Tiffany Yu is an American entrepreneur and

disability rights The disability rights movement is a global social movement that seeks to secure equal opportunities and equal rights for all people with disabilities. It is made up of organizations of disability activists, also known as disability advocat ...

advocate who founded Diversability, which is a social enterprise to advocate for equality for people with disabilities.

Early life and education

Yu was raised in

Bethesda, Maryland Bethesda () is an unincorporated, census-designated place in southern Montgomery County, Maryland. It is located just northwest of Washington, D.C. It takes its name from a local church, the Bethesda Meeting House (1820, rebuilt 1849), which in ...

. At age nine, she became disabled in a car accident that left her with a permanent

brachial plexus injury A brachial plexus injury (BPI), also known as brachial plexus lesion, is an injury to the brachial plexus, the network of nerves that conducts signals from the spinal cord to the shoulder, arm and hand. These nerves originate in the fifth, sixth, ...

. The accident also resulted in the death of her father. As a result of the accident, Yu developed

post-traumatic stress disorder Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a mental and behavioral disorder that can develop because of exposure to a traumatic event, such as sexual assault, warfare, traffic collisions, child abuse, domestic violence, or other threats on ...

. Yu graduated from Georgetown College at Georgetown University in 2010.

Activism

In 2009, while studying at

Georgetown University Georgetown University is a private university, private research university in the Georgetown (Washington, D.C.), Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Founded by Bishop John Carroll (archbishop of Baltimore), John Carroll in 1789 as Georg ...

, Yu founded Diversability, a

social enterprise A social enterprise is an organization that applies commercial strategies to maximize improvements in financial, social and environmental well-being. This may include maximizing social impact alongside profits for co-owners. Social enterprises ca ...

whose mission is to change the stigma surrounding disabilities and create community. After graduation from Georgetown, Yu continued to run Diversability as she worked at companies including Goldman Sachs, Bloomberg, and

Revolt (TV network) Revolt is an American music-oriented digital cable television network founded by Sean "Diddy" Combs and Andy Schuon that launched on October 21, 2013. History As part of its arrangement to acquire a minority interest in NBCUniversal, Comcast ...

, and in 2016, she won the Guardian's "My Side Hustle Wins" contest for her work with Diversability. Yu serves on the Leadership Committee for the Paul K. Longmore Institute's Disability Cultural Center in San Francisco. She was also awarded the Bell Greve Award from the National Rehabilitation Association in 2015. Yu was a speaker at the 2018

World Economic Forum The World Economic Forum (WEF) is an international non-governmental and lobbying organisation based in Cologny, canton of Geneva, Switzerland. It was founded on 24 January 1971 by German engineer and economist Klaus Schwab. The foundation, ...

in Davos as part of the "We Need to Talk About" series and named a World Economic Forum Global Shaper. She is also a three-time

TEDx TED Conferences, LLC (Technology, Entertainment, Design) is an American-Canadian non-profit media organization that posts international talks online for free distribution under the slogan "ideas worth spreading". TED was founded by Richard Sau ...

speaker. Yu was the 2019 California Miss Amazing Queen. In 2021, she donated $50,000 to Georgetown University to launch an endowment fund for disability inclusion-related initiatives and disability advocacy. Yu also engages in social media activism on

TikTok TikTok, known in China as Douyin (), is a short-form video hosting service owned by the Chinese company ByteDance. It hosts user-submitted videos, which can range in duration from 15 seconds to 10 minutes. TikTok is an international version ...

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

, and

Instagram Instagram is a photo and video sharing social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. The app allows users to upload media that can be edited with filters and organized by hashtags and geographical tagging. Posts can ...

. Yu is also the founder of the Disability chapter of Awesome Foundation.

External links

"The Power of Inclusion", Tiffany Yu, TEDxBethesda

"The Truths About Being a Pioneer, Tiffany Yu, TEDxGeorgetown

"The Problem with Positivity", Tiffany Yu, TEDxYouth@CaliforniaHighSchool

Personal Website

Diversability Homepage

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Yu, Tiffany Georgetown University College of Arts & Sciences alumni American disability rights activists American activists with disabilities 1988 births Living people People from Bethesda, Maryland American TikTokers People with post-traumatic stress disorder