A personal invitation to join us in enriching lives.
We have enabled over 2,000 people with severe disabilities to enjoy a more liberated life. We would like your support to help even more.
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Our Mission
Since we started, we have helped over 2,000 people have more control over how they live their lives. Our mission to help everyone enjoy that same sense of freedom and liberation that our unique powerchairs can deliver.
Our Approach
To make sure we get all the details correct we will carry out a detailed assessment of the owner's seating and other needs, which will define the specification for the powerchair.
The full assessment will normally take place at home or another suitable place near the prospective owner's home (often at a school or wheelchair clinic), but if their needs are complex it may be helpful to do this in our workshop in Cambridge. Here we have all the resources available to try out lots of different solutions so we can then design special controls or unusual seating if they are needed.
When the Dragon or SnapDragon is ready we ask the owner to come to Cambridge so that we can do the final adjustments to fit it exactly. During the final fitting day the owner will drive the chair to ensure the controls are suitable and we will also explain everything needed to know to make best use of the chair once it has gone to its new home.
We continue to support, advise and alter the equipment as the owner grows, learns and changes. Our powerchairs can be in use for as long as seven years, because of the expertise we bring.
Our Story
Dan Everard founded DragonMobility in 2005 as a Social Enterprise, meaning that any profits go straight back into DragonMobility's work. Dan designed the first commercially available elevating powerchair more than thirty years ago and he has combined his experience as the parent of a disabled daughter with his engineering expertise to create two elevating powerchairs for all ages.
Ruth Everard was diagnosed with Spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) shortly after birth and she began using the first chair developed by Dan before she was two years old. Dan developed a production version of that first chair called the Turbo and this was launched in 1984.
DragonMobility originally just sold one powerchair, known as the Dragon, which is designed for people up to 75kg and became available in 2005. Shortly after the launch of the Dragon, a second powerchair called the SnapDragon was launched for children up to 40kg and this is one of the only powerchairs available on the market for younger children - even for some who have not yet reached their first birthday.
DragonMobility has continued to build on more than 35 years of personal and professional experience with powerchairs, and the feedback from over 2,000 owners, to develop the Dragon, SnapDragon and accessories to give severely disabled people better and better means to express and demonstrate their potential.
Professor Stephen Hawking, in his Dragon.
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Our unique support design is in 3d
Each powerchair is bespoke built and programmed for the individual user. This starts with a personalized seat designed to support the owner comfortably throughout the day. The owner’s centre of perception is positioned at the centre of movement of the chair and the electronics are intuitive to drive - their brain does not need to translate their position with respect to the chair. They simply move where they want to be.
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Thousand lives Impacted
Most of the more than 2,000 powerchairs that the DragonMobility team have provided over the last thirty years have been chosen by the parents of younger severely disabled children..
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limitless
The impact our unique powerchairs have on our customers lives is truly without limits.
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August 2019
We have been honoured that our work has been recognised so many times, including nominations for the Conrad N. Hilton Humanitarian Prize and the Queen Elizabeth Award for Engineering. We are only able to reach a tiny percentage of those who need our work. I hope that you will consider contributing to our mission, so that we can be an empowering force for many more people worldwide”
Ruth Everard, Managing Director
Get Involved
You are invited to become a sponsor , partner or investor in our fantastic story.
join us
We are in the process of organising a series of events and creating opportunities to become involved with our work. Some of these events are strictly by invitation only. Please submit the form below to find out more.