David Constantine

David Constantine is the Founder Director of Motivation, a UK registered charity which initiates sustainable projects that enhance the quality of life of people with mobility disabilities in low-income countries. When travelling around Australia in 1982, David misjudged a dive and broke his neck at level C4/5. He was twenty-one years old and planning to pursue a career in agriculture, but the accident left him a quadriplegic. After completing a degree in Computer Studies, David worked at IBM for two years and then took an MA in Computer Related Industrial Design at the Royal College of Art (RCA). While at the RCA David, along with fellow student Simon Gue, designed an award-winning wheelchair for the developing world. Together with Richard Frost they travelled to Bangladesh to test their design, and in 1991 returned to set up the first Motivation project, a workshop producing affordable and appropriate wheelchairs with a simple design. Since then Motivation’s work in over 100 countries has had an impact on the lives of many thousands of people with mobility disabilities. It is one of the few organisations to deal with both the design and provision of wheelchairs and wheelchair services that are trained to assess, prescribe, fit and follow-up wheelchair users. In 2010 David was awarded the MBE for services to disabled people.