Forbes has announced its first-ever Accessibility 100 list, “which highlights the top innovators and impact-makers in the field of accessibility for people with disabilities,” the publication said.
“Some, like Apple and Google, make ubiquitous devices that introduce new and vital accessibility features year after year,” Forbes said in unveiling the list. “Others are less visible companies and individuals whose work and innovations are revolutionizing how people with wide ranges of disabilities can communicate, learn, travel and enjoy lives as full as anyone else’s.”
Among the leaders and companies on the premiere Accessibility 100 list are accessible vehicle manufacturer BraunAbility and President Craig Schrimsher; and wheelchair securement manufacturer Q’STRAINT and Co-President Patrick Girardin.
In a June 17 announcement, Forbes said the list “was compiled on the basis of more than 400 interviews and conversations with industry experts, with input from an expert advisory board. Emphasis was placed on the size of impact over the widest breadth of people. The final list includes individuals and organizations based in 15 countries.”
Forbes added that the leaders and companies on the list were recognized for their impact on segments including sensory (such as blindness/low vision and deafness/hard of hearing), mobility/physical, and neurodivergence. “For the purposes of this list, ‘accessibility’ is defined as software, devices and services that allow people with disabilities to have equitable access to information, content, public spaces and experiences,” Forbes said. Winners represent a number of fields, including communication, education, software, consumer products, robotics, sports and recreation, travel, workplaces, and the arts.
In explaining BraunAbility’s inclusion on the list, Forbes said, “Through partnerships with major car manufacturers like Toyota and Chrysler, as well as hospitals and municipal transportation systems, BraunAbility designs and outfits vehicles with the lifts and ramps that can be deployed hands-free. Its products are used in more than 50 countries on six continents and have generated more than $1 billion in sales.”
Q’STRAINT’s listing read in part, “Wheelchairs can provide independent transportation. But for their occupant to travel safely in a vehicle — they can’t brace themselves properly for a fall, or get themselves up afterward — only the strongest securement straps and other devices will do. Q’STRAINT designs the vast majority of systems in accessible cars, vans, buses and other transportation that keep people in wheelchairs as safe, often even more so, than any other passenger.”
Other winners included Kelly Twichel, CEO of Access Trax, portable 9-foot-square mats that can be laid out “to create instant wheelways across grass, sand, snow and other heretofore unpassable terrain,” and writer and film director Peter Farrelly (Green Book, Dumb and Dumber, There’s Something About Mary), known for casting “many characters who have disabilities. Then again, some people don’t notice because it comes off so naturally. And isn’t that the point?”
The Forbes Accessibility 100 program was led by Forbes Assistant Managing Editor Alan Schwarz.
