Mohammed Asif Iqbal, a Principal Consultant with consulting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC) is one such personality who has accomplished his vision. I had an opportunity to meet him in CSR-CSO Bridge 2012 during a conference ‘Taking India Forward: Inclusive and Sustainable’ on 17 Feb 2012 at CII, Chandigarh.

Iqbal is a completely blind person who lost his eyesight at the age of sixteen due to a genetic disorder. He was the first visually impaired person to graduate from St. Xavier’s College, Calcutta, in Commerce. Later, he became the first visually impaired person to be awarded an MBA (HR) Certificate from the Center for Management & Human Resource Development, Pune. He was honored with State Role Model Disability Award by the Governor of West Bengal. He is also the proud recipient of National Award constituted by President of India. Not only this, Dr. A.P.J. Kalam, former President of India, reorganized his services for outstanding role model disabled Indian citizen.

The vision of this visually impaired person is to educate business leaders on the concept that hiring people with disability makes business sense and by 2020, the top 100 Indian companies should have 5% work force comprising of people with disability. He is presently working with PWC, and works with the help of software installed on his laptop, computers and cell phones.

I was astonished to see his masterly skills as a moderator during the first session of the conference on 17 Feb, 2012 at CII, Chandigarh. At the end of the conference he summed up the deliberations of the speakers in a very meticulous way with commendable observations. Persons like him are indeed the role models for many others who will get inspiration from him to accomplish their vision.