A report by the United Nations (UN) pointed out that almost 1 billion adults and children living with some type of disability are excluded from access to assistive technologies. The index released on Monday (16) “is not surprising”, according to the expert and founding partner of Diversitera, Marcus Kerekes.
In an interview with CNN he highlighted that this is an “old struggle” and that the “discrepancy between poorer and richer countries” in assistive technology draws attention.
This type of innovation, according to him, ranges from physical devices, such as wheelchairs, to digital devices, such as screen-reading software, which somehow manage to overcome the loss of functionality of people.
“Over time, rich countries established a set of factors, such as public investment, that enabled these people to have access to these technologies, and they later managed to enter the job market and have access to them, the chain was structured” , he explained.
At the same time, in poorer countries, the specialist points out that “the lack of access means that fewer people reach the job market and more are left on the margins of society in terms of income, it is a cycle that is becoming”.
“To get out of this cycle, expanding the production chains is a way and it is also one of the possibilities to get out of economic stagnation, to add value to the market, increase the size of the pizza and not the fight for slices of it”, he added.
Marcus assesses that Brazil, in the last 20 years, has had positive initiatives, such as the line of financing for people with disabilities.
However, he made a caveat: “Brazilian industry lacks a lot of quality, imported assistive technologies are better and with all the situation we are experiencing, of economic crisis, it ends up making it impossible and pushing people away from access, advances have been made, but the process is long and gradual, there is a lot to do”.
Source: CNN Brasil
