Funded work · Ready Together
Emergency plans people write for themselves
Ready Together is a preparedness platform for people with disability, their carers, and the providers, councils and facilities that support them. It is funded under Round Four of the Australian Government’s Disaster Ready Fund, with the ACT Government as Lead Agency. The first pilot runs in the ACT, Queanbeyan-Palerang and Snowy Monaro, and it builds the business case for taking the platform national. The concept is aXai’s, and aXai is the disability-led build partner.
Three connected modules
Australia already has endorsed methods for disability-inclusive emergency preparedness — Disability Inclusive Emergency Management and Person-Centred Emergency Preparedness. Ready Together turns them into software people can actually use.
A plan each person owns
People write their own emergency plans, in Easy Read, plain language, read-aloud, offline and printable form. A carer can open a plan only with the person’s consent.
Evidence for providers
A console for providers and support coordinators records plan currency, participant consultation, worker training and unresolved risks — auditable evidence against the NDIS Emergency and Disaster Management Practice Standard.
Readiness councils can see
Facilities and councils self-assess cooling, clean-air refuge, backup power, medicine refrigeration, access and egress, communications, and arrangements for assistance animals. Each gap becomes a planned action, a named responsibility, or a gap that stays visible.
Why it exists
People with disability are harmed more by heatwaves, bushfire smoke and power outages, and the 2019–20 Black Summer smoke crisis in Canberra showed it plainly. The endorsed methods for preparing have existed for years, mostly as paper tools, so most people with disability do not have a current plan they can reach when they need it. Ready Together is about closing that distance.
What aXai is responsible for
Architecture and build
All three modules, developed from aXai’s own working concept demonstrator — the software the application was built on.
Accessibility by design
WCAG 2.2 AA, Easy Read, read-aloud and cognition-aware modes, tested with people who have lived experience, on their own assistive technology.
Responsible AI
Delivered under aXai’s Responsible AI Framework, which follows the National AI Centre’s guidance and Australia’s obligations under the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. The assistant draws only on an approved knowledge base, it drafts and the person confirms, and the person can contest or override it. A person’s stated preferences are never silently overridden.
Data sovereignty
Participant data is processed in Australia, under consent that is explicit, granular and revocable. Each person owns their plan and their data.
Launch safeguards
Real participant data is used only after an independent Privacy Impact Assessment, bias testing across disability groups, security testing, and sign-off from a paid Community Advisory Panel of people with lived experience.
Maintenance after the pilot
aXai keeps the build running once the pilot ends.
What the platform does, and what emergency services do
Ready Together is for preparedness. It supports the official warning system; warnings themselves come from emergency services, and the platform makes no automated decisions about anyone.
Prototypes for grant applications
An application is stronger when the assessor can see the thing working. aXai built the demonstrator this project was funded from, and builds them for other applications too: real software, accessible from the first screen, with the record of who reviewed it. Tell us what you are applying for.