Tag: Inclusion

A pop-up display could help those with limited vision access the digital world. Meanwhile, a Cologne-based startup is offering the German-speaking deaf community, who also have difficulty reading, a similar opportunity: its avatar renders website content into sign language. Website administrators use an internet platform with a toolbox to arrange pre-defined blocks of text and tailor them to individual...

In Africa, group buying is making fresh produce more affordable. Meanwhile, a new startup in Germany is aiming to provide warm meals to those in financial need, while simultaneously reducing food waste in canteens. Students or those on a tight budget register on the app. After vetting, they can request food each day from a nearby canteen for a...

An app is inspiring children to read books. But as a non-profit organisation in the US has shown, books are also highly valuable in prisons. The organisation’s founder, a former prison resident himself for nine years, discovered how stories and books could provide perspective during his long stay in solitary confinement. In the meantime, the registered lawyer has been...

A smart pen deciphers Braille characters. But participating fully in digital life remains a challenge for those with no or limited vision. Enter a New York-based research team and its sparkling idea. The team’s square display contains 100 evenly arranged circular silicone sheets, each measuring 2mm in diameter. The sheets can be made to pop up within 0.24 milliseconds...

New frames for tubes ensure critical patients can breathe comfortably. Colostomies are used after colorectal surgery, often after cancer. Now a Paris-based startup wants to give those affected the chance to avoid them altogether. The team’s device comprises a stent with an attached film tube and a thin second tube, connected to an external vacuum pump. The stent is...

When it comes to hair extensions, environmentally-friendly alternatives are available. Sustainability is also a key theme for an education programme in Washington D.C., which allows jail residents to train as hairdressers and beauticians. Led by four experts, trainees practise on mannequins first. Later, skills can be honed on fellow inhabitants or civilians, albeit with trimmers instead of scissors and...

Smart glasses can protect blind people from collisions. Dogs are not immune to losing their sight either. Which is why Texas-based students are focusing on a solution that will stop blind dogs injuring themselves while out playing or walking. Their innovation: a smart vest with a hood. Attached to it at eye level are two cameras, with 8 vibrating...

A digital pen can convert braille into text, while a glove does the same for sign language. A London-based startup, in turn, has developed a cloud-based platform to translate text, voice and video into British Sign Language. An AI-powered avatar does the signing. Training with data sets incorporated different dialects, contextual language and emotional tone. Comprising deaf members who use...