The Project

Funder:

Project Website: https://wecount.inclusivedesign.ca/

Description:

We Count is a community-driven project to address the inherent bias against small minorities and outliers in artificial intelligence and data analytics. Disability often places you at the margins of a data set. More and more critical decisions are made and automated using data. Current artificial intelligence can automate and amplify existing discrimination.

The We Count community is addressing this by:

making sure people with lived experience of disability can participate in shaping data science,
addressing data gaps and biases,
co-designing protections against data abuse and misuse, and
co-creating more equitable decision supports.

Partners

Organizations that have expressed interest and/or commitment to participating are:

Canadian Association of Community Living
Centre for Independent Living in Toronto
DisAbled Women’s Network
Canadian Council of the Blind
Canadian Hearing Society
Canadian Hard of Hearing Society
Canadian National Institute for the Blind
ARCH Disability Law Centre
British Columbia Aboriginal Network on Disability Society
Communication Disabilities Access Canada
Council of Canadians with Disabilities
Centre for Addiction and Mental Health
Disabled Peoples’ International
Institute for Research and Development on Inclusion and Society
Learning Disabilities Association of Ontario
NEADS (National Education Association of Disabled Students)
Ontario Federation for Cerebral Palsy, and
StopGap

Goals of Project

List of data science tools along with assessment of accessibility
Resources for marginalized groups looking to get into artificial intelligence
Resources for C-suite roles looking to apply artificial intelligence to their organization
Resources for researchers looking to apply more inclusive/accessible artificial intelligence

Milestones

Milestone #1: Co-design approaches and processes to address accessibility challenges, data science barriers and data gaps for persons with disabilities. (July 2019-December 2021)

Milestone #2: Address accessibility barriers in data science tools and biases against persons with disabilities in machine learning and automated decision processes. (October 2019-March 2022)