Kenya

Participatory case studies on inclusive design and accessibility in cities. Creating enabling environments and infrastructure for assistive technology users through inclusive design.

The AT Impact Fund was established to better enable frontier technology solutions to reach people with disabilities in Africa, and to test business models that are most likely to succeed. Assistive Technology Impact Fund is operationalised as a collaboration between GDI Hub, Brink, and Catalyst Fund, providing deep expertise in AT, innovation and venture-building in Africa respectively.

Innovation is happening across the world in all fields, and developing solutions for people with disabilities is a compelling area to innovate in. Yet in many cases, the intended users of new innovations are not meaningfully involved in the design process. Postdoctoral researcher Tigmanshu Bhatnagar is working on a programme of activity to make user centred design a central part of assistive technology innovation.

Measuring the impact of AT on the lives of people with disabilities.

This project is investigating the potential to strengthen local systems of AT provision and innovation to address gaps in service. Where could more localised product and service innovation complement global supply chains to unlock more sustainable and resilient AT ecosystems ? We believe there is an opportunity to create better connections between the AT community and local manufacturers, with both newer digital and traditional fabrication expertise to enable innovation and better support for AT users beyond initial provision.

Innovation Action is a collaborative initiative, launched by a consortium of partners brought together by innovation catalyst Global Disability Innovation Hub (GDI Hub), led by UCL Engineering and funded by UK Aid through the Frontier Technologies Hub and AT2030 programmes Our purpose is to bring people together to innovate on global challenges. We provide a space to enable people from all over the world to identify challenges and collaborate on solutions to help address some of the world’s most pressing problems.

i2i was a three-year programme focused on technological initiatives that directly improve access to paid private sector work for people with disabilities in Kenya and Bangladesh.

The GDI Hub, as a part of the AT2030 Programme, partnered with Amparo to support them in carrying out a clinical trial to evaluate how the Amparo Confidence Socket could help the provision of lower limb prosthetics in Kenya.

As part of the AT2030 programme, the GDI Hub supported Motivation in testing their new wheelchair provision system in Kenya to evaluate the quality of the new designs and understand how distributed manufacturing through 3D printing could augment current wheelchair service provision models.