In the UK, around 25% of the population, Pete points out, is disabled. If this massive community were given more meaningful control over the products and services they use, an eco-system of creativity and progress would surely thrive.
His Fellowship report, Building Innovation Through Lived Experience of Disability, is essentially a blueprint for overcoming innovation frustration. Let disabled innovators pilot their own path – but support them too while doing it.
Innovation, he says with some frustration, is too often talked about in terms of tech. “But I think we need to promote that ideas we have from our lived experience can be used for social change. I think that’s more effective. If you overly focus on tech, for example, then you’re going to be inhibiting so much potential for development.”
The disabled community has serious spending muscle. “The spending power of the disabled UK community is valued at £274 million a year,” says Pete, despite unfairly higher day-to-day costs.
So, did the Fellowship help him re-set goals for The Wheelchair Skills College? “I need [now] to influence system change from within,” he replies, “building credibility and speaking the same language as decision makers”.
“I feel that the next step for me is to research further into community-based wheelchair skills training to build a more robust evidence case, and I am planning to undertake a PhD to do this.”