Peter Shann Ford is an Australian CEO, bionics software developer, author and former journalist and news anchor. He is the founder of Control Bionics, a neural systems technology company, and the inventor of NeuroSwitch, an EMG (electromyograph) based communications and control system for people with profound disabilities including Locked in Syndrome.

Career

Australian-born Ford was a news anchor with

CNN CNN (Cable News Network) is a multinational cable news channel headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable news channel, and presently owned by ...

and CNN2 (aka HLN ) in the United States, when he also became a programmer/analyst with the new US Veterans Administration Rehabilitation R&D Laboratory in Atlanta where he coded communication technology for people with severe disabilities. He continued developing advanced Assistive Technology (AT) programs, firstly using single key inputs, then coding movement sensors on the body to enable a person with paralysis or quadriplegia to control a computer for text, text-to-speech and online communications. This was achieved while Ford worked as a news anchor at

WTVJ WTVJ (channel 6) is a television station in Miami, Florida, United States, airing programming from the NBC network. It is owned and operated by the network's NBC Owned Television Stations division alongside Fort Lauderdale–licensed WSCV (ch ...

, the

NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters are l ...

affiliate in

Miami Miami ( ), officially the City of Miami, known as "the 305", "The Magic City", and "Gateway to the Americas", is a coastal metropolis and the county seat of Miami-Dade County in South Florida, United States. With a population of 442,241 at ...

, and then with

WRC-TV WRC-TV (channel 4) is a television station in Washington, D.C., airing programming from the NBC network. It is owned and operated by the network's NBC Owned Television Stations division alongside Class A Telemundo outlet WZDC-CD (channel 44 ...

, NBC's owned-and-operated station in

Washington DC ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

, where he covered the

Space Shuttle The Space Shuttle is a retired, partially reusable low Earth orbital spacecraft system operated from 1981 to 2011 by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as part of the Space Shuttle program. Its official program ...

and manned flight programs at Kennedy and Johnson Space Centers, and reporting on assignment from Moscow, the Vatican, the

Gulf War The Gulf War was a 1990–1991 armed campaign waged by a Coalition of the Gulf War, 35-country military coalition in response to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. Spearheaded by the United States, the coalition's efforts against Ba'athist Iraq, ...

, and the Pentagon. After the

September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commer ...

, Ford reported for NBC from

Islamabad Islamabad (; ur, , ) is the capital city of Pakistan. It is the country's ninth-most populous city, with a population of over 1.2 million people, and is federally administered by the Pakistani government as part of the Islamabad Capital ...

and the

North-West Frontier Province The North-West Frontier Province (NWFP; ps, شمال لویدیځ سرحدي ولایت, ) was a Chief Commissioner's Province of British India, established on 9 November 1901 from the north-western districts of the Punjab Province. Followi ...

Pakistan Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 243 million people, and has the world's second-lar ...

, before being embedded with his team with mujahideen at

Tora Bora Tora Bora ( ps, توره بوړه, "Black Cave") is a cave complex, part of the Spin Ghar (White Mountains) mountain range of eastern Afghanistan. It is situated in the Pachir Aw Agam District of Nangarhar, approximately west of the Khyber ...

, where coalition forces were hunting Osama bin Laden. In 1999, he created ESRA (Echidna Signal Recognition and Analysis), a system for using the body's own neuroelectric (EMG - electromyography) signals to control a computer. Working with James Schorey, CEO of Therapeutic Alliances, he developed this into NeuroSwitch, designed to help people with quadriplegia, motor neurone disease, spinal cord injuries or traumatic brain injury to regain communication through a computer, iPhone or iPad. In 2000 Simon & Schuster, New York, published his novel, ''The Keeper of Dreams'', set in the

Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Aṉangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara, also known as APY, APY Lands or ''the Lands'', is a large, sparsely-populated local government area (LGA) for Aboriginal people, located in the remote north west of South Australia. Some of the aṉangu ...

Aboriginal lands of Australia's

Central Desert The deserts of Australia or the Australian deserts cover about , or 18% of the Australian mainland, but about 35% of the Australian continent receives so little rain, it is practically desert. Collectively known as the Great Australian desert, t ...

s and the technology centres engaged in the first survey missions to Mars. It has been reprinted on Amazon as "Dreaming Country" along with the novella "Graffiti". In 2005, with a founding investment from Lindsay Phillips's Phoenix Development Fund in Sydney, he incorporated Control Bionics PL, to develop advanced AT employing a disabled person's EMG to communicate with text, computer-generated-speech, emails, and the internet, and control personal robots, beginning with Anybots in

Palo Alto Palo Alto (; Spanish for "tall stick") is a charter city in the northwestern corner of Santa Clara County, California, United States, in the San Francisco Bay Area, named after a coastal redwood tree known as El Palo Alto. The city was es ...

in the

Silicon Valley Silicon Valley is a region in Northern California that serves as a global center for high technology and innovation. Located in the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area, it corresponds roughly to the geographical areas San Mateo Coun ...

. A year later, they launched Control Bionics Inc. in the USA and established a design and manufacturing base in Ohio. NeuroNode is the latest edition, a wireless, wearable, wristwatch-sized EMG and spatial switch enabling people with disabilities to regain communication with their families, carers, and the world. Control Bionics Xelerator (CBX) the company's R&D lab is developing advanced neuroelectric controls for robotics, gaming and VR/AR/MR virtual environments. He is a graduate of 1OTU Scheyville.

Honours and awards

In 2018 he represented Control Bionics to win the first Pitch@Palace Commonwealth award in London, in a field of 42 nations. Ford is a winner of the National Disability Award 2015 for Excellence in Accessible Technology fo
NeuroSwitch
ref name="NDA Award 2015

/ref> He is a former New South Wales Senior Australian of the Year.Australian of the Year Awards: Peter Ford
/ref> He is a Life Member of Mensa.
/ref>

References

External links

ABC "Australian Story"

"CommBank Interview"

"The Australian"

"The Project"

"Seven Network Television"
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ford, Peter S Australian computer programmers Living people Australian television presenters Television anchors from Washington, D.C. Year of birth missing (living people)