After becoming blind in his late 20s, designer and artist Marco Salsiccia had to learn to navigate the world through assistive technology—like a screen reader, software that speaks digital text and image descriptions aloud. Leveraging that experience, Salsiccia began work as an accessibility specialist, eventually working part-time at a well-known tech startup based in San Francisco (a key site of disability rights activism since the late ’60s).

University of Michigan pediatric neurologist Vivian Cheung made a name for herself studying rare genetic diseases, and in 2008 — when she was on the faculty at the University of Pennsylvania — was hired as a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator, an honor for which she received $1 million a year over the next 12 years to further her research. But after Cheung herself developed a genetic condition so rare it doesn’t have an official name, causing her to start losing her vision, HHMI decide

• Jordan Flowers was terminated while pushing for accommodations from his employer, Amazon. • Flowers lives with lupus nephritis, a type of lupus affecting his kidneys. • He's spent his time since his termination pushing for the certification of the Amazon Labor Union. As a cofounder of the Amazon Labor Union and its active predecessor, the Congress of Essential Workers, Jordan Flowers has been fighting for workers' rights at the retail giant. At the same time, Flowers, 24, is trying to contro

In 1992, in her mid-30s, Angèle Grenier, started her own maple syrup business. A native of Québec, Canada, she ran a sugar shack – where maple syrup is made – in Sainte-Clotilde-de-Beauce, Québec, which is more than 50 miles south of Québec City. The cold province produces around 70 percent of the world’s maple syrup supply, thanks in part to the region’s abundance of native sugar maples. Grenier’s small business was primed for success.