Finalist category: Tech4Good Special Award 2018
Tech4Good Special Award, Winner, 2018
We’re proud to say that the winner of this year’s Tech4Good Special Award is Lewis Hine – a social media phenomenon, a tireless disability rights campaigner and recently published the story of his life.
Every year we give a Tech4Good Special Award to someone in the public eye who captures the spirit of tech for good.
Years of hospital treatment meant Lewis Hine was unable to attend school and felt isolated and alone. Studies show that genuine friendships result in better health – but children who miss school due to chronic illness or disability miss out on friendships.
When he was 14 Lewis discovered that there are over 1 million children in the UK with a long-term illness or disability who don’t attend school regularly. That’s when he founded the charity Friend Finder Official and started using the power of social media to arrange Christmas parties, discos, wheelchair basketball, gaming sessions, soft play sessions, indoor skiing and much more.
Last year he and his friends organised the first ever Friend Finder Prom for chronically ill and disabled young people at the Guildhall in Portsmouth – and it was such a huge success that there will be three proms this year, including one at Google HQ in London.
His latest venture uses robots to create Prom in a Box – making proms accessible to children who are too ill to attend themselves. The robots give them the next best thing to actually being there, enjoying the fun along with their friends.
