Kazakh Youth Build Inclusive Digital Ecosystem for People with Disabilities

Kazakhstan's digital landscape is evolving with the launch of Involve, the nation's first inclusive digital ecosystem. This platform, created by and for individuals with disabilities, merges transportation, accessibility, and communication services into a unified system.

Involve was developed by Pavlodar-based university students Stanislav Kirichenko and Islam Kulenov. Their goal is to simplify daily life by providing digital solutions that tackle issues often overlooked by mainstream technology. The platform features an accessible taxi booking application, an interactive accessibility map, and AI-powered communication tools.

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Our projects grew out of personal experience. I know firsthand the challenges people with disabilities face every day. Digital services are often difficult to use because of overloaded interfaces and poor accessibility. The problem is not always the lack of solutions, but that they are often designed without involving the people who actually use them.

For Kirichenko, a computer science student with a disability since childhood, the project is deeply personal. He explained that the platform's design directly addresses the difficulties faced by people with disabilities in navigating a world with often inaccessible digital services. "Digital services are often difficult to use because of overloaded interfaces and poor accessibility," Kirichenko stated. "The problem is not always the lack of solutions, but that they are often designed without involving the people who actually use them."

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It is both a messenger and a dating platform where people with disabilities can communicate, meet new people and, if they want, find a partner or simply make friends.

Before Involve, Kirichenko developed prototypes like InvLove, an inclusive social networking and dating platform tailored for people with disabilities. InvLove adapts to user needs, offering features like speech-to-text conversion for those with cerebral palsy and voice command navigation for users with visual impairments or limited mobility.

Kulenov noted that the founders initially pursued separate accessibility projects. They decided to combine their efforts into a single ecosystem to maximize their impact. "Our goal was to create one place where users could access all services," he said.

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We decided to unite everything into a single ecosystem. Our goal was to create one place where users could access all services.