Founded earlier this year by Cormac Chishom and Patrick Guiney, DevA11y is part of the latest NDRC accelerator cohort which kicked off last month.
In 2024, digital products are ubiquitous. They’re intertwined with our daily lives to an extent never seen before. And yet, a large proportion of the digital space is inaccessible to those with disabilities, from ADHD and dyslexia to autism.
According to Patrick Guiney, co-founder of AI accessibility platform DevA11y, more than 90pc of the top 1m websites on the internet have accessibility issues – even though 16pc of people identify as having some form of disability.
“We’re living in an age where digital products are unusable by an enormous demographic,” said Guiney, who is chief operating officer of the start-up dually based in Dublin and San Francisco.
“We can boil this down to two issues: businesses aren’t prioritising inclusive design and that building accessible products is incredibly difficult.”
‘Noticeable shift in priorities’
Founded earlier this year, DevA11y wants to make building accessible products easy for businesses so that the digital world can be opened up to everyone, regardless of their disabilities.
To that end, it has developed an AI-powered accessibility compliance platform to help businesses ensure their digital products are accessible.
DevA11y integrates accessibility expert feedback and AI to manage risk and enhance accessibility in real time, aiming to make websites as well as web and mobile apps more inclusive.
Guiney, who founded DevA11y along with CEO Cormac Chishom, argues that while accessibility hasn’t been a priority for a lot of businesses, the upcoming European Accessibility Act set to come into effect in June 2025 will shake things up.
The Act will bring in new rules that will give people living with disabilities improved access to public transport, banking services, computers, TVs, e-books, online shops and more. With the passing of the Act, the onus will be on businesses to make their products and services accessibility compliant. “This has led to a noticeable shift in priorities for businesses who now need a path to making their products accessible,” Guiney said.
“But building accessible products is still difficult, which is why we created DevA11y. We make building accessible products easy, and we’ve worked with the world’s leading accessibility experts to craft a platform that enables product development teams to build and maintain accessibility across their entire digital product offerings.”
Growth plans
The story behind DevA11y goes back a decade, when Chishom and Guiney – both serial entrepreneurs – first met at a Startup Weekend event.
“We were both entrepreneurial-minded, and we were both determined to build something that had an impact beyond ourselves. When the idea for DevA11y came about we knew this was our opportunity to do so,” Chishom said.
Guiney has previously founded a social enterprise called Student Slingshot, which aimed to address the high college dropout rates for students. Meanwhile, Chishom founded a digital product development agency primarily focused on building start-ups’ first products, which subsequently led to him building products for JPMorgan Chase, BNP Paribas and Optum.
Today, DevA11y is part of the latest NDRC cohort for its accelerator programme which kicked off last month. It is also one of three start-ups that were selected for a new Fidelity fellowship programme based at Dogpatch Labs to help them accelerate their “breakthrough” businesses.
“Our platform provides real-time insights and recommendations to improve accessibility,” explained Chishom.
“It scans and identifies non-accessible elements in digital products and offers actionable feedback to correct these issues. By integrating directly with existing development workflows, DevA11y allows teams to make necessary adjustments efficiently, helping organisations achieve compliance and enhance their overall user experience.”
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