Minnie Baragwanath is an author, coach, public speaker, independent consultant, and social innovator. As a leading advocate for people with access needs, Minnie has successfully changed the narrative from disability to accessibility and now to possibility. In 2011, Minnie founded Be. Accessible, a social enterprise working to make Aotearoa New Zealand accessible and inclusive for all. She is also the founder of Be. Lab and the Global Centre of Possibility. In 2022 she established her international consultancy Minnie B Consulting. 

Minnie is the recipient of the New Zealand Order of Merit, the Sir Peter Blake Leadership Award and the Westpac Women of Influence Diversity Award. She was also a top ten finalist for New Zealander of the year. In 2023 she published her first book Blindingly Obvious: The beautiful vision of Minnie B. Her book is the first non-fiction book to be fully translated into New Zealand Sign Language and aspires to be the most accessible book ever in Aotearoa.

Minnie’s haiku-inspired poem frames equality squarely from the perspective of being with her on the journey to equality. Inspired by the discovery that ‘with’ has its origins in old German where it can mean ‘midwife’ she became fascinated by this idea of supporting and enabling the safe birth of ideas and ways of being that enable a more accessible future. In particular she has come to believe that an accessible future can only occur if society learns how to truly support the safe birth of ideas and new practices from access leaders, innovators, designers and creators.  That is, when society learns how to be with our access leaders, equity can be achieved.

Refreshing and reimagining the rallying cry ‘nothing about us without us’, Minnie’s words are part question, part provocation, and part invitation. Creating change with people rather than for people, requires intention and empathy. Her words also caution us that being with, is not always easy. It means going with-out, it means stopping with-holding. 

Minnie says, “With-holding is what is holding back the emergence of true equality for access citizens. I want a world where we support access innovators and leaders to birth ideas and ways of being, including designing new technology, new approaches to learning, an economy, art and culture that are truly accessible. In other words, I want you to choose to be ’with’ me, to be ‘with’ us! I invite you to support the birth of a fairer better world, a world full of ‘with citizens’.  Yes, this may mean having to sometimes go ‘without’ power, control and to let go of the familiar but what magic may result from this small act of sacrifice?  What might then be possible for humankind?”