All right. So it's really nice to meet everyone. My name is Debra Ruh. And I'm really thrilled to be talking about Billion Strong. So I have a long career in this field. And before I joined this field as an entrepreneur, I was in the banking industry for 25 years. So yes, I am over 60. But I'm really proud of Ruh Global Impact. Not necessarily the name. I meant to name it something else, but I thought I would put a place holder there, and it got away from me. But I'm very proud that we are supporting multinational corporations, all over the world, and helping guide the conversation.



And Cameron mentioned that you're going to talk about the SDGs next time. The sustainable development goals are so important to our world, to accessibility, to true inclusion. So I appreciate that. You're talking about those things. I am a market influencer, according to social media. A speaker for the United Nations, and for a lot of people, the State Department, but more importantly, I identify as a person with lived experiences with disabilities. And I'm very proud to say that I'm a person with a disability. I have ADHD, and I have... Like everyone else, I deal with a lot of mental health issues, especially during these times. I'm a mother of a daughter that's now 34 years old, that was born with Down syndrome. And my husband of almost 40 years has aged into dementia, due to a traumatic brain injury when he was a child. He was hit by a car. So this is a very personal topic to me. True inclusion. And you cannot be truly included if you're not accessible. And I see that over and over and over again. So we're gonna talk about that a little way through. But I don't want to brag about myself. I have a lot of expertise. I've been blessed to have accolades and stuff, but this work isn't about me. So... Let me go... Sorry. Let me go. Thank you. All right. I've been doing this work... I started Tech Access, which was a technology company focused on ICT accessibility. And I partnered with Thomas Logan, Equal Entry, and so many others in the accessibility field. And the majority of my employees, I was very proud, were technologists were disabilities. And in 2011, that firm merged with the firm that is now called Level Access. And then I started Ruh Global Impact, because I saw that corporations were trying to include us, but I didn't feel they were doing a good job of telling society what they were doing. And so I started looking at this more from a strategic -- how do we make sure we're truly included? And just as an example, and I'm not gonna be mean and name it, but there is... I'm sorry? There are indexes and stuff that will tell corporations how well they're doing about including people with disabilities. But they don't look at whether or not you're accessible. Or your website is accessible. Or your apps are accessible. Which will prevent people with disabilities being employed, and if you're a customer with disabilities, getting access to the information. So we continue to see accessibility. Not thought about, an afterthought, and I know I personally am tired of that, and I'm starting to speak louder about that. So we have over a billion people with disabilities in the world. So we created Billion Strong. As a global non-profit to focus on bringing us individually together. So this is not about providing services to corporations or anything else. This is about bringing us together. People with disabilities together, all over the world. People that love somebody with a disability. Are allies. The intersections. Bring us all together. Because if we came together in strength, and then companies weren't being accessible, or they weren't including us, or they were letting us go, because they don't want to accommodate us, or it's too much trouble to get a Sign Language interpreter, we have a much more powerful voice together.



So that's why we created Billion Strong. There's been so many things that have happened in the world. I actually should on this screen plop a big COVID-19 sign on top of it. Because the world has changed dramatically. Globalization, medical advances, technology. We had years ago the CRPD, we have a digital divide actually getting larger. Especially during COVID-19. We have companies looking at corporate social responsibility and corporate digital responsibility. But it feels to me like a lot of it is not really part of the mainstream efforts. It just feels, once again, like it's an afterthought. And I'll give you an example of that. I'll put up this slide while I say it. I work a lot with the United Nations, and we were working with a group that -- they were not part of the United Nations. But a lot of them were former UN leaders. And they were building this really cool portal, where they were gonna bring together all these non-profits that are focused on the Sustainable Development Goals. And so they showed us this beautiful website, really well done, very searchable, and of course, I asked the question: Is it accessible? And they came back and said -- and I was shocked, when they said this, just because there were some really high... Pretty influential leaders on here. And they were saying... Well, we didn't. It was too much trouble. I don't know that people with disabilities are really using it. And it's too expensive. And we'll do that later. And so I said: Well, that's what we always hear. And I can no longer be part of this. Because I'm not gonna be part of something that doesn't include all of us. And so there is something very important happening here. Which was one reason why I was blessed that Thomas and Meryl invited me to come and speak about this. But we do have 1 billion -- 1.3 billion people. Which is approximately 15% of the population. Probably higher. But those numbers are 1 in 7 people with disabilities, but we see people say 1 in 5, or in the states, 1 in 4 Americans identify as having a disability. 1 in 4. That's 25%! So the numbers continue to grow, and they're growing all over the world, and they're partially growing all over the world because also we are an aging society all over the world. So by 2050, the world's population, age 60 and over, is expected to hit 2 billion, and we have approximately 7.5 billion people in the world. Here in the States, and by the way, I realize my numbers are wrong -- but there are 70+ million Baby Boomers. I'm one of those. But they're now age 57 and older. So the youngest Baby Boomer is 57. The oldest is 75. And the reality is the Baby Boomers, they still control the majority of the wealth. So there's a lot of wealth distribution that's gonna be changing hands to the Gen Xs and the Millennials and stuff, but the Baby Boomers are still controlling the wealth. So as people age, they age sometimes into disabilities. According to the AARP, quite often into disabilities. About 46% of Americans over the age of 65 have disabilities. And it's not a threat. It's just part of being a human being. But we see with those people and people with disabilities the tech gap is widening. We see five generations in the workforce. And we see generational fighting. And misunderstanding. There's cultural differences, because of this. Cybersecurity -- the reason why I bring up cybersecurity is because unfortunately people with disabilities and the elderly are targeted more with cybersecurity. Than any other group. It's really sort of chilling, what happens to these people in our society. And then of course I bring up aging in place, because us Baby Boomers don't want to do what my generation did, and put our elders in nursing homes. We want to work and live and play and age in place.



So all of these things are impacting us pretty substantially. Another thing to consider is that when I talk to corporations, which I do all the time, I don't want them to think about including people with disabilities as always a charity. Just because you're including people with disabilities doesn't mean it's a charity. Not when there are so many of us. And if you are not looking at including us from the perspective of return on investment, return on expense, anything else you do, then you are treating us like you are charity or something you've got to take care of. So it's very important that corporations include us in very meaningful ways, which means everything you do has to be accessible. Just speaking from the accessibility lens. So I'm glad that we now have corporate digital responsibility. What digital responsibility do you have to make sure we're all included? And I don't want to be excluded just because I don't have high bandwidth, for example. Because that's also causing digital exclusion. The messages -- the large corporations are really hearing now is: We want to be included meaningfully. We want you to stop pretending like our part -- the disability community can't add value. We have thousands of years to prove that's not true. And let's just make sure that we're really digging into what it means to be a human being.



So societal expectations have changed dramatically. And they were already changing dramatically before COVID-19 happened. And then COVID-19 happened. We see the younger generations vowing not to work for corporations that are not "good players". Right now, after... As we're in this phase of COVID, we have the great resignation, where we see people all over the world resigning from large corporations, saying: I don't want to work for bad players. Or they're quitting jobs or they don't want to work. It's just... There are a lot of changes happening that are really, really negatively impacting the workforce in society. But societal expectations have never been more... Expectating... I can't say the word. That's not the right word. We expect corporations to be good players. We really do. And if you're not including us, we're gonna talk about you. And you're not gonna like what we have to say. So employers must do the right thing by their employees and by their customers, and we also look at it from a brand perspective. I don't mind you talking about your brand, but don't do it at the expense of us, and don't use language that hurts us. So anyway, there's a lot of scolding going on. But we also believe it's about identity and empowerment. Because once again, we're 1.3 billion people. If we came together, we hired from each other, we bought from each other, we supported each other, we complimented each other, we told each other stories, think about it. We would be unstoppable as a community. But we don't do that right now. Most people, if they cannot identify as being a person with a disability, they won't. If I can keep it hidden, I'm gonna keep it hidden. Sometimes when we tell people that we have disabilities, like I talk about my neurodiversity, there's other members of the disability community that are like... Well, that's not a real disability. Well, if it's not a real disability, why is it written in the laws? Okay? So we can't even decide if we have a disability or we don't. I know many members of the Deaf community, for example, that have a lot of pride, do not consider that they have a disability. They consider that they speak a different language. Which is true.



And so we have to take all that into consideration. And we ourselves have to come together, and we have to decide what is the right language, how do we talk to each other, how do others talk about us, because you know who's making the decisions now about that? Are the corporations. The corporations are gonna decide -- are we called Diverse Ability? Are we called People with Determination? Are we people first? Are we society first? There's a lot of confusion with identity. I think another really important thing I want to bring up about identity is: During the COVID-19, one thing that we saw here in the United States was more Americans with disabilities self-identified than ever before. Why? They didn't do it before, because they felt that they would be disadvantaged. Which is probably true. Or discriminated against. But they're doing it now. Because they want to continue to telework. Because they find they're more productive. They can have a better work-life balance. So the reality is: The lessons that we learned from COVID-19, if we forget them, we're gonna see even more of people leaving the workforce. The great resignation that's happening.



So we felt that this was the time to bring Billion Strong to life. But what we also did not want to do -- we don't want to step over all these amazing, talented people that are already out there, offering services to our community. And for our community. So we want to really support entrepreneurs with disabilities, we want to turn up the volume on efforts -- I said on the USB Onboard, which is now Disability In, for six years. And we created this specification for companies specifically owned by people with disabilities. In fact, one of these companies, John, has a company that's certified. I think it's incredibly important that we all become certified if we're entrepreneurs with disabilities and we're employing people with disabilities and we meet the criteria. But we need to come out and be proud of who we are. I'll say one more thing that happened that I thought was interesting. I have a friend of mine in the United Kingdom who had a CEO of a large tech company come to him and say: Can you test to see if I'm dyslexic? And he's like: Well, sure. How come? He's like... I think it would be cool to be neurodiverse. So is it cool now to have a disability? I think it is. Is it sexy to have a disability? I think if you look at the picture of Dr. LaMondre here, and I forgot to describe myself early on, sorry. But I am a white woman with gray hair, and I have purple hair too. Because I figure if I'm gonna be old, I'm gonna have fun. And I have a background of the Billion Strong logo behind me. And I'm very proud that Ruh Global is creating Billion Strong. So I forgot that. Because that's another thing that we can do, just to make people feel included.



We can have Sign Language interpreters if somebody speaks Sign Language. We can make sure that we describe ourselves, if someone can't see, to make sure that everybody is having -- not the same experience, but meaningful experiences. So when I was creating Billion Strong, once again, I identify as having a disability, and I'm a very important part of it, as a mother and a wife. But one of the partners that I reached out to said: Oh, good. Another white woman that doesn't look like she has a disability is going to start a disability organization.



And being blunt here, I was sort of hurt by that comment. Because I thought... Wow. I've been doing so much for this field. But I really did sit back and think about it. And he's right. We need to make sure that we're being very purposeful, and representation matters like never before right now. So I actually made Dr. LaMondre Pough the CEO of Billion Strong. He's an amazingly talented man. Amazingly talented. Entrepreneur. Wonderful communicator. He has a really strong background. He also happens to be a man. He has lived experiences as a man. He has lived experiences as an African American, living in the United States. He has experiences as southern, living in the southern part of the United States. And I'm from that part of the United States. And it is a little bit more prejudiced than the rest of our country. And I'm not just saying that. Go out and read the news if you don't think that's true.



And then of course, he also is a man with lived experiences with disabilities. He was born with a form of muscular dystrophy. And his mom was told he would die before he was five. And then he would die before he was 11. He walked, and then he had to move into a wheelchair. He uses a power wheelchair. He has limited use of his body. And he provides -- he has caregivers that provide him support. But more importantly, he's a very, very talented CEO, and we're really blessed to have him running the non-profit.



But at the same time, we all have to do it together. Right? And I'm well connected. Because I really appreciate all the wonderful people that are making a difference in our field. And so we have reached out. And we have so far 85 country partners. Because you can't say you're Billion Strong and not pull everybody together. And when I wanted to create Billion Strong and I started asking, I had people say: Don't do it in the States. You're so confusing in the States. Which is true. Do it outside the States, and then you can bring the States in later. And I'm like... No. I live in the United States. I'm proud to be an American. Do we have things we need to fix? Absolutely. But still, no, we're gonna be included. But then I had people say: Well, just do it in the States first. And we'll say we're "global". No. I'm not doing that. Because we do that all the time in the States. No. We're one world. And so I went and I started deliberately reaching out to partners. Now, when I say I'm reaching out to partners, I'm reaching out to DPOs, Disability Persons Organizations. Also known as organizations of people with disabilities. Around the world.



And there are so many efforts being made. But... What are the efforts that are being made in Ghana? Versus Brazil versus Connecticut? Because, remember, we are the United States. Every single state does it differently. So not only are we including all these wonderful countries. We want to include every single state as well. And at the same time, a real barrier to entry is: If you don't speak English. Because Westerners convinced the world that English was the business of language. And so if you don't speak English and you're a young person with a disability, in a country, and you don't speak English, your chances of getting a job get even worse.



So it's very important that we all come together -- certainly we're gonna translate everything into the six UN languages. But we want all of the languages. Because we want to make sure people are included, including our refugees with disabilities. I don't want to make sure that I'm staying on time. Because I don't want to get yelled at by Meryl. Oh, gosh. That would be terrible. Ha-ha. Just kidding. At the same time, you cannot have this conversation if you don't include all of us. So I think it's great that we focus on, for example, Black women engineers. Yay. But why not Black women engineers with disabilities, you know? Let's support the LGBT community. They're amazing talented people. But let's also support the LGBTQ that are part of the disability community. So the intersections have to be very deliberately looked at and included, and we have to make sure the voices from each of the communities are heard and listened to, and stop trying to push everybody into the same box. It's not fair to do that. So there are so many things on this slide right here. Gender, military, respect, diversity. There are so many identity things happening right now, but I don't think that we've ever really dug into... Could we be proud of being individuals with disabilities? So at the same time, we have all this beautiful technology happening and changing our world and enhancing our world. You know, driverless cars, smart glasses, the new Apple Smart Glasses are really cool. But they couldn't have done that if Google hadn't have tried to do it first. The exoskeletons. The 3D printing of prosthetics. There's so much to be hopeful for. But at the same time, we continue to see a lot of technology created that's not accessible to us. So I am nagging the brands... Who are you? What are you doing? Talk to us about it. Let's make sure you're not doing inspirational porn. We want you to include us, but in a thoughtful, meaningful way. You don't always have to put disability right in my face. You can do it subtly, like this Honeymaid commercial here. Which is a woman and a child. She's showing the child how to make a healthy snack. And as the camera pulls back, you can see the woman is in a wheelchair. Or the Dove commercial, where the beautiful model is talking about how when she puts the lotion on, the way it feels, the way it smells, the sensations of it. You don't have to be able to see the lotion to really appreciate what the lotion is. So I love that. And more and more, I have Microsoft here. I've got AT&T and Toyota. I have slides and slides and slides of these kinds of things. There's a lot of efforts being made to include us. Including movies and stuff. But there's still a lot of work that needs to be done. 

And of course, there's a direct path to the community. Which you're doing right now, with the a11y New York City. There's a direct path to community. You can find us. If you want to find us. You can find us whether we are individuals with disabilities or whether we're working in the field to make sure that people with disabilities are included. You are part of the community. As a matter of fact, Billion Strong -- there's no membership fee to join. Anybody can join. We're gonna do training. We're gonna provide so much content. But what we're also gonna do, which I really think we should do more of, and I think once again, a11y New York City has done a good job with this, is we want to make sure we're telling other people's stories. Because it's not about Debra Ruh. I mean, it's partially about me. But it's also about... What is Thomas Logan's Equal Entry? What do they do? What do they do over there at a11y New York City? What's happening in India? What's happening in China? What's happening all over the world that we cannot only learn from and appreciate, but also maybe utilize, to help more people as well? So there really is a direct path to the community now. There wasn't in the path, but there is. A lot of barriers have been broken down, because of social media. The community is actively engaged. We are a strong purchasing power. But -- this is such a huge but -- but the problem is: We don't tell people who we are. So yeah, we're strong purchasing power, but we don't say: Listen, I'm not going to buy from you. Because you're not accessible. Instead, I'm gonna move over here to this company. I mean, if we would go back to that old writing letters, even if it's just emails, saying to CEOs -- and I did it, for example. I was with a big pharmacy company in the United States as a customer. And I switched to Walgreens. And the reason why I switched to Walgreens -- and I had to move my pharmacy prescriptions. And it wasn't as easy as just going to a different store. There were some things I had to do. But I did it, because I appreciated that Walgreens were making a commitment to hiring people with disabilities. And I appreciated that they were making their websites accessible.



But then their competitor that I left actually started doing it. But I didn't go back, because it was too much trouble. But I did take the time to write a letter to both of the CEOs of the companies, the one that I went to, and the one that left and told them why. So if we all did that, we could help change it even more. But there is a direct path to the community through social media, through business to business. Business to consumer. There's a lot of ways to get to this community now. And it is bidirectional as well. Because they will talk to you. Why not be polite and listen? Don't ignore what they're saying. Why are you all leaving us out? Why are you creating videos that don't have captions? Things like that. Don't ignore us! Why are you? I think it's a real opportunity for us all.



So I didn't want to talk too much. I wanted to make sure that we could have a conversation. But I really do believe the business case has been clear for a long time. Technology is definitely redefining our workforce. So is COVID. Societal expectations are changing so rapidly, and if you're not paying attention to them as an entrepreneur, as an individual, as a corporation, things are changing. And we all have to be agents of change. And once again, if you're not familiar with the SDGs, once again, they're gonna have an upcoming training on it. I personally think we should all be very familiar with the SDGs, the Sustainable Development Goals. There are 17 goals that the world has committed to, to come together. To reduce the gender equity problems. Let's stop hunger. Let's clean up our oceans. All the things that we need to do, to make sure we protect our beautiful earth. But at the same time, we protect all human beings, and we stop deciding that some human beings are not as important as others because they love the wrong person, they have the wrong color skin, they have a disability. Stop it! We're just tired of that. So I believe that a lot of the changes that we see happening right now are gonna be very beneficial to our community. So I'm hopeful about it. So I'm just gonna... And I'm happy, Cameron, to share this presentation with you. I have human potential at work. I run Access Chat. Which by the way, Cameron, you should come on Access Chat and talk about a11y. I'm an author. Blah-blah-blah. But I'm gonna stop sharing so we can have a conversation.



CAMERON: Sure. And Debra, thank you so much. There's so much there. And such a rich ecosystem to talk about with regards to your work. And the field. One thing that you touched on that I would like to dig into specifically is... The idea of community. Right? We're a community here with a11y NYC. And the importance of having a sense of community in impacting change. One of the problems that we run into around community and disability is stigma.



And especially in areas of serious mental illness, but also in areas... You know. Like cognitive disorders and mental illness, I think, are particularly hard in professional environments. Because they're ignored for diversity efforts, often. And you hear this propose like... We hire the right person for the job. We don't care if you're a woman or a Black or Brown person. But when it comes to cognitive functionality, and behavioral concerns, it's like crickets. And this is something that's personally impactful. And I wonder what resources or communities or... I'm not sure if this is your specific domain. But I wonder if you can point people to some thought leaders in this space, or resources, about stigma with cognitive disability or more broadly, stigma related to disability in the workplace.



DEBRA: Yeah. That's a great question, Cameron. And there's a lot of stigma. There's a lot of stigma and a lot of misinformation. And a lot of people that... If you talk about our field, people with disabilities, the reality is that when you talk about disabilities, a lot of times people just assume you're talking about somebody that's in a wheelchair, or somebody that has a service animal or a cane. And the thing that's also interesting about our community is: We ourselves don't understand who's in our community. Isn't it fascinating to be part of a community that people don't even know they're part of your community? They don't even know it. I remember one time I was doing a presentation for a Jewish community center. And they were saying: What do you think is our number one problem in the accessibility, disability inclusion? And I said... Well, that nobody wants to be part of our team.



Nobody wants to be part of this. And we hear stupid stuff like... I have a friend of mine that's blind. That works for a large pharmaceutical company. His coworker told him he would rather be dead than be blind. I don't know how that is conducive to a positive work environment, for example. But there is a lot of working happening with that, Cameron. There's a lot of efforts being made. On those topics. And we are also working on those topics from the lens of technology as well. Because when you look at artificial intelligence, the datasets are all set towards white males. Just because that's the way we've always done things. In society. But we actually have to make sure that we're looking at all the diversity, all the other diversity groups as well, so that we can have good datasets to select from. But there's a lot of work being done on those barriers, on those misunderstandings. On the racism.



But it's breaking down identities. Right now, Elizabeth, the Sign Language interpreter and I, for example, we both have she/her/hers. We have some identity out there. Why? Because we as society... We're really digging into what it means to be an individual. There are so many resources that... I don't even know where to begin. But one place to begin would be: Go on to social media and look at those specific hashtags. But we're seeing see interesting conversations around mental health. I can't tell my boss that I have any mental health issues.

CAMERON: Right. That's -- that's exactly what I'm after. Is like... And maybe this is a completely different...

MERYL: No, it's a great --

CAMERON: Topic.

MERYL: Because it's about identity. Right?

CAMERON: It's about identity. And just the idea that self-identifying could be risky. And I think acknowledging that...

DEBRA: Right. And the other day I was talking to somebody who worked for a real large brand in their Employee Resource Groups. And they all happened to be from the States. And you'll see why that's relevant. And they said to me: Well, what is Billion Strong gonna do to protect us? Now... As an American, I know what that means. I know how we sue each other in the United States. But I said to them... Well, we're not gonna do that. What Billion Strong is not gonna do is go and start suing people. We have other companies, we have other organizations doing that. And I'm really glad. I'm sorry you have to be sued. But if you're not including us, I'm tired of it. So sorry, but... At the same time, what do we actually do to be successful? I think that's more important.

And so some of the... I'm seeing some interesting things like... Men talking about how men handle depression. Because by the way, men handle depression differently from women. They just do. And younger men handle it differently than older men. Just because of cultural differences. So we're seeing a lot of efforts, a lot of conversations about this. We're also seeing... Which I think is really cool too... Is that we're seeing leadership training for managers to understand how to deal with people who are in trauma. Because the reality is: We're all in trauma right now. We are.

My brother-in-law died suddenly on Monday. And he died because they couldn't give him a bed because it was overrun with COVID-19. That's very traumatic. Right? I know. It's so sad. But at the same time, everybody is walking trauma. So how do you lead people on your team, if they're traumatized? So anyway... I'm not really answering the question, because it's a big question.

CAMERON: Yeah, no, I mean, it's not a fair question, in a way, because it's just so...

DEBRA: It's a great question.

CAMERON: Well... Poignant. Okay. So I want to pause here for a second and open the floor. Mark McGuire: Do you want to go ahead and unmute your video and ask your question? 

INTERPRETER:  This is Mark speaking. And I have a question. I'm curious about what Billion Strong's plans are for next year. 2022.

DEBRA: And greetings to Mark. Mark is a good buddy of mine with Access Chat. He's been a big part of the community at Access Chat. So we love him. And that's a great question. And I'll tell you, Mark, you know me. And I really like to make sure that everybody is included. And so we have, like I said, 85 country partners. So one thing that I was doing was: I want to get out on our website what those countries are doing. Not make it so much about Billion Strong. Make it about -- you know, start telling the stories. But one of my board members said: I don't think we should do that. It's great. Let's do that. But let's focus on an event first. Meaning: What can we do as Billion Strong to really help? What's something we could start with? And so we're starting with a hard one. And this is the first time I've talked about it. So... This will be announced here. But would we want to work on first, in 2022... As she takes a breath... We really want to talk about: Can we all come out and identify? You know? Mark, can you come out and identify that you're Deaf and you use ASL? Like you have right now? Identified in the window?

Can you... Will we put this on our bios? Could we put this in our email signature lines? Could we put this on our resumes? Well, wait a minute. We were told in the past: Don't put personal stuff on your resumes. Don't say you're a talented individual that's Deaf. And they get all these by-products. Because you've already had to learn to think outside the box, because the world wasn't made to include you. And can we do that with pride? But what are the risks? Once again, to our community. If we do that to us. But there are becoming less risks now, because... And I'll give you two examples. So I was talking to a colleague of mine that's in the Philippines, and she's blind. And she had a friend of hers, that is also blind, say: I'm applying for a job. Should I tell them I'm blind? Or should I wait until I get the interview? And then they're gonna figure it out? And so my colleague recommended she not tell them. Which, by the way, is standard practice. We don't tell people on our resumes or our CVs that we have disabilities. That's standard.

But... So she didn't tell them. She went to the interview. The interviewer was actually mad that she didn't tell him. And the interview didn't go well and she didn't get the job. Now, the reality is -- and we all know this. If she had told the woman before hand that she was blind, she would never have gotten the interview. We just know that. So... What do we do? Well, now we have 500 major corporations, with the valuable 500, along with the World Economic Forum, that has said: We do want to hire you. We do. We want to hire people with disabilities. Where are you? Where do we find you?



So I think one of the first projects we're gonna do in 2022 is we're gonna start a campaign to talk to the community about whether or not we should come out proudly and say on every place where we identify ourselves that we are individuals with disabilities. Can we do it? Can we support each other? I mean... It's interesting. Everything we're talking about has risks, because sometimes our community gets mad at each other a lot. If you've ever seen... You know, thank you, Carlos. So that's what we believe we should start with. Because: Think about the identity stuff we've got to deal with, with that.

So... How do you present it? Well, how do you present it in one country over another country? It's just... It's a deep conversation. But also who are you, Mark, for example, as an individual? What part of your identity do you want to tell a possible employer? And is there an advantage to companies like yours, and John Kirkland, I know, is on here, who has his own company, for corporations to know their vendors are owned by persons with disabilities, and they're committed to hiring people. Does that give you a leg up as a vendor to get selected more? You know, so that's what we're gonna work on.


INTERPRETER: Wonderful. Thank you so much. I appreciate that.

CAMERON: That's awesome. Yeah. And it's so funny, because it goes exactly to what we were just talking about. Self-identification. And reconciliation of that complexity. Right? Yeah. Being able to support one another in that step, and sort of having... A groundswell initiative -- maybe that's the answer. Maybe when we all have a unified voice around our identity as people with disabilities, then it's undeniable. Right?

DEBRA: I think it's a good place to start. Because it's a little bit of a complex problem. But it also digs right into it, and once again, employers are actually looking for us. And if more people knew that you were specifically being looked for because of your talent and because you had a disability, there would be a reason to do that. And I want to make a comment that I forgot. I didn't finish when I was talking about that group that was the large corporation. One of the employees in the states had said: What are you gonna do to protect us? And I said: We're not gonna sue you people. But the reality is: If enough of us come together, really come together, and start talking about who we are, and that we're proud of who we are, and society needs to wake up, and also at the same time, I said to this woman that said that, I said: Well, you have to remember also: You have privilege because you were born in the United States, which is a developed country. Goodness knows the United States is not perfect. But it has advantages over some other countries, developed versus non-developed, or war torn things and stuff. So I said at a certain point, us Americans have to be brave and we need to make sure that we stand up for our brothers and sisters in the other countries. So I'm sorry. At this point, we all need to be brave. And we need to say: I'm tired of people not being included. We need to all raise hell when we see any kind of politicians out there that don't have Sign Language interpreters. We need to raise hell when we're not included. And we need to come together and be proud. And I think often people don't think of our community and think of pride.

But at the same time, we're gonna have speakers bureaus, we're gonna have mentoring, we're gonna have master classes. And the master classes will be done with people that have disabilities, that are very proud of their lived experiences. We want to really talk more about the intersections, and there are some conversations happening with that. But at the same time, don't put any indexes in place that don't have accessibility included. It's ridiculous. And AWY -- y'all need to be everywhere. Y'all need to be everywhere. You need to be in every single country in the world. So what we want to do is we want to talk about who's doing it right, so that funders can find them. We want to fund entrepreneurs with disabilities. We want to set up an impact fund. What if we funded ourselves? Right now, we see funding... And I'll give you another example that some of y'all might have heard of. During the International Paralympics, which just happened, it just ended at the end of September -- they've created a new campaign called #WeThe15. And it's about the 15% of the world that have disabilities, and coming out in pride.

And so they're one of our customers. So they told us what they were doing. We started turning up the volume for them. Because we're not competitors. We're all in this together. Now, I had nothing to do with this, but they used an accessibility overlay tool. Well... Yeah. Twitter got ahold of them, and people started raising Cain about them not being accessible the way we consider you're accessible. And so... I sent them a note and said... Can we help you? But they corrected it themselves. But... Still, you can make mistakes. People forget. Accessibility should not be an afterthought. But it often is. So there's so much work to do. Even with the identity conversations.

CAMERON: Yeah. I appreciate that. And it is... There is so much to do, and it is sometimes overwhelming. But I think... Yeah. Just taking it a step at a time, and people like you leading is super helpful. So thank you for that. We're... We have a few more minutes. So I welcome more questions.

DEBRA: I see that John said something. To the point of increasing... Well, and he might want to say this himself, instead of me reading it. But I see that John Kirkland...

CAMERON: Yeah, John, you're welcome to take the stage, as it were.

JOHN KIRKLAND: Can you hear me?

CAMERON: Yes, we can.

JOHN KIRKLAND: Wow. All right. I didn't even...

DEBRA: Don't say anything bad.

JOHN KIRKLAND: Yeah. Debra, it's good to see you. I haven't seen you in a while. We've been circling this field for quite a while, haven't we? Yeah. I definitely found your points interesting around cognitive accessibility. And the employment in that area. And even self-disclosure. Which is something that I dealt with directly. For quite a while. It was very, very interesting. And there's a lot that needs to be done. It's a difficult area. I also want to say too -- and hence the link that I put into the chat there -- being on the W3C, on the cognitive accessibility guidelines working group and Task Force, we're looking to increase the accessibility of the internet. And we're really trying to get heads together around how cognitive accessibility is really being -- can be applied in the internet world. As was touched upon a bit there, you know, there are the different lanes, essentially, of disability. And different advocates and areas... And each organization advocating for their own needs. And... But with the W3C, for example, it's covering all disabilities. And so you have these cross functionalities coming into play. And we really want to increase -- especially with cognitive bubbling up, and in the whole area of accessibility, and even... I don't know if this is a politically correct way of putting it -- but mainstreaming a bit more. Where people are realizing we're all going to have a disability at one point, due to aging. And we're not gonna be able to function at the same level. And we will need assistance. How can technology assist us all? So it's a fascinating field. We need more participation. Feel free to contact me and also... Put the link into the cognitive accessibility Task Force of the W3C. It's really a great effort. And it's a global effort. And we just need more people on it, frankly. And I would love to communicate with anyone around this.

DEBRA: And John, I will tell you that I was on the first working group of the cognitive. I was...

JOHN KIRKLAND: Oh, good. All right.

DEBRA: I did it for several years. But boy, it's hard. They worked so hard. So yeah. Before we tried to do -- at Tech Access, how we tried to do with cognitive -- was usability. But actually, it needs to be addressed differently. So I'm really glad that W3C is doing it. And there's so much more to it, as John said, once again. This is about people -- I mean, I'm 62, and definitely my body is different than it was. It is. Now, once again, I've also -- like all of us, I'm in trauma. I don't seem to think as well. I forget things. I drop things. So we first acknowledge we're in trauma. But we need it to be more cognitively considered. So actually all of the work that they're doing helps all of us. And that's what I always say too. And I know others are saying it. Accessibility benefits everyone. Everything you do for accessibility, if you do it right, it benefits everyone. But there's also this one man that's always on Access Chat, that's saying: Oh, W3C standards are so stupid. You don't need it. You don't need assistive technology. Okay. What?

So... It's sort of buyer beware too. And the corporations are saying that as well. And I'm always telling them... Take the time to do your due diligence. Take the time to do your due diligence. Because there's money being spent in this field that is actually hurting our community. And some of y'all probably know what I'm talking about. And I'm not gonna be mean and say it. But yeah. We can't stop this. We can't keep doing this. We've got to really, really focus more. And training. Which Equal Entry has always done such a great job with training. Everybody needs to be trained on accessibility. Every single year. Because it's... You know, we need training.

CAMERON: Awesome. Well, just a closing note. I would like everyone to take away a couple actionable things from this conversation. The most clear action that we can take right now is to join Billion Strong. So Billion Strong.org. The link is there. In the chat. In the Zoom chat. And is there anything else, Debra, that you can leave us with, in terms of going out into the world and taking part in this movement?

DEBRA: Well, thank you, Cameron. First of all, once again for having me, but encouraging everybody. It's free, and we need the numbers. So please join us. Billion-strong.org. But at the same time, make sure that you're telling others about what you're hearing me talk about today. Because what we're hearing is a lot of people don't understand what's happening. And if you are not -- I say this to corporations all the time -- you want the best talent, but you're not accommodating us, you're not including us, your systems aren't accessible, which says to me you don't really want to include me, I'll go and work for somebody else. So this great resignation that's happening is really, really having an impact on the employers. And so I think it's actually an opportunity. So if you're in this field and you really care about this work, start looking at some of the things that are happening to society, and be thinking about what's coming next. Because we're breaking down what it means to be in our identities. We're breaking down our identities.

But accessibility is not a "nice to have". I always say privacy is not a "nice to have". Security is not a "nice to have". You must be private and secure. But you also have to be accessible. And I'm tired of it always be an... How in the heck can it still be an afterthought? How?! This is ridiculous! Sorry.

But accessibility is not a "nice to have". I always say privacy is not a "nice to have". Security is not a "nice to have". You must be private and secure. But you also have to be accessible. And I'm tired of it always be an... How in the heck can it still be an afterthought? How?! This is ridiculous! Sorry.
		
CAMERON:  I'm so happy you joined us, Debra. I'm so happy you all joined us at the New York City Accessibility Meetup. I'm gonna wrap on that note. Thank you again, and I hope you all enjoy the rest of your day.

DEBRA: Thank you, Cameron.	
	
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