A World of Solutions

At the Competitiveness and Innovation Division of the Inter-American Development Bank we consider that innovation and technology can improve the economic and social inclusion of people with disabilities in Latin American and the Caribbean. The initiative A World of Solutions: Innovations for people with disabilities intends to demonstrate that disabilities can be seen under another light, in which they serve as the motivation to generate ideas.

Launched in 2009, A World of Solutions was created with the objective of implementing 10 pilot projects that would improve the access to education and to the labor market of people with disabilities. Check out our ANIMATED VIDEO on the issue. After the project’s Call for Problems and Solutions, ideas developed into solutions that impacted society, creating environments that allowed equal conditions for people. The Call for Projects closed June 30th, 2009.

Our 5 main goals were:

  1. Awareness of the issue
  2. Provide greater power to people with disabilities
  3. Give voice to all people through the use of technology
  4. Generate measurable evidence
  5. Carry out successful projects in large-scale

Implementation and Results

We wanted to learn more about the kind of problems people with disabilities (PWD) face in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). In our interactive website, people with disabilities, Disabled People’s Organizations (DPO), and anyone interested in the topic shared, voted, and prioritized the most important barriers to social and economic inclusion, and this was the competition of problems.

The contest only lasted for 6 weeks and the 3 most voted problems received over 150,000 votes from all around the region. The website for A World of Solutions had 1.6 million hits in 3 months, 49 problems were presented, 1,230 comments were made, 58 different countries participated and the winning problem received 61,160 votes.

Using CROWDSOURCING we reached our target audience, 3 out of 5 of the most voted problems where proposed by people with disabilities and the other 2 by people with a direct bond to people with disabilities. Meet the five winners of the competition in the “A World of Solutions” VIDEO. This is the story of how the beneficiaries told us what their needs were and their voice was heard.

The five most voted categories where then made into categories for a second competition: the competition of solutions. We received over 200 project proposals for the solutions to the five winning problems, and a high level jury of disability experts, technical people, and academics selected the best projects.

You can learn more about the winning projects by clicking on the project icons above or by clicking their titles in the list below. The Innovation Lab allows you to follow the developments of the different projects and comment on them in the I-LAB BLOG.

The 10 Projects

01 - IRIS® : pedagogical tool for the blind and people low vision in Colombia.

02 - Project F123org : software that allows accessibility in all computers.

03 - Sueñaletras:  software to support education for deaf children in  Chile, Uruguay y Mexico.

04 - All-terrain wheelchair :  LFC off-road wheelchair to access difficult terrain in Guatemala.

05 - Project ANSIMUE : Accessible Navigation System for people with disabilities in Argentina.

06 - Accessible Call Centers : call centers 100% operated by people with disabilities in Colombia.

07 - Videogames for all : Fair Play Labs for blind children and children with low vision in Costa Rica.

08 - Señas en línea : educational support for deaf children in Nicaragua.

09 - Libros Virtuales :  online videobooks in Argentinian sign language.

10 - ICT in schools : inclusive education in Ecuador.

A World of Solutions was supported by the Fund of Social Inclusion and the Italian Fund for ICTs for Development.

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