Smartphone Digital Skills Training for Deaf and Blind Adults in Kenya

The Global Disability Innovation Hub (GDI Hub), through the UK-aid-funded AT2030 programme, partnered with Google and ATscale to test smartphones as assistive technology in Kenya, where an estimated 90% of people with disabilities in low- and middle-income countries lack access to assistive technology.

The study set out to test whether an ordinary smartphone, paired with training on its built-in accessibility features, could function as effective assistive technology for Deaf/hard-of-hearing and blind/partially-sighted adults.

A mixed-methods longitudinal study ran for six months with 193 participants split between Deaf/hard-of-hearing (DHH) and blind/partially-sighted (BPS) adults. Each received a smartphone and training tailored to built-in Android accessibility features -- TalkBack for BPS users, Live Transcribe and Live Caption for DHH users -- following a baseline survey, training, and a follow-up survey and interviews. Local delivery in Kisumu County (West Seme Ward) was carried out by Kilimanjaro Blind Trust Africa, reaching semi-urban and rural disability self-help groups such as the Semi Forum for Women with Disabilities.

78.8% of BPS participants and 71.8% of DHH participants showed measurable improvement in digital proficiency, with participants reporting gains in independence, privacy, communication and access to information. Kisumu case-study participants described concrete follow-on benefits such as successfully writing funding proposals after training.

The figures come from GDI Hub's own insight papers rather than an independently audited evaluation, and long-term outcomes beyond the six-month study window are not yet published.