When he was seven, an occupational therapist introduced him to voice-activated technology.
Within a week, he was experimenting with it.
Within a month, he was frustrated by its limitations.
“Mom, why can’t I just tell the lights to turn off?”
I explained that the devices used different applications.
“That’s ridiculous,” he said.
He wanted to know why nobody had made them work together.
By eight, he was watching tutorials about smart-home systems.
By ten, he’d received a beginner’s coding kit and was teaching himself how software worked.
I didn’t understand half the things he was learning.
But I understood how much he loved figuring them out.
One physical therapist gave me advice that changed our lives.
She told me I was sometimes helping Jonah before he’d even had the opportunity to try something himself.
I initially felt offended.
Wasn’t helping him my job?
But she explained that independence required opportunities to experiment, struggle, and make decisions.
I began waiting before automatically stepping in.
When technology malfunctioned, I let Jonah troubleshoot.
When he needed assistance, he asked.
Gradually, I learned that loving him didn’t mean solving every problem before he encountered it.
By high school, he was developing software and helping classmates debug their programs.
He placed second in a regional programming competition during his junior year.
He earned a five on his AP Computer Science exam.
Then he applied to Northwestern University’s McCormick School of Engineering.
He was accepted.
I cried when we received the news.
Jonah laughed and told me I was embarrassing him.
College wasn’t easy.
Campus navigation was exhausting, some older buildings had inadequate ramps, and he eventually switched to a power wheelchair.
Sometimes he called me sounding frustrated.
Once, I asked whether he wanted to come home.
“Mom, I’m venting. I’m not asking you to rescue me.”
So I listened.
By sophomore year, he’d become close friends with Tobias, a biomedical engineering student, and Fay, who studied human-computer interaction.
Together, they started developing a modular assistive technology platform.
The idea was to create systems that adapted to each user’s individual motor abilities instead of expecting every person to operate equipment the same way.
Their first prototype failed badly.
The sensors malfunctioned, the battery life was terrible, and the device was too heavy.
Judges at a university competition told them it wasn’t ready.
They returned to the maker space and started again.
Eventually, the three friends incorporated Clear Path Technologies.
They secured early funding, pursued a federal research grant, and began meeting with health-technology investors.