Recently, the start-up raised €2m. Now, it plans to more than double its workforce.
The internet, while seemingly omnipresent, is inaccessible to many around the globe. Numbers vary, but the statistics are all dismal.
One report finds that a majority of the top 1m web pages are inaccessible to people with disabilities, with most of them littered with complex homepages, low contrast text, lacking alternative texts to images and so on.
While on the other hand, a survey recently reported that 84pc of its more than 1,500 participants (comprising of software developers, engineers, user experience and legal professionals) say digital accessibility is a key priority. But how much of it is actually put to practice?
Kyran O’Mahoney, formerly the group chief technology officer at Vision Ireland, founded Nexus Inclusion in 2024 with the aim of making the internet more accessible – one digital product at a time.
Besides his experience working to improve accessibility from the charity sector – and now as a start-up founder – O’Mahoney knows a thing or two about inclusivity, having been born with 17pc vision.
Inaccessible websites and digital products hinder many people from doing the most basic of things such as buying shoes to being blocked from exercising financial control. But the improvement in accessibility is “minimal”, he tells me. It’s “less than half a percentage” year over year.
While most of the top websites of the world are from the US, Europe is in a similar position, according to him. Thankfully though, the government websites fare better, at least.
Breaking barriers
Artificial intelligence (AI) has changed the world, for better or for worse. Most of today’s tech is either already infused with AI or gearing towards it. Although, for O’Mahoney, AI is the solution he was searching for.
For him, AI represents a tool that can be moulded at the discretion of a user, to support and enable them to be independent. This realisation was O’Mahoney’s ‘Eureka!’ moment, “there’s finally a tool that brings context to the hardest things to do”.
He is not the first to come up with the idea of using AI to improve accessibility. But what sets his idea apart, he says, is giving developers the tool to be inclusive, rather than provide businesses that service.
Just six months into coding, Nexus is already close to launching its first product ahead of the European Accessibility Act, which is due to come into effect on 28 June this year.
At the highest level, the start-up analyses digital products. Nexus detects issues and teaches companies how to fix it – effectively giving them the automated tools to manage the upkeep of inclusion. The tool analyses what the best use case would be for people with different abilities.
“You can only do that by focusing on all digital products [a business makes] and how they’re built”.
Moreover, “we’re trying to break down the [accessibility] barrier,” he says. Physically and neurologically typical people might not know how to make a digital product more inclusive.
“Point is… you don’t need to be an accessibility expert to use [the] tool. We’ll show you what the solution is and why it’s solution [and] who it impacts.”
Earlier this month, Nexus Inclusion announced that it had raised €2m. Now, the start-up plans to expand its workforce to 30 by the end of next year. And O’Mahoney is on the lookout for people passionate about advocating for inclusivity and accessibility, regardless of their own different abilities.
“We’re at a pivotal point…diversity, equity inclusion is not a dirty word, you know,” he says, referring to the recent attacks on inclusivity programmes by several US institutions.
“Just because something is not easy does not mean it’s not the right thing to do.”
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