Lahore-based techpreneur turned motivational speaker and influencer Niaz Malik has an exclusive term for persons with disabilities — he calls them “specially-abled.” That’s the kind of positivity and hope he inspires through his public talks and social media posts.

His words hit home, more so because they come from lived experience. In 2016, Malik survived a major car crash that left him paralysed from neck down. He’s since been on assisted living which includes a smart wheelchair, a robotic hand gifted by a “dear friend,” and a trained care team.

In a heart-to-heart with The News On Sunday, Malik relates his journey — from being an athlete, a rock climber, a kayaker and a pilot who “did 20 parachute jumps,” to launching a tech start-up in New York at the age of 21 with “$3.5 million in venture fund”; to working with Deloitte for 15-odd years; holding key positions at the PTCL and a Chinese mobile company; and suddenly being thrust in a situation that threatened to take it all away.

Though he calls himself “privileged” for having access to some of the most technologically advanced gadgets that have helped him pull along, it would be unfair to not give him credit for showing the grit and resolve in the face of calamity. A lesser mortal in his place would have crumbled.

It was with an incredible presence of mind that he steered himself out of what could have been a complete disaster. “I was travelling from Chakwal to Lahore, a few days ahead of Eid. I must’ve dozed off behind the wheel, because when I woke up I was unable to move. My driver [who was] in the backseat told me that the car had fallen into a ditch,” he recalls.

Mercifully, his brain was fully agile. “We had been crowded by people from all over. So, the first thing I did was, I told them to stop touching me. This is very important because often in our sincere attempt to help others we end up aggravating their injury.”

Next, Malik called up his wife and alerted her about the situation, before asking a cousin in Chakwal to send paramedic help. Finally, a smallish ambulance arrived. Malik was curious to know how he would be bundled into the tiny vehicle. “Nobody actually knew [how],” he remarks. “We are not trained for such emergencies. No one realises that the slightest negligence can wreak havoc on one’s life. So, I tried telling them a couple of techniques. It didn’t help much, though.”

He was taken to the nearest station, Talagang. The hospital had no specialists. “I told the staff that I needed a cervical collar,” he says, adding that everyone riding in a car must keep a cervical collar with them. “Your neck is the most important part of your body. It connects the nervous system to your body.”

He also spoke to a neurologist friend in the US. It took him about six months to come to terms with his predicament. “I quit my job, had to focus on my rehab, and got into Kessler Institute for Rehabilitation, in New Jersey. It was a very painful period in my life. I didn’t know where to begin and how to start afresh.

“My doctors told me that my entire lifestyle was going to change, and that I needed to use antidepressants and progressively move into my new lifestyle. But I decided that I wasn’t going to do that.

“When you take things head on, it has consequences that can be negative as well as positive. The positive side is that I faced it, despite my depression cycles. I promised to myself that whenever I’m depressed I won’t let that phase last beyond a week. Then I got this smart wheelchair, and it gave me hope.

“I’m very big on assistive technology,” he continues. “I believe it can transform lives. Since I am seated most of the time, there’s the risk of me getting blisters. And because I have no sensation in my body, I wouldn’t know about it. But my wheelchair helps me shift weight strategically from time to time.”

“I’m very big on assistive technology. I believe it can transform lives. Since I am seated most of the time, there’s the risk of me getting blisters. And because I have no sensation in my body, I wouldn’t know about it. But my wheelchair helps me shift weight strategically.”

Being a technologist, who has a degree in computer science from State University of New York, Malik was also able to design his Toyota Hiace van in a way that the minute his wheelchair hit the van’s platform, it would automatically be lifted, and he’d be carried inside seamlessly. He also borrowed an element from the limousine: sofas. Eventually, the van turned into “a mobile office, with all the equipment required for a successful meeting, from internet connection to high-end acoustics etc. You can call it an engineering marvel.”

Malik went on to become an advocate for road safety, something he calls his raison d’être. When he started, he was a “lonely voice,” but he continued and has made an impact through his social media profiles, and by joining several public initiatives.

More recently, he started working with the president and his wife on “an initiative for inclusion wherein we try to bring the specially-abled people to the forefront and create for them all the opportunities available to regular people.”

According to Malik, globally, one million lives are lost every year in road accidents. “About 70 percent of these [deaths] occur in developing countries. This costs 3-5 percent of their GDP. If you translate it into numbers, it is roughly $11 billion.

“What’s even more distressing is that most of the deceased are people aged between 15 and 30 years. As such, we are the most vulnerable nation because the youth are a majority of our population.”

He says most of the road accidents in our part of the world happen with two-wheelers. “It’s crucial that we adhere to traffic rules and regulations.”

In August 2022, he was appointed the brand ambassador for road safety by Toyota Indus Motors. Early this year, he was invited as a guest to a wheelchair cricket tournament in Islamabad. “We must realise how important safety is in our personal lives,” he says. “We are propagating this message across the nation, and we’re trying to bring all types of stakeholders on board.”

The response so far has been quite encouraging. In his various workshops at schools and universities, Malik has trained the students in “mind transformation.” It entailed “addressing the issue, talking about things associated with that in a very positive way, and telling them how it can impact their lives and those of other people, and what steps they need to take in order to make sure that they are safer on the road, whether as drivers or pedestrians.”

He complains that many of the helmets available in the market are useless, which is why motorcycle accidents often involve head injuries. “There’s no concerted effort on the part of the government to realise that our youth, the highest percentage of deaths from road accidents, are mostly on two-wheelers. It is imperative that a comprehensive campaign is devised and propagated among all groups of society. We need to introduce this issue at the primary school level, so that our kids grow up with a mindset on road safety.”

When asked as to what his association with Indus Motors demands of him, he says, “Basically, their core value is the belief that we need to create safer roads and we need to take people safely to their destinations. It demands that we work together and come up with fresh initiatives. We’re engaged in multiple activities and have alliances with various organisations. We want to make sure that we cover the issue 360 degrees.”

Malik has often identified fatigue as a major reason why a lot of drivers lose their lives on the road. “There’s a lot that I tell them. First off, if you are fatigued you should not drive. Secondly, you should not use a mobile phone while driving. Another important thing to consider is that the driver should not engage with the passengers; this can be highly distracting. Lastly, we’re always in a rush, we jump lanes or cut in from all sides and then hit an object and get stuck there for hours. This should stop. We must be mindful of what we are doing while we’re driving. We must also be careful with the pedestrians.

“As a nation, we lack a serious approach to road safety,” he concludes. “There’s a lack of support in our government institutions in terms of the kind of infrastructure that’s required. If you ask the traffic police, they’ll have countless complaints and a lot of those are genuine. So, it is such things that we are trying to address.”

There are times when he isn’t his strongest self, “I feel quite helpless, for I can’t go for a walk, I can’t join my kids in the swimming pool, and I can’t pick a morsel of bread and put it in my mouth.”

This can be very frustrating. But he thanks Allah “for giving me the opportunity to save some lives, and in the process make my own life very colourful. I get to spend a lot of time with my friends and family. I’ve a more fulfilling life now than I had before. I’ve made peace with myself, and it drives me and gives me new hope and stamina.”

In the end, Malik says he would like to be remembered as “someone who didn’t give up. I want to leave that kind of legacy.”

The writer is a staff member

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An advocate for road safety. — Image: Supplied

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The robotic hand was a gift from a friend.

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At the wheelchair cricket tournament. — Images: Courtesy of Niaz Malik’s Instagram page