Building a digital lifeline for people with disabilities across Cyprus

People with disabilities in Cyprus face daily challenges that most take for granted: finding a restaurant with wheelchair access, planning a route that avoids stairs and broken pavements, or identifying which businesses offer accessible facilities. Despite comprising a significant percentage of the population, this community had no centralised digital resource for accessibility information — forcing individuals to rely on word of mouth, phone calls, and trial and error.

Beyond physical accessibility, the community lacked a unified platform connecting them to employment opportunities, social services, and inclusion programmes. Existing resources were scattered across government departments, NGOs, and individual organisations, with no single point of access. The unemployment rate among people with disabilities in Cyprus remained disproportionately high, partly because neither employers nor job-seekers had tools to bridge the gap.

Ablebook's founders envisioned a platform that would go beyond a simple directory — a living, mobile-first ecosystem that would map accessibility across the island, provide intelligent navigation tools, connect users with services and opportunities, and bring together the corporate, government, and non-profit stakeholders working toward social inclusion.