The UNSW Disability Innovation Institute has had a lot happening over the past month, as you’ll see from this newsletter—and more coming in the next couple of months, some of which is announced here too.
Part of my role as Director is to develop connections between the Institute and other areas that are relevant to disability, across UNSW and beyond. Sometimes this is through embedded research, such as the work of Georgia Van Toorn and myself as part of the UNSW node of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society, where we are looking at some of the implications of automated decision making (ADM) for people with disability. The Centre recently held its first in-person Strategic Planning Retreat, postponed since 2020 by COVID, which Georgia and I attended. The focus of the retreat was on familiarising ourselves with each other’s work and identifying new, sometimes unforeseen, opportunities for collaboration. For example, one focus of the Centre is on Transport and Mobilities, looking at the potential for automated transport and mobility services to change how people move from around. Of course, this should include improving the accessibility and usability of different modes of transport, but also ensuring that when safety measures and governance for innovations like automated cars are developed, the ‘difference of disability’ is kept in mind.
The Institute is also moving into a new phase of strengthening its existing ties to the Institute for Global Development (IGD) under its new Director, Dr George Varughese. In October we are jointly sponsoring a side-event at the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) High-level Intergovernmental Meeting on the Final Review of the Asian and Pacific Decade of Persons with Disabilities, 2013-2023. The side-event will bring experts together to reflect on the role of people with disability in disaster readiness and response in the region, a focus that draws on the strengths of both our Institutes. More about this in next month’s newsletter!
