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David Constantine is the Founder Director of Motivation, a charity which initiates self-sustaining projects to enhance the quality of life of people with mobility disabilities. Following a diving injury in Australia in 1982, David became a full time wheelchair user.
Only twenty-one years old, he was planning to pursue a career in agriculture but the accident left him a C4/5 quadriplegic. Following his injury he completed a degree in Computing & Accounting and Finance. David then worked for IBM for two years in the Workstation Development Team at IBM Laboratories in Winchester. He decided to change career and subsequently completed an MA in Computer Related Design at the Royal College of Art (RCA) in 1990.
While at the RCA David, along with fellow student, Simon Gue designed an award-winning wheelchair for the developing world. Together with Richard Frost they travelled to Bangladesh to test their design, and in 1991 returned to set up production of their design in a workshop at the Centre for the Rehabilitation of the Paralysed. Motivation was founded as a UK non-profit organisation and since worked in over 120 countries and reached over 180,000 beneficiaries. It is one of the few organisations that deals with both the design and provision of mobility products and services and the wider social and economic needs of people with mobility disabilities. Between 2006 and 2008, Motivation were part of the World Health Organization (WHO) team that published the WHO ‘Guidelines on the provision of Manual Wheelchairs in less resourced settings’. These Guidelines have gone a long way to improving the quality of design and provision of mobility equipment in less resourced settings.
David is also a keen photographer whose work has been exhibited throughout the UK and USA.