Esther Murphy, 'DigiAcademy: Co-designing our accessible digital skills education platform with and for people with intellectual disabilities'

This presentation will focus on the inclusive methodologies adopted in the co-creation process of developing the accessible DigiAcademy digital skills education platform to enhance health, wellbeing and social inclusion for people with intellectual disabilities.

The presentation will share best practices and lessons learnt from establishing the project’s first Citizen Advisory Panel, comprised of seven individuals with intellectual disabilities paid team members, to setting up and running a second paid Citizen Advisory Panel with a further seven members, to ensure accessibility of the platform and now explore peer learning and new innovation.

The DigiAcademy programme is delivered by our digital educators who are trained in digital skills education. In this presentation insights from the project’s Citizen Advisory Panel and digital educators will be shared about their role and the impact of the programme on their own well being, inclusion and digital skills development.

Esther holds a PhD in Disability Studies and MA in Intercultural Studies from Dublin City University. With well over a decade’s experience in social science disability, mental health and inclusive technology research in academia, the NGO sector and growing collaboration with industry, 50 peer reviewed publications and €3million in funding awarded, Esther is passionate about building interdisciplinary research to co-create innovative solutions to address societal challenges. P.I for Irish Research Council New Foundations study focused on the experience of inclusion and digital access and use for people with intellectual disabilities, employing people with disability to work as co researchers to support research activities is key to her work.

At the heart of Esther’s work is a commitment to ensure the full inclusion of the people with accessibility needs into all phases of the research innovation process through development of inclusive research methodologies and development of paid expert by experience citizen advisory panels.

Esther regularly presents her research at national and international conferences, often invited to give guest lectures, recently presenting her digital inclusion research at Stanford University’s Neurodiversity Symposium and the European Patients Forum.