Save Your Hands for Another Day
- By
- Zachary Watkins
- Presented on
- .
- updated on
- .
.BXeAllkg.jpg)
No typing for 2 weeks. That's what my surgeon told me, before I was diagnosed with osteoarthritis in all of my fingers at 38 years old. For more than 2 years now I've been on a mission to type as little as possible and get even more work done using assistive technology, including AI. In this session, I'll summarize the hard-earned lessons from my attempts to use technology including laser eye tracking, facial gestures, foot pedals, Talon Voice, OS-native dictation and accessibility features, custom split mechanical keyboards, code scaffolding, automated tests, and AI. Then I will give a live demonstration of the assistive devices and tools I use today to save time, money, and lives with PHP at Texas Transportation Institute by creating a simple and tested API from public data using Laravel Blueprint.
Speaker Bio
Zach Watkins is a software engineer at Texas Transportation Institute with 19 years of experience providing websites and web applications for the public and private sector. He has a BFA and has done everything from website designs and front-end coding to building APIs with job queues and end-to-end test automation. He has been a public speaker on technical subjects since 2015 and in his current role he works with civil engineers and researchers to save time, lives, and resources by developing custom technology solutions for transportation research grants.