Sister of a paraplegic man creates app to help disabled people

Audrey is the sister of a paraplegic man. When she wanted to go out with her brother she had to deal with accessibility problems. Lucas couldn’t do what he wanted because of lacks of accessibility. His sister decided to create a map on which disabled people can see if the accessibility is good or not in several places. The app is a kind of social media where everyone can share what they experienced. She called the app : “I Wheel Share”.

Lucas became a paraplegic in 2012, at age 17, after a road accident. After a period of eight months in a rehabilitation centre, he was confronted to the real life as a disabled person for the first time. This problematic reality is full of impediment which avoids a complete freedom of disabled people. Lucas wanted to stay independent, this is why it was so important for him to know where he could go with his wheelchair. However, there wasn’t exist a map bringing together the places easy to reach for disabled people. He told the problem to his sister, Audrey.

At the same time, Audrey was studying Informatics. In order to help her brother, she decided to create an app - a kind of social media - where disabled people can share, with a community, their experiences with accessibility for them in public places. Those people, who experimented a right or wrong situation related to the accessibility, post an article on the app. Each article must contain information such as: the address, the quality of the accessibility is (good or bad), a small text and a picture to describe the situation as realistic as possible.
This app is directed for all types of diseases. This is why Audrey distinguishes three types of accessibility: accessibility for wheelchair, accessibility for blind people, accessibility for deaf or hard of hearing. In each type you can choose if your experience was right or wrong, and this providing six categories.

In the long term, Audrey would like use the app to improve the accessibility of several places. In fact, when a place is considered as inaccessible by users, Audrey and her brother organise a special event in this spot to gather people and earn money through several activities. All the collected funds are used to finance a first step to increase accessibility. It can be a removable ramp, a training of sign language for the staff or an improvement of the website to make it accessible for blind people.

Audrey would go further and offer the possibility to members to talk together through a chat.

Adapted from: https://www.iwheelshare.com/
https://youtu.be/smJzU-Wnd0c