Lomak was invented by Mike Watling, an electrical engineer who became interested in assistive technology after noticing how rudimentary assistive technology and communication devices were while working with disabled youth in a residence at Glendene, Auckland, New Zealand. Dismayed with what he saw and sensing the frustrations of the people living there, he decided that he could develop a better method of communication. He started developing one off solutions for various disabled people.
He identified that the major problems facing disabled people when using a computer keyboard were 1) wrong selections, 2) fatigue, and 3) slow speed. Lomak was devised to address these issues.
After working on early prototypes with limited success, he enlisted the support of Auckland University of Technology in 1999. The concept was developed over the following 2 years to the stage where functional prototypes were able to be successfully tested with potential users. In 2003, after securing angel investment, Lomak International Limited was established. Over the following 2 years the prototypes were turned into working products by Terry Given of Domes Engineering, and Roger Clist of Industrial Research Limited, who completely overhauled the electronics and internal software to provide the speed and reliability for a marketable product. The look and functionality of Lomak were designed by one of New Zealand's top designers, Peter Haythornthwaite of Creativelab. The result is the superb looking and extremely functional Lomak, which was launched in May 2005.
Since this period, with the involvement of many of our early clients, Lomak has gone through a series of refinements with continuous improvements made to the performance, sensitivity and speed of the system.
In April 2007, a new company was formed to market the Lomak products globally. The company has recently had a name change and is now Opdo Limited.
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