What happens when you bring together people with lived experience of sight loss, researchers, businesses, policymakers, technology leaders and charities in the same room? At Vis-Ability 2026, the answer was clear: conversations become collaborations, different perspectives challenge assumptions, and ideas have the potential to turn into meaningful action.
Held in Westminster on 10 June, Vis-Ability brought together more than 100 delegates to explore some of the key issues shaping the future of eye health, accessibility and opportunity in the UK, from inclusive technology and equitable employment to innovation in eye care.
But beyond the panels and keynote sessions, the real value of the event was in the conversations happening throughout the day – people sharing experiences, challenging ideas and finding new ways to work together.
In this interview Katy Wright, Head of Strategic Projects at Fight for Sight, reflects on some of the moments that stood out, the importance of collaboration and lived experience, and what we hope Vis-Ability can lead to next.
As an organiser, what did you see happening behind the scenes and what moments stood out to you?
What stood out most to me was seeing the conversations that happened when people weren’t on stage.
We had deliberately brought together people who might not ordinarily find themselves in the same room. Researchers, businesses, policymakers, tech leaders, charities and, importantly, people with lived experience of sight loss. Behind the scenes, you could see those connections beginning to happen naturally.
As an organiser, you inevitably spend part of the day thinking about timings, speakers and whether everything is running to plan. But the moments I remember are looking around the room and seeing people exchanging details, continuing debates over coffee and discovering areas where they could work together and really overhearing people sharing ideas and solutions to many of the topics raised through the sessions.
For me, that is what Vis-Ability is really about. It isn’t just about creating a great event for one day, it’s about creating the conditions for new relationships, ideas and collaborations that can lead to something much bigger.
It sounds very collaborative! How important is collaboration when it comes to accessibility?
I think Vis-Ability reinforces the idea that the biggest challenges facing patients and blind and vision impaired people are too complex for any one organisation to solve alone.
What really struck me at Vis-Ability 2026 was seeing how much stronger the conversation became when different perspectives were brought together, and it showed that collaboration is not just about organisations working alongside one another. It is about connecting expertise, evidence, influence and lived experience early enough to shape better solutions together.
At Fight for Sight, that is increasingly important to us. Our role is not only to fund research, but to help create the partnerships that can move good ideas further and faster.
As an organiser, what did you see happening behind the scenes and what moments stood out to you?
What stood out most to me was seeing the conversations that happened when people weren’t on stage.
As an organiser, you inevitably spend part of the day thinking about timings, speakers and whether everything is running to plan. But the moments I remember are looking around the room and seeing people exchanging details, continuing debates over coffee and discovering areas where they could work together and really overhearing people sharing ideas and solutions to many of the topics raised through the sessions.
For me, that is what Vis-Ability is really about. It isn’t just about creating a great event for one day, it’s about creating the conditions for new relationships, ideas and collaborations that can lead to something much bigger.
"We had deliberately brought together people who might not ordinarily find themselves in the same room. Researchers, businesses, policymakers, tech leaders, charities and, importantly, people with lived experience of sight loss. Behind the scenes, you could see those connections beginning to happen naturally."
It sounds very collaborative! How important is collaboration when it comes to accessibility?
I think Vis-Ability reinforces the idea that the biggest challenges facing patients and blind and vision impaired people are too complex for any one organisation to solve alone.
What really struck me at Vis-Ability 2026 was seeing how much stronger the conversation became when different perspectives were brought together, and it showed that collaboration is not just about organisations working alongside one another. It is about connecting expertise, evidence, influence and lived experience early enough to shape better solutions together.
At Fight for Sight, that is increasingly important to us. Our role is not only to fund research, but to help create the partnerships that can move good ideas further and faster.
The main theme of the event was technology and accessibility…
Yes it was and access to technology came through as far more than a technical or compliance issue. One of the clearest messages from the day was that we need to move beyond asking why accessibility matters and focus on how we build it into services, products, workplaces and technology from the start.
Too often, blind and vision impaired people are brought in once decisions have already been made. The breakout sessions at VisAbility demonstrated the importance of involving people with lived experience much earlier, not just to test a finished idea, but to help shape the problem, the priorities and the solution.
What was particularly encouraging was seeing that message resonate across sectors and a shared recognition that inclusive design leads to better outcomes.
For Fight for Sight, that is an important role for VisAbility…bringing those perspectives together, challenging where barriers remain, and helping shift accessibility from something organisations react to into something they design for from the outset.
Richard Osman spoke candidly about his experience of growing up with a visual impairment. What did you take away from that conversation?
What stayed with me most was the way Richard spoke about his sight loss with such humour and openness, while also making a much bigger point about opportunity and potential. He talked about experiences that could easily have been framed around limitation, not being able to see the classroom blackboard, or presenting television programmes using an autocue he couldn’t actually read. But what came through instead was adaptability, confidence and the importance of finding ways around barriers.
The takeaway was that sight loss should never determine someone’s ambition or what they are capable of achieving. Too often, it is the environment, the systems or the assumptions around people that create the barriers. It again reinforced why lived experience needs to be at the heart of everything we do. We are aware that personal stories can cut through policy very quickly, and they remind us that accessibility, inclusion and innovation ultimately come down to whether people are able to participate, contribute and thrive.
What outcomes would you like to see as a direct result of Vis-Ability?
I’d like Vis-Ability to lead to action, not just good conversations.
The strongest outcome would be seeing new partnerships, projects and collaborations emerge because people met through the event.
I’d also like Vis-Ability to become a place where people come back each year not simply to discuss the challenges, but to show what has changed since the last conversation.
Ultimately, success for me would be being able to point to tangible examples of change and say: that relationship started at Vis-Ability, that idea moved forward because of Vis-Ability, or that organisation changed what it was doing because of what they heard there.
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