LEIGH SALES, PRESENTER: 28-year-old Jessica Irwin was born with cerebral palsy and relies on technology to live her life to the fullest. She’s a photographer and although she loves snapping pictures of musicians, her dream has been to perform with them. Now, thanks to an instrument newly developed by a biomedical engineer, Jessica Irwin will take the stage this Saturday. Monique Schafter attended a rehearsal.

JESSICA IRWIN (through voice technology): Technology is my life. Without it, I am stuffed. Being able to play music using Jordan’s creation is amazing, a dream come true. 

(female voiceover): I am Jessica Irwin. I’m 28. I’m playing music when you have severe cerebral palsy has its challenges, for sure. When you are playing an instrument with your eyes, you have to memorise everything. You don’t have the luxury of looking down at a piece of paper to jog your memory.

JORDAN NGUYEN, BIOMEDICAL ENGINEER: The software allows a person to control the computer with their eyes and basically play our music device that we custom-made with Jess. So we’ve got a dial and there’s all these pie pieces that sort of cut up out of this dial. And so you look around and each of those 12 keys are a basic - basically a key that you can press. So you look at it, it lights up when you look at it and then you blink your eyes and then it selects it. And then she’s got a bunch of numbers and she can select those and they’re pieces that will loop over and over and then she can switch back to something like the violin and then she can play individual notes over the top. And that way, she can layer it up and she’s able to play a whole piece by herself.