Nepalese Kamal Lamichhane chuckles when he describes himself as a VIP. "As I told the audience at Manchester Metropolitan University last month, I really am a VIP — a visually impaired person. Unlike those people who become very important because of what they achieve in life, I have been a VIP since birth."
Lamichhane, who is a postgraduate research student at the University of Tokyo, was part of a group of 40 researchers with and without disabilities and their supporters who traveled from Japan to the U.K. at the end of April to attend a two-day conference. The forum, held at Manchester Metropolitan University, carried the theme Disability and Economy: Creating a Society for All.
Inaugurated in 2000, the Todai Forum has been held roughly very two years to allow the University of Tokyo to present research developments to an international audience.