The 2024 edition offered a comprehensive overview of screen readers, augmentative and alternative communication tools and smartphones, collectively categorized as digital assistive technology. This 2025 edition focuses more narrowly on smartphones, reflecting recent findings that highlight their consistent presence in the demand landscape across LMICs compared to the standalone technologies covered in the previous editions.
Smartphones have emerged as an assistive product that may effectively and potentially more affordably meet the needs of persons with disabilities. They offer features that support a wide range of disabilities, including cognitive and sensory impairments, by consolidating functions traditionally handled by separate, more specialised devices. For example, they can integrate screen reading, text-to-speed applications and navigational aids, all on one device [1].
Smartphones are becoming one of the most cost-effective and widely used assistive products [24], [25], [26]. In Kenya, for instance, 69 per cent of smartphone owners with visual impairment use mobile internet daily, compared to 56 per cent of owners without a disability [27]. A study by GDI Hub, ATscale and Google is underway to assess the impact of smartphones in these contexts. The study’s preliminary findings across Brazil, India and Kenya indicate that smartphones are “both an enabler in people’s lives and a piece of assistive technology with the potential to replace older forms of stand-alone assistive technology” [28]. This highlights the smartphone’s potential as an enabler of independence for persons with disabilities.