Unlocking the Everyday: Why Assistive Technology Needs More Than Just Tools

1/1

Written by Beatrice Varga and Brandon Ah Tong, Influence and Scaling Impact team, The Fred Hollows Foundation

What does it really take to unlock everyday life for someone who needs assistive technology?
It’s tempting to point to the device itself – a pair of glasses, a hearing aid, a screen reader – and assume the solution lies in greater access to these tools alone. But as anyone working in public health or disability inclusion knows, tools alone are not the answer. What truly unlocks the everyday is the ecosystem in which those tools are delivered, supported, and used, wrapped around the people that use them and the environment in which they are enabled. And that ecosystem must be deliberately built.

At The Fred Hollows Foundation, we’ve seen this firsthand. A child’s first pair of glasses can be life-changing, but only if the screening was accurate, the glasses appropriate, and the personnel properly trained. Behind that moment is a web of systems: national policy, local vision centre equipment and set-up, procurement mechanisms, trained staff, and reliable data. That’s why we must reframe the provision of assistive technology (AT) not as a standalone solution, but as a public health and development imperative that is driven by inter-sectoral coordination and systems strengthening.

A progressive AT approach needs to be centred around the user experience. What does AT mean for someone’s ability to learn, work, participate in culture, or simply engage in their community? When AT is seen through the lens of inclusion and sustainable development – not just health – we unlock a far deeper, more transformative impact.

To do this, we must recognise the diverse cohorts who need AT – people with long-term impairments, older adults navigating functional decline, individuals recovering from short-term injuries, and everyone in between. AT is not a one-off intervention – it requires ongoing access to products and services, training for prescribers and users, and sustained system infrastructure to support continuity of care.

We must also recognise that for the most part, AT is a health intervention. Most AT needs begin in the health system, largely as the provision of spectacles or as part of a rehabilitative intervention. But that system alone cannot meet the challenge and nor should it. Health must lead, but it must do so in coordination and partnership with education, social services, labour, and others. This requires inter-agency cooperation, integration and robust governance to drive equitable and efficient outcomes.
The economics of AT also matter. Financing, procurement, and data systems must be fit for purpose. We cannot afford to have fractured or donor-driven models that undermine long-term sustainability. A fragmented approach is not only inefficient – it risks exacerbating exclusion.

From an eye health perspective, this becomes even more nuanced. There is a conceptual disconnect between refractive error as a public health issue, spectacles as AT, and the broader cohort of people who require more complex vision rehabilitation and technologies. We need to be able to hold this complexity, plan for it, structure around it, and respond accordingly.

A reframing of eye health as a development issue in a recent Lancet Global Health Commission has begun to confront this complexity. It defined eye health as maximising vision, ocular health and functional ability, to enable good health and wellbeing, social inclusion and quality of life. The aim here was not to see the intervention as the end unto itself, but what the intervention enables for those who come into play with it.

Ultimately, the opportunity is clear. By investing in a coordinated, inclusive, and forward-thinking approach to assistive technology and therefore the provision of glasses, we can become early adopters in a space that is rapidly evolving. The future will belong to actors who recognize that unlocking everyday life for those who need AT is not just about devices, it’s about partnerships, systems, dignity, and sustainable change.

Let’s stop treating AT as a product and start treating it as part of a larger promise – that all people, no matter where they live, can participate fully in life. That’s what it means to #UnLockTheEveryDay.

#UnlockTheEveryday #AssistiveTechnology #SystemStrengthening #EyeHealth #TheFredHollowsFoundation