“Our experience over the past two years is a powerful reminder of how tech can help overcome significant barriers. Tech enabled us to carry on with our daily social and work lives despite the various physical and social safe distancing measures,” stated Eric Chua, Senior Parliamentary Secretary, Ministry of Culture, Community and Youth & Ministry of Social and Family Development, Singapore.

Chua was talking at this yr’s Tech 4 Good showcase, an annual innovation competition organised by non-profit Engineering Good that encourages youths to develop modern options to enhance the lives of individuals with disabilities in Singapore. This yr’s showcase was held on 1 October at Singapore’s National Library. It featured 30 groups responding to 6 challenges primarily based on the lived experiences confronted by folks with disabilities.

The occasion got here scorching on the heels of the announcement of the nation’s Enabling Masterplan 2030 just a few weeks prior, which comprised 29 suggestions from a committee convened by the Ministry of Social and Family Development (MSF).

The masterplan highlighted three key strategic objectives that the nation can be specializing in to enhance inclusion for individuals with disabilities: strengthening help for lifelong studying choices, supporting impartial residing, and creating infrastructure that’s inclusive to folks with disabilities.

The committee consulted greater than 300 individuals with disabilities, their caregivers, and incapacity sector professionals in articulating key challenges and objectives for constructing a extra inclusive Singapore for folks with disabilities. Chua, who co-chaired the 27-member committee, shared among the key focus areas of the 2030 masterplan on the Tech 4 Good showcase.

Assistive know-how to help impartial residing

“As part of the EMP 2030 we have made assistive technology one of the 14 focal areas … this will better enable persons with disabilities to live independently and to participate fully in the community,” stated Chua. He counseled the groups for his or her modern spirit in creating assistive know-how tasks and highlighted among the initiatives and funds set as much as develop the assistive know-how sector in Singapore.

Groups at Tech 4 Good developed options starting from impartial wheelchair transfers, instruments to help folks with visible impairment measure particular volumes of liquids, and instruments to help folks with muscular dystrophy take images independently.

Hari, who grew up with cerebral palsy, shared through the occasion that assistive know-how was important in supporting folks with disabilities. Yet, he famous that there are hardly ever one-size-fits-all tech options, as every individual’s wants are distinctive. Hari runs a Facebook group that helps hyperlink members of the cerebral palsy group with assistive gadget suppliers.

Chua highlighted to groups throughout his keynote handle that companies Tote Board and SG Enable present funding for assistive know-how and different scalable initiatives via the Enabling Lives Initiative grant. Since 2015, the grant has supported over 40 tasks.

SG Enable and SPD, an area charity for folks with disabilities, have additionally arrange Tech Able, which goals to advertise the notice and adoption of assistive know-how. Since Tech 4 Good’s inaugural competition in 2019, Tech Able has supported the groups in partaking group teams and creating their merchandise past the competition, stated an MSF spokesperson to GovInsider.

Tech Able helps match individuals with disabilities to acceptable assistive gadgets and assists these people with the day by day use of the gadgets, Chua defined. Through Tech Able, people with disabilities even have entry to a mortgage library the place they will borrow a few of these gadgets and take a look at them out earlier than they commit, to search out one most suited to their wants, he added.

Tech Able’s mortgage library is situated at Tech Able’s Enabling Village. MSF’s Assistive Technology Fund additionally helps individuals with disabilities in buying, changing, or repairing their gadgets.

A group strategy

Part of constructing options that may successfully meet the varied wants of varied communities and  people is by working intently with them, highlighted numerous panellists all through the occasion.

For occasion, one of many challenges at this yr’s Tech 4 Good competition included creating options to help individuals with mental disabilities in practising socially-appropriate interactions. This was an issue assertion submitted by the Movement for the Intellectually Disabled of Singapore (MINDS).

A crew responding to this problem developed an AI-based social companion app which might present an area to practise on-line communication. The crew of Secondary 3 college students from the School of Science and Technology, Singapore received the Most Empathetic Award for going above and past in partaking with group companions.

Team members advised GovInsider that working with MINDS helped them perceive the distinctive challenges totally different teams of individuals with mental disabilities face, and be sure that their app was “holistic and all-encompassing”. Feedback led the crew to incorporate an indication language recognition system to help customers who depend on non-verbal technique of communication.

MSF additionally shared with GovInsider that the general public sector is working intently with the non-public sector, social sector, in addition to individuals with disabilities and their caregivers to deliver in regards to the imaginative and prescient of an inclusive Singapore.

For occasion, they’ve fashioned a job power on selling inclusive employment practices. The job power is chargeable for discovering methods to help employment for individuals with disabilities, from various employment fashions (comparable to microjobs) to encouraging organisations to decide to disability-inclusive employment.

In 2020, SG Enable launched an accreditation framework to recognise organisations for finest practices and outcomes in disability-inclusive employment, and supply frameworks to assist employers enhance their employment practices.

MSF may even be piloting Enabling Services Hubs, which can attain out to individuals with disabilities and caregivers residing within the surrounding space. These hubs will present continuous studying programs and social inclusion actions, stated the MSF spokesperson.

Collaborations to enhance bodily and digital infrastructure

The masterplan additionally emphasises the significance of enhancing bodily and digital infrastructure, in order that individuals with disabilities can perform their day by day actions fuss-free. These enhancements to public areas and providers would require a coordinated strategy, with community-driven partnerships main the best way.

Public companies and social service companies are working collectively to design and implement various housing and care fashions to raised allow individuals with disabilities to dwell and age properly locally, stated the MSF spokesperson. Recently, the nation introduced that one such public housing city will incorporate dementia-friendly features, comparable to vibrant colors and greater block numbers by 2025.

In the previous, commenters and independent workgroups have highlighted that Singapore’s city infrastructure poses challenges for the visually and bodily handicapped in transferring round.

As a part of the Accessible City Networks, group partnerships are figuring out areas with accessibility challenges within the nation’s central enterprise district and public housing cities. These partnerships are co-developing options to handle these challenges, stated the MSF spokesperson.

According to the masterplan, the MSF can be creating a centralised incapacity register to consolidate information on individuals with disabilities throughout totally different authorities sources. In flip, this may allow companies to analyse anonymised demographic, socio financial, and programme-related information to boost the supply of providers and enhance outcomes.

For instance, the nation’s Land Transport Authority has used accessible information to establish the cities the place extra folks with visible impairments dwell and put in 24/7 audio visitors gentle indicators in these areas, stated the MSF spokesperson.

MSF can be working with GovTech to enhance the adoption of inclusive design in digital providers, comparable to web sites and cell functions. For occasion, the nation’s Covid-19 check-in system, SafeEntry, was tested extensively to make sure it was accessible for the visually and bodily handicapped.

Other avenues the MSF is pursuing embody working with the Singapore Land Authority to make navigation extra accessible on OneMap – the nation’s nationwide map service, in addition to the Building and Construction Authority to make older buildings extra accessible.

In Jakarta final month, 53 member international locations of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP) agreed on the Jakarta Declaration, which goals to pave the best way for incapacity inclusive improvement within the area, reported Antara News.