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A short talk given in the Disability Innovation Summit: Inclusive Interactions conference organised by the GDI hub on 13 Sept 2023.

Difficulties experienced by children who are wheelchair users, both in use of the wheelchair and also in wider society are briefly described. The set up, and some of the associated issues in the set up,  of an organisation to teach wheelchair skills and life skills to wheelchair users is outlined. 

An introduction is given by Dr Tigmanshu Bhatnagar entitled "Innovation: are ecosystems ready to scale for success?"

A short talk given in the Disability Innovation Summit: Inclusive Interactions conference organised by the GDI hub on 13 Sept 2023.

The story of the progress in the development and of issues with the roll out of Earswitch is briefly outlined. The particular advantages for people with communication difficulties owing to cerebral palsy, motor neurone disease and locked in syndrome and also the advantages for the general population are highlighted.  Work is being carried out on eye tracking. Difficulties in transitioning to market are discussed.

Presented at the Disability Innovation Summit: Inclusive Interactions conference organised by the GDI hub on 13 Sept 2023.

Outcomes of the first 5 years of the AT2030 project are summarised including: 15 AT country capacity surveys; 11 new assistive technologies; 31 AT ventures brought to sustainability and 70 journal papers. Funding thus far and for the future is also discussed.

Work to supply hearing aids to those with hearing loss in the global south, particularly in South Africa is outlined. Areas highlighted include: work with suppliers; work to ignite innovation and provide products at scale; work with UNICEF and the procurement catalogue; work with HEARX to provide screening and aid fine tuning via a phone app to enable community health AT service.

Questions from the audience highlight issues surrounding acquiring AT in the emergency/humanitarian setting  

Presented at the Disability Innovation Summit: Inclusive Interactions conference organised by the GDI hub on 13 Sept 2023.

Challenges in the development and bringing to market of functional, affordable, high quality AT devices are outlined. The development of the manual standing wheelchair and the lessons learnt in taking it from prototype to market (using the GRID model) are introduced. The challenges of affordability and of awareness of AT including by professionals is highlighted. The work of the National Centre for Assistive Health Technologies (NCAHT at AIIMS, New Delhi) including experience zones of architectural barriers where people can try wheelchars on different surfaces and realise that disability is imposed by the environment is briefly described. Wheelchair skills training and community outings are part of the centre. Other topics mentioned include: the need to normalise disability; the need for collaborations; funders; scalability; fragmented markets and the need to access global markets 

A series of short talks concerned with local innovation and production of AT devices in Nepal given by representatives of members of the associated ecosystem. A short history of the projects is presented. The devastating earthquake in 2015 and COVID both demonstrated the necessity for local innovation, production, repair and maintenance of AT. Three workstreams are ongoing: codesigning for individual needs; manual wheelchairs; and repair and spare part production. The need to develop local OT services in Nepal, particularly of bespoke provision, codesigning with the user to ensure achievable goals with a developed therapeutic intervention plan, is highlighted. Innovative AT associated with the knee joint and a diabetic foot and also a temperature monitoring device are shown and problems with local product validation are highlighted.  Ram Chandra Thapa (founder of Zener Technologies) describes the use of 3D printing in emergency engineering situations. He briefly describes his current project concerning wheelchairs, outlining associated difficulties, the local production ecosystem and the assessment of which parts are the most important for maintenance needs. The need for training and also finance to take a product from innovation to production are mentionned.

The inclusion of direct medical costs, indirect medical costs and indirect costs incurred by people with disabilities into Universal Healthcare is discussed. The importance of including assistive devices, rehabilitation and extra transportation costs in the system is highlighted. Social protection measures are also highlighted.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced that under the National Education Policy 2020, Indian Sign Language will be standardised across the country

The UK Equality and Human Rights Commission launched an inquiry to understand the experiences of disabled defendants and accused people in the criminal justice system. They looked at:

• whether their needs are properly identified
• the types of adjustments being made to accomodate their needs, and
• whether they can fully participate in court processes and understand the charges they face.

Based on their findings, recommendations are made to UK Governments.

The use of video hearings was rapidly expanded in response to the coronavirus pandemic. In April 2020, interim findings from this inquiry were released to help mitigate the risks that this technology poses to disabled people in the criminal justice system.

This report is the result of a process aimed at building a cross-disability consensus on strategic recommendations to commonly advocate for the realisation of the rights of all learners to quality, inclusive education, including all learners with disabilities.

Through three technical workshops, which included exchanges with consultants, education sector stakeholders, inclusive education allies in particular the IDDC Inclusive Education Task Group, global, regional and national level OPDs, a consensus position was developed on how to best achieve SDG4 in compliance with UNCRPD Article 24.

The report calls for an inclusive education system where all learners with and without disabilities learn together with their peers in schools and classes in their community schools, receiving the support they need in inclusive facilities.

Representatives of four IDA members formed the technical task team to guide the initiative and its framing of inclusive and equitable quality education. The four members are Inclusion International, the International Federation of Hard of Hearing People, the World Blind Union and the World Federation of the Deaf. While this report is endorsed by the Alliance as a whole, examples used in this report reflect a perspective on the commonly agreed position as illustrated by the four IDA member organisations who engaged actively in the technical task team.