Empowered Kids Ontario Advancing BCI Thanks to Gift from The Slaight Family Foundation

December 03, 2024

Slaight Family Foundation enables the transformative work of 11 organizations towards a more inclusive and accessible future

Empowered Kids Ontario-Enfants Avenir Ontario (EKO) is a partner in advancing Brain Computer Interface (BCI)—one of the boldest emerging sciences.

“Thanks to the generous support of The Slaight Family Foundation, EKO and its members will be able to add a new tool to the clinical toolbox—BCI in developmental healthcare. Clinicians from across Ontario will increase their capacity and competency in BCI application, giving more kids and families access to the latest technology that enables recreation and cognitive skills development for kids limited by physical barriers,” says Jennifer Churchill, EKO President & CEO. Building the capacity of clinical and support staff in BCI technologies will also increase the equity in access to leading edge technology.

BCI technologies are essentially tools by which brain signals and thoughts can be relayed into tangible outputs independent of a person’s native muscular functions. The most cited use-case for the technology is often as a means to provide function to those that have neuromuscular conditions.

Children living with conditions that significantly limit their ability to move can experience severe limitations in their mobility and capacity to communicate. Not having tools to communicate and interact with their environments can greatly impact their well-being and ability to achieve their full potential, leaving them feeling isolated, disconnected from those around them, and marginalized.

“This $1 million gift enables Ontario’s developmental health sector—the largest in Canada—to broadly increase BCI education by allowing access to hands-on BCI experiences for clinicians and families over the next five years,” says EKO Chair Tina Langlois. “We must make that available for those who are on the front lines, implementing this technology.” With The Slaight Family Foundation’s gift, EKO, and the association’s members, will be advancing BCI, as well as workforce training, and acceptance of those with disabilities.

EKO members will introduce kids and families to BCI technologies developed at Holland Bloorview Kids Rehabilitation Hospital that support users to power technology with their brain activity, recognizing changes in thought patterns via a non-invasive electroencephalogram (EEG) and transmitting those signals to control devices like computers, phones, TV remotes and more. Participants are empowered by BCI skill development and recreation activities like painting, playing music and video games and driving a race car around a track—using only their brain waves.

“The impact of disability exclusion is significant, not just on people with disabilities and their families, but on our culture and economy as well,” says Gary Slaight, President and CEO of The Slaight Family Foundation. “Connecting and expanding programs and innovations from organizations dedicated to disability care and awareness will create an umbrella of support across Canada, while dismantling stigma and creating a more inclusive society for us all.”

“There is strong evidence that BCI has the potential to open up a world full of greater autonomy, independence, and inclusion for kids with severe motor impairments resulting from cerebral palsy, acquired brain injuries, stroke, muscular dystrophy and spinal cord injury among other conditions,” adds Churchill.

About EKO

Empowered Kids Ontario represents Ontario’s developmental health providers, which provide clinical care and programs to more than 200,000 kids with disabilities and developmental differences every year—at home, in schools and in the community.

Ontario’s robust network of highly specialized organizations—the members of Empowered Kids Ontario-Enfants Avenir Ontario—are staffed by Regulated Health and other professionals who provide pediatric expertise when families have concerns about their child’s development. This is clinical care they cannot get anywhere else, in communities across the province. Each EKO member is part of the continuum of healthcare together with community pediatricians and pediatric hospitals.

With one voice, EKO promotes investments, policies and innovative approaches based on the best research, so kids who are developing differently because of disability, are recovering from illness or injury, or because they have other developmental needs, live their best lives.

About The Slaight Family Foundation

Since 2013, The Slaight Family Foundation has funded several strategic initiatives to multiple organizations. These initiatives started with gifts to five Toronto hospitals to support priority healthcare issues, followed by programs to address global humanitarianism, the healthy development of children and youth across Canada, support for Indigenous issues, a seniors’ initiative to help keep seniors in their homes, mental health challenges exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, women and girls at risk globally and in Canada, the theatre industry’s recovery from pandemic closures, a youth mental health initiative and support for dementia prevention and care.

The Slaight Family Foundation was established in 2008 by John Allan Slaight. Allan Slaight (1931-2021), known as Canada’s broadcast pioneer, was a leader in the music industry and a prominent Canadian philanthropist. Through his generosity, the Foundation proactively supports charitable initiatives in the areas of healthcare, at-risk youth, international development, social services and culture. Allan’s son, Gary Slaight, oversees the foundation as President & CEO, The Slaight Family Foundation.