Beyond Traditional Ethics when Developing Assistive Technology for and with Deaf People in Developing Regions - Ethical Engineering for International Development and Environmental Sustainability - page 313

7.4 Advice for Researchers Working in This Domain

Based on the above, we can therefore offer the following advice when engineering
AT solutions for Deaf people in developing regions:

￿ Implement a certifi ed ICT training programme, in addition to local written lan-
guage literacy, alongside an AT/ICT intervention programme to empower the
community to truly enact community-based co-design such that the community
can drive the research agenda.
￿ Train researchers in signed language, also certifi ed and/or accredited.
￿ Use professional signed language interpreters during offi cial data collection exer-
cises to effectively communicate with participants in their preferred language.
￿ Informed consent ought to be augmented by informed participation, shedding
detached objectivity-styled positivism, and seen as an ongoing and dynamic
process.
￿ Become aware of, and embrace, cultural and value relativism, including but not
limited to differences in individual vs. community-based orientation(s).

￿ A community-driven agenda, when combined with capacity building, engenders

strong participation and empowerment for all stakeholders.

Acknowledgements This chapter is dedicated to the memory of Prof. Adinda Freudenthal, who
tragically passed away in early 2014. A native of the Netherlands, Adinda was an associate profes-
sor of Industrial Design Engineering at TU Delft with a background in medical devices and user
interfaces. Adinda became our SANPAD collaborator (South African Netherlands research
Programme on Alternatives for Development - funding from the Dutch embassy; see www.sanpad.
org.za ) . She felt a true passion for working with the Deaf community in South Africa and through
supervision of two MSc research projects and a PhD, in collaboration with DCCT, UWC and
UCT, sparked and guided the realisation of the SignSupport project. She is deeply missed by
collaborators and benefi ciaries alike.
This work would not be possible without the participation and collaboration of the Deaf
Community of Cape Town ( www.dcct.org.za ). Thanks also to collaborators Meryl Glaser and
Edwin Blake; the postgraduate students involved with SignSupport - Michael Motlhabi, Prangnat
Chininthorn, Mariam Parker, Sifi so Duma, Andre Henney, George Ng'ethe, Marshalan Reddy,
Muyowa Mutemwa and Koos Looijesteijn - and to all interpreters who have helped us with this
project.
We also thank SANPAD for prior funding and Telkom, Cisco, Aria Technologies and THRIP
(Technology and Human Resources for Industry Partnership) for continued fi nancial support via
the Telkom Centre of Excellence (CoE) programme. This work is based on the research supported
in part by the National Research Foundation (NRF) of South Africa (grant number (UID) 75191).
Any opinion fi ndings and conclusion or recommendations expressed in this material are those of
the authors, and therefore the NFR does not accept any liability in this regard.

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