Taiwan is a unique site of innovation in disability rights. Despite being barred from becoming a States Party to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) according to the diplomatic exclusion faced by Taiwan, it has become a model for the localization of the CRPD through its use “domestic review mechanisms.” Furthermore, Taiwan demonstrates the ways in which fundamental divides within human rights discourse, such as Western individualism and East Asian familialism, can be bridged using strategic adaptation that reimagine disability rights as a post-colonial hybrid.

Heng-hao Chang is a Professor of Sociology and former Dean of the College of Social Sciences at National Taipei University. A dedicated advocate for disability studies and the disability rights movement, Chang is a co-founder and past Chairman of the Taiwan Society for Disability Studies and currently serves as the Executive Editor of the International Journal of Disability and Social Justice.

Event made possible by the Walter Chapin Simpson Center for the Humanities and co-Sponsored by The Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies; East Asia Center; the Center for Human Rights; Taiwan Studies Program; Center for Human Rights; Disability Studies Program; and the Harlan Hahn Endowment.

The Global Partnerships & Grand Challenges Team has launched a new Request for Proposals (RFP) on “Evaluating AI-Enabled Decision Support Tools for Frontline Workers in Primary and Community Health Care Settings.” Applications are due by April 1, 2026. Please read the RFP carefully for more information on the challenge and opportunity, eligibility, requirements, and timelines. This is the first RFP issued through the newly launched Evidence for AI in Health (EVAH) initiative, which is co-funded by the Gates Foundation, Novo Nordisk Foundation, and Wellcome and will be implemented in partnership with the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab and the African Population and Health Research Center.

AI has the potential to transform many aspects of health care, but there are significant gaps in the availability of evidence on how AI tools perform in real-world health settings in low-and middle-income countries. The EVAH initiative aims to address that gap, with the first RFP focused on AI-enabled decision support tools designed to assist frontline workers with clinical tasks such as triage, diagnosis, and referral in primary and community health care settings in sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, and Southeast Asia.

The RFP will support two types of evaluations:

• Pathway A: supports real-world evaluation of AI-enabled clinical decision support tools that are early in deployment. The pathway focuses on how the tools perform in practice, including usability, workflow integration, adoption, and safety, and supports research that can inform future impact evaluations. Grants of up to USD $1,000,000 will be awarded for Evaluation Pathway A projects, with a project term of 3-12 months.
• Pathway B: supports rigorous impact evaluations of AI-enabled clinical decision support tools that are ready to be deployed at scale. This pathway focuses on measuring the effects of these tools on health outcomes and system performance at scale. Grants of up to USD $3,000,000 will be awarded for Evaluation Pathway B projects, with a project term of 12–24 months.