Access Activator
The Access Activator programme is a collaboration between Whaikaha and Creative HQ.
The programme helps find, fund and grow ideas that improve access for Deaf and disabled people, Turi Māori, tāngata whaikaha Māori and their whānau.
Access Activator 2026
The 2026 Access Activator programme is now complete.
Six projects were funded. The successful candidates presented their ideas at a showcase event held on 28 July 2026 at Creative HQ in Wellington. You can watch their pitches and read transcripts on this page.
Video transcript
Access Quest is a pedestrian navigation app that makes it easy for people with access needs to plan a safe journey.
I developed this after facing many challenges and missing out on many economic and social opportunities due to a lack of information on various cities. There are many other New Zealanders who face the same problem.
If I want to go somewhere new with my son, I need to spend time and money going on a reconnaissance mission first, scoping out where the nearest toilets, parks are, if there’s an accessible line of pathway. It costs a lot of time and money. And the end result is that I tend not to go towards many new places.
Access Quest navigation makes it easy to choose where you’re going from, and to and what your access needs are. And you’ll get the best pedestrian route for your needs.
It will then provide step-by-step audio navigation for screen readers and allow you to save your favourite journeys.
The pre-set profile will not capture everyone’s unique needs perfectly, but they’re a good place to get started. To capture your specific needs, you can then edit the difficulty rating of every one of the 40 features we capture. So that our system will give you the best route then for your specific needs.
The two screenshots showing now demonstrate significant difference in recommended routes for similar access needs. In this example, it shows that blind people without a guide dog may prefer to walk significantly longer than those with a guide dog, to avoid crossings that they are not confident with.
Our recent innovation, the Access Cart, turns any phone into a high powered surveying device. We can now collect data for much cheaper, faster and more accurately so we can scale globally, which we are now doing.
Organisations pay us for Access Carts, or community members can borrow one for free to map their neighbourhood.
All of the data from the Access Cart then goes to our tagging system that allows us to categorise the data, and it allows councils to manage assets and prioritise spending better.
So we collect data with the Access Cart, that goes through to our tagging system, that data is then categorised and analysed in the tagging system. And all of that rich data is then used to inform Access Quest navigation, and we then provide reports to councils.
As part of the Access Activator, we have been able to add 10 new cities around New Zealand, the final of which will be added over the next couple of weeks.
We have added a new marketplace with 30 new access carts for the community members to borrow. We have added a crowdsourcing feature to our navigation app so that people can quickly add single features or fixes. And we have added two new profiles for neurodiversity and learning disabilities.
If you would like to contribute, you can borrow an Access Cart from our website to map an entire street or neighbourhood, or you can add a single correction or feature with Access Quest navigation.
Both apps are free to download. You can find the links on AccessQuest.com.
Huge thanks to Whaikaha - Ministry of Disabled People to make this possible and to Creative HQ and Nedra for all of your support. Ngā mihi anō.
āhei
A platform making sport more inclusive for disabled children that is already being used by schools across the country.
Video transcript
I'm very stressed about this actually. Very nervous talking all the time. So I'm going to try and go quite fast because I've got quite a lot to say about this project.
So I'm the CEO and founder of āhei. There’s three of us involved with this project. It is a software platform that hosts resources for schools and sports organisations around the country. We started out on a very similar programme to this three years ago through Sport New Zealand. And some of those people I think are here today. So for all of those starting out, I guess the three year journey, I'm going to share a little bit about that today too.
So our team, there’s myself, there’s Will Finlayson, who is actually my partner. I'm running solo today because he's at home with our three kids, so there is a little bit of happy wife happy life in this project as well. He has a software company and he is an amazing tech builder. Absolute nerd, full time nerd. So that's really cool. And Emma Foy who is currently competing at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow. So, she's had a little bit of time off. Lazy. But yeah, we’ll let her away with that.
I'm going to show you a little bit of our solution. So this screen is going to show a little bit of a video, a tiny, tiny piece of the software. Not that much of it. So we host resources. Athletics New Zealand's resources all sit in here. You can see there's a whole lot of different activities that you can run. We've got an AI built in there that connects them into the curriculum.
You put traits onto children in your class. It stores profiles about them, and then it gives you tips, ideas, communication, equipment, really, really easy to use. We've got lots of different traits that you can assign. And then those traits dictate all of your assessments. Anything that you do in the platform, the platform knows you've got a wheelchair user in this class.
We have a trait filter that you can also use. Teachers can actually search for any need and have a look at how you might adapt the activity. So it becomes really specific, who's in the group, and what's involved in this activity to support teachers and coaches to deliver more inclusive experiences. So everybody feels like they belong in sport and movement.
We've been live for nearly a year now. And so we sort of did four little pieces of this project. We worked with Athletics New Zealand to build equitable event day tools. We worked with Paralympics New Zealand to build out their Seeing is Believing education programme for schools. We worked with Special Olympics New Zealand to bring for them to support all of the intellectual disability adaptations within the system. And Kori Collab to expand the Atua Matua offerings in the platform, including more activities and some more tākaro based adaptation content as well.
The equitable event days, basically what happens is if a school runs an athletics day and you have a wheelchair user in your class, when you schedule in shot put it’s gonna do parallel activities for any needs in your class. So then when your tamariki compete in seated shot put you input how far they shot and then it gives them feedback or where they are on the country, what percentage they’re in, so that they get some competency and confidence development like all of the other students in the class. And so we had that for every event and every trait in the system. Teachers are then given activity specific content on how to actually run seated shot put properly as well, and some provisions around what to do with that.
The Seeing is Believing education programme content, there’s two resources in here. So there’s a learning kind of resource you can run in the classroom with also some events that you can go outside and participate in and then a Paralympics legacy resource. So you can look back on any of the other Paralympic Games, and see all of their content from that. There's a lot of videos, powerpoints, worksheets, teaching about general inclusion through the Paralympic lens. You can also book a Para Sports Champion to come into your school through the platform. And you can run pre-loaded programmes that schedule out all the activities for you as well. So you can say there's a Para Sport Champion page where you can book for them to come into your school.
Within the content, we can see in here they're going to show, there’s PowerPoints in here, there’s videos that you can watch, there's lots of different concepts that you can teach about in the class. They have stuff in there for different ages. You can print everything through the system, schedule them into your calendar, like them, and then use all the content as well. A little bit in here, so this shows all the past Paralympians and past Paralympic games. So you can play videos of the Para athletes as well. I've got a little video here from Nikki who's going to explain about some of the Atua Matua content.
Tēna tātou e te whānau. Ko Nikki Penetito-Hemara tōku ingoa. I’m the managing director of Kori Collab alongside my husband and co-founder Darrio, and the creator of Atua Matua with Dr Ihirangi Heke. We’re incredibly excited to partner with āhei to expand the Atua Matua resources available across the platform.
At the heart of these resources is mātauranga Māori, Māori knowledge, and the reinterpretation of that knowledge through tākaro. What makes this partnership with āhei especially exciting, though, is the opportunity to explore tangata whaikaha and diversity through a Māori movement lens, where we're often able to reframe disability as a superpower.
For example, within our Whaitere resources, we explore the pūrākau of Hape who, after being excluded from the Tainui waka because of his clubbed foot, used the power of Karakia to summon the stingray Kaiwhare and rode Kaiwhare all the way from Hawaiki to Aotearoa. In fact, Hape arrived right before the Tainui waka itself, which is a powerful reminder that difference is not a limitation, but rather a source of unique strength.
I guess it's mātauranga like that that we hope will inspire tamariki to connect with the magic of pūrākau and to discover all the different kura huna that lay within, all the hidden lessons that continue to offer us the many lessons and insights we need for today. Mauri ora.
So here's a little look at what the content looks like in the platform. So we launched this last week, and this was just an email that I got from a teacher the following day. It says, “Kia ora Laura, I'm writing to express my sincere thanks for the mahi that has gone on to incorporate Atua Matua on the āhei platform. What an absolute time for our tamariki and teachers! Having acquired the Cultural Lead role at my school, this kind of resource is exceptional and will hopefully become something staple throughout our team to improve staff and student knowledge of mātauranga Māori. Thank you, thank you, thank you - to all involved! Ngā mihi nui.”
So that's a lovely email to get when you do this kind of work. āhei is free for all schools as well, and it's free for all athletics clubs around the country. So, I guess when we get emails like that it kind of makes it all worth it.
Some of the stats that we've had, so we're going to be live for a year at the end of the month. So we actually have 51% of New Zealand primary schools because I did this last Thursday and we've had another like 20 sign up over the weekend, 100 early childhood centers. So we're at 994 schools, a hundred clubs, 5,600 teachers now since I made this, 25,000, that's now 27,000 scheduled activities, and 158,000 page views in the system.
Really high feedback and usage in our rural and isolated areas in New Zealand, over 530 trait filters has been used and 250 learner traits assigned. In the last week, when I made this last Thursday, we had 58 trait filters done, 52 new traits assigned, 190 files downloaded, 8,225 page views last week, 61 programs started and 970 activities scheduled.
So we're getting a lot of traffic, a lot of schools and a lot of people using the system, which is unheard of when you build software. So that makes me very happy. Thank you so much to Creative HQ and to Whaikaha for running this programme. It's been amazing. I love to see a government organisation do something real fast as well. So that’s pretty fun. Kia ora.
Autism Housing Toolkit Aotearoa
A toolkit for making homes more autism-friendly.
Video transcript
Kia ora. My name is Beth Noble and I am an accessibility consultant, and I work together in a co-led project with Marita Broadstock, who is a health and disability researcher who leads the living guideline process.
So my question for you today is, what if your home made everyday things harder than they needed to be? It’s not just the big things, like a room that’s the wrong size or laid out a bit funny, but the little things as well. Lights that are too bright or flicker subtly, like those ones in the kitchen, that anyone else has noticed that, or a noise that carries, or where things are placed and finding things.
So we know that there are a growing number of autistic people in Aotearoa, about 2%. And sensory differences can make environments more overwhelming, which can impact things like sleep, focus, safety, and wellbeing.
And we know from research like the recent Living Guidelines supplementary paper on built environments that design changes can help improve quality of life. Based on Marita’s systematic review, the Living Guideline Group developed recommendations to update the New Zealand Autism Guideline with broad advice of best practice. But there’s really little practical guidance for everyday in New Zealand homes.
So this co-led project has bridged that gap between that research with my expertise in architecture, and lived experience. This has enabled us to translate those recommendations into toolkits which identify everyday, practical things that people can do to make their houses work for them. We also engage Jess Tupou as a Māori culture advisor.
The result is a website with two toolkits: one for existing homes and one for new homes or major renovations. And these toolkits cover smaller, everyday options as well as bigger, larger projects. They provide options for different ages, needs and living situations, and that supports people to choose what is going to work for their own circumstances.
In this project, Marita led the web development and user testing as well as took on the bulk of the administration. And I was responsible for developing the content and the structure of the toolkits. And our logo shown here incorporates the infinity symbol for autism and the koru for the New Zealand context, as well as the home.
So this is a screenshot of the home screen of the website to give an overview of what the website kind of looks like. It shows the navigation along the top of the screen, and it also shows an accessibility widget up here in the upper right corner, a little blue symbol that allows people to adjust things like the colours, contrast, text size, all of those kind of things to hopefully help those who need it.
So if we clicked, say, on the Find Your Toolkit button at the bottom, you would be taken to this choice, which shows the two toolkits and the options are presented as tiles next to each other. And let’s say that we chose toolkit one for existing homes.
So each toolkit is divided into whole home considerations and room by room considerations. For toolkit one, whole home includes things like lighting and acoustics, and as shown by those purple tiles on the right. While the room by room, the nine tiles in green on the left, that are things like bedrooms and kitchens and laundries, etc., and they all have little icons with their tiles.
And let’s say that we clicked on this, bathrooms and toilets. So here we would have the page for a room. There’s a title with a short summary and its little icon. And then it’s divided into sections. So you can look at what might be the things that are most important in your household.
And let’s say in our household sensory issues for washing and drying are a big issue. So if we clicked into that setting, then you’ll see a set of suggestions and each suggestion is kind of a single line sentence. In toolkit one it has some diamonds behind it to show kind of an idea of cost and complexity from 1 to 3. And some of them have some images to give you an idea visually.
So as part of the project we did some UX testing with 22 participants across a range of ages, ethnicities and genders. We had a really positive overall response with suggestions being seen as practical and flexible. Many liked the calm, accessible design and the colour palette of the desaturated greens and purples used in this as well.
We also did web accessibility testing throughout, and our final website has a 95% score, which is really cool. We did have a lot of really helpful feedback as well. In the early stages, many people found the content quite overwhelming because it was all on one page. So we’ve restructured into that now multiple page format.
Also, we didn’t have images in the first toolkit and that was noted several times. So we’ve added them. But we do have some future plans to replace the images, because the current ones we’ve made have been generated using AI, and we had some feedback that some people weren’t super keen on that. So our hope is to work with an autistic illustrator to go through the website and replace that as we have time.
So from the survey, here are a couple of comments we had. “As I read through, I thought, yes, yes, it’s really good” and “an amazing resource I will definitely be going back to and sharing with friends and family.”
So from here, future projects could offer new toolkits dedicated to different environments like education, healthcare, public buildings, etc. We’re also seeking sponsorship to support funding an autistic illustrator to replace images.
But most importantly, we would love it if you could share the website with your network, so as many people could benefit as possible. It’s free, available, and there’s no paywall. The funding has allowed us to provide something that anyone can look at any time. Thank you.
Intermentis
An AI-driven smart doorstep assistant for disabled and elderly people.
Video transcript
Kia ora koutou. I'm Fraser Stephens from Intermentis. I’m here with Greg Peyroux and Benoit Auvray. We're here to talk about our Access Activator project, Soter, a doorstep assistant for older adults and people with disabilities.
A slide shows our logo and an image of an older adult looking at a prototype Soter unit that is mounted at her doorstep.
The front door asks a lot from people. Answering it is a chain of five steps: notice someone is there, access the door, work out who is there and why they are there, decide what happens next, respond, communicate or act appropriately, and do all five steps before the visitor leaves.
If any step is problematic, then the whole interaction can break down. Every step must be accessible, not just the doorstep.
So here's what we built. Soter is an AI assistant. It speaks to the visitors first, asking who they are and why they are there. It handles the interaction automatically, using household rules, involving the occupant only when it is necessary and safe.
Unlike a video doorbell that just says, “someone's outside, now you deal with it”, Soter assists every step of the way.
On the screen is a Soter system: the doorstep unit, self-install mounting kit and power kit, door sensor you stick on your door, two different ways of communicating with the occupants and the carers, on a mobile phone app, the other an indoor unit that we built, and finally, some integrations with commonly used systems such as Alexa, the electric door locks and the Bellman/Symfon crashing alert for the Deaf.
It's easier to show you than tell you. This short video shows a visitor speaking to the Soter unit at the door, then the household receiving and responding to an alert, which includes the visitor’s photo and the reason for their visit.
This is how the trial was set up, who took part and how it went. By design, the cohort included Māori and Pacific peoples, older adults and households with overlapping mobility, Deaf and hard-of-hearing, blind and low vision, speech and cognitive needs.
The trial ran from early May to late July. Recruitment, installation and baseline went first, then we switched Soter on, with surveys after visits and weekly check-ins, and three formal interviews.
Over the trial, that added up to a lot of front door activity: eight households, 415 household days and 3,158 visits handled by Soter. An average of 7.6 door interactions per household every day.
On the slide is a picture of the eight household pilots. Volume is one thing, but that's not the point. The point is, did Soter help?
So after each relevant visit, participants were sent a short survey on the occupant app. And one of the questions we asked was, did Soter help?
So in 47% of the interactions, people reported that Soter helped. In 9%, they were unsure. Nearly 44%, it didn't help particularly. But of the ones where people said Soter was helpful, almost everyone said knowing who the person was actually the important thing. Knowing why they came was important in 80% of the cases. Soter helped with communication in 50% of the cases, recording the visit in 30% of the cases, and not needing to hurry and notify someone else.
We had testimonials from our pilot users that reinforced the findings there. For instance, a blind low vision pilot participant saying, “It's brilliant, absolutely brilliant. 10/10.” Another one with high physical support needs said, “It's made it a lot easier. I don't have to worry. I feel safer. If it's not there or at the end of the trial they take it away, I'm going to miss it.”
And we've got dozens of quotes like this testimonial, video testimonials on our website. The bottom line is that all eight households want to keep Soter after the trial.
So where to from here? We are still a prototype, and we're targeting a release in the first half of 2027. And for that, we need three things. One, we need pre-orders because this is our strongest signal of demand. We need aligned investment so that we can build Soter with our first commercial product. And we need strategic partners for rollouts and introductions.
So if you can commit, partner, invest, make an introduction for us, come and talk to us, visit our website.
Here on the slide is a picture of the eight Soter units at the door. On our pilot participants, I just want to thank you. Thank everyone, Whaikaha for the funding, Creative HQ and Nedra for all the help. The audience for coming to the showcase. And, of course, our eight household participants who helped with the trial, and we've been extremely lucky with our cohort. They were absolutely awesome.
People First / Ngā Tāngata Tuatahi: Easy Read Mobile Library
Making Easy Read more available on mobile phones.
People First / Ngā Tāngata Tuatahi: Easy Read Mobile Library external URL
Video transcript
Kia ora, we are very excited to present our Access Activator project to you today. My name is Kim Pollock. I am the president of the People First New Zealand Mana group. Today I am here with Kath, the Make It Easy manager, and Andi, the Make It Easy team leader.
Thank you for the opportunity to showcase our Easy Read Hub app. This slide shows photos of Kim, Kath and Andi.
People First New Zealand is a disabled people’s organisation run by and for people with learning disabilities. Our work makes sure people with disabilities have and know their rights and communities inclusive across Aotearoa New Zealand. This slideshow photos show People First members at different events and meetings.
So People First New Zealand has an Easy Read translation service called Make It Easy and our Easy Read Library has made Easy Read information easier to access, but it does not fully meet everybody’s needs.
And this slide has two pictures of people reading and making Easy Read. And our next slide has an image of two people looking at a piece of paper and talking.
So people with learning disability often need information in Easy Read to understand and make decisions. People use Easy Read to find information about a whole range of things, including your rights, community events, health information, emergency information, decision making, anything that you think would be possible.
However, we know that Easy Read can be very hard to find. It can be difficult to read on phones and tablets like iPads and people may have limited internet access or rely on shared devices. Accessible information only works if people can find it and use it.
So this slide shows a man in a suit looking very confused, while using a laptop at his desk.
In 2023, People First and digital agency Springload worked together to create the Easy Read library that you can find on our website. The library provides a central place to find Easy Read information, and there’s a screenshot of it on the screen up there now.
This library has already shown strong demand, with nearly 6000 users this year and over 10,000 views. The Access Activator funding allowed us to take it to the next level and to scale it into a mobile app. We worked with Springload to develop this because they already understood our audience and our accessibility standards.
So introducing the Easy Read Hub app. This app brings Easy Read information together in one place, allowing people to search, browse, and access information directly from their phone or tablet. On the slide is a photo of how it looks on a phone.
Traditional Easy Read is designed mainly for printing. The app will allow for new ways of displaying Easy Read that work on smaller screens, making it easier to read, navigate and use. There are also push notifications for when there is new or relevant Easy Read.
The app will be available for anyone who benefits from clear, accessible information, including people with learning disability, disabled people and tāngata whaikaha Māori, whānau and supporters, service providers and community organisations, older people and people who speak English as an additional language.
People who use Easy Read were a vital part of creating this app. Six People First members went to the Springload offices in Wellington. This slide shows Michael and Morgan at the Springload office. We had two days of user experience testing. This was to make sure that the app would work well for us.
Our feedback influenced the final design, helping create an app that reflects on real experiences of the people who will use it. This approach is how People First NZ develops all of its accessible resources, courses and services.
So we also partnered with Te Ahi Kaa, a kaupapa Māori service. To make sure that the Easy Read Hub was developed in a way that was culturally grounded and supports wider access to Māori communities and reflected the perspectives and experiences of tāngata whaikaha Māori.
In this partnership builds on our existing relationship to our People for Us peer visiting service, which visits disabled people, living and disability support funded homes. So we have four people involved in the testing, and we got some great responses from each person.
And this slide shows the logo for Te Ahi Kaa and someone using the app.
So this is a quick video of what you’ll find in the app. You’ll see we’ve got featured Easy Read you’d find particularly relevant. There’s categories or you can search. And within that you’ve got brief explanations of what each Easy Read is about. You can view it immediately, or you can download it for a time when you have sufficient internet access.
And you’ll see it’s got the usual Easy Read features. It’s got supporting images, it’s got explanations of hard words, and that fits nicely on a mobile device.
So together with Springload, we developed an app that was easy to use, responsive across devices, and designed with accessibility at the center. And the Easy Read Hub is the beginning of a new way to share Easy Read information.
So the next steps include adding more Easy Read information into the app. Hosting an official launch with People First members and supporters, making Easy Read information on how to actually install the app and to use the app. Keeping the app active and up to date and promoting the app so more people know about it.
We’d just like to thank Whaikaha, Creative HQ and particularly Springload, our People First members, Michael, Morgan, Jerome, James, Jenna, of course Kim, who were involved in the testing. Te Ahi Kaa’s team, Ricky and Danielle, who have their testers Keegan, Jae, Jessica and Warren. And of course the Make it Easy translation team.
The last slide shows and the logos of everyone mentioned. So we’d just like to thank you very much for your time today.
Veera Access
An app for organisations to improve the accessibility of their buildings.
Video transcript
Good afternoon and tēnā koutou katoa. I’m Emily Steel. This is Jessica Brown. And together we are Veera Access.
We are incredibly grateful to be here today as part of the Whaikaha Access Activator programme, and we're really excited to share our journey with you.
Veera started just over a year ago as a side project, something we continue to squeeze into our evenings, weekends and the gaps between our full time jobs and our families. We didn't start it because we had spare time. We started it because, as Paula has said, we believe accessibility could be done better.
Today, we're excited to share what we have built, where we're heading, and our vision to one day scale Veera so that expert accessibility advice is available to every organisation that wants to create more accessible places.
Our first slide just shows our name, Veera Access, our logo, and a screenshot of our mobile app. And the next slide shows an image from the Veera app and a real world challenge we've had.
So the challenge we keep hearing was actually very simple: organisations genuinely do want to be more accessible, but they don't often know where to start. Compliant standards exist, but ticking a box doesn't necessarily create a good experience for disabled people.
At the same time, there are only a small number of accessibility specialists available, and the expertise simply doesn't scale across hundreds of sites.
We saw this firsthand when Sport Waikato (dob them in) wanted to support ten councils and hundreds of their parks across the region. The issue wasn't their willingness or effort, it was having practical direction and a scalable way to make their accessibility decisions.
We believe accessibility has reached a real tipping point. Demand for accessible environments is increasing rapidly, driven by our aging population, growing disability awareness, and higher customer expectations for inclusive environments. Yet our systems that support accessibility have not kept pace.
I'm not sure if I'm speaking to the converted, but in New Zealand, there's still no comprehensive accessibility legislation, and many organisations continue to rely on the minimum building code requirements and standards that are now over 25 years old. They no longer reflect international best practice or the expectations of today's communities.
But the exciting news is that technology has finally caught up. Advances in AI and tech now make it possible to embed our specialist accessibility knowledge into tools that everyday teams can use with confidence. Tech enables organisations to access evidence based guidance earlier, more consistently, and at a much greater scale.
The next slide shows two images from the Veera app. Our platform is powered by a continually evolving accessibility knowledge base that draws on international best practice, global accessibility standards, lived experience, and emerging research, not just minimum compliance requirements.
As our knowledge base grows and standards evolve, the platform evolves with it, ensuring organisations always have access to current guidance and practical recommendations. The result was a scalable approach that helps organisations move beyond compliance and make informed decisions that create genuinely inclusive environments.
This next slide shows three different screens that site managers will see on their journey, assessing their site with the Veera app.
We wanted to create something that was like having an accessibility consultant in your pocket. Users can walk through a site using their phone, complete assessments in real time, and receive expert prompts about what to look for and why it matters.
Rather than producing lengthy reports that sit on a shelf, organisations can immediately capture findings, identify priorities, and start making improvements. The aim is to make accessibility practical, approachable, and embedded into everyday decision making.
The next slide shows several views of data insights that programme managers can capture at head office level to see accessibility performance across multiple sites.
So assessing one site is useful, but the real value comes when you can see the bigger picture. We can turn individual assessments into organisational wide insights. So councils, tourist spots, multi-site businesses can compare where they're at and prioritise their investment, where it will have the biggest impact.
This slide shows a video that Do AI has made that shows their future of accessibility consulting.
We really want to thank the support that we've had through Whaikaha and the Access Activator programme, and our amazing app builders who are here tonight, Do AI. And we really think we've built the foundations here for something much bigger.
Looking ahead, we're excited about features that we’ll be able to add, such as accessibility ratings, voice guided assessments and AI recommendations using photos.
Accessibility shouldn't depend on where you live or whether you can afford expert advice. Our vision is to make expert accessibility guidance available to everyone, everywhere.
Thank you for your time. We’d love to talk to you after the presentation.
And if you are interested in helping shape the future of accessible places and spaces, we love for businesses to join our pilot programme. You can contact us on our email which is hello@veera.co.nz.
About the programme
Types of funding and support
Successful applicants could apply for 1 of 2 funding streams:
Idea stage – up to $25,000
For early concepts ready to build a prototype and test quickly with users.
Scale stage – up to $100,000
For solutions already tested and working, with a credible plan to expand adoption and impact.
Who could apply to Access Activator
Applications were open to a wide range of individuals, groups and organisations with ideas that could improve access for Deaf and disabled people
Anyone could apply. We wanted to encourage a wide range of ideas that improve access for Deaf and disabled people.
We consider relevant lived experience as part of each application.
Eligible applicants included:
- disabled‑led groups and collectives
- Māori organisations and iwi entities
- NGOs
- social enterprises
- startups/small and medium enterprises
- partnerships that combine lived experience with delivery capability.
Individuals could apply with a fundholder (a legal entity that holds the grant).
Private companies could apply if they were a legal entity and meet contracting requirements.
How we assessed applications
Applications were assessed on:
- lived experience and equity – involvement of Deaf/disabled people/Turi Māori/tāngata whaikaha Māori — and clear outcomes
- problem clarity and evidence – a real, defined need supported by insights
- feasibility – a realistic plan, team capability, and delivery by 30 June 2026 (with final reporting by 31 July 2026)
- impact and value — measurable benefits for users and a pathway for adoption or scale.
Note: our Accessibility Advisory Group helps guide our Accessibility Work Programme and provided advice on the Access Activator project. The group does not have a decision-making role.