Gavin Neate

Founder & CEO WelcoMe

Gavin Neate is the CEO and founder of Neatebox. During his 18 year career with Guide Dogs for the Blind as a Mobility Instructor, Gavin became increasingly aware of the role that technology could play in the lives of disabled people. In 2012 Gavin launched his technology company with a focus on ensuring that solutions were developed to directly address the issues disabled people faced. In 2020 his product, “WelcoMe”, won the World Summit Award for the Inclusion and Empowerment of Disabled People addressing UN SDG 10 and a Zero Project award for Innovation and is supported as a member of Google UK Startups. WelcoMe empowers disabled people to communicate directly with customer service teams prompting specific and general disability awareness training based on the disabled visitors proximity to the venue they are visiting. This in the moment training increases confidence in both the visitor and staff member and encourages foundational and societal changing relationships to form. WelcoMe is now in use across the UK and Republic of Ireland across all sectors. Gavin was recently awarded the National Diversity “Entrepreneur of Excellence” Award.