Izzy Wheels - they're "re-inventing the wheel"

by Startacus Admin

People like to customise things - to put a personal touch on them. From flames or stripes down the side of your car (which make it go faster, obviously) to pink fuzzy dice hanging on the mirror; from plastering the underside of your skateboard with stickers and cutouts of Hulk to...whatever the hip young people do with hoverboards these days; from sticking a playing card through the spokes of your bike wheel to...tassles?

Around 2.2 million people in the US are wheelchair users, and around 800,000 people in the UK need a wheelchair on a permanent basis. That’s a lot more time spent in a wheelchair than anyone spends on their totally radical skateboard (we’re confident our groovy lingo is current), so why not give that set of wheels a personal touch?

Izzy Wheels is an Irish startup run by two sisters, Izzy and Ailbhe. In her final year of art college, Ailbhe began a project to ‘Empower the lives of people living with a long-term health condition’. In this project, she created arty, stylish wheel covers for her sister’s wheelchair. Born with Spina Bifida, Izzy is a permanent wheelchair user, and had always been frustrated by the lack of ways she could personalise her wheelchair, and so Ailbhe both solved this problem for her sister and birthed a business named after her in one.

The designs for the wheel covers are created by top artists and designers who can send in their portfolio to Izzy Wheels every few months. Customers can also arrange to have their own pictures on the covers, which are waterproof and scratch- and fade-resistant.

Back in April the sisters won this year’s Accenture Leaders of Tomorrow competition - a competition that aims to nurture and develop innovative ideas that could have a positive impact on society.

And just last month, Izzy Wheels took home the Audience Vote in the 2017 NDRC Investor Day, proving just how highly valued this young startup is by the people themselves.

We look forward to reporting back on this fab Irish startup as their business further develops. We like it a lot.

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• #innovation
• #izzy wheels
• #ndrc
• #accenture leaders of tomorrow competition
• #2017 ndrc investor day

Published on: 14th November 2017