Adaptive Sports and Technology for Persons with Disabilities

The Solution empowers Persons with Disabilities (PWDs) to become active community members as athletes, coaches, administrators and adaptive equipment developers.

Providing technical training to stimulate innovation through PWD-developed mobile-apps, and PWD-fabricated adaptive sport equipment, PADS will engage PWDs in sport, sharpen critical thinking skills, build self-confidence, and provide employment opportunities.

The Solution advances the human rights of PWDs by generating disability inclusive and disability led activities in the community. The Solution enables PWDs to build expertise and self-esteem in sports adapted to their abilities, as well as developing entrepreneurial and critical thinking skills through design of equipment adapted to their needs, gaining hard and soft skills transferable to the workplace. The Program contains three components, linked through the theme of diminishing disadvantage through social-inclusion:

• Sports participation

Targeting Special Education Centers in the Philippines, the physical education curriculum will be updated so students and staff are coached in sports for PWDs. PWD involvement will promote soft skill development, such as leadership, teamwork, and communication. An Elite Athlete Track will be developed for talented athletes.

• Adaptive Technology Fabrication Lab

Empowering PWD students to use technology for digital fabrication, 3D printing, and rapid prototyping, the Lab will simultaneously provide employment opportunities for PWD, teach skills for future employment, and provide adaptive equipment to allow more sport engagement. Made by PWDs for PWDs, adaptive technologies will modify sports allowing athletes with disabilities to participate. PWDs will be trained in prototyping, and fabricating devices such as sports wheelchairs, assistive devices and prostheses.

• Mobile-app development

PWD students will be engaged to develop mobile-apps providing PWD-athletes with a training record, performance monitoring, and tailored training plans. In addition PWDs will acquire app-development skills.

The Adaptive Sports and Technology Program is a key entry point to social-inclusion and vocational skills development, and will both promote the case, and expand the venues for mainstreaming the inclusion of PWDs in society. The Program aims to break down longstanding cultural stigmas and biases by ensuring that PWDs appear alongside other citizens as active, legitimate participants in society resulting in decreased discrimination, increased employability and broader opportunities in life.

Access to sports and employment opportunities for PWDs in the Philippines is hampered by poverty, systemic discrimination, and lack of accessible facilities and equipment. PADS’ Solution empowers PWDs to become active members of the community as athletes, coaches, administrators and adaptive equipment developers.

The World Health Organization estimated that approximately 30 million people (80% living in developing countries) needed prosthetic devices in 2010. 

Including PWDs in adaptive sports whilst providing technical training on mobile-app and equipment development, breaks down the physical, political, and socio-cultural barriers confronting PWDs, one of the most vulnerable and disenfranchised sectors in society.

PADS’ theory of change is PWDs working for an inclusive, compassionate society where PWDs realize their full potentials as equal co-partners in nation building resulting in a disability-inclusive society.

Participants of PADS programs are trained so that people with disabilities can solve problems and issues that matter to them. The program has achieved national media attention.

PADS is proud to amplify the powerful PWD mantra of ‘nothing for us, without us’. This is predicated on strong leadership from, and consultation with, the PWD community in the Philippines resulting in an inclusive program for people of all abilities.

The long-term outcome of the Program is to develop the next generation of Filipino Paralympians, positioning Cebu as the Filipino hub in disseminating Adaptive Sports and Technology initiatives.

To reach this goal, PADS will implement the Program in Special Education (SPeD) Centers across the country. PWD students will be coached in adaptive sports, as well as receive technical and vocational training in adaptive device manufacturing and mobile-app development.

PWD students with a strong talent and drive will engage in the ‘Elite Athlete Track’. Others will gain relevant, transferable skills that can be used to gain meaningful employment.

a) Track number of schools signing up and engaging with the Adaptive Sport and Technology Program.

b) Track numbers and monitor progress for Elite Athlete Track for Paralympics aspirations. - a) By 2020, 50 SPeD Centers throughout the Philippines will be engaged in the program.

b) By 2024, the Philippines will see Paralympians from the Program compete in the Paralympic Games.

Track completed feedback forms from students at Lab facilities. - By 2020, 500 students will be given the opportunity to engage and develop with the Adaptive Technology Fabrication Lab and mobile-app development program.

Track downloads in the app store. - By 2020, 1,000 PWD athletes with download the Performance App.

The combination of adaptive sport education with manufacturing and app-development technology is the first of its kind in the Philippines. The location, Cebu City, opens opportunities for PWDs with limited or no access to disability services situated primarily in the capital, Manila.

The program offers previously unheard of technological opportunities for PWD school and university students, challenging them to seek greater achievements and opportunities in their lives. 

The solution will not only strengthen the athletic prowess of the PWD athletes, but also allow them opportunities to use new technology-related skills to create a livelihood to support themselves and their families.

The primary implementers and beneficiaries of the program are PWDs. PWD athletes and students will be trained in advanced sporting programs with the use of apps and adaptive equipment, designed by and for PWDs. 

Both PWD and non-PWD experts will be sourced from around the world to provide initial guidance and ongoing support and mentoring, but the focus is on PWD empowerment and livelihood. As such, participants will be trained in a way that enables Filipino athletes and students with disabilities to solve problems and issues that affect them.

Access to the program will be restricted initially to participants in and around Cebu City as existing partnerships and equipment technology development facilities are based there. Access would be through membership of the PADS Adaptive Sport movement, utilizing labs and training facilities in the city. Training and performance monitoring apps will be accessible through downloading from the App Store.

Into the future, app development will allow PWD athletes from further afield to begin their own training programs. Current partnerships with SPeD Centers and universities will be further developed to enable sport technology road shows, engaging other provinces in the Philippines.

PADS primarily receives funds from grants, and self-organized initiatives (events, donation drives, etc.). Grants are used for specific projects, with agreed activities, outcomes and budgets. Fundraising initiates are used to generate unrestricted funds supporting operational expenses. PADS will continue working with grant awarding organizations and organizing events to support the implementation of this project.

PADS has built strong relationships with the private and public sectors of the Philippines, attracting long-term supporters and sponsors for activities. Further, PADS recognizes the importance of self-generated revenue and works closely with the business sector in Cebu City, to deliver trainings and workshops for a fee, designed to create a more responsive and PWD-inclusive community.

In addition, PADS has developed sporting revenue streams through coaching, equipment rental and a membership program. These activities both increase the number of participants in the program as well as provide another revenue stream to support ongoing organizational costs.

• Developing a culture in the PWD community where persons can envision their potential and recognize the need for science and technology in their development
• Developing positive attitudes of PWDs who have been disenfranchised by a lack of support and low socio-economic status in the past
• Lack of support from sporting organizations and government and lack of funding for PWD athletes
• Economies of scale for cost-effective manufacture of adaptive devices
• The cost and accessibility of transportation to the training facilities, especially given the island geography of the Philippines and limited employment opportunities for PWD.

https://www.facebook.com/AdaptiveDragonBoatRacingPH/videos/292858721157003/

https://www.facebook.com/AdaptiveDragonBoatRacingPH/videos/268270506949158/

PADS is applying to Solve to make a tangible difference in the lives of PWDs in the Philippines. We believe that physical education combined with enhancing the employability of PWDs through technology is a vital component of developing an inclusive society. We want our technological innovations to be coupled with strong PWD leadership and the engagement of our beneficiaries and other citizens, in order to solve the problem. 

To maximize our impact, PADS wants to gain access to a global movement where we can learn from and share our ideas with bright minds in the global MIT community.

• Philippine Sports Commission
• Cebu City Government
• Fablab - University of the Philippines Cebu – makerspace enabling innovation through digital fabrication and rapid prototyping
• Sports Performance and Rehabilitation
• TIDE – co-working and entrepreneurship hub
• Orthopaedie Frey Far East, Inc. - prosthesis technology.
• United States, Canada, and Australia Embassies

PADS' solution is unique and does not currently have competitors in the Philippines.