By Florence Afriyie Mensah
Kumasi, Nov. 10, GNA – The Responsible Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (RAIL), in collaboration with the Gender Inclusion and Vulnerability (GIV) Office at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi (KNUST) has brought researchers, technology developers and students with disabilities together to co-design assistive technologies tailored to individual accessibility needs.
Head of the GIV Office, Professor Mrs Mercy Badu, said the initiative, launched under the maiden Ability Connect Workshop, themed “Ability Unlocked: The Power of Assistive Technology,” seeks to strengthen partnerships between technology developers and end users.
“Rather than designing technologies in isolation, this workshop adopts a participatory approach that places persons with disabilities at the centre of the design process,” she said.
She explained that the workshop was designed to bring RAIL researchers and innovators into direct engagement with students with disabilities to understand their functional needs, preferences and experiences, which would inform the development and adaptation of appropriate technologies.
Professor Badu said although assistive technologies had improved access to information, communication, mobility and independent learning, their cost and inability to address individual needs made it necessary to develop more personalised solutions.
She said the initiative was also expected to stimulate interdisciplinary collaboration among researchers, students with disabilities and the GIV Office, particularly in developing practical solutions that leverage responsible artificial intelligence for disability inclusion.
The Scientific Director of RAIL, Professor Jerry John Kponyo, reinforced the importance of involving persons with disabilities in developing technologies intended to serve them.
He invited students with disabilities to participate in RAIL’s design sprints, testing teams and research groups, stressing that, their experiences and feedback would be essential to developing technologies that promoted equal participation.
“Bring your ideas, your frustrations, and your brilliance.
Help us make sure that when KNUST builds assistive technology, it is built by the community it is meant to serve,” he said.
Professor Kponyo explained that developing solutions such as sign-language translation tools, voice-controlled campus navigation systems and artificial intelligence-powered learning assistants required direct input from intended users to ensure the technologies addressed their actual needs.
The Vice-Chancellor, Professor Christian Agyare, reaffirmed the University’s commitment to developing practical solutions to improve the learning experiences of differently abled students.
He suggested that faculty-level coordinators identified students’ needs and ensured their concerns were addressed for a more inclusive support system.
The Vice-Chancellor also encouraged collaboration among the relevant university offices, researchers and students to translate the ideas emerging from the workshop into practical solutions that could improve the student experience.
Head of the Department of Health Promotion and Disability Studies, Associate Professor Wisdom Mprah, underscored the importance of involving persons with disabilities in the design and evaluation of assistive technologies.
He said that their participation would help researchers understand individual needs and ensure that solutions were suitable for the people expected to use them.
Sharing concerns on behalf of visually impaired students, Emmanuel Adjei, commented on an intelligent walking stick demonstrated during the workshop, I-See: an AI-powered smart white cane designed to assist persons with visual impairment.
He suggested that its machine-learning component should be adapted to recognise the individual user and progressively learn the environments in which the person regularly moves.
For wheelchair users, the discussions focused on making assistive devices safer, more affordable and better suited to the environments in which they would be used.
Beyond assistive devices, the students raised broader concerns about physical accessibility and mobility on campus including difficulties in accessing upper-floor classrooms when lifts were not functioning, the need for more accessible shuttle services and improvements to ramps, elevators and other university facilities.
GNA
Edited by Kwabia Owusu-Mensah/Kenneth Odeng Adade
Reporter: Florence Afriyie Mensah
Email: [email protected]