The undergraduate students in Cohort 2 (2013-2014) were joined by Master’s student Amanda Cox, whose research focus was examining the complexity and sustainability of the development of some of the earlier accessibility projects done the prior year by Cohort 1. Her findings pointed to the ability of such devices aiding people with disabilities to become income providers as well as to help alleviate some of the social stigmas surrounding disability.
A second Master’s student joined the project in 2014. A part of Neil Voorneveld’s research on wheelchair provisioning in sub-sharan Africa was to help organize a plenary session on Universal Design as part of the KIDEC (Kampala International Design Conference) held in Kampala, Uganda in the summer of 2015. Neil’s work provided an assessment of the benefits of local production of mobility aids, and determined that by building wheelchairs with readily-available materials and local know-how provided a more sustainable approach.