Born with cerebral palsy, Emik Avakian (1923 in Tabriz, Iran - 2013 in Chicopee, Massachusetts) earned a bachelor’s degree from Eureka College (Illinois) and a master’s degree from Columbia University, and went on to invent several apparatuses that today help handicapped persons become more self-sufficient.

Avakian’s inventions include the Cybertype, Cyberphone, and Cybercom, all of which enable disabled persons to communicate with more ease. Among his other inventions are a counterweighted system that makes it easier to put wheelchairs in cars, and a self-propelled robotic wheel for converting manual wheelchairs to automatic.

Avakian was honored by President John F. Kennedy in 1961 for the “Most Outstanding Contribution to Employment of the Handicapped.”