Unlike other students who enjoyed full mobility and could easily find jobs as convenience store clerks or waiters, the choices available to Toshiya Kakiuchi, 26, were limited as he sought to finance his studies at Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto.
While juggling his studies with his part-time fashion designer job, however, Kakiuchi, who has spent most of his life in a wheelchair, entered a small Web design firm where he became the leader in sales, visiting more than a dozen clients a day.
"My boss at the time encouraged me to view my disability, and the fact that people remembered me as a person in a wheelchair, as an advantage," he recalled in a recent interview. That's when he realized that "barriers can be changed into values."