But who is the face behind Ace Mobility and what is the driving force?
1. Who is Daniel Gatura?
Daniel Gatura is a co-founder of Ace Mobility and a social entrepreneur who's looking to use accessible transport to provide transport solutions to persons with mobility disabilities allowing them to travel in dignity and independence. As well as training drivers and other stakeholders on how well to serve persons with mobility disabilities.
2. Can you tell us about Ace Mobility and what inspired you to start this initiative?
Ace Mobility is Kenya's first accessible transport provider. We provide accessible and inclusive rides to everyone, including persons with disabilities. What inspired me to start this initiative is when I was five years old, my dad got into an accident, had a spinal cord injury and so he started to use a wheelchair. Being a mechanical engineer, he was dismissed from work just because he couldn't get a transport solution to move him from home to work and back. That really affected my childhood and so I grew up wanting to solve for not Only him, But the 200 million Africans and the 5 million Kenyans who face mobility barriers.
3. What specific services does Ace Mobility offer to persons with disabilities in Kenya?
Ace Mobility offers a last mile transport solution for people such as people with disabilities, the elderly, the sick, are pregnant women and anyone else who needs support commuting and moving from one place to the other. By a last mile transport solution, we mean the driver then becomes the caregiver during the journey. Our passengers get extra support to board and alight the vehicle. We also help them get to the exact place they are going. For example, if someone is going to the fifth floor, we help the client move from the vehicle, Up the building to the fifth floor and once the client is comfortable then our driver leaves to attend to other clients. This support comes in handy since our clients then are not left stranded, contrary to what we witnessed or have seen when they use other means of transportation.
4. How does the accessible transportation service work? Could you walk us through the process of booking a ride?
Our transportation service is accessed through our mobile pre booking app called Ace Mobility, Currently available on Play Store. We are working on having it on App Store. After downloading our app, they are able to type in the pickup location and destination then the app connects them to a driver who is trained on how to serve a person with mobility disability. The driver can see their request and fulfill it by supporting them through the journey. Our rides can also be accessed or booked through our website. Which is www.acemobility.co.ke.
5. What types of disabilities can be accommodated by your services?
We accommodate all types of disabilities however; we have different specifications and adaptations within the vehicle that support most types of disabilities. For those with physical disabilities, we have vehicles with several seats or wheelchair arms that help them get into the vehicle or out of the vehicle. For visual disabilities, we provide drivers who are well conversant with working with those with visual impairment and they offer them support such as visual description, and also sharing with them what is happening around the vehicle or along the road as they are traveling. For those who are deaf or hard of hearing, we provide drivers who understand sign language and then they're able to communicate. As they're traveling, we also building AI assistance that will help us with sign language interpretation route description and optimization. We therefore serve all persons in disabilities since our drivers are trained to serve different disabilities.
6. How do persons with disabilities access your services, and what steps have you taken to make this process as user-friendly as possible?
Our services can be accessed either through our mobile app or through our website. Both our website and our mobile app. Are accessible so that people with disabilities are able to use the app without needing extra support from anyone else which would then limit their independence.
7. What feedback have you received from your clients so far, and how has that influenced your service delivery?
So far we have received positive feedback which is helping us improve. Service delivery and we are also getting a number of ideas on how should then improve our service to serve more people, and how we could also reach out to more people to make them aware of our service. So, far the service is doing quite well in the market. We have served conferences such as the inclusive Africa conference, and other summits. We also offer airport and hotel transfers. We also have clients who go to work daily. Our services are slowly picking up in the country.
8. What challenges have you faced in scaling or sustaining the business, especially in a niche sector like accessible transportation?
The challenge we have faced in scaling ace mobility, being quite a niche sector like accessible transportation, is that we're seeing slow but gradual growth with the service we are offering. Slowly, people are starting to know of our existence, and they are requesting more rides. The biggest challenge we're facing is funding. We have had to bootstrap from the ground up since we have not raised any capital. Pricing is also a challenge we are facing; however, we are still working with our clients to come up with a price range that is able to cover the expenses of offering our services. Finding a balance between the cost of offering our service and what our clients are able and willing to pay. But slowly we are innovating around this challenge. Also being that we are serving a niche market, we are yet to get any government subsidies to enable us to receive tax exemptions to increase our fleet, hence we are having to work with the minimal fleet. Our vehicles are quite expensive to acquire and so that also that affects our scalability in the market.
9. In what ways has Ace Mobility contributed to the social inclusion and economic empowerment of persons with disabilities?
Ace mobility has contributed to the social inclusion and economic empowerment for persons with disabilities in that we have been providing a transport solution for persons disabilities to enable them become part of society. Our transport solution is greatly used when a person with disabilities is looking to travel for such for social functions or they're looking to travel to and from work. This greatly improves economic empowerment. with ace mobility persons with disabilities can get a transport solution that meets their needs and. Helps them travel with dignity and independence.
10. How does your service impact the employment and education opportunities for persons with disabilities?
our mobility service impacts the employment and education opportunities for persons with disabilities in that we provide them as a transport solution to enable them to get to schools and to their places of work. This greatly improves their participation within the workspace and for those who are heading into school, that also provides them an opportunity to attend and participate in their Education.
11. When you started out, were you looking to make money out of this innovation?
Ace Mobility is a social enterprise, we charge for our services. However, most of this revenue from B2B is then utilized as discounts for our B2C clients.
12. What can the government do better when it comes to accessible infrastructure for persons with disabilities?
Our government should develop and implement policies around improving infrastructure for persons with disabilities. One of the other challenges we face is that most of the buildings in the country are not accessible hence affecting how persons with disabilities navigate. Creating policies and making it mandatory for public transport operators to only use accessible vehicles but also provide disability etiquette training for operators would also greatly improve commute for persons with disabilities. The government could also offer us tax exemptions for vehicle importation this money, would then be used as discounts for those who would like to use our service but are unable to afford it.
13. What are your plans for the future in terms of growth, innovation, and addressing accessibility gaps in transportation for persons with disabilities?
Our future plans in terms of growth and innovation is to address accessibility gaps in transportation for persons with disabilities in Africa. We are also looking to improve and increase the fleet that we currently have. The next five years, we are looking to have more than 100 vehicles in the country to serve people with disabilities. We're also looking at having persons disabilities not only as users of our service, but also as drivers and supplier of these accessible vehicles so that they could then serve other people disabilities. We're also looking at locally customizing other vehicles to make them accessible, which will greatly reduce the cost of offering our service.
We also look forward to helping people with disabilities to source and adapt of accessible vehicles for their personal travel needs.
Interview by: Maryanne Emomeri