The Enabling Community coLAB is a month-long social innovation project organised by the Ministry of Social and Family Development (MSF) and SG Enable to encourage collaboration between persons with disabilities, social entrepreneurs, researchers, students, developers, designers and other professionals to design and prototype solutions to empower persons with disabilities.

To kick off the initiative, more than 100 people forming a total of 25 teams came together in a workshop on 5 and 6 April 2014 to create solutions. Of these, 10 winning teams were shortlisted and each given $1,500 to prepare for the final round. The winning team stood to win $100,000 in seed-funding from MSF.

At the finale held at *Scape on 6 May, five winning ideas were picked and shared by Minister for Social and Family Development and Second Minister for Defence Mr Chan Chun Sing. Ideas included a mobile phone application that helps people with autism and intellectual disability correctly pay for purchases and a mobile app that allows users to access and contribute information about the accessibility of a place for free. The five teams each got up to $20,000 in grants to fund the development of their technological innovations.

SPD was actively involved in providing inputs and assistance to some of the teams. Said Mr Ivan Tan, head of e-accessibility at SPD, “The ideas shared are all very innovative, and I think they all have great promise. Such events can help boost awareness of the needs of people with disabilities.”