One In Five for Sunday 15 November 2009

Christchurch plays host to a gathering of advisors on senior citizens and disability issues. And the local branch of Industrial Research Limited has a few designs of its own on disability friendly technology.

With Christchurch City Council talking about bankrolling Canterbury University's proposed new music school in the historic Arts Centre, one thing's for sure. Whether it gets built or not, it'll be accessible to mobility impaired people. That's if Mayor Bob Parker has anything to do with it. Earlier in the year Bob Parker welcomed a number of senior citizens issues and disability advisors with local authorities from around the country, to a city he's happy to say is disability friendly. In this item you'll also hear from Manukau City, Hutt Valley DHB and Capital and Coast DHB Disability Advisors: Martine Abel, Cheryll Graham and Maurice Priestley.

Industrial Research Limited is a Crown Research Institute that's in the business of putting science at the service of New Zealand industry. That means coming up with good ideas for new products that can be sold on the world market. And when it comes to good ideas for products that'll help disabled people, then IRL's Marcus King's the go-to guy - especially in the fields of automation and robotics.