History

Ed Gallagher has slowly lost his sight over the last 10 years. As a visual artist, he wanted to find an alternative way of expressing his creativity and artistic “vision”. 

An opportunity arose during 2006 to take part in ZGAC: The Zero Gravity Arts Consortium, a non profit organization working with Carnegie - Mellon and other artists of all kinds who are working with NASA AAMES to explore space as a venue for artistic endeavors.  They offer parabolic flights, where planes rise to 30,000 feet and drop, creating an "anti-gravity" environment for 30 seconds at a time. As a blind man experiencing weightlessness, Ed's synapses crackled back to life as he envisioned a way to have the blind move in space - and more easily back on Earth.

Two years later and thanks to radical technology for a sustainable future, Ed is using the latest in high tech toys to have a remote person guide him around town. With a camera mounted in a headband and a connection to the internet (with a wireless card and small 6” computer) Ed is able to video call via wireless technology to an online user. The remote person literally becomes Ed's eyeballs shopping, finding his lost keys in his apartment, checking to see if he received correct change from a financial transaction, repairing parts of his club's boats, and, actively participating in sports. 

Ed says, ”The Genoa Connections System has given me a sense of freedom that I haven’t experienced in years. It is like getting the keys to a car when you are 16 years old!”