Closing the Gap: Leveraging Mass Collaboration to Support People with Disability

Overview & Synopsis

This paper explores the potential of mass collaboration to improve the quality of life for people with disability (PwD), a group representing approximately 16% of the global population. Accessibility remains a significant challenge for PwD, impacting physical navigation, information access, and social participation. Additionally, disparities in healthcare, education, employment, and social support exacerbate these issues. Addressing these challenges requires a collaborative, inclusive approach, including co-creating knowledge with input from PwD, caregivers, policymakers, and other stakeholders to ensure initiatives are relevant, effective, and sustainable. In this context, this work outlines a framework for enhancing well-being through mass collaboration, focusing on four key objectives: identifying current support initiatives across governmental, societal, and technological dimensions; illustrating the benefits of mass collaboration tools through user-centric scenarios; describing existing mass collaboration initiatives as benchmarks for developing a knowledge network; and proposing a conceptual architecture for a mass collaboration platform specifically designed for PwD.