at the, I'll be at the lake that week. But hey, Chris, you live near DC, Who can you connect me with? And I was like, Oh, do you know the people at our Training and Technical Assistance Center, like every state has the Assistive Technology Act? There's a group that works for each state, and ours is called TAC. And it's like, have you met them? No. And so has connected them and then in our pre conference there was someone who asked to meet afterwards and her and I went off and just chatted for, you know, maybe an hour after the pre conference. Who works in a really remote area or remote area are part of Canada working with people that are indigenous to that area with different experiences from most other speech therapists. So she was feeling like, you know, who do I connect with? And I was like, do I have the person for you? Shawn Pearson is in Calgary and he also works with in similar ways. So and with similar people with similar backgrounds. So have you guys met? And so, you know, I've multiple times I find myself, you know, as being the what's it called when you get two people together like matchmaker, That's what it is.

00:31:09 Rachel Madel
Yeah, I know it is great. The more connections we make, the more abilities we have to make connections for other people. And so I think that that's one of the the benefits of, you know, going to these types of events because you are every year just kind of meeting new people and making new connections and collecting more and more colleagues. And it's really cool when you're able to kind of help people by connecting them.

00:31:32 Chris Bugaj
For sure, for sure. One of the other things I got 2, two other quick things and then sort of a final wrap up thing. And that is while going through the makerspace, I ran into Doctor Lori Geist who was talking about the Project Open, which I had heard about really got out of the fringes, but I hadn't really investigated what that is. But it's a partnership between the University of North Carolina and the University of Buffalo, which of course go Bills, right? And what they were grant funded or are grant funded by the National Institute on Disability Independent Living and Rehabilitation, Rehabilitation research. So that's where those that some of the money that went to that organization is going to this project, project open around AAC. And what it is, is I got to see what it is, is it's again from a developer lens or even if you're an AAC user that's not a developer yet or whatever. It is a platform that helps you sort of learn how to code or put your code in or helps you with coding to try out different things that before you put them into your commercial device or before you. I guess the the the way to say it I would be, I would is, is you can try before you buy. Come play with this with whatever your thing is that you want to try it. You have this idea. Come experiment in project open and then you can take it to the next level outside of it. So real excited to to check that out and we'll have links to it in in the show notes.

00:33:02 Rachel Madel
That sounds awesome, Chris. I'm like really excited about that.

00:33:07 Chris Bugaj
OK. And then the last thing that you missed, we missed you this year at was the assistive technology feud. We did it again this year. It was Mia Laudato and sort of Kelly's suiting unofficially was there as well. But we we were the original people that put it together in the 1st place. So Mia had a team and Kelly had a team. They had a participants came up to. They didn't pre determine who they were. They just came up in the moment. A couple weeks prior to the assistive technology feud, I had put out a survey through various social media channels and people responded and then the different teams took turns. We could not have done the assistive technology feud without some special guests to help us. So I'm going to give a quick shout out here, Matthew Press, Thank you for sort of being the the moderator and the worker of the computer. It's really hard to program slides to have things move out of order on the slide. So he was there helping behind. He was up there on the stage moving things. Thank you, Matt Beth Paus and Doug Kotler got together and they were our special judges. So they were answering, you know, like, oh, who got points and kind of tracking the points. That was really nice. We had Jim, Jim Dunlop there, who is long time fiddler, works in Florida. He was there and he was the flipper of the exes. You know, if you you gave a an answer that wasn't on the board. It was and he sat in a chair and flipped over these red XS. So thank you, Jim. And then again, Doctor Lauren Kravitz Bonnet, what her job was was we Mia and Kelly had brought buzzers. And so this year we had people buzz in. You know, it's just who hit the buzzer fastest, but they weren't like tied together. So you hit one and shut the other one off, right. So both would go. And so we needed a tiebreaker sometimes. So Lauren was sort of like a like a line judge in tennis, like watching the line to see who hit it first. And so high pressure job there. And and then I walked around sort of emceeing the whole thing and couldn't have done it without them. Super fun. A lot of participant engagement, the the people who weren't on the teams got to participate as well. If people were on the teams and they none of the answers were there. And then we got three strikes and threw it out to the crowd and they were giving answers. And then we took some time to describe each answer. Even if it was wrong, why did you think it was wrong? Like why didn't other people vote for it? Because a lot of people left with a lot of good resources and strategies done in a fun and entertaining way.

00:35:39 Rachel Madel
That sounds so fun, Chris and I have so much FOMO that I missed it. I like love a good game that's also educational at the same time.

00:35:48 Chris Bugaj
All right. And the last thing, Rachel, just to wrap up this episode about our feedback about Atia is I think it's safe to say that there was an undercurrent of worry because here in the United States, the administration has changed in the executive branch. We have a new president. It was even fresher at ATIA because that happened right in the end of January and our president took over in January. So, and then a lot of things were happening with regard to uncertainty around budgets and funding. And, and so I don't have to say anymore if you, you live in the world and you have any sort of news, you know what's going on. So there was worry because a lot of the people that we work with in AAC are grant funded, receive federal dollars to do their work. And so there was a lot of sort of checking in on people like what's going on? How are you feeling, you know, trying to stay away, whether you think it's bad or good, just how are you doing? And, you know, that just sort of was an element that ran throughout the entire conference. One session that I think was new this year was someone named Laura. Laura Calio is her name. She's the ATIA policy advisor, and she does work up on Capitol Hill to advocate for assistive technology and people with disabilities. And so she ran a couple sessions. One of them I went to and it was packed, to say, you know, to say the least, I think there wasn't a seat in the house and people standing. We were all just very interested in what she had to say. And I can certainly speak for myself and say that I'm guilty of sort of knowing high level stuff in the government like, hey, we have a Congress and they appropriate money. How that actually works, I don't know. I'm too focused on what's happening down in the at the school level, you know, working on helping kids to know all the stuff in between her sessions sort of helped tie those things together for at least in my mind, say, OK, here's how money gets appropriated to different committees and that there's chairs of these committees. And again, I won't go into the details just to say that if you're sitting in that room and you participated in that, it's it was helpful to know how maybe the sausage was made, if that's if I could use that expression. But one of the big takeaways, Rachel, for me was however you're feeling about what's going on, one of the things that she said was your voice matters. Representatives listen when you contact them. You might have the thought I could write them or I could call them, and they're not going to listen to me. They need, she said. They need to hear from you or they don't know. And they can't react to things if they don't know what's important to their constituents. They have staffers that you can talk to, but often times you can talk directly to them. And then she gave some other great advice. She said if you're going to do that, and she encouraged anyone to do that, be specific when you contact them. So when you reach out, don't just call to complain. Call with stories because you appropriated this money to this grant. This outcome happened. I saw this student or I am AI, am a recipient of it. And so this worked for me because you did this that happened the return on investment or when this went away, this happened and this impacted me in this way. Telling these stories matters. At least that's what she said and I believed her. And so I left feeling empowered, like if you were feeling that your voice wasn't being heard or that maybe you have reached out in the past and it wasn't heard or whatever. However you're feeling, don't give up hope. You can make a difference. I certainly left talking to other people going, I know I have a voice, but what could I do to empower other people if they were feeling a certain way to reach out to the representatives, maybe people with disabilities, people who use AAC, how could we help make that process a little easier for them, Right? And so that was. That was, I think, one that really hit me and struck me hard, is that from an advocacy lens that it was that that our voice matters.

00:40:17 Rachel Madel
Yeah. I mean, I think that was, I didn't attend the session, but it sounds like it was really empowering. And I think especially with the current climate of everything that's happening and all the uncertainty and, you know, people trying to encourage and empower others to take action, kind of laying out what that looks like for people who might not have ever considered or done that before, I feel like it's really helpful. I also think just like the power of stories is such a good reminder whenever you're trying to make a change in power, inspire, you know, we all are moved through stories. And I think that so often we kind of just state the facts. We're like, here's the facts. It's like, well, we're all humans and we're all connected and we're all emotional beings. And I think that when you actually share through storytelling, you just can make such a greater impact. And so I know that in my own clinical work, I'm sharing through stories. In my own courses and speaking events, we're sharing through stories. And so it makes sense when I hear like, reach out and actually share a story about how you've been impacted because I think there's a human element to the storytelling. And I think that that can make a huge difference.

00:41:36 Chris Bugaj
Well, I think that brings us to the end of our ATIA episode. We have great hopes to be invited to come back to ATIA 2026. So hopefully we'll be there again. And so if you're feeling like, oh man, that sounds like a great conference and I wasn't there, come next year. If you, if you can, if we did see you there, it was great to see you there and to catch up. It's always great to to catch up with our extended family that way.

00:42:02 Rachel Madel
Yes. So for talking with tech, I'm Rachel Maddow, joined by Chris Bouguet. Thank you guys so much for listening to this ATIA 2025 episode, and we'll talk to you next week.