Last week Forbes released its inaugural Accessibility 100, honoring the world’s top innovators and impact-makers in the field of accessibility. The publication rightly defined “accessibility” broadly—as a value that benefits not only people with disabilities, but society as a whole.
“The field has emerged as a bustling innovation hub, an educational imperative and—unapologetically—an untapped business opportunity,” editor Alan Schwartz noted in his introduction. “If you’ve ever rolled a stroller over a sloped curb, watched closed captions, or used an electric toothbrush, you can thank disability R&D.”
Forbes’ list included about a dozen honorees that focus primarily on limb loss; you’ve read about most of them in Amplitude over the years. Like any endeavor of this kind, the Accessibility 100 provides much-deserved recognition to agents of positive change, while omitting equally deserving candidates. We would’ve loved to see some appreciation for organizations such as No Limbits, the Range of Motion Project, Becoming Rentable, ZBD Talent, or Levitate (to name a few off the top of our head). They, too, are making the world more accessible. We hereby nominate them all for next year’s list.
As for this year, here are the major representatives of Limb Loss Nation who made Forbes’ first-ever Accessibility 100.
So EveryBODY Can Move
This is our favorite selection, because it pays tribute to such a broad cross-section of the limb-loss community. SEBCM is a true grassroots coalition uniting thousands of ordinary amputees across the country, with support from medical professionals, number crunchers, policy experts, celebrity athletes, political pros, and assorted other allies. It’s proof positive that each of us can make an impact if we work hard, work smart, and work together. Since its launch in 2023, the movement has passed bills in 12 states—nearly halfway to its goal of 28 states by 2028. Check out our state-by-state rundown of every SEBCM bill, then read our May 2023 feature about the campaign’s inception.
Angel City Sports
The first time we interviewed Ezra Frech, he was a high school sophomore trying to deal with the craziness of COVID. Even then, with all the distractions, he was laser-focused on two things: winning Paralympic gold, and transforming the way people understand parasports and disability. He checked the first box last fall in Paris, topping the podium not only in the T63 high jump (as expected) but also in the T63 100m. He’s still working on the second objective through Angel City, the nonprofit Frech’s family established when he was still in grade school. Angel City is working hand in glove with the planning committee for the 2028 LA Paralympics; those Games will surely accelerate the momentum Frech & Co. have built over the last 12 years.
Embla Medical (Össur)
Forbes recognized Össur’s parent company for investing in new technology, working to bring down the price of prosthetics, and convincing insurers (both in the US and abroad) that more generous coverage for assistive technology is a smart business move. “When individuals are more mobile, they’re less likely to have other health problems,” Embla CEO Sveinn Sölvason told Amplitude a couple of years ago. “The more people that are using bionics and advanced prosthetic solutions, the more you’ll have a healthier and less costly patient population. We need to constructively influence the payers to look at it that way.” True to Sölvason’s word, Össur played an important role in convincing Medicare to extend coverage of MPK devices to K2 ambulators, a huge win for lower-limb amputees.
Koalaa
A UK-based manufacturer of upper-limb prosthetics, Koalaa plays down whiz-bang technology in favor of values that matter more to everyday amputees: comfort, affordability, and modular function. The company has an ever-expanding catalogue of activity-specific attachments, equipping amputees to cook, swim, do yoga, play musical instruments, play sports, and dozens of other common tasks. “We’re very much focused on equity, and knocking down barriers for individuals who don’t have access to kind of any wellness activities,” Koalaa ambassador Nicole Brennan told Amplitude in 2023. The company is making a global impact, viz. this recent study in Nature Scientific Reports about Koalaa’s uptake in Uganda.
MIT/Hugh Herr
This is such an obvious choice that it almost seems unnecessary. But how could you not include this guy? Even though Herr has been in the avant garde of prosthetic innovation for 20-plus years, he shows no signs of slowing down. He’s advancing on so many frontiers that Forbes didn’t even try to enumerate them all in its writeup. They might have cited Herr’s current breakthroughs re amputation surgery, neuroprosthetic devices, and/or socket fitting and fabrication. And no doubt there’s plenty of other stuff happening in his lab that we haven’t heard about yet, but will be hearing about soon.
Nike
Two amputees helped design one of the accessibility products Forbes cited in its Nike writeup: the FlyEase. “This shoe might be for people who we would define as disabled,” shoe designer Rich Ramsay (a congenital upper-limb amputee) told Amplitude. “But it could also be for people who have arthritis, or they have a back injury and can’t bend over, or their dexterity is limited because they’re aging.” Nike is applying the same universal-design principles in its EasyOn line, which includes running shoes and backpacks.
Circleg
We were not familiar with this Swiss company until last fall, when the Circleg entered the lower-limb prosthesis category at Cybathlon 2024. The company’s super-affordable prosthetic knee, foot, pylon, and cover emphasis affordability and accessibility, with emphasize on underserved global regions such as Africa. Forbes honored the company as much for its community spirit as for its technological innovation. “To really support someone with an amputation, it has to go beyond the product,” co-founder Simon Oschwald told Forbes. “There’s psychosocial support, the building community, the journey with information and knowledge.”
Hopper Prosthetics
We admit we never heard of this company until they showed up on the Accessibility 100. The startup’s affordable running blades (made from recycled aircraft metal) didn’t become commercially available in Europe until 2022, and they still haven’t reached the US market (although that’s reportedly in the offing). “When some people try our blade, the first thing that they say to us is, ‘Oh wow, I just felt the wind on my face,'” co-founder Lou-Emmanuelle Leclercq told Forbes.
