Robert McKinna

He/Him
Founder, Inclusive Designer, Speaker
Inclus

Award category:

The Clare Gray Rising Star

Over the past year, I have successfully increased advocacy for the disability community, particularly in Inclusive Design, by growing a LinkedIn network of over 2,800 followers. Through my business, Inclus, we’ve executed Inclusive Design projects with various startups, ranging from redesigning earbud packaging to creating physiotherapy devices for children with disabilities. These projects, launched over the past 12 months, are set to impact over 185,000 disabled consumers in the UK alone.

When I started Inclus, the best advice I received was that being an entrepreneur is like riding a roller coaster – with extreme highs and lows. The key is to stay on the roller coaster as long as possible to keep moving toward your mission.

My motivation stems from my own experiences of inaccessibility due to my non-visible disabilities, such as dyspraxia and being a cancer survivor, as well as hearing from others in the disability community. The more I hear about inaccessibility with everyday consumer products, the more determined I am to create a more inclusive and equitably designed world.

I hope my journey shows that anyone can be part of the change, even from humble beginnings. While I am still at the beginning of my journey, it feels like we’re in the early chapters of disability rights, with much further to go and many more changes that we can make together.

“I am ecstatic to be included in the Disability Power 2024 within a list full of so many other amazing advocates and people that I look up to. It makes me so hopeful for the future of disability advocacy to see such brilliant people highlighted within this list”

Q&A

Robert McKinna
Allow yourself to go after your dreams. Sometimes as somebody with a disability it can feel like the world wants to stop you from going after your dreams and tells you that you can’t. What I have found is that with the right people, the right support, and the right mindset you can always find a way to pursue your dream.
The work that I do has been able to create greater awareness of disabled consumers for consumer product organisations helping them to understand how they can be better included. We have also helped to consult and aid with the redesigning of products that will directly empower more individuals within the disability community to use their everyday products with greater ease and accessibility.
Our future aspirations is to take the work and advocacy we are building and take it to larger national audiences as well as take our work to larger organisations. We ultimately want to make Inclusive Design the standard for all Product Organisations that should be met so to empower those from the disability community.
I am a passionate outdoors enthusiast doing lots of ultra trail running, hiking, and camping whenever I get the chance as well playing cricket throughout the summer.
Being able to spend time with my family, with my girlfriend, with my dog, sitting on top of a mountain and eating chocolate ice cream.
Very much a Dog’s person
People’s understanding of Non-visible disabilities. Society’s poor understanding of non-visible disabilities makes so many feel excluded, misunderstood, and unheard. I know I would feel more confident in my day to day life if others knew more about non-visible disabilities.
Hardware product and digital products inaccessibility. Digital product accessibility seems to be improving with legislation but still isn’t where it should be and hardware products are still really inaccessible due to the lack of consideration of the disability community. By making hardware and digital products accessible it will make them ultimately better designed for everybody to use.
Robert a young white male adult with brown/ginger hair wearing a navy blue jumper with light blue jeans is sat down in a blue fabric chair whilst holding a white 3D print prototype with a dexterity simulation glove on his right hand. This is within an office space with railings and large windows behind Robert as well as a large metal gong and wooden table in front of him. - Credit - Ziggy Lyons

Areas of expertise

Accessibility, Business, Community, Disability Advocacy, Engineering, Social Media influencing

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Image credits: Ziggy Lyons
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