Tomorrow sees the United Nations’s International Day of Persons with Disabilities celebrated this year on 3rd December 2014.

This year’s theme is “Sustainable Development: The Promise of Technology”

The UN website shares “Throughout human history, technology has always impacted the way people live. The Industrial Revolution ushered in a new age of technology that raised the standards of living of people around the world and their access to goods and services. Today, technology is built in to every facet of daily living. The emergence of information and communications technologies have dramatically increased connectivity between people and their access to information, and further raised living standards.

ICTs have indeed changed the way people live, work and play. However, not all people benefit from the advances of technology and the higher standards of living. This is mainly because not all people have access to new technologies and not all people can afford them.

Today, there are over 1 billion people living in the world with some form of disability. Around the world, persons with disabilities not only face physical barriers but also social, economic and attitudinal barriers. Furthermore, disability is associated with twenty per cent of global poverty, of which the majority live in developing countries. In spite of being the world’s largest minority group, persons with disabilities and the issue of disability has remained largely invisible in the mainstream development frameworks and its processes.”

As regular readers know this blog is very interested in healthcare and technology. You can see a recent example here.

So we would like to know what is the most important development in healthcare technology in the last few years? It would be great if you could share your answers in the comments section below?

Many thanks in advance!