Who we are
āWe are a social enterprise based in Brighton, led by and serving a global digital community of blind and learning disabled individuals who embrace a growth mindset through discovery, learning, and co-creation.ā
Our co-founders - Daniel and Danielle - draw on lived experiences of disability, and professional skills in research, innovation, and self-advocacy. Daniel works in the disability innovation space, supporting early career researchers and start-up founders in translating ideas into opportunities for positive impact. Danielle works with local councils, researchers, and charitable organisations as an accessibility and self-advocacy consultant within the learning disability domain.
What we do
We collaborate with academic research groups with an interest in accessibility , and deep expertise in one of our fields of interest. This allows us to complement the respective expertise and interests during co-design research projects at the intersection of accessibility and mainstream research areas.
We also collaborate with pioneering businesses, who have an interest in disability inclusion and the early adoption of innovative solutions for accessibility. This way, we create scaling pathways for successful research outputs on the market. In addition, we help enterprise owners to address larger and more diverse customer segments, while end-users benefit from the commercialisation and dissemination of novel assistive technologies.
Our fields of interest
We focus on technology mediated social participation through various lenses of inquiry.
- Access to mathematical expressions:
- How can text-to-speech technology users read and write mathematical notation?
- Access to graphs and data visualisations:
- How can text-to-speech users consume and create graphs and data visualisations?
- How can blind or partially sighted people access science concepts through haptic technology?
- Access to civil rights and choices:
- How can learning disabled people speak up for themselves?
Our research and innovation services
Our research and innovation services are anchored in partnerships across academia and industry. We offer a bespoke partnership model; consulting, collaborating, or co-creating according to individual needs of research groups and small businesses.
Read what our collaborators said, before browsing our service offer below..
Daniel has been an incredible design and research collaborator over the past few years with the MIT Visualization Group. He has played an important role by contributing both his expertise in the lived experience of blindness and his keen research and design sensibility as we have worked together to co-develop software prototypes and widely-recognized research publications. Iāve particularly enjoyed learning from Danielās focus on the impact of his work and how to strive for 'solutions that work' for peopleās everyday lives. - Jonathan Zong
Danielle is a superb advocate for people with learning disabilities, showing just how much can be achieved with a positive can-do attitude and gentle guidance. She hit the ground running when she worked with me on interviews with self-advocates and showed a great aptitude for empathetic interviewing. - Jan Walmsley
Professor in the History of Learning Disabilities at Open University
From ensuring PDF accessibility to testing websites and pages as a screen reader user, Daniel has utilised his lived experience and technical knowledge surrounding digital accessibility and assistiveĀ technologies to bring incredibly helpful insight to a number of projects. I would recommend him in a heartbeat; he is thorough, engaging and a joy to chat with! - Emily Yates
Co-designing solutions - Validate your research question!
We enable researchers to understand the real problems blind or learning disabled people experience, through an iterative process of co-design and consultancy, such that the right research questions are addressed.
Diffusing innovation - Be an early adopter!
We work with businesses to identify opportunities for innovation in accessibility, diffuse the latest research and development outputs, and scale solutions that work for blind or learning disabled people.
Knowledge exchange - Disseminate your project learnings!
We help researchers and businesses with knowledge exchange, disseminating project learnings, and engaging with other stakeholders, through our blog and network.
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