By Mio Yamamoto | Executive Director
We would like to extend our heartfelt gratitude to your generous support.
If you are celebrating Thanksgiving and holiday seasons, we wish you a wonderful gathering with your loved ones.
In this report, we are thrilled to share about one of WIT Social Entrepreneurs' leap to expand to the world and how WIT has been supporting them.
Wheelog!(WIT Social Entrepreneur) is a nonprofit based in Japan that provides the world-only crowdsourcing map application for wheelchair users. By providing accessibility information, Wheelog! envisions to create a society where everyone can enjoy one's life regardless of disabilities or mobility challenges.
Yuriko Oda, Founder and CEO of Wheelog!, was diagnosed with distal mypathy, a rare genetic desease and became a wheelchair user. She realized that the lack of accessibility information of public and commercial facilities, transportatoin infrastructure, streets and more is hindering wheelchair users from going outside and enjoy their lives. This led to the creation of Wheelog! application that runs on Google Map. The map is available in English and Japanese, and now used not only by wheelchair users but also by stroller and cane users, and caregivers. (You can download Wheelog! app on iPhone and Android.)
WIT started providing Wheelog! with management and fundraising support in 2018, and since then, they have raised a lot of awareness in the global social innovation field -- winning the first prize in the Smart Settlements & Urbanization category of 2018 World Summit Award, Dubai Expo 2020 Impact Grant, and MIT SOLVE Challenge 2019. With the support of WIT Accelerators with business backgrounds, Wheelog! is currently developing a business model to create a bigger impact.
Wheelog! and WIT will be in Boston, Washington DC, and Denver in May 2019 to present Wheelog! work and connect with different organizations and communities in the US.
If you happen to be based in one of these locations, please do let us know! We would love to connect with you.
At WIT, we are excited to catalyze social impact by connecting innovative social entrepreneurs from Japan to the world, and hope to stay connected with you for further collaboration in the future.
With gratitude,
WIT Team
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