Huy Nguyen

Disability advocate

2014 ACT Young Australian of the Year

A humanitarian engineer, advocate for people with disability, entrepreneur, traveller and portrait artist, Huy Nguyen was born in Vietnam and contracted polio when he was 18 months old.  Since then he’s used a wheelchair to get around.  His own physical challenges have given him a unique perspective when approaching real world engineering problems, and he lectures engineering students on the importance of inclusive design.  Huy is passionate about international development work, has facilitated disability programs in the Solomon Islands and Timor Leste, and is the founder of a social enterprise called Enable Development, which brings together passionate professionals to tackle the challenges of disability in our global community.  Huy is also the founder of EnableCanberra, an online resource which helps people with access needs to plan their visits to Canberra’s national institutions.  Huy understands that physical environments can exclude people, and he is determined to play his part in breaking down the barriers to a more inclusive society.