How pioneering biomedical engineer helped Hong Kong's disabled

Seemingly simple tasks such as sending e-mails or just moving around the house can be enormous hurdles for people with disabilities. But thanks to people like Dr Eric Tam Wing-cheung, their lives are being made easier.

In his 25-year career as a biomedical engineer, Tam has helped many people, among them Tsang Tsz-kwan, a blind and hearing-impaired student who made headlines in July by achieving excellent results in the Diploma of Secondary Education exams (5* and above in five subjects and a 4 in the sixth).

"I first met Tsang two years ago and she was already talking about [taking] the exam," say Tam, an associate professor at Polytechnic University and director of its Jockey Club Rehabilitation Engineering Centre. "She is very ambitious and determined. She has never doubted herself."

After completing primary education in a school for the visually impaired, Tsang, 20, attended Ying Wa Girls' School, a conventional high school. Tam first got involved in Tsang's life when his team modified a conventional computer keyboard by adding small hollowed out cubes on top of the keys that allowed her to better position her fingers.

"I don't know how much she uses it, but I saw her before the exam and she showed me how she used it, so I know she was practising," he says.

Biomedical engineering was a largely unknown field in Hong Kong when Tam returned from his studies in Canada in 1986.