ATHENS, June 17, – Alexandra Kerlidou sits in her wheelchair on stage in Athens. With only the shift of her eyes across a computer screen, the 21-year-old fills the air with harp music.
The student with cerebral palsy, who cannot use her hands or speak, is playing the “Eyeharp”, gaze-controlled digital software which allows people with disabilities to play music, something she had never thought possible.
“I felt strange, I had never imagined such a thing,” said Alexandra, using a speech-generating computer program as she described trying the “Eyeharp” for the first time in her home on Lesbos with creator Zacharias Vamvakousis.
A computer scientist and musician, Vamvakousis was inspired to create the program after a musician friend was hurt in a motorcycle accident shortly before…
