Beyond Barriers: 25 people making the world more accessible for 2025

Inclusive travel has come a long way in recent years. It’s almost like the travel industry has finally begun to understand more clearly that Disabled travellers are, well, travellers. And who do we have to thank for this progress? The unstoppable, stereotype-shattering champions of accessibility who, like me, are dedicated and determined to turn inaccessibility barriers into a concept as outdated as a fold-out road map. In the first Beyond Barriers column of the year, I’m shining a well-deserved light on 2025’s twenty-five most important trailblazers for the world of accessible and inclusive travel.

1. Jeremy Williams, Making Trax Foundation

Founder of the Inclusive Tourism charity Makingtrax Foundation, Jeremy (Jezza) Williams is helping redefine New Zealand’s reputation as the adventure capital of the world by ensuring it is accessible to all. The former mountaineering guide sustained a high-level spinal cord injury while canyoning in Switzerland in 2010. He has since become a driving force for accessible tourism, changing his career focus to advocacy and activism. Williams brings unflinching honesty to his motivational talks and inspires ingenuity with his product designs, empowering both tour operators and Disabled adventurers in equal measure. This year, he’s set to launch Adapting Aotearoa, an initiative delivering education, resources, and practical solutions to tour operators across Aotearoa.

2. Stephanie Sheehy, Costa Rica Accessible Tourism Network

Sheehy, a trailblazing Costa Rican tourism professional, co-founded Il Viaggio Travel in 2005 with her husband, Emilio Zúñiga. Together, they have transformed Costa Rica into a firm favourite for travellers and industry professionals – Wheel the World founder Alvaro Silberstein credits Sheehy for achieving “extraordinary results”. Her impact doesn’t stop there; in 2017, she co-founded the Costa Rican Accessible Tourism Network, a nonprofit championing inclusive travel through training, information, and infrastructure development. One of her standout initiatives uses recycled plastics to create accessible beach facilities.

3. Christian Bagg, Bowhead

Bagg, a Calgary-born inventor and mechanical designer, channelled his own personal adversity into creating a groundbreaking innovation following a 1996 snowboarding accident that left him paralysed from the waist down. In 2018, he founded Bowhead Corp. as Chief Technology Officer and developed Bowhead adaptive bikes. These bikes have enabled hundreds worldwide to speed down mountain bike trails and bask in the joy of being in the great outdoors. This year, the company will launch the highly anticipated Era wheelchair, the world’s first adjustable chair designed for manual wheelchair users.

4. Darren Edwards, Adaptive Expeditions

Edwards is a record-breaking British adaptive adventurer, acclaimed keynote speaker, and best-selling author. Following a life-changing climbing accident in 2016 that left him paralysed from the chest down, Edwards didn’t stop. Instead, like all great adventurists, he powered on and soon after led several expeditions, including kayaking the length of Britain and becoming the first wheelchair user to complete the World Marathon Challenge – seven marathons on seven continents in seven days. He recently launched Adaptive Expeditions, a tour company helping others follow in his tracks and push boundaries, with expeditions to the Norwegian fjords and the North Pole.

5. Cara Yar Khan, GDI Hub

Born in India and raised in Canada, Humanitarian Yar Khan is on a mission to shake up the world of inclusion and innovation. She previously worked at the White House as an advisor on international disability rights and now works as a senior advisor to the UK-based Global Disability Innovation Hub. She supports the GDI Hub’s AT Growth Fund, a $100 million impact fund that aims to scale accessible and assistive tech ventures globally. She also stars in Facing the Falls, a documentary produced by Hillary and Chelsea Clinton, which follows her intrepid adventure on a wild Mustang through the Gand Canyon. With a TED Talk boasting more than 2.6 million views, Yar Khan operates in rarified air, reimagining the rules of travel, tech, and tenacity.

6. John Morris, Wheelchair Travel

John Morris is the founder of Wheelchair Travel, a comprehensive resource for Disabled travellers. His firsthand experiences as a wheelchair user fuel his mission to make travel more inclusive, engaging with businesses and governments to remove barriers. Morris’s insightful blog provides practical advice, destination guides, and advocacy for wheelchair-accessible air travel worldwide.

7. Daniel Gatura, Ace Mobility

Gatura is transforming the way Kenya moves. As the co-founder of Ace Mobility, he’s the man behind the country’s first accessible ride-hailing service – a game-changer for those who’ve long faced barriers to travel. Inspired by his father’s experiences following a spinal cord injury, Ace Mobility’s vehicles – equipped with swivel seats, wheelchair ramps, and caregiver-trained drivers – deliver safe, dignified, and inclusive transport for people with similar impairments, as well as the elderly and anyone needing extra support.

8. Tanzila Khan, travel blogger & Activist

Khan is a Pakistani entrepreneur, disability rights activist, and travel blogger. She founded GirlyThingsPK, a startup delivering sanitary products to women in Pakistan, aiming to make menstrual hygiene accessible for all. As a travel blogger, she has journeyed to over 20 countries, advocating for accessible travel and sharing her experiences to promote inclusivity. In recognition of her efforts, she received the inaugural Amal Clooney Women’s Empowerment Award from Prince’s Trust International.

9. Steve Nelson, Alaska Air

Nelson is charting a new course for accessible air travel. As the Accessibility Diversity Programme Manager at Alaska Airlines, he leads bold initiatives like the Fly for All app (which helps nervous or first-time travellers by providing step-by-step guides to flying) and self-driving wheelchairs at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. Now a member of Boeing’s advisory committee on the future of flight, he champions onboard mobility solutions and reimagined cabin designs while testing innovations to safeguard mobility aids during flights, making Alaska Air a leader in accessible air travel.

10. Mirjam Versteegh, Disabled Accessible Travel

Described by inclusive travel guru Cory Lee as “incredible”, Versteegh, managing director of Disabled Accessible Travel, is on a mission to craft seamless and unforgettable adventures around the world. Since taking the company’s helm in 2017, she launched the innovative Accessaloo app, helping users locate accessible restrooms anywhere.

11. Bill Harkness, Boeing

Harkness is Boeing Commercial Airplane’s first engineering accessibility leader, bringing more than 18 years of engineering experience to the company. As a deaf individual, he offers a unique perspective on accessibility and is passionate about integrating inclusive practices across Boeing’s products, hiring processes, and work environments. Harkness co-founded the Boeing Employees Ability Awareness Association and has been instrumental in establishing accessibility initiatives within the company.

12. Kelly Twichel, Access Trax

Growing up in San Diego, Kelly Twichel watched her mother’s incredible resilience after a stroke reshaped their world, inspiring her to pursue a career in occupational therapy. While earning her master’s degree at the University of St. Augustine, a class project sparked the idea for Access Trax: portable mats designed to help adaptive surfers roll over sand and reclaim their independence on the beach. Since launching in 2018, Kelly has made waves, literally and figuratively, breaking down barriers to outdoor adventures for the surfing community and beach lovers, as well as adapting the use of Access Trax across snow, mud and other otherwise inaccessible terrains.

13. Joe Stone, Dovetail Trail Consultancy

Stone is the co-founder of Dovetail Trail Consulting, a company specialising in adaptive recreation and universal trail design. After a 2010 flying accident resulted in an incomplete C7 quadriplegia, Stone refused to accept that his ability to access nature was limited. Through Dovetail, Joe collaborates with land management agencies and trail organisations across the US to assess and enhance trail accessibility, enabling us to get deeper into the wilderness than ever before.

14. Hans Jørgen Wiberg, Be My Eyes

Wiberg is a Danish inventor and entrepreneur best known for founding Be My Eyes, a mobile app that connects blind and low-vision individuals with sighted volunteers through live video calls. Diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa, a condition leading to gradual vision loss, Wiberg was inspired to develop the app that has now grown into a global community, facilitating assistance in over 180 languages and across more than 150 countries. Their recent partnership with Hilton Hotels and Meta will facilitate travellers who are blind or low vision to travel with greater confidence.

15. Amy Wood, Salesforce

In her role as accessibility manager at Salesforce, Wisconsin’s Amy Wood has introduced accessibility features at major global events, benefiting thousands. A passionate advocate who has spoken at the United Nations, she is now focussed on expanding the Traveller’s Requiring Special Assistance (TRSA) Desk to Europe. She will be leading Salesforce’s Accessible Travel Task Force to promote inclusive design and accountability in the travel industry, ensuring safer, more equitable experiences for Disabled employees worldwide.

16. Paula Hansen, World Accessible Holidays

Inspired by her personal journey as a parent to a son with cerebral palsy, UK-based Paula Hansen founded World Accessible Holidays, a travel agency dedicated to providing stress-free, accessible travel experiences for multi-generational families. Current projects include improving EasyJet Holidays’ assistance processes and hosting monthly accessible travel events, with the next one taking place in Antalya.

17. Ignatios Fotiou, SeaTrac

Ignatios Fotiou, a Greek engineer and co-founder of TOBEA, created a game-changing invention: SEATRAC, a solar-powered marvel that lets people with mobility challenges glide independently into the sea. Since 2012, this ingenious device has transformed over 220 beaches in Greece, Cyprus, Italy, and Latvia into havens of accessibility.

18. Meegan Winters, Able Eyes

Meegan Winters’s background in special education inspired her to create Able Eyes, a platform dedicated to enhancing accessibility through virtual tours of public spaces. As CEO and co-founder, Winters created the “Know Before You Go” system, which provides 360-degree virtual tours of galleries, museums and other public addresses, reducing anxiety and uncertainty for travellers visiting new places.

19. Susanna Gäumann, Accessible Switzerland Tour

Gäumann is the Swiss project leader of the Accessible Switzerland Tour, an initiative by the Claire & George Foundation to promote barrier-free travel across Switzerland. Launched in 2023, the tour connects travellers with disability-friendly highlights across the country, ensuring that accommodations, restaurants, and attractions cater to all. Gäumann emphasises the importance of selecting hotels and restaurants that don’t compromise aesthetic for functionality.

20. Ed Collett, Air New Zealand

Father of two boys with disabilities, Ed Colette is a passionate advocate for accessibility and innovation in aviation. He’s been instrumental in advancing accessibility initiatives at Air New Zealand, including the airline’s soon-to-launch in-flight entertainment system designed for passengers with vision, auditory, motor, or neurodivergent needs created in partnership with organisations like Deaf Aotearoa and Blind Low Vision New Zealand. Ed also led the adoption of the Hidden Disabilities Sunflower Lanyard programme and pioneered the world’s first New Zealand Sign Language flight, where all onboard communications were delivered in NZSL.

21. Jake Steinman, TravelAbility

Jake Steinman is the founder and CEO of TravelAbility. With over 30 years in the travel industry, Steinman is a stalwart of the accessible travel movement. He founded North American Journeys, producing events like the eTourism Summit Emerging Markets. Through TravelAbility, he offers resources, training, and conferences to educate the travel sector on inclusivity.

22. Shane Hryhorec, Accessible Beaches Australia

Shane Hryhorec is a visionary advocate for accessibility, reshaping the travel experience for people with disabilities in Australia. As the founder of Push Mobility, he provides stylish and functional mobility solutions and through his initiative Accessible Beaches Australia, Shane has transformed over 110 beaches into inclusive spaces. His YouTube channel, Wheel Around the World, captures his travel adventures, offering practical tips for accommodations and destinations.

23. Roberto Castiglioni, Reduced Mobility Rights

Roberto is a much-respected aviation accessibility consultant, senior researcher at the INCLAVI Erasmus+ project, and policy lead at Rights on Flights. With over a decade of experience, he is dedicated to ensuring equal access to air travel for all, focusing on dignity and confidence for Disabled passengers. He has worked with regulators, airlines, and airports to develop practical, cost-effective accessibility solutions. In 2022, Roberto was awarded an MBE for his contributions to aviation accessibility. His mission is clear: to make air travel inclusive and enjoyable for everyone, including his son, who has a disability, one flight at a time.

24. Emily Yates, Mima

Yates, a British wheelchair user with cerebral palsy, heads up the accessibility and inclusive design initiatives at Mima, a human-centred design agency. She has worked as accessibility lead for COP28 in Dubai and has written accessibility guides and handbooks for companies (including VisitEngland’s Accessible and Inclusive Tourism Toolkit for Businesses.

25. Geoff Babb, AdvenChair

Geoff Babb, a former fire ecologist and avid outdoorsman from Bend, Oregon, suffered a near-fatal brain stem stroke in 2005. Determined to continue exploring nature, Geoff collaborated with friends to develop the AdvenChair, an all-terrain wheelchair designed to navigate rugged landscapes. The AdvenChair features mountain bike components, including large wheels and adjustable handlebars, enabling users to traverse trails and outdoor environments that standard wheelchairs cannot.

Handcycle Heaven

Author: Seth McBride
New Mobility Magazine
July 1, 2019

I drive north to see a guy about an adaptive bike. 850 miles, one international border, five cups of coffee and a night sleeping in the back of my car on the edge of a quiet lake in Central British Columbia. It’s a long journey, especially because I don’t even know if I have the function to ride the thing. But I’d been waiting a long time for a piece of equipment like this. Seventeen years, to be precise. Ever since I broke my neck while on a summer ski trip not far from here.

Now after many hours of analyzing Instagram videos and one phone call to get details the internet didn’t provide, I think that maybe, just maybe, a machinist in Calgary has done it — designed a product that could allow me, with weak hands and little core function, to access the wilderness in a way that’s been unavailable since my accident.

Ten hours from home, I wind along a river colored milky turquoise with glacial runoff and flanked by forest and high mountains. This landscape stirs a fire that’s been in me since I was a kid exploring my Southeast Alaska home. For the first time in a long time, I don’t immediately tamp it down.

The World Isn’t Flat.

When I first roll onto Christian Bagg’s deck and see the Bowhead Reach, it’s clear that he has created something unlike anything else out there. It has two 20-inch wheels up front that are dwarfed by an enormous fat bike wheel in the rear. There are no cranks. Power is delivered to the rear wheel via a 3,000-watt electric motor attached to a handlebar-mounted twist throttle. These features are all important, but the Reach’s party piece is the front end — a lattice work of pivoting metal that allows the two front wheels to articulate independently of the trike’s main frame. This articulation is what has brought me here, as it allows the Reach to cope with terrain in a way that no other adaptive bike can.

Bagg grew up in Calgary, with the surrounding mountains serving as his teenage playground. After he graduated high school, he started an apprenticeship as a machinist, learning how to make custom parts for the engineering program of the local university. In 1996, he was two years into the program when he over-rotated a backflip while competing at a snowboard big air competition and broke his back — spinal cord injury at T8.

After the injury, he remained active — handcycling, pushing a racing chair — but the adaptive equipment avail¬able in the mid-1990s wasn’t really capable of taking him into the kind of wilderness he’d explored pre-accident. Cross-country sit-skiing was an exception, even though he describes the technology as “basically a shopping cart on skis.” In the winter, he’d hit the trails. “That was my adventur-y kind of thing — go off in the middle of nowhere and get freaked out that I’d never make it home.”

But pushing farther into the backcountry eventually pushed Bagg to the limits of his shopping cart. About eight years ago, he went with his wife and a few friends on a cross-country ski trip. When they got off the groomed trail, everything started to go sideways. “It was snowing, and my poles were sinking deeper and deeper. Every time I went by a tree, one ski dropped into the tree well and I’d tip over. Or I’d end up on a sustained side slope, and I’d be uncomfortably twisted trying to battle this thing,” he says. Progress slowed to a crawl, and his wife and friends had to help him struggle along. “This isn’t how I want this to go down,” he thought. “I don’t want to be cheered on.” The frustrations of that experience made one thing clear: “I need to figure out this fucking leaning problem, because the world I want to play in isn’t flat.”

Up until now, the biggest issue in adaptive off-road design has been how to deal with side slopes. A fixed base — like on a typical handcycle, a wheelchair or a cross-country sit-ski — provides stability, but when you’re traversing a slope, the entire frame has to angle to meet it. As the rider, you have to lean up the fall line to stop yourself from tipping over, which puts you in an awkward position to steer or crank.

Putting his machinist training to work, Bagg came up with an idea for a pivoting frame that would attach to his seat and give the skis a limited approximation of the articulation that human knees typically supply — if the slope dropped away on one side, a single ski could drop with it while his seat bucket stayed vertical. Bagg manufactured a prototype, and to his surprise, it worked. Not that Bagg was stabbing in the darkness. He was already in the adaptive design business, having cofounded the manual wheelchair company Icon alongside Canadian Paralympian Jeff Adams. Still: “As a designer and builder of things, very often things don’t work,” he says. “And my expectation isn’t ever that they do [right away], just that it’s the start of the process. … But this one worked.”

Now Bagg had a ski that he could take off-trail. After a winter of testing, he started to build an improved version. He was in the process of cutting the parts when he spied an off-road handcycle that he’d been slowly designing and evolving but so far remained unimpressed with. “What if I just turn this thing upside down, and bolt it to the front of the bike?” Bagg thought in a flash of inspiration. He did, and again it worked. “Now all of a sudden I can lean into corners. I can accommodate side slopes. It’s doing everything I want it to do,” he says.

Let’s Just Go Biking.

The bike that I see sitting on Bagg’s deck is the result of seven years of development, redevelopment and refinements — this is a high-performance machine, with the components to match. But really, he says, “It’s all about the leaning. If McLaren designed our suspension system and took away the leaning, it would be garbage. Whereas if we had the leaning and low-end shocks from Sears, it would still be better than a Sport-On [a competitor] with a Fox shock. [The leaning] is what allows it to be narrow, which allows you to not have to go on accessible trails. It’s what lets you not dive into the outside of a corner when you’re turning. Performance-wise, it’s key, but it’s also key safety-wise. It just doesn’t tip like the other bikes.”

I put on a helmet and transfer into the seat. Bagg is nervous. This bike is his baby since before he had real babies, and he’s proud of it. But he really wants me to like it too. He helps me remove the pin that locks out the front end. The bike wiggles but I stay upright. I tentatively move the cranks side to side, leaning myself a few degrees to the left, then the right. I smile. I might be able to control it.

I take it for a slow spin around the neighborhood. After 17 years of riding handcycles, I feel like a 4 year old who has just taken off the training wheels. I ride it for 20 minutes, taking it up, down and across some grassy hills at a local park. Bagg tails me on his road handcycle, hoping I don’t fall over. I’m wobbly and unsure of my movements, but I can tell that’s an issue with skill, not function.

With power available at the flick of my thumb, it’s a little strange how easily the Reach ascends steep hills and powers over soft dirt. Originally Bagg designed the Reach to be powered by an arm crank. He’s an athlete, the kind of super para who has ceiling-mounted climbing holds that he sometimes uses to ascend and descend the stairs to his basement workshop. At first he was militantly anti-motor. Then he had a potential customer who was adamant that he needed a mo¬tor on the bike, so Bagg put a motor on it. “That’s when I realized I was never going to go back to a hand crank, at least not for this.” he says. “There are a thousand different ways I can get exercise, but I cannot have the kind of fun, or keep up with people or have the kind of access with a hand crank as I can with a motor.”

Before, when he’d go riding or exploring with friends, it was all about him. Which trails, what pace, he was always the limiting factor. His friends were happy to assist, but they were always assisting. Adventure was never on equal ground. Once he’d put the motor on the Reach, the speed it offered, along with the ability to cope with narrow trails and off-camber slopes, meant that all of a sudden, he could ride with friends on their terms.

The first time Bagg realized this was when he went to meet a friend for a ride. The friend was a professional triathlete, the kind of guy who is great to have around in case something goes wrong. When Bagg got to the trailhead, there were 15-20 people milling around, getting their mountain bikes ready. “What’s going on?” Bagg asked.

“It’s the Wednesday ride,” his friend replied nonchalantly.

“Oh, are we … we’re not … I’m not going on this,” said Bagg, trying to beg off. “I’m not ready for this.”

“Dude, it’s ready,” his friend assured. “It’s a bike. You go bike speed on bike trails, so let’s just go biking.”

Real Versatility.

Ryan St. Lawrence was a mountain bike racer who was injured while riding some training laps on a local trail. After his T4 spinal cord injury, he tried everything from kneelers to a bucket bike (essentially a typical, two-wheeled mountain bike with a bucket seat and an electric motor bolted on). He didn’t love the other three-wheel bikes — the kneeling, headfirst position was uncomfortable and he hated the chest plate that you use to steer while pedaling. The bucket bike was a lot of fun, but he couldn’t get on and off it independently, and it wasn’t good for anything but riding flowy mountain bike trails.

After getting in touch with Bagg, St, Lawrence got his hands on a Reach. He was immediately impressed, not only with its capability but with its versatility. “I can take the Bowhead on a downhill mountain bike track … but I can also take my dog for a walk or just use it as a wheelchair on a grassy surface that would be hard for me to push on regularly,” he says. “I see the Bowhead as having so many more uses than just an aggressive downhill bike.”

One use Bagg likely never anticipated when he designed the Reach was as a cross-country touring machine. Janne Kouri, a C6 quad and the founder of NextStep, a network of functional rehab centers, recently used the Reach on a 3,000 mile ride from California to Washington, D.C., dubbed the “Ride for Paraylsis.” The Reach didn’t have a quad-friendly braking option until I asked for one, but Bagg has since developed a system that allows anyone with wrist-extension to control both front and rear brakes. The upright seating position and supportive chest harness make the bike a lot more quad-friendly than you’d imagine. Kouri, a power chair user, kept the front end locked out because he didn’t need the articulation on road.

He logged 60-plus miles a day on the bike, often at full throttle, for two months. Kouri is a big guy, and he put the bike through constant, long-haul work that it was never in¬tended for. But through the extreme conditions, the Reach held up with only minor issues. “In very hot weather, going over the Rockies, there were a few days the motor overheated and I had to pull over for 15 or 20 minutes and let it cool down,” Kouri told me from the road. “Overall it’s been amazing. It’s got me all the way to Memphis and ultimately to D.C. It’s a remarkable piece of equipment.”

Reintegration.

After begging and borrowing enough money to buy my own [see below], I’ve taken it to the beach with my family, where I was able to navigate soft sand independently for the first time since my SCI. I’ve taken it down forest paths with my 2-year-old son on my lap, keeping up with my wife as she runs trails. I’ve spent evenings pinning the throttle across open fields, grinning like a loon as I lock up the rear brake and practice drift turns through the dirt. I went riding along a gravel road and after spotting a trail wandering up a hill¬side and into the forest, I explored it with no regard to width, slope or supposed accessibility. I returned with a few scrapes and needed to dismount and wrestle the bike free from a tree, but I was otherwise pleased with the experience. I’ve sat at the top of a steep ridge, surveying the trail that passed over roots and around trees, and felt my breath shorten and a shiver rise up my shoulders as I decided whether I had the skill to safely descend.

This is what I was looking for when I drove to Calgary — a reintegration with the terrain and experiences that helped form me. In the words of former New Mobility editor Barry Corbet, I wanted “to transport myself instead of being transported. To go where I dared.”

Somehow the bike has delivered.

Issues with Innovation.

I love the Reach, but we’ve had our rough spots. My first mountain bike trail ride, I sheared through one of the steering linkages, and a friend had to splint it with athletic tape so I could limp back to the road. My first ride this spring, the controller had somehow fried the battery, and I lost power after a quarter of a mile. In both instances, I was pissed, and so was my wife. “If you’re going to pay that kind of money for a bike, it should work,” she fumed. I had no counter argument.

What kept my faith in the company, and the bike, was Bagg’s response. In the case of the steering linkage, he fabricated a new version, machined from aluminum instead of 3D printed material, and sent it express mail. Same with replacing the battery and controller. The problem with being an early adopter of a technology is that problems invariably arise. Bagg owned and resolved the issues, and the fixes are incorporated into the new versions of the bike. Sure, I wish I didn’t have to deal with them, but they’ve been taken care of as well as I could’ve expected.

The Elephant in the Room: Cost.

The Bowhead Reach retails for $15,000. If you’re choking on your sandwich, I’ll give you a moment to compose yourself. Continuing: There’s no question that 15K is a lot of money, especially for members of the disability community who have to pay every time they take a pee. But there are reasons for the price tag that have nothing to do with padded margins.

Bagg says that the Reach has about 100 unique parts that outside companies fabricate, in addition to the 30-40 the company makes on its own. Add in welding, machining, assembly, hydraulics, wiring, battery cells and everything else that goes into an electric vehicle, and the sticker price climbs quickly. “You could say, ‘If you’re putting electric vehicles on the table, look at Smart Cars — they’re 15 grand and have a hell of a lot more parts,’” Bagg acknowledges. “There are also mil¬lions of Smart Cars, and if I could make millions of bikes, they’d be $2,500 or less.”

Small adaptive equipment manufacturers aren’t able to benefit from the economy of scale. When you can only order in small batches, everything is more expensive. “This is a barely functional business model, as far as profit goes,” Bagg says. “The amount of work and money it takes to make a bike, the sales price just covers that.”

So what about everyone who can’t afford 15K? “We’re getting in contact with as many funding organizations as we can, as many provincial and federal parks as we can, to try and get the equipment out to people who don’t have the money. Because I do believe in that, and I do want everyone to be able to experience what I’ve experienced.”

Neuralink Reveals Working Brain-to-Machine Interface

In a live demonstration, Elon Musk revealed that Neuralink has successfully installed a working brain-to-machine interface inside a pig. Elon Musk’s brain-hacking company Neuralink demonstrated a working brain-to-machine interface in a live demonstration on August 28th.

The company revealed that a coin-sized computer had been installed in the brain of a pig called Gertrude. As the pig investigated its environment, the Neuralink device, hooked up to neurons connected to Gertrude’s snout, detected the neural activity. These spikes were rendered in real time on a graph and as a series of beeps.

Musk added that Gertrude has had the device installed in her brain for the past two months.READ MORE

Our Word: Just watch me

By Joel Dembe

At first, I was skeptical. Another expensive, overhyped gadget, right? I was certain it would distract me. Or that I wouldn’t use the ‘cutting-edge’ features cleverly advertised by Apple’s slick marketing team. More importantly, as someone who uses a wheelchair, I wasn’t sure those features would even work for me. Boy was I wrong.READ MORE