Fitness App for People with Disabilities
Many years ago the Irish Academy of Public Relations worked with Cerebral Palsy Sports, handling PR for their participation in the New York games. We developed a tremendous admiration for the athletic skills and total focus that paralympic athletes must have, in order to win. The CP Sports athletes were multiple-medal winners. A big part of that was a dedication to training and fitness.
Disability Statistics
Fast forward to November 2023, and the Flutter Tech 4 Good Awards. One of the winners was Accessercise, which is “changing access to disability fitness”. Their COO, Ali Jawad, is a four-time Paralympian who shared his own sports and IT journey with the audience.
Here are some interesting points to consider:
- There are 71,000 fitness apps – but none (until now) designed for people with a disability
- There are 1.2 billion disabled people globally, that makes them the largest minority in the world
Tech4Good Awards
Based on his own experience of often being the only disabled person in the gym, Ali has designed a fitness app for the disabled community. It has a unique exercise library and allows users to rate local gym and sports facilities so that they can easily find accessible locations to exercise.
His company, based in the UK, won £10,000.
The other award winners on the night were Becca Hume from Inclutech and Leia Clancy from Signapse.
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Photo shows (left) Robert Smith, head of emerging technologies for Flutter Entertainment, (right) Ali Jawad, COO of Accessercise and Ellen Gunning, Director of Irish Academy of Public Relations.