We are delighted to announce Kush Kanodia MBA as our newest Ambassador
Here is a message from Kush:
I am greatly honoured to be appointed an Ambassador for Disability Rights UK (DR UK).
My association with the charity goes back to 2010, when I graduated from RADAR's Leadership Development Programme and voted for the merger in 2011, which formed DR UK. I was also a member of DR UK’s London 2012 Paralympic Torch Bearing team. Last year, I completed three years of service as a Trustee, where I promoted the importance of programmes such as the Leadership Academy which empowers disabled leaders. The programme has successfully helped to enable and empower one of DR UK’s disabled graduates to become an Ambassador for the charity within a decade and join such an esteemed list of peers!
Currently, I am a systems leader and champion for equality and inclusion and am fortunate to have developed a portfolio career where I help advise some of the most innovative and pioneering organisations from around the globe. In 2018, I was chosen among the top 10 most influential BAME (Black, Asian, and Minority Ethnic) Leaders in technology at Parliament and was featured in the Financial Times. I am an adviser to the world’s first Global Disability Innovation Hub, the world’s first Museum of Happiness, and I am on the public board for the new National Institute for Health Data Science in the UK, Health Data Research UK. In 2019, I joined Kaleidoscope Investments as a Director. Kaleidoscope Investments helps disabled people to realise their dreams by empowering ambition beyond imagination.
I successfully campaigned for all the Premier League Football Clubs to comply with the Assessible Stadia Guide when a Trustee for Level Playing Field. I am now a Director and Trustee for the Centre for Accessible Football in Europe. I was re-elected as a Patient Governor for Chelsea Westminster NHS Foundation Trust where I have endeavoured to prevent the hospital from implementing a plan to charge for disabled car parking. In 2018, Wales abolished all car parking charges following Scotland’s decision to do the same. Unfortunately, the appointed executive of the Trust has recently announced at their Public board meeting on the 4th of July 2019 that they now plan to start charging for disabled parking, even though the elected Council of Governors have previously stated that they strongly opposed this policy. I am therefore, launching a new campaign which I am leading with DRUK to call for the abolishment of all disabled car parking charges for all NHS hospitals in England!
Stephen Hawking famously said, “Intelligence is the ability to adapt to change,” and with assistive technology, he was able to fulfil Alan Turing’s words of wisdom, “sometimes it is the people no one can imagine anything of, who do the things no one can imagine.” I imagine a world where not only a select few achieve this, but every one of the world’s 1.3 billion disabled people.
Please join us in our new campaign to create a fairer, more equal society for all disabled people: “Equal Participation for All,” this is the vision of DR UK.