MISSION STATEMENT
INTELLIGENT MOBILITY INTERNATIONAL (IMI) is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization that seeks to empower poor, disabled people in developing countries by designing and producing safe, low-cost, durable wheelchairs made from bicycles. The IMI development model includes producing the wheelchairs in the countries where they will be distributed, thereby supporting local economic development and keeping manufacturing costs low.

IMI offers a solution that will be adapted to other countries in the future, although the pilot program will begin in Guatemala.

Whirlwind Wheelchair International reports more than 55,000 physically disabled people need to use wheelchairs in Guatemala, including 20,000 young adults and children who require a chair to attend school or go to work. Unfortunately, these figures are expected to rise by approximately 3% to 5% annually due to crime, transit and industrial accidents, disease, and birth defects.

IMI draws on a volunteer base of students from Caltech and the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, CA, and from Rafael Landivar University in Guatemala City, Guatemala. IMI has formed a joint venture with the Transitions Foundation, a Guatemalan disabilities association and nongovernmental organization (NGO) based in Antigua, Guatemala. With the assistance of the professional networks it is forming throughout the Americas, IMI intends to produce 50 wheelchairs during the first year it is operational.

Committed to supporting local economic development, IMI will train at least 10 workers at its shop in Guatemala to make the chairs it has designed. Preferences will be given to shops that employ disabled people. In this way, IMI will create internal labor markets that both benefit the end user and provide a cost-effective labor source for IMI. In addition, IMI will work on job creation and create pilot programs to integrate micro-credit initiatives into its work. Leveraging established methods of social collateral, IMI's pilot programs will form disability lending structures to create entrepreneurial opportunities for its candidates. To enhance its distribution system and supply chain, IMI will develop additional partnerships with bicycle companies.

IMI has formed a partnership with Amigo Latino, a privately held American company that links Guatemalan-Americans with their loved ones back home through teleconferencing. Through their affiliated website AmigoCompras, Amigo Latino will give Guatemalan-Americans the ability to purchase wheelchairs for handicapped family members and the opportunity to sponsor disabled people in their home communities back in Guatemala. The partnership between IMI and Amigo Latino has great potential, since we share the same market: the one million Guatemalans living in the United States.