Aaron Phipps – Keynote Speaker

Aaron Phipps, MBE, is a Great Britain Wheelchair Rugby athlete and gold medal winning Paralympian. At 15 Aaron had both of his legs and most of his fingers amputated due to blood poisoning from meningitis. After a 10km fundraising wheelchair race for the Meningitis Research Foundation (MRF), Aaron’s sporting journey began. Starting with wheelchair racing Aaron competed in two London Marathons, including 2009 where he came fourth, finishing in under two hours. Aaron joined the GB Wheelchair Rugby squad and was selected for the 2012 London Paralympic Games where he scored over half of his team’s points.

In 2016 Aaron decided to climb Mount Kilimanjaro to raise funds for both MRF and Shaw Trust, with a specially adapted off-road wheelchair. However, when the wheelchair wasn’t working on the terrain Aaron refused to be carried and reached the summit after four days of trekking on his hands and knees. It’s the first time an amputee has reached the top of Kilimanjaro without any assistance. The story made national headlines and has been the subject of a Channel 5 documentary.

Aaron Phipps returned to Wheelchair Rugby in 2017. Against all the odds his team went from being 5th in the world, to the best on the planet, in the middle of a global pandemic! It was the first European team to win a medal in wheelchair rugby and Paralympics GB’s first ever gold medal in a team sport.

He has been voted in the top 100 most influential people in the UK with a disability.