Alex Knoll

Alex Knoll is not your average 14-year-old. In addition to being a student, he’s also an inventor, entrepreneur, app creator, and public speaker.

Most of the Idaho resident’s initiatives revolve around being an advocate for those living with disabilities.

Disabilities

Disabilities are wide-ranging, including movement related ailments, sensory issues, cognition issues, developmental challenges, and others. They may be a result of a genetic defect, accident, rare disease, or other condition. People are born with disabilities, they develop over time, or they have a sudden onset. Some forms of disabilities are more common than others. Those whose disability affects just a small population of people may struggle more in terms of accessibility purely because their diagnosis is less common.

If there was a way for individuals who shared the same disability to communicate with one another and share data as well as experiences, the lives of all could be improved. Alex came up with a plan to make this idea a reality.

Ability App

Alex was first inspired to dedicate his life to helping those with disabilities when he saw a man in a wheelchair trying to enter a store that didn’t have an automatic push button. He had a vision of an app that those with disabilities could use to see what establishments had the resources to accommodate their needs. His idea was that the app would function very similarly to Yelp. People could select their disability from a dropdown menu and then search for the business in question.

He began developing the app, naming it Ability App.

His idea took off. Alex and his app have been featured on The Ellen DeGeneres Show (on which he received 25,000 dollars to support his project), BBC 3, Irish Times, Washington Times, and NBC Nightly News among many more. He says that after his appearance on The Ellen DeGeneres Show he had more than 30,000 people email him to express how life-changing they believed this app could be for them.

The app will be officially launching this year, but it’s not Alex’s only project.

Other Projects

In addition to the app, Alex has created a guidebook of “20 Simple Ways to Make Your Business More Accessible for Customers With Disabilities.”

He also aspires to make a job board on his Ability App.

Alex has been homeschooled for the past four years so that he could work on these projects. However, he will be attending a normal high school this fall. He’s excited to begin a new routine, however he has no plans on slowing down his work on the Ability App, he just may need to arrange his time a little differently.