Let's be Honest

An assistive technology product that actually works well is often damn expensive.

A good speech-to-text device might cost 500 to 2000 USD. Specialized AAC software can cost hundreds per year in licensing. A reliable tablet? Another 300 to 500 dollars. Add training, support, and customization, and you're looking at money that many families simply don't have.

This creates an ugly problem. Kids who need assistive technology most are often the ones least able to access it. And that's not an accident. It's a systemic issue that needs to be named and addressed directly.

The Reality for Families

I started thinking deeply about this after meeting a family in Kahawa Sukari, Nairobi. Their 6-year-old son had severe speech and language delays. The speech-language pathologist recommended AAC. It would genuinely help him communicate. Everyone agreed.

The device would have cost about 6 months of the family's income. Per year. Plus training and support.

The family chose speech therapy alone. It was the best they could do. Their son is making progress, but not the progress he would have made with AAC. And he's one of the lucky ones because at least they could afford some therapy.

How many kids aren't even that lucky?

Why Assistive Tech Is Expensive

Let's look at the actual costs of building and deploying assistive technology:

• Research and development. Good AAC apps are built by teams with expertise in speech science, linguistics, psychology, and technology. That expertise costs money.

• Licensing and compliance. Devices need to meet certain standards. They often need to comply with healthcare regulations. That adds cost.

• Support and training. Unlike an app you get on your phone and figure out yourself, AAC tools require training. Parents need to learn. Teachers need to learn. SLPs need to be trained on how to prescribe and adapt the technology. That's ongoing cost.

• Device costs. AAC often needs to run on tablets or specialized devices. That hardware ain't cheap.

• Customization. A AAC system built for Xhosa-speaking kids from an urban South African context might not work for a Kiswahili-speaking kids in Tanzania. Customization requires development time.

• Sustainability. Systems need updates. Bugs need fixing. Hardware breaks down. All of that requires ongoing resources.

These are legitimate costs. You can't wish them away.

Who Bears the Cost

The problem is who ends up paying for these costs.

In wealthy countries, insurance or government programs sometimes cover assistive technology. A family in the US might get AAC covered through insurance or special education services.

In most of East Africa, families pay out of pocket. Schools rarely have budgets for this. Healthcare systems aren't set up to provide it. NGOs do what they can, but they can't fund everyone.

This means that families face an impossible choice. Pay for assistive technology at the expense of other necessities. Or don't, and hope their child manages without.

The Equity Problem

Here's what really bothers me. A child in a wealthy family with access to good AAC tools can participate in school, make friends, and develop language skills. A child in a poor family with identical abilities can't. Not because of anything about the child. Because of something about their family's wallet.

That's not just unfair. It's also wasteful. We're losing potential because of money. Brilliant minds are going underdeveloped because they don't have access to tools that cost less than a decent laptop.

And there's a ripple effect. Kids who can't communicate effectively fall behind in school. They miss social connections. That shapes their life trajectory. And then we wonder why people with disabilities face employment barriers.

Sometimes the barriers aren't disability. They're poverty plus disability.

What We're Trying

At Umbi Labs, we're thinking hard about this problem. How do we build tools that are good and affordable?

• Open source and lower cost models. We're not trying to build something that makes us rich. We're trying to build something that works and can be sustained. That means different thinking about pricing.

• Scalability. If we can build something that works across contexts, we can spread development costs across more users, keeping per-user cost down.

• Sustainability without exploitation. Some free tools are subsidized by advertising data or by extracting value from users in other ways. We're not comfortable with that. We're exploring models where community and donors share the cost.

• Offline functionality. Most expensive AAC apps require reliable internet. We're building tools that work offline because that's the reality of how many people live.

• Local language support from the start. We're not building in English and translating later. We're building with the assumption that Kiswahili, Luganda, and other languages are equally important.

• Training and support models that scale. We're developing train-the-trainer models instead of requiring expensive specialists. We're using video and text resources in local languages.

What Needs to Happen

But Umbi Labs alone can't solve this. The bigger systemic issue needs to change.

i. Governments need to include assistive technology in healthcare and education budgets. Not as charity. As a necessary service. Like you budget for desks and chairs, you budget for communication tools.

ii. Schools need training and autonomy. Teachers and SLPs need training on AAC. They need authority to implement it. Right now, many teachers see AAC as something that happens in a specialized clinic, not something they can facilitate.

iii. Insurance and social protection programs need to cover assistive technology. If we valued communication, we'd pay for the tools that make it possible.

iv. Pricing needs to take geography into account. A tool that costs 50 USD is reasonable in the US. It's not reasonable in Kenya. Developers need to think about sustainable, context-appropriate pricing.

v. Open source and donation models need support. Some of the best assistive technology is being built by people who don't expect to get rich. They need funding, recognition, and support.

The Harder Truth

But here's the thing we can't avoid. Even if we solved pricing tomorrow, access would still be limited by other factors. Internet access. Device access. Literacy. Language. Training availability.

There's no single solution. There's no app that solves the problem by itself.

What there is, is a commitment to building with these constraints in mind. To pricing fairly. To training effectively. To showing up consistently in communities that have been abandoned before.

A Child's Right

I keep thinking about that kid in Kahawa Sukari. He's probably 7 now. He's making progress. But I wonder what he could have done if access to AAC hadn't been about his family's income level.

Here's what I believe: Every child deserves access to the tools that support their communication, learning, and development. Not because they're wealthy. Not because they live in a wealthy country. Not because they're lucky.

Because they're children. And communication is a right, not a luxury.

Building technology that reflects that belief is harder than building technology that doesn't. But it's the work that matters.

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If you're working on making assistive technology more accessible or affordable, we'd like to hear from you. Reach out at hello@umbilabs.com.