AI-based AccessNow, Daniels Maps Regent’s Park Accessibility

Last week’s announcement involving builders and developers Daniels Corporation and accessibility technology company AccessNow represent a major step forward in determining how smart city advances can help people with disabilities feel comfortable and prosperous.

AccessNow is a mobile app that “provides a pan-obstacle lens for accessibility in physical spaces around the world” and works with Daniels to improve accessibility for companies and public spaces in Canada’s largest social, Regent Park, Toronto. Mapping, reviewing and ranking. Residential community.

Daniels and the Toronto Community Housing Corporation (TCHC) are currently redeveloping 69 acres of land, including the recently completed 660 Dundas St.E World Urban Pavilion, as well as new housing formats.

A multi-year partnership between the Urban Economy Forum (UEF), the United Nations Habitat, the Canadian Mortgage Housing Corporation (CMHC), and Daniels, the Pavilion is “designed as a knowledge exchange hub for stakeholders around the world to meet and share. Learning and best practices for sustainable urban development. ”According to the press release.

Jake Cohen, Chief Operating Officer of Daniels, said: This pavilion we are in is a step towards achieving those goals.

“For all of us at Daniels, smart isn’t just a buzzword. When it comes to homebuilding and home automation, it’s not just about technological advances. Smart is what really makes the community prosper, the needs of the people. It also means a corresponding, intelligent and perceptual practice. “

The key to achieving this is AccessNow, developed by founder and CEO Maayan Ziv, who was born in 2015 with spinal muscular atrophy (SMA), a type of muscular dystrophy.

In time for the Parapan American Games in Toronto, the focus is now on accessibility to the building. What started out as a website with people sharing information and content based on crowdsourced reviews has changed to a much larger one.

However, human factors are important. For example, in late May, the AccessNow team, Daniels, and local Regent’s Park residents attended an event called Map Mission to investigate “accessibility of nearby locations.”

“A total of 500 accessibility features were observed throughout the community, including automatic doors, accessible parking and elevators, digital menus, Braille, lowered counters, and bathrooms of all genders,” outlines the partnership. The release to be stated.

“This partnership aims to map, review and rank the accessibility of Regent’s Park businesses and public spaces. The results of the review and mapping process are in the way we live, work and play within the community. It highlights both the successes and barriers that currently exist for people with disabilities. “

But now, not what Ziv described as the “low-tech approach” used seven years ago, AccessNow “builds a connected ecosystem and brings us consumers, businesses, governments, engineers and entrepreneurs. By connecting with, we are empowering people with disabilities around the world. Intelligent anonymized data resources. “

According to the company, “patent-pending technology uses AI and machine learning to understand and predict how accessible the world really is based on a variety of sensor data.

“We work closely with the community to train models to accurately learn from the living experiences of people with disabilities in order to develop ethical and comprehensive AI.”

“Accessibility insights mapped and highlighted in the AccessNow app are the collective voice of the disabled community that will drive the future of comprehensive smart city building,” Ziv said.

People who share information “continue to be at the heart of our work, but leverage that information, or data, to actually train AI models to begin to understand the world from the perspective of people with disabilities. You can also have an image model. There is a sensor data model. And we are training them so that people can start looking at the space without having to be there every time. “

Dr. Moshe Levin, Chief Technology Officer of the company, said: We are at the forefront of computer vision, voice analysis, kinematic signal processing, and text comprehension to provide real value and insight to the community. “