The Center for LifeLong Learning and Design at the University of Colorado, Boulder has focused for a long time on human-centered design: to create socio-technical systems to empower humans and augment their capabilities. For example: rather than pursuing conventional Artificial Intelligence (AI) approaches which had the objective to replace human beings, we have focused our research for the last 15 years on Intelligence Augmentation (IA) approaches with the objective to complement, empower and augment human capabilities.

The Cognitive Lever (CLever) project focuses on people with cognitive disabilities, but this work is integrated it into a larger conceptual framework for the design of human-centered systems. We believe and will provide evidence that all people will greatly profit from the conceptual frameworks and systems which we will develop. This approach is grounded in the observation that individuals can (and in some cases must) follow very different learning paths leading to the challenge: to create environments that match individual needs and learning styles. We are convinced that looking at the work and needs of humans with special educational needs can help to understand the thinking and learning of humans in general.