Imagine if you could change a person’s life with just $60. That’s what one inventor has done tens of thousands of times. Don Schoendorfer has a PhD from MIT and more than 50 patents to his name. But it’s his latest creation that is his proudest achievement—the world’s cheapest wheelchair. For $59.20, each wheelchair is manufactured, packed and shipped to one of 70 developing countries from Uganda to Peru. While the chairs aren’t fancy, they are Godsends to recipients who otherwise would literally have to drag themselves across the ground.

As Val Zavala explains, it all starts with a plastic lawn chair and ends with thousands of smiles.