Global Accessibility Awareness Day: how research is improving inclusion

Accessibility shapes whether people can read, learn, play, and participate independently in everyday life and wider society. UCL Ventures’ role is to support researchers in turning deep academic insights into innovations that improve the way that people live, work and thrive. Our team of experts guide evaluation, protect intellectual property and help find routes to market through social ventures – businesses that work at a community level to bring real-world impacts which extend far beyond the lab or lecture theatre.

From AI-enabled interaction and tactile interfaces, to tailored learning tools, UCL Ventures supports a diverse range of socially-focused ventures. They are co-produced with users, grounded in rigorous research and designed to bring practical solutions to challenges faced by communities and individuals.

Restoring access to reading: ReadClear

For people with brain-related visual impairment, including those affected by stroke, traumatic brain injury or dementia, reading can become exhausting or impossible. ReadClear is a clinically-validated app developed to remove the barriers that make text hard to follow, restoring confidence and independence in reading.

Developed by Dr. Aida Suárez González and colleagues at UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology, ReadClear – a UCL Ventures Social Venture – addresses challenges such as visual clutter, losing one’s place on the page and difficulty tracking lines of text. Rather than forcing users to adapt to standard e-reading formats, the technology adapts text presentation to how the brain processes visual information.

Clinical trials showed that users made 70-80% fewer reading errors compared with standard e-readers, helping many people to regain access to a daily activity that is often taken for granted.

Making education truly accessible: Tacilia

For blind and partially-sighted students, accessing diagrams, equations and graphical information remains one of the biggest challenges education.

Tacilia, tackles this challenge through a low cost, refreshable tactile display that combines multiline Braille and tactile graphics on a single interface.

Developed by Dr. Tigmanshu Bhatnagar at UCL Computer Science and the Global Disability Innovation Hub, and grounded in extensive co-design with blind and partially-sighted learners, Tacilia allows students to read, explore and create complex content without switching between multiple tools. Research and field-testing show that the device can significantly reduce barriers to independent learning, particularly in contexts where existing tactile technologies are prohibitively expensive.

What distinguishes Tacilia, is its focus on participation rather than accommodation, allowing learners to engage with the same concepts, materials and learning goals as their peers. Tacilia remains one of UCL Ventures’ core assistive technology Social Ventures in development.

Inclusive interaction through play: MotionInput Games

MotionInput Games, a UCL Computer Science spinout, is pioneering alternative ways for people with profound physical, neurological and neurodiverse conditions to interface with computers – creating input methods that can make digital play and computing more accessible to those who can’t use a mouse or a keyboard.

Using AI-powered computer vision and standard webcams, MotionInput software allows users to control games and computers through body movement, gestures, facial expressions or voice. The approach grew out of UCL research into touchless computing during the COVID-19 pandemic and has since evolved into a suite of accessibility-focused products.

MotionInput Games has launched titles including Superhero Sportsday and MotionInput Watersports, co-tested with autistic pupils and specialist schools, and now freely available via the Microsoft Store. The venture works closely with educators, therapists and charities to ensure that accessibility is designed in from the start – not added as an afterthought.

Accessibility with impact

“What makes these ventures powerful is not just the technology, but the intent behind them. They start with lived experience, are built on rigorous academic research, and designed to work in the real world, giving meaningful examples of accessibility impact,” says Ana Lemmo Charnalia, UCL Ventures Social Ventures Senior Business Manager.

Global Accessibility Awareness Day is a reminder that accessibility does not happen by accident: it requires sustained collaboration between researchers, users, educators and commercial experts. UCL Ventures is here to make that collaboration work.

If you are a UCL researcher and are interested in exploring how to turn your research into sustainable impact through Social Ventures, contact us for a confidential, no-obligation chat, whatever stage your research is at: socialventures@uclventures.com.