Tech For Positive Futures  ·  Team 3  ·  2026

Empowering
Independence,
Safety & Dignity

ThisAbility is a predictive accessibility ecosystem that transforms how 16 million UK disabled people navigate cities — powered by AI, real-time city data, and community intelligence.

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Health profile data 100% on-device GDPR Article 9 compliant by design Core features free for disabled individuals
1.3B
People globally with disabilities
16M
UK disabled adults — our SAM
£446B
UK "Purple Pound" disabled households market
7,600+
TfL lift & escalator faults, top 10 London stations, 2025
The Problem

Three Crises.
One Broken System.

Current solutions — Google Maps, Citymapper, Wheelmap — are static, reactive, and disconnected from the real-time heartbeat of cities. We built something fundamentally different.

Dynamic Urban Isolation

Sudden infrastructure failures and street works strip citizens of their independence. With ~7,600 TfL lift & escalator faults across the top 10 London stations in 2025 alone, mainstream maps offer zero real-time alternative routing for disabled people.

"Broken lifts aren't inconveniences — they are absolute stop signs."

The Emotional Toll & Dignity Gap

Every day, disabled people are forced to explain their personal limitations to transit staff and venue operators — repeatedly, exhaustingly, and without dignity. No current app solves this.

"It's not just the broken lift. It's the anxiety of having to explain my disability to five different people a day. It's exhausting." — Martin, daily commuter & user research participant

Unmonitored Lone Journeys

Lack of proactive fall and tip-over detection leaves vulnerable individuals isolated during emergencies. Over 80% of UK disabled adults already own smartphones (Ofcom, 2022) — the hardware for a safety net is already in their pockets.

"80%+ smartphone penetration among UK disabled adults (Ofcom, 2022). The infrastructure is already there — we just need to activate it."
The Solution

One Unified Platform.
Powered by EquiVerse.

Solving all three problems with a single, privacy-first ecosystem — running entirely on the smartphone you already carry. No new devices needed.

User Preferences Behaviour Data Language Transport APIs Council Data User Reports Wearables
EquiVerse
Personalised Accessibility

Dynamic Map

AI pathfinding that adapts your route before you reach an obstacle, combining real-time TfL data, smart-city feeds, and crowd telemetry.

  • Live TfL lift & escalator status
  • Step-free, quiet, crowd-avoiding modes
  • Proactive rerouting before obstacles

CapAble ID

Secure NFC/BLE disability profile sharing. Venues silently receive your access needs — no verbal explanation needed, no dignity lost.

  • Bluetooth & NFC profile broadcast
  • Article 9 sensitive data stays on-device
  • Granular sharing controls per venue

Surround Alerts

Proactive haptic warnings for micro-obstacles and sensory-heavy environments — before you encounter them, not after you're already overwhelmed.

  • Real-time crowd density warnings
  • Sensory overload environment detection
  • Haptic-first alert system

Active Guardian

24/7 fall & tip-over detection using your smartphone's gyroscope — instantly alerting emergency contacts with GPS location and route context.

  • Phone gyroscope fall detection
  • Fall, anxiety overload, and SOS alerts
  • Route + health context sent to guardians
EquiVerse Adaptive Intelligence

An AI That Learns at Two Levels — Simultaneously.

Every module you use teaches EquiVerse about you and about the world around you. The result: a system that gets measurably smarter with every journey — for every user — whilst keeping your data entirely private.

Personal Layer
On-device  ·  100% private

Learns from your actions across all four modules. Your route choices shape your routing. Your anxiety thresholds calibrate your alerts. Your Guardian patterns refine fall-detection sensitivity. All learning stays on your device — nothing is ever uploaded.

Community Layer
Anonymised  ·  Aggregated

When many users reroute around the same junction or flag the same venue, EquiVerse detects an uncharted barrier and pre-routes future users around it — before TfL even logs the fault. No personal data is shared. Only anonymous, aggregated signals.

Illustrative example

Dozens of users request rerouting near the same lift within a short window. EquiVerse detects the pattern, marks it as a predicted barrier, and begins rerouting all affected users — before TfL has logged the fault.

Each module teaches the others Guardian signals → smarter routing CapAble ID → calibrated alerts Surround patterns → Guardian thresholds Route history → predictive rerouting
Your mobile phone is all you need.

Gyroscope for fall detection  ·  NFC/BLE for CapAble ID  ·  Crowd telemetry for barrier verification. Every feature runs on the smartphone already in your pocket — no extra devices to buy, carry, or charge.

What if the AI hallucinates or gets it wrong?

Prevention Every route is cross-validated across TfL live data, OpenStreetMap, and anonymised crowd signals — no single source is ever trusted alone. The AI only commits to a route when confidence passes a threshold; below it, the user sees an explicit warning for unverified segments. Known barrier zones (lifts, steps, narrow passages) are flagged before the user sets off, not after.

If it happens One tap lets users flag a bad route — that signal immediately downgrades the affected segment across the model. Each incident triggers a post-incident review: which source failed, why confidence was too high, and what data patch fixes it. Safety-critical incidents (e.g. a wheelchair user stranded) are treated as severity-1 with a written post-mortem. Retraining closes the loop so the same root cause cannot recur.

Competitive Edge

No One Else Does All Five.

Mainstream maps treat disability as an afterthought. Niche tools rely on outdated manual reviews. We deliver live, hyper-personalised, unified accessibility intelligence.

B2C · ThisAbility — consumer app, free for disabled users
B2B · EquiVerse — AI + data platform, licensable to cities, transit authorities & employers
Key Feature Google / Citymapper Wheelmap / AccessAble ThisAbility
Disability-aware Routing Limited Partial Profile-Specific AI
Real-time Accessibility NO Community-only Live Telemetry
CapAble ID Dignity NO NO YES
Safety Monitoring NO NO YES
City Planning Insights Limited NO Accessibility Heatmaps

Hyper-Personalised ML

Competitors treat all users with similar disabilities identically. Our localised AI engine builds a unique, continuously learning model for each person — adapting daily to their specific physical, sensory, and linguistic capabilities.

Privacy-First Data Enclave

Medical and health profiles are stored strictly locally via Self-Sovereign Identity. No server ever sees sensitive health data. Data tiered by sensitivity: public (venue/OSM), private (encrypted journey patterns), confidential (health profiles, on-device only) — GDPR Article 9 compliant throughout.

Biometric Telemetry Verification

Phase 1 barriers verified via crowd reports and TfL's Open Data API. Phase 2 introduces wearable sensors that auto-verify barriers via telemetry changes — e.g., wheelchair impact signatures and sudden stops.

Accessibility Knowledge Graph

EquiVerse builds multi-layer location nodes — physical access data, live fault telemetry, crowd-validated ratings, and user-specific context. Unlike flat map data, this layered graph enables contextual routing no competitor can replicate, and opens venue listing revenue at Phase 3 — businesses pay for accessibility endorsement badges; no user data sold.

Market Opportunity

A £446B Market Waiting to Move.

We start with a 150K-user pilot in London, scale to 16 million across the UK, and expand to 1.3 billion people globally — unlocking a market no other platform has touched.

SOM · Serviceable Obtainable Market
150K
Pilot users — London Core (Ages 18–45)
London, Phase 01
SAM · Serviceable Available Market
16M
People with disabilities in the UK
United Kingdom
TAM · Total Addressable Market
1.3B
People globally with significant disabilities
Global
The Purple Pound

Businesses that partner with ThisAbility gain access to the £446B UK Purple Pound — the combined spending power of disabled people and their households across the UK. Our B2G accessibility data products unlock this market for cities, transit authorities, and brands.

WeArePurple — The Purple Pound ↗
Roadmap

Three Phases. Global Impact.

A structured path from pilot to worldwide accessibility standardisation.

01
Prototype Live

MVP Launch

  • CapAble ID Protocol
  • AI Navigation via Gemini APIs (pre-trained)
  • Surround Alerts
  • Smartphone-first fall detection
  • Native language auto-translation
Tech for Good grants + NGO subsidies
02
Upcoming

Scale & Expand

  • Real-Time Hazard Alert Engine
  • Auto community validation
  • Smartwatch biometric integration
  • Neurodivergent user expansion
Premium Guardian £9.99/mo · Target £900K ARR Year 2 · Corporate DEI subscriptions
03
Future

Global Accessibility

  • Full wearable integration & SOS
  • B2G smart-city API integration
  • Accessibility Heatmaps for councils
  • Global accessibility standardisation
DaaS £50K–£100K/council · API licensing £200K–£500K/yr · Venue listing revenue
Business Model

Built for Inclusion.
Designed to Scale.

Core features free for disabled individuals — and commercially sustainable through premium services, B2G data products, and enterprise integration licensing.

B2C · Phase 01–02

Inclusive Value

Core navigation features are free for disabled individuals. Premium Active Guardian subscription — for carers and family members — unlocks advanced monitoring, analytics, and remote alerts.

£9.99/mo Premium Active Guardian subscription Target: 7,500 subscribers = ~£900K ARR by Year 2 Phase 2+: Corporate DEI subscriptions — employers subsidise Active Guardian as an employee benefit UK disabled households command £446B in annual spending power
WeArePurple — The Purple Pound ↗
B2G · Phase 03

City Planning DaaS

Accessibility Heatmaps and real-time telemetry sold to municipal councils to optimise urban infrastructure spending and smart-city planning decisions.

£75K/yr Per council · UK National Disability Strategy mandates councils invest in accessible infrastructure data reporting
UK National Disability Strategy, 2021 ↗
B2B · Phase 03

API & Integration Licensing

Accessibility intelligence licensed to public transport apps, large venue management systems, and urban mobility platforms seeking WCAG compliance. Phase 3 also opens accessibility-verified venue listings — businesses pay for endorsement badges within routing results; no user data sold.

£350K/yr Per enterprise partner · UK Parliament found billions lost annually to inaccessible transport — operators must act
UK Parliament — Women & Equalities Committee ↗
Grants · Phase 01

Innovation Funding

Initial capital from UK Tech for Good government innovation grants and strategic disability NGO partnerships — bootstrapping the platform before commercial revenue.

£0/yr Data licensing · OpenStreetMap (CC BY-SA) + TfL Open Data (free) ~£32K/yr Cloud + AI compute · Phase 1 · 150K users
TfL Open Data Licence ↗GCP Cost Estimate ↗
Impact

Engineering a World Without Barriers.

We aren't just building a navigation app — we are engineering an ecosystem of human dignity and true social mobility.

£1,095/mo

Average extra monthly cost of life when you're disabled in the UK — removing mobility barriers reduces this burden directly

Scope — Disability Price Tag ↗
74%

Of disabled people have avoided or left a shop, venue, or service because of poor access and disability awareness

Scope — Disabled Customers & the Purple Pound ↗
1 in 3

Adults over 65 fall at least once a year — our AI Guardian detects falls and alerts carers before they escalate

NHS — Falls in Older Adults ↗
1 in 4

Disabled adults find it difficult to travel independently by public transport — a barrier our real-time intelligence removes

DfT — National Travel Survey, 2024 ↗
"ThisAbility gives people with disabilities the confidence to travel independently, safely and with dignity. We transform passive users into empowered citizens — and we unlock the full economic potential of 16 million overlooked people."
Key Partners

Our Partner Ecosystem.

Our strategic partners span cloud infrastructure, enterprise data trust, public sector, financial institutions, and disability advocacy — giving EquiVerse the foundation to scale.

Google
Geospatial mapping & cloud AI infrastructure
Salesforce
B2G data compliance & trust frameworks
Capgemini
Phase 03 strategic tech integration
Barclays
Innovation grants & Purple Pound ESG strategy
BNP Paribas
Multi-year digital accessibility plan & ESG investment
HSBC
Financial services & inclusive banking partner
TfL Open Data
Source of the ~7,600 lift & escalator fault reports, 2025
Disability NGOs
Community validation & cold-start data bootstrap
NIHR
Research funding & health monitoring data partnership
CodeYourFuture
Programme organisers & early talent pipeline
Policy & Research Evidence Base
WHO — Disability & Health UK National Disability Strategy UK Parliament — Women & Equalities Report
Live Prototype

Experience ThisAbility Today.

Our Phase 01 prototype is live and fully interactive. Explore all four modules, configure your accessibility profile, and discover how EquiVerse adapts to you.

Dynamic routing with live obstacle alerts & rerouting
CapAble ID BLE broadcast simulation with venue scan
Active Guardian fall, anxiety, and SOS detection demo
Full accessibility profile: contrast, text size, sensory modes
Surround scan proximity alerts with crowd telemetry
Launch the App Demo

Navigate the world
on your terms.

Join the pilot. Help us engineer a world without barriers for 1.3 billion people.

Try the Demo App Learn More

Core features free for disabled individuals  ·  No data uploaded  ·  WCAG 2.1 AA