Richard Marvin Hansen is a Canadian track and field athlete, activist, and philanthropist for people with disabilities. Following a pickup truck crash at the age of 15, Hansen sustained a spinal cord injury and became a paraplegic. Hansen is most famous for his Man in Motion World Tour, in which he circled the globe in a wheelchair to raise funds for charity. He was inducted into Canada's Sports Hall of Fame in 2006. He was one of the final torchbearers in the 1988 Winter Olympics and the 2010 Winter Olympics. He was profiled and spoke during the 2010 Winter Paralympics opening ceremony.
Anthony Lee Coelho is an American politician from California who served in the United States House of Representatives. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the primary sponsor of the Americans with Disabilities Act and is a former chairman and current member of the board of directors of the Epilepsy Foundation.
Debra Ruh is an American business woman and advocate for the rights of persons with disabilities. She founded TecAccess, which provides software and services for information technology accessibility for people with disabilities and for Section 508 compliance.
Lex Frieden is an American educator, researcher, disability policy expert and disability rights activist. Frieden has been called "a chief architect of the Americans with Disabilities Act." He is also regarded as a founder and leader of the independent living movement by people with disabilities in the U.S.
Judith Ellen Heumann was an American disability rights activist, known as the "Mother of the Disability Rights Movement". She was recognized internationally as a leader in the disability community. Heumann was a lifelong civil rights advocate for people with disabilities. Her work with governments and non-governmental organizations (NGOs), non-profits, and various other disability interest groups, produced significant contributions since the 1970s to the development of human rights legislation and policies benefiting children and adults with disabilities. Through her work in the World Bank and the State Department, Heumann led the mainstreaming of disability rights into international development. Her contributions extended the international reach of the independent living movement.
Ilan Gilon was an Israeli politician. He served as a member of the Knesset for the Meretz and the Democratic Union alliance in three spells between 1999 and 2021.
Attanayake Mudiyanselage Kithsiri Senarath Bandara Attanayake known as Senarath Attanayake was a Sri Lankan politician and lawyer. He was a recipient of the 2016 Henry Viscardi Achievement Award. He was also a member of the Uva Provincial Council, Sri Lanka and was the Minister of Agriculture, Irrigation, Livestock, Land and Forestry of the Uva Provincial Council from 2000 to 2005 as well as the acting Chief Minister for a brief period during this tenure. Attanayake is the first person with a disability in Sri Lanka to be an elected representative and a lawyer and the only person with a disability to hold a ministerial portfolio.
Dr. Gary Birch, is a Canadian Paralympian, an expert in brain–computer interface (BCI) technology and executive director of the Neil Squire Society. In 1975, Dr. Birch was involved in an automobile accident which resulted in injuries to the C6 and C7 area of his spine making him a low-level quadriplegic. He was one of the original players of Murderball, and won several medals in the 1980 Summer Paralympics in the Netherlands. In 2008, he was appointed an Officer of the Order of Canada. He continues to champion accessibility through his Research and Development work in assistive technologies at the University of British Columbia, the Rick Hansen Institute, and the Neil Squire Society.
Gregory Dimitri Gadson is an American actor, motivational speaker, retired colonel in the United States Army and former commander of the U.S. Army Fort Belvoir garrison. He is also a bilateral above-the-knee amputee. He served in the U.S. Army for more than 20 years as a field artillery officer and served on active duty for Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm, Operation Joint Forge, Operation Enduring Freedom, and Operation Iraqi Freedom.
Dr Satendra Singh is a medical doctor at the University College of Medical Sciences and Guru Tegh Bahadur Hospital, Delhi. A physiologist by profession, he contracted poliomyelitis at the age of nine months but went on to complete a Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery from Ganesh Shankar Vidyarthi Memorial Medical College, Kanpur and later on Doctor of Medicine in Physiology. He is the first ever Indian to win the prestigious Henry Viscardi Achievement Awards given to extraordinary leaders in global disability community. He is a noted disability activist especially for his sustained efforts in making public places accessible for disabled persons for which he was conferred National Award by President of India. He is also the first Indian to be awarded the MacLean Center for Clinical Medical Ethics fellowship at the University of Chicago. Singh had been involved in the synthesis of epibatidine analogues, leading to the discovery of epiboxidine. In contrast to RTI-336, which positions a 3-tolyl group on the isoxazole ring to the DAT receptor, a phenyl group was too sterically encumbered to be tolerated in the case of the nicotinic receptors. Although aromatic moieties seem to be tolerated at the mGlu5 receptor in the case of ADX-47273.
Susan E. Sygall is an American disability rights advocate and civil rights leader. She is the CEO of Mobility International USA (MIUSA), which she co-founded in 1981.
Caroline Casey is an Irish activist and management consultant. She is legally blind due to ocular albinism. In 2000, aged 28, she left her job in Accenture to launch the Aisling Foundation, with an aim to improve how disability is treated. In 2001, she trekked across India, solo, on elephant back for c.1,000 km, raising €250k for The National Council for the Blind of Ireland and Sightsavers. Casey became the first female mahout from the west. The journey was the subject of a National Geographic documentary Elephant Vision and a TED Talk.
Henry Viscardi Jr. (1912-2004) was an American disability rights advocate who championed the cause of equality and employment of disabled people in workforce. In 1952, on Eleanor Roosevelt's advice, he founded Abilities, Inc. which has now expanded to the Viscardi Center - a non-profit organization and global leader advocating for the empowerment of people with disabilities. To provide equal educational opportunities to children with disabilities of all ages, he founded the Human Resources School in Albertson, New York in 1952, which was later renamed the Henry Viscardi School in his honor. He served as advisor to several US presidents bringing many policy changes in the disability sector. He is also the author of the book Give Us The Tools. In his honour, the Viscardi Center in 2013 started the Henry Viscardi Achievement Awards to identify and recognize exemplary leaders from the disability community.
The Henry Viscardi Achievement Awards were established to honor the legacy of the founder of the Viscardi Center, Dr. Henry Viscardi, Jr., a leading disability rights advocate who wore prosthetic limbs. These international Awards, first conferred in 2013, recognize exemplary leaders in the disability sector around the globe who have had a profound impact on changing the lives of people with disabilities and championing their rights. Considered as most prestigious, these global awards honor champions of disability activism.
John D. Kemp is an American disability rights leader who co-founded the American Association of People with Disabilities and is currently the president and chief executive of the Lakeshore Foundation in Birmingham, Alabama.
The Viscardi Center is a non-profit organization in Albertson, New York, dedicated to educating, empowering and employing people with disabilities. It was founded in 1952 by Henry Viscardi, Jr., a noted disability activist, who was also advisor to eight US Presidents on matters pertaining to disability policies. John D. Kemp is the current President of the Viscardi Center.
Marilyn E. Saviola was an American disability rights activist, executive director of the Center for the Independence of the Disabled in New York from 1983 to 1999, and vice president of Independence Care System after 2000. Saviola, a polio survivor from Manhattan, New York, is known nationally within the disability rights movement for her advocacy for people with disabilities and had accepted many awards and honors for her work.
Abha Khetarpal is an Indian disability rights activist and counsellor based in New Delhi, India. She is the founder of Cross The Hurdles – a counselling/educational resource website and mobile application designed for people with disabilities.
