IMPACT Autism is hosting the TEAxUF conference Saturday as part of Autism Awareness Month.
The goal is to inform and inspire a conversation that will impact future technology and education in autism.
“I think it is important to remember that as students today, we are preparing to be tomorrow’s educators, doctors or therapists,” said Ashley Giddings, a 22-year-old UF neurobiological sciences senior and president of IMPACT Autism.
Tuesday was World Autism Awareness Day, where organizations around the world promoted awareness of the developmental disorder. Autism Speaks pushed the Light It Up Blue campaign, where landmarks and buildings in 750 cities used blue lights to illuminate for the cause.
President Barack Obama also unveiled the Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies initiative, which aims at mapping out the human brain and its circuits in action, according to a CBS article. The plan hopes to find cures for autism, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease, and it will start in 2014.
Leilani Doty, director of UF’s Memory and Cognitive Disorders clinics, said the plan was a major step toward the development of treatments and cures for brain health issues.
“It is something that we absolutely need,” she said. “Even though we do know some of the simple functions of the brain, there is really so much more that we need to learn about.”
Elizabeth Slonena, a 22-year-old UF psychology senior and president of the UF Neuroscience Club, said Obama’s initiative will have a positive impact on the field of neuroscience.
“It’ll really allow the neuroscience community to explore different aspects of neuroscience and go back to the basics,” she said.
