Toshiya Kakiuchi

Toshiya Kakiuchi is a Japanese businessman, the founder and president of Mirairo Inc., and also the representative of the board of directors of Japan Universal Manners Association, which provides education and certification especially focused on manners regarding elderly and people with disabilities. Kakiuchi was born in Aichi Prefecture in 1989 with a disease that makes his bones weak and brittle. Since the age of 4, his disease has caused 20 bone fractures and had over a dozen surgeries, leaving him wheelchair-bound. While studying in Ritsumeikan University (in Kyoto), he came up with many business plans from his view-point of a person in a wheelchair and won 13 business competitions. With the concept of changing a handicap into a value, “Barrier Value”, he established Mirairo Inc. which provides consulting services in the field of universal design, such as facility planning, product research and development, and educational training. At the time of the Great East Japan Earthquake in 2011, he was involved in relief work by sending wheelchairs to the disaster area and soon after Mirairo has also conducted emergency drills with the Reconstruction Agency to explore disaster scenarios that require careful evacuation for disabled people. In 2014, he was elected as one of the top 100 CHANGEMAKERS in Japan by the Nikkei Business magazine. In 2015, he was inaugurated as the adviser of The Nippon Foundation Paralympic Support Center and has released Bmaps, an application on which we can collect and share accessibility information of various places including accommodations and restaurants. In 2016, he began duties as an advisor to The Tokyo Organizing Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games.