Pawel Urbanski

The experience of being a student, coach, consultant, researcher, adventurer and speaker gave me the opportunity to see the world and its problems from many angles.

The page you are reading now is my best attempt to show you how I am, what I’ve done, and what I want to do in the near and distant future.

Learning

Learning plays a very important part in my life. I am one of 950 people in the world who graduated from the New Ventures Leadership program at Massachusetts Institute of Tecnology. I was awarded a scholarship at one of the best international high schools in the world - Red Cross Nordic United World College. Living with people from 81 countries gave me a head start in understanding the world. I had to make the school accessible for myself and other prospective blinds students. I adapted to studying digitally over 15 years ago, when e-learning was not widely available. Since then, I helped to design accessible economic courses and solved problems that required visual exploration. I was offered a scholarship in the first interdisciplinary Ph.D. program at the Polish Academy of Science.

Technology

Technology is something I literarily cannot live without, as I use it to compensate for my lack of sight. Because I understand technology as an independent medium for collaboration, I understand and appreciate the problem solving aspect of the digital workplace. The influence of technology on business innovation, employee engagement and leadership touches me in a very direct way especially when living without technology is not an option. Recently, I designed a mobile application that was awarded the second prize at the Bloomberg Mayors Challenge 2014.

Sports

During my time in Norway I started taking part in outdoor and extreme sports. I learnt to climb and ski, and I won the world’s most prestigious skiing competition for the blind. I also took up judo but I decided to keep on climbing. In 2007, I set off to become the first blind person from Poland to climb Mount Aconcagua. Even though the expedition finished with an emergency helicopter evacuation, I continued to move forward. I’m the first blind person from Poland to climb Mount Kilimanjaro (2008), Mount Kosciuszko and to cross country ski across a glacier above the Arctic Circle (2009). Overall, I organised seven expeditions. I was featured in two documentary movies and the national media. Of all sports, golf is my favourite, which I love to play and promote with restless energy.

Values

What really drives me is sharing my experiences, working with other people and seeing them become inspired to take concrete steps towards changing their lives, launching businesses, getting going.