Our colleague Sharon Ede hipped us to this beautiful project. The following is reposted from northcottinnovation.com.au:

We’re working with AbilityMate, UTS and Northcott on a global first project to give people with disability the opportunity to learn about 3D printing and create their own assistive technology. We want people with disability to be active creators of their own technology solutions, not passive recipients of a solution designed by others.

Hack-a-Home is a fantastic opportunity to change the way the disability sector sees assistive technology and how they view supported living environments.

For every piece of assistive technology given to a person with disability, 70% of those devices will be abandoned. We hope to change that by putting the choice and control into the hands of our customers and our frontline staff. Using the principles of co-design and wrap-around supports we will give every customer, support worker and manager from Northcott centres in Beverly Park, Guildford and Parramatta the opportunity to learn about digital fabrication and make their own customised solutions.

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How it works

The Hack-a-Home pilot puts MakerLabs into three of Northcott’s long-term accommodation services over 4-6 weeks. The 30 people with disability living there will have the opportunity to identify daily living activities where customised assistive technologies could increase independence, enhance wellbeing or increase social and economic participation. It builds on elements of the ‘Remarkable Enabled-by-Designathon’ which saw the AbilityMate team work successfully with people with disability and students over three days to develop assistive technology prototypes.

Want to know more? Get in contact with us.

Samantha Frain

0438 373 336