Victor Santiago Pineda (born November 17, 1978) is a Venezuela-born social development scholar, serial social impact entrepreneur and disability rights expert. He is also an international speaker and consultant on accessibility related issues. Early in his career, he served as the youngest government delegate to participate in the drafting of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and thereafter launched the World Enabled Global Initiative, a disability affiliate program that combines the reach of the world's most active disabled persons’ organizations (DPOs) and intergovernmental agencies. He also launched the Pineda Foundation, a voluntary non-profit that promotes the rights and dignities of young people with disabilities. Both were established in 2003. Background Victor Santiago Pineda was born in Caracas, Venezuela, to, Julio Cesar Pineda, a law professor, TV anchor of Globovision and former Venezuelan Ambassador to Kuwait, South Korea, and Libya and Dubravka Purkarevic, a visiting professor at the US Naval Postgraduate School (NS) and former Miss Venezuela. At the age of two, Pineda was hospitalized with a high fever and for the next five years he demonstrated gradual weakening of his skeletal muscles. By age four, his weakened muscles caused him to fall repeatedly and by age seven, he stopped walking completely. His muscular deterioration would continue and eventually affect his breathing. By the time he was in high school, he needed to use a ventilator at night, and by the time he started his doctoral program in his late-twenties, he required a ventilator twenty-four hours per day. As a child, Pineda was diagnosed with spinal muscular atrophy (SMA-Type II), a form of muscular dystrophy. However, as an adult, he was examined by a neurophysiologist who, with the use of electromyography, determined that there was no evidence to suggest Spinal muscular atrophy. The specific cause of Pineda's muscle weakness was identified as collagenopathy VI, resulting from an extremely common genetic mutation. Education and advocacy Pineda attended Corona Del Mar High School in Newport Beach, California, and was selected by his graduating class as a commencement speaker. Upon graduating in 1997, Pineda attended the California Youth Leadership Forum for Students with Disabilities (YLF). As a freshman at the University of California Berkeley, he received specialized support services provided by the Disabled Students Office (DSP) and participated in the Disabled Students Residence Program (DSRP). While at UC Berkeley was elected senator for the ASUC student government, defended ethnic