9 startups converting incapacity tech by means of NewsFlicks

Incapacity tech accelerator Outstanding held its 2025 Incapacity Tech Summit at Sydney The city Corridor this week, bringing the development to Australia for the primary time.

Based as an initiative of Australia’s Cerebral Palsy Alliance in 2016, Outstanding has since unfold to the U.S., protecting its earlier 3 Incapacity Tech Summits in San Francisco and San Diego. The organisation now runs two incapacity tech accelerator techniques once a year: One interested by US-based startups, and the opposite for startups in Australia and the remainder of the sector.

“In Australia, the government these days commits round a couple of $100 billion in step with yr to incapacity and getting older. And we all know that we are handiest simply scratching the skin of what’s approach in far more than a $13 trillion international alternative round innovation on this house,” mentioned Outstanding founder Pete Horsley.

“We in reality do imagine that with Australia’s global main analysis design capacity, and lived enjoy in management, now we have the risk to make the incapacity sector the following wave of cutting edge business that thrives proper right here in Australia but additionally in different wallet world wide as smartly.”

Listed below are 9 startups innovating in assistive tech at Outstanding’s 2025 Incapacity Tech Summit.

ByStorm Good looks, make-up equipment for folks with disabilities

Credit score: Amanda Yeo / Mashable

ByStorm Good looks‘s founder Hurricane Menzies has gentle cerebral palsy and labored within the incapacity business for years. Even so, it wasn’t till she broke her dominant hand that she realised how inaccessible make-up is to many of us with disabilities. 

“After I couldn’t open a tube of mascara, and I could not in finding the obtainable good looks merchandise that I wanted, I googled. Or even Google used to be puzzled,” mentioned Menzies. “So I referred to as one in every of my pals, and I requested her how she did her make-up. And she or he mentioned, ‘Hurricane, make-up is not made for folks like me. No person sees me as stunning.'”

This caused Menzies to create equipment which snap directly to make-up merchandise, enabling folks with disabilities to carry and use them.

“I discovered that my group doesn’t in truth need obtainable make-up,” Menzies defined. “What they would like is so that you can use the similar make-up and good looks merchandise as everybody else, the similar merchandise which might be trending and viral on TikTok.”

ByStorm Good looks’s make-up attachments are available two fashions. The spherical Betty grip is fitted to folks with wrist or hand ache, whilst the paddle-shaped Margie is helping individuals who cannot curl their palms. Each are fabricated from medical-grade silicone, and can be utilized throughout other product varieties and types. Primarily based in Australia, ByStorm Good looks additionally these days ships to Canada, the United Kingdom, and New Zealand.

“Whilst everybody else is chasing those high-tech, AI answers, we’re interested by simplicity,” mentioned Menzies. “Accessibility isn’t charity. It’s innovation. It’s sustainability. And it’s the way forward for good looks.”

Risk Neurotechnologies’ Think2Switch, a brain-computer interface

Credit score: Amanda Yeo / Mashable

Risk Neurotechnologies‘ co-founder and CEO Dion Kelly describes its brain-computer interface Think2Switch as “like Siri in your ideas.” Designed for ease of use, the Think2Switch instrument permits folks to function as much as 4 separate electric units the use of off-the-shelf mind sensing headsets.

“For individuals who enjoy demanding situations with mobility and verbal exchange,… none of [the potential options] are obtainable, reasonably priced, or usable by means of the common particular person,” mentioned Kelly. “With Think2Switch, someone can log on presently, and they are able to acquire a Muse headset for $500, they are able to obtain our app, and get started the use of it in an instant.”

Supplied with EEG electrodes, Muse’s headsets are meant to be meditation wearables. Risk Neurotechnologies’ Think2Switch reappropriates their talent to locate mind process to show it into an accessibility tool.

“Believe being advised that your kid won’t ever communicate, they’re going to by no means stroll, they’re going to by no means be capable to do the rest independently,” mentioned Kelly. “Now consider finding out that there is a generation that may assist your kid have interaction with the sector, a elementary human proper. So that you get on wait lists. You do months and months of checks looking to turn out that your kid is disabled sufficient to warrant this generation, in hopes that perhaps insurance coverage will duvet it. If now not, it is $15,000 out of pocket. That is the fact for 60 million folks… the place handiest two % ever get get entry to.”

Primarily based in Canada, Kelly states that Think2Switch has already been utilized by over a 100 households throughout 20 clinics. After all, its ambitions stretch some distance past this. Whilst Risk Neurotechnologies is these days interested by folks with disabilities, the startup hopes to sooner or later introduce Think2Switch to the children’ shopper tech and toy marketplace as smartly.

“We are construction this for all kids, for the reason that need to keep an eye on your global isn’t restricted by means of incapacity,” mentioned Kelly. “With Think2Switch, interplay looks like magic, and what kid does not need to enjoy that?”

Box of Imaginative and prescient, enabling folks with restricted imaginative and prescient to observe reside sports activities

Credit score: Composite symbol: Amanda Yeo / Mashable; Box of Imaginative and prescient

Established in 2020, Box of Imaginative and prescient used to be impressed by means of a viral video of a blind soccer fan celebrating a purpose in a crowded stadium. The Irish startup’s hand-held haptic units permit folks with low imaginative and prescient to observe reside sports activities, allowing them to really feel engraved high-contrast box strains in addition to the motion of the ball.

“I love to explain it just a little like a soccer Ouija board,” defined co-founder David Deneher. “So that you let the magnet information your hand across the box, reasonably than the wrong way round, after which that may inform you the place the ball is. After which there is vibrations for key occasions throughout the sports activities video games, reminiscent of tackles or behinds targets, and there is other vibrations for every of them.”

Across the dimension of an iPad, Box of Imaginative and prescient’s tool has interchangeable plates permitting it for use for various sports activities. Deneher mentioned that it may be used for football, rugby, AFL, and NFL, with the startup making plans to increase to baseball and tennis. 

“We get our information from both AI cameras which might be put in within the stadium that may carry it to the tool in lower than part a 2nd, or we will manually monitor the information,” mentioned Deneher. “We will be able to paintings in any dimension stadium, with large stadiums reminiscent of [Melbourne’s] Wonder Stadium, the entire solution to our native ones….

“That is some of the large issues we paintings on, is ensuring the information will get to our tool in lower than part a 2nd. Since the concept is we would like the lovers so that you can enjoy this recreation concurrently everybody else, reasonably than all the time asking what is going on.”

Previous this yr, Wonder Stadium introduced that AFL audiences will be capable to hire Box of Imaginative and prescient’s units totally free in 2026, in collaboration with Australian telecom Telstra. Whilst Box of Imaginative and prescient’s units are these days loaned out by means of stadiums, Deneher hopes that sports activities fans will sooner or later personal their very own which they are able to take with them to video games.

Working out Zoe, an app for monitoring neurodivergent kids’s well being

Credit score: Composite symbol: Amanda Yeo / Mashable; Working out Zoe

Named for co-founder and CEO Laetitia Andrac’s daughter, Working out Zoe is an AI-assisted app which permits oldsters, lecturers, and therapists to trace their neurodivergent kid’s development by means of logging their behaviours. The app’s AI trainer Pip then provides insights in response to the guidelines supplied, serving to adults establish a kid’s meltdown triggers and the calming tactics which paintings for them. 

“The entire concept of Working out Zoe used to be to reinforce [neurodivergent children who] are misunderstood and hidden and invisible,” mentioned Andrac. “To ensure that, any longer, we do not repeat the biases and the trauma from the previous, and we reinforce them.”

Regardless that the app is interested by kids, Andrac famous that they hope to increase past this someday.

“Working out Zoe used to be born out of our personal lived enjoy going through [a] damaged device,” Andrac mentioned. “We’re embracing moral AI, we’re correcting biases, and we’re embracing strength-based neuro maintaining care. We collaborate with researchers from College of Sydney, Oxford College, however we additionally collaborate with a lot of clinicians and lived enjoy mavens to in reality construct this platform.”

Working out Zoe is to be had on each iOS and Android, and gives a unfastened 30-day trial. After that, the app will set you again $AU10 monthly in step with circle of relatives, with a couple of kids and caregivers supported.

Rampey, an self sufficient AI-powered robotic ramp

Credit score: Amanda Yeo / Mashable

Because the identify suggests, Rampey is a ramp. After all, that is some distance from all there may be to it. Offered by means of founder and CEO Jay Davey, Rampey is a robot, self-deploying ramp which makes use of AI to autonomously place itself in entrance of educate doorways. This implies folks with disabilities do not have to depend on station team of workers to assist them, enabling them to get out and in of the carriage with better ease.

“No team of workers wanted, no looking ahead to heavy ramps, no arriving early,” mentioned Davey, who boasts over twenty years of enjoy in robotics. “Our self sufficient ramps place themselves prior to the doorways open. And what took mins now takes seconds….

“The robotic is protected round folks, because of its hybrid LiDAR and pc imaginative and prescient sensor suite. Platforms with massive gaps and curve geometries aren’t any problem. We flip in position to check the perspective of the educate, and we alter the peak of the ramp to the easiest peak each time.”

Whilst Rampey is concentrated at wheelchair customers, Davey additionally stated the wish to imagine the way it affects people with disabilities.

“We need to put lighting and sounds and audio cues to provide some roughly indication of what the robotic desires to do,” mentioned Davey. “However the ones lighting and sounds — if they are now not in moderation monitored and in moderation carried out — they are able to be demanding situations for folks with neuro divergence or such things as that. In order that realisation, that consciousness [of] what you are hanging at the robotic, issues so much.”

Regardless that founded in Australia and essentially interested by trains, Davey famous that Rampey is also used for different modes of delivery reminiscent of self sufficient automobiles, and may just sooner or later be deployed globally. The startup is these days taking a look to lift pre-seed capital.

Umps, a non-public alarm exploring AI integration

Credit score: Composite symbol: Umps; Amanda Yeo / Mashable

Umps is called after co-founder and CEO Adam Jahnke’s name for his grandfather, whose unhealthy falls impressed the non-public alarm startup. Jahnke’s grandfather wasn’t dressed in his alarm when he fell, so Umps began out by means of creating a sensible house device which might locate unusual actions by way of sensors positioned round customers’ properties. Then again, possible customers have been deterred by means of the sensation of being surveilled.

“We have been developing in reality nice alternatives for intervention,” defined Jahnke. “We have been specifically just right at detecting such things as infections, breakdowns in folks’s on a regular basis regimen, disruptions to sleep, extra sedentary behaviour…. [but] folks felt a lack of autonomy and a lack of company when one thing passive used to be tracking them.”

As such, Umps in the end returned to non-public alarms, providing pendants and watches hooked up to a house hub. Then again, the startup is now taking a look at methods to be offering extra services and products and larger capability on its units, integrating quite a lot of wi-fi community protocols reminiscent of Bluetooth, Zigbee, Thread, and WiFi.

“We’ve got were given an entire bunch of generation in right here that might permit us to combine different sensors and scientific units,” mentioned Jahnke. “What we ended up construction used to be a spread of voice programs that may be delivered over the non-public alarm, [with voice commands] now not simply going to an emergency centre, but additionally to be brought to care. 

“So with [Australian Christian community care organisation] Anglicare now, folks can press this button, they are able to communicate to the tool, the tool will transcribe what that particular person’s request is and ship it without delay to their care staff. Their care staff can kind again a reaction, ship it again, and push it without delay to the tool.”

Umps additionally plans to release AI wellbeing exams subsequent yr, which can have its hub advised customers to assemble knowledge from them.

Hailo, an app serving to folks with disabilities catch public buses

Credit score: Composite symbol: Hailo; Amanda Yeo / Mashable

In 2018, Hailo co-founder and CTO Santiago Velasquez neglected a school examination after a couple of buses failed to prevent for him that morning. Regardless that he’d arrived early, used to be dressed in a high-visibility vest, and held up the path quantity, he wasn’t in a position to peer the bus to hail it. In consequence, he neglected his examination and needed to spend an extra six months on his electric engineering level.

“It wasn’t the driving force’s fault,” mentioned Velasquez. “They’re targeted at the street [and] visitors, and with no transparent sign on the suitable time, the verdict to prevent can go in a blink… Folks with disabilities enjoy isolation day-to-day as a result of public delivery isn’t for everybody. This implies dwelling smaller lives, fewer outings and having restricted employment alternatives.”

The Hailo app objectives to deal with this downside, and make public delivery extra obtainable for everybody. Commuters use the app to ship indicators to drivers’ dashboards, allowing them to know that there are passengers to select up as they method a forestall. They are able to additionally plan journeys and notice reside car knowledge within the app. In the meantime, drivers will obtain knowledge reminiscent of what number of passengers there are, whether or not they wish to deploy a ramp, and if the bus’ suspension must be decreased.

“Each drivers and vacationers get indicators at pickup, all over the commute, and whilst coming near the forestall,” Velasquez defined. “Hailo works with current generation on automobiles, so we’re able to roll out throughout New South Wales, Australia, and the sector.”

Hailo carried out an ordeal throughout 400 buses in New South Wales remaining yr, and is making ready to release in Melbourne and increase globally. Whilst Hailo used to be to begin with designed for folks with disabilities, Velasquez famous that it might be helpful to everybody who takes public delivery.

“[Text messaging] used to be to assist individuals who could not pay attention,” mentioned Velasquez. “Now everyone says, ‘Do not name me. Textual content.’ It is the similar factor with Hailo.”

Rove, light-weight customisable wheelchairs

Credit score: Amanda Yeo / Mashable

Rove provides light-weight but sturdy wheelchairs fabricated from 3-d-printed titanium and wound carbon fibre. Weighing roughly 4kg (9lbs) with out wheels and in a position to being customised right down to the millimetre, Rove’s assistive units are for knowledgeable wheelchair customers who know what they prefer.

“Your chair has to check your aesthetic, but additionally get you round,” mentioned Rove’s nationwide gross sales supervisor Alex Jones. “It wishes to visit weddings, to funerals, to appointments. And simply each day on your existence, in the whole lot you do, you’re in all probability going to be depending on that chair for — relying at the use case — both something or the whole lot you do in all of your existence.

“So right here at Rove, we attempt and use innovative generation… to take the professionals of each [titanium and carbon fibre] and lower out as a lot of the cons as we will to make the most productive, maximum useful wheelchair that we will. 

“After which we in reality care in regards to the aesthetics of it. So we do colors, we do all types of various things, as a result of a wheelchair is not just a factor that you’ve got within your own home. For a large number of folks, it is one thing that they will use on a daily basis and be depending on for his or her entire mobility…. We lead them to glance cool….

“The glance on any person’s face once they see that chair that they in truth need to be noticed in public, that catches me by means of wonder each time.”

Rove does not but have any sellers outdoor of Australia and New Zealand, with Jones telling Mashable that it is these days going during the approval processes within the U.S. and Europe. As such, it’s going to most likely be some time prior to it makes it to sellers stateside. Then again, you’ll be able to nonetheless order a wheelchair without delay from their website online, with Rove promoting to shoppers around the globe.

Marco Polo, a housemate matching platform for folks with disabilities

Credit score: Composite symbol: Marco Polo; Amanda Yeo / Mashable

Whilst Australia’s Nationwide Incapacity Insurance coverage Scheme (NDIS) is helping folks with disabilities in finding housing, they usually do not get to make a choice their housemates. Marco Polo is a housemate matching platform which supplies NDIS members the ability to make a choice who they reside with. 

“Throughout Australia, greater than 700,000 folks depend at the NDIS, and too a lot of them are being positioned into shared properties with strangers,” mentioned Marco Polo co-founder Amy Connelly. “This results in results that vary from battle and misery to failed placements, and in some circumstances, violence and forget….

“What the device wishes is the power to prioritise connection, selection, and compatibility first. However the device is not designed for that, so we constructed the generation that makes it imaginable…. Assume [Australian share accommodation website] Flatmates meets Tinder, customized constructed for folks with incapacity.”

Individuals who obtain NDIS housing help merely inform Marco Polo how a lot investment they obtain and the positioning they like to reside in. The platform will then display them possible housemates who fit their particular person instances and personal tastes.

Marco Polo is unfastened for members and reinforce coordinators, whilst there are paid subscriptions for care suppliers, who can use the platform to record and arrange vacancies. Connelly states that Marco Polo these days has over 600 customers.

“Regularly folks [using the NDIS housing model] don’t have any selection in who they are dwelling with,” mentioned co-founder Aaron Cotton. “It is, ‘This is 3 folks, in you get, simply maintain it and be at liberty that you have got someplace to reside.’ We’re converting that, and ensuring that individuals with a incapacity and their households and whoever helps them give you the chance to make a choice who they are dwelling with and who helps them.”