Labelled stubborn as a child for failing to respond to instructions she could not hear, Toyosi Badejo Okusanya grew up confronting a society that often framed disability through prayer, silence or pity rather than structural support. In Nigeria, she observed that disabilities were largely managed in private spaces instead of accommodated in public systems.
Her relocation to the United Kingdom in 2017 marked a turning point, as she encountered a health and education system where hearing aids were provided through the National Health Service and accessibility was treated as a right rather than an afterthought.
Drawing from this contrast, Badejo Okusanya founded Adaptive Atelier in 2023, an accessibility technology company focused on redesigning digital experiences for people with disabilities across Africa. The startup works with beauty, fashion and lifestyle brands to embed accessibility features directly into their websites and digital platforms, addressing a gap that leaves millions excluded.
With an estimated 35 million Nigerians living with disabilities, she argues that most businesses remain unaware of how inaccessible their platforms are, particularly for users with cognitive and neurodivergent conditions such as ADHD, dyslexia, autism and epilepsy, who are often overlooked in product design conversations.
Adaptive Atelier operates through two flagship products that form what the founder describes as an accessibility infrastructure stack. AdaptiveWiz, an API based integration layer, allows users to personalise their digital experience in real time by adjusting visual contrast, motion reduction, layout simplification and other features without requiring companies to redesign their websites.
The system aligns with global Web Content Accessibility Guidelines standards and is validated through testing by disabled professionals. Its second product, AdaptiveTest, functions as a diagnostics engine that scans websites for compliance gaps including missing alternative text, poor colour contrast and navigation failures, while embedding continuous human validation into development cycles.
Operating with a core team across Lagos and London, the company is supported by a distributed network of more than 5,000 disabled professionals who contribute to audits and testing engagements. Since launch, Adaptive Atelier says it has served about 5,000 users through digital audits and integrations.
The startup generates revenue through corporate accessibility consulting, subscription licensing for AdaptiveWiz, marketplace fees for consultant led testing and institutional training workshops. Badejo Okusanya maintains that while automated tools can flag technical errors, they often fail to capture lived user experience, noting that artificial intelligence must be built with disabled people at the centre to achieve meaningful inclusion.
Despite structural challenges, including adapting global standards to African bandwidth and multilingual realities, the company continues to refine its tools to function effectively in low connectivity environments. Over the next five years, Badejo Okusanya anticipates that artificial intelligence will make accessibility more scalable, provided disabled professionals remain active participants in its design and deployment.
She insists that the broader mission is not merely corporate growth but the creation of a sustainable accessibility economy that transforms inclusion from an act of charity into essential digital infrastructure across the continent.