About Hackcessible
A community built through making, collaboration and shared expertise.
Hackcessible began in 2018 at the University of Sheffield, bringing together students, engineers and people with lived experience of disability to explore challenges and create solutions together.
From its beginnings in the iForge student makerspace, Hackcessible has grown into a community that supports people from different backgrounds to collaborate through inclusive design and hands-on innovation.
The people behind Hackcessible
Hackcessible began when two engineers with different experiences and shared passions started exploring what could happen when student makers, people with lived experience of disability and technical experts worked together.
Aejaz Zahid
Assistive technology and healthcare innovation
Aejaz is an engineer specialising in assistive technology, healthcare innovation and the development of services and technologies that improve people's lives.
Aejaz has spent many years working across clinical services, research, disability technology and healthcare innovation, including establishing assistive technology services and leading innovation programmes in the UK and internationally.
His experience has centred on understanding people's needs, developing appropriate technologies and bringing together communities, engineers, clinicians, researchers and organisations to create meaningful impact.
Pete Mylon
Engineering education, making and collaboration
Pete is an engineer and educator focused on creating opportunities for people to learn through designing, making and solving real-world challenges.
At the University of Sheffield, Pete created the iForge student makerspace, an environment where students from different disciplines collaborate, develop practical skills and turn ideas into prototypes.
His work focuses on challenge-led engineering education and building communities where students, industry partners and communities can work together.
From makerspaces to co-design
The idea for Hackcessible emerged from a conversation between Pete and Aejaz at a University of Sheffield networking event focused on makerspaces and making.
Aejaz shared his experience of ATHack, an assistive technology hackathon he had been involved with during his time at MIT, and introduced Pete to the TV programme The Big Life Hack, where a multidisciplinary team worked together in a makerspace to develop technology for a disabled person.
These examples showed the potential of bringing together technical skills, creativity and lived experience — but also highlighted an important question:
What if the person the technology was intended for was not just the inspiration for the project, but a co-designer, part of the team creating it?
That question shaped Hackcessible.
The first experiment
Testing the idea
Before launching the first Hackcessible event, the approach was explored through an early collaboration with artist Sarah Ezekiel, who uses eye-gaze technology to create digital artwork while living with motor neurone disease.
A small team of iForge Reps and collaborators visited Sarah to understand her experience and explore possibilities together.
The project led to the idea of ArtBot — a system exploring how Sarah's digital artwork could be translated into physical media.
This early experiment helped demonstrate the value of starting with conversation, understanding and collaboration, and became a foundation for the Hackcessible approach.
Hackcessible was made possible by the culture of experimentation, student leadership and practical learning created through the University of Sheffield's iForge makerspace.
Since then, it has grown through the contributions of students, volunteers, educators, community members and partners who have helped shape each event and collaboration.
Although Hackcessible has grown beyond its original home, it continues to build on the principles that emerged from those early projects:
developing through making, learning from one another and creating with people rather than for them.
What began as a single initiative at the University of Sheffield has grown through the enthusiasm of makers who believe in the value of designing together.
Today, Hackcessible is supporting new communities to develop their own local programmes, adapting the approach to different institutions, cultures and accessibility challenges while sharing the same commitment to co-design and hands-on innovation.
Every new project adds to a growing network of people learning from one another and creating practical solutions that can make a difference.
Could you be next?