Transcriber: Almudena Torrecilla Reviewer: Sebastian Betti
So I have a few questions for you,
but what you may not be able to tell is that I’m blind.
Because I can’t see you I’m going to ask you to please clap your hands
instead of raising them.
So if we can try it out, can you please clap for me?
(Applause)
Oh, fantastic!
At least I’m getting one round of applause today.
(Laughter)
So my first question is: How many of you have a diversity,
equity and inclusion program or DEI program in your organization?
(Medium applause)
I’ve got some over there.
And of those DEI programs,
how many of them started in the last year or two?
(Mild applause)
OK.
And finally, how many of those DEI programs also include accessibility?
(Mild applause)
Here, not too many.
Accessibility means providing access to all people,
no matter their abilities or experiences.
And is this lack of accessibility
why throughout my career, I felt like I just didn’t belong.
And in many cases, completely shut out.
But if organizations are truly committed to DEI,
I strongly believe they need to also place a priority on accessibility.
And when you have a DEIA program, “A” for accessibility,
you will then build a sense of belonging
for 20 percent of the population who identify with having a disability,
like myself.
And that's a whole lot of people.
But, if you have any pushback from your organization on this,
you shake it up,
and that DEIA program
now becomes IDEA, or “idea”,
and we know every organization loves a great acronym.
So there you go.
(Laughter)
You see, I wasn’t always blind.
When I was in college in Richmond, Virginia,
I started noticing changes in my eyesight.
When I was in high school and had trouble driving,
I just chalked it up to being a bad driver.
But here I was, walking around campus, bumping into so many things.
And my shins were splattered with cuts and bruises,
and they looked like a Jackson Pollock painting.
So during the winter break, my freshman year,
I went and saw a specialist
and I was diagnosed with a degenerating eye condition
called retinitis pigmentosa, or RP for short.
And I was told I was going blind and that there was no hope for a cure.
As a young person it was devastating.
And the first things that went through my mind were:
What girl wants to be with a guy who can’t see?
What kind of job can I have if I was blind?
And where can I live if I couldn’t drive?
These questions and many more constantly consumed me.
And eventually, my actions led to me failing out of college
and with little to no hope I came back home to North Carolina
and I moved in with my high school buddies
who were going to North Carolina State University.
But I was ashamed and embarrassed
to tell them that I’d failed out and that I was going blind.
So to keep up with impressions,
I enrolled in classes through a continuing education program at NC State
and in that program, I could take a few credits every semester,
and eventually I took so many classes
that they had to let me into a full time program, and I graduated.
But my biggest hesitation about staying in North Carolina
was the fact that I was struggling driving,
and I thought: If I can’t drive, I can’t have a career.
But a few years earlier, I visited Bangalore, India,
and I knew if I moved out there,
I could probably get a car and driver pretty easily.
So I moved out there.
(Laughter)
But after two years and too many tongue lashings from my boss in India,
I decided to come back home to the US and I moved to New York City.
The allure of the city was too much for me,
a robust public transportation system,
a fleet of yellow taxis at my beck and call.
Not to mention if I bumped into somebody on the street,
there’s nothing more in New York than just putting my head down and keep walking.
(Laughter)
But it was around this time
that I also started noticing changes in my eyesight
when I was reading text on a website.
And at the time, I didn’t know that this was an accessibility issue,
but I found this little Microsoft magnifying mouse
that allowed me to zoom in on text and images on the computer screen.
And just like my car and driver in India,
this little magnifying mouse was a tool
that would enable me to continue my career.
At the time, I was working for the City of New York,
providing financial education for city employees during the recession,
but I was living paycheck to paycheck.
And when I looked at my friends around me,
they were moving up in their companies or going to grad school,
and I just didn't see that same type of career trajectory for myself.
That’s when I reconnected with a gentleman named Steve Clemons
that I worked with in Bangalore.
He was now on the board of directors of a cell phone tower manufacturing company.
And they wanted to start up a new business in Cameroon,
which is in West Central Africa.
When I heard this, I jumped in.
I said: “Hey, send out there, I can do this.”
And Steve knew I had some sort of eye condition,
but he said: “All right, let’s try it out.”
So I went to sign my contract, and afterwards we went out to celebrate.
And that’s when the executives of the company found out that I couldn’t see.
And they said: “We can’t send you out there.”
I said: “Please give me a chance. Trust me, I can do this.”
So they said: “OK, fine, we’ll give you six months and we’ll go separate ways.”
And so I packed my bags and I left Manhattan for Douala
and I took a USD 20,000 investment and started a team around me.
That team and I, we had immediate success.
Within the next 14 months, we generated USD 12 million in revenue,
2.4 million in profit.
And over the next three years, we spread that company around the continent
and had sales in 22 countries.
But the biggest accomplishment I had
was when I was able to read a book for the very first time in nearly five years.
That's when I got my first iPad,
and the built-in accessibility features in it allowed me to read an e-book.
I was able to put white text on a black background,
which made it much easier for my eyes to read.
I was able to zoom in with just a pinch on my fingers.
And now having the experience of running a successful business
and being able to read,
I thought I could go to grad school just like my friends back in New York.
So I moved to Washington D. C.
and attended the George Washington University.
During my first week of orientation, I found myself at a networking event,
and had these little name cards where we’re supposed to go see,
but I couldn’t see where I had to go, so I turned to the person next to me.
and it happened to be Liesl Riddle,
who was the associate dean of the business school at the time,
and she had no idea I couldn’t see,
but she could empathize with what I was going through
because she actually had a child with special needs,
and she encouraged me to be open about my vision loss with my classmates.
It was the first time in my life
that anyone had told me to embrace my disability,
and I gained a new level of confidence that I had never felt before.
And I also gained a new sense of loyalty to the university.
But once I was able to be my authentic self,
I was also able to open up my heart and I met my wife in the program.
But, as my MBA program was coming to an end,
most of my classmates were focusing on their interviews
and preparing for them, and stressing out about them.
While I was stuck at the very first step: The online application.
Many of the online applications were not accessible to me with my low vision.
Often I would be timed out because there was a minimum amount of time
you had to take the computer application and I had to start all over again.
Or the contrast of the text in the background just wasn't high enough,
and I couldn’t read what fields I had to complete.
Needless to say, this was frustrating.
How could somebody with my experience and my education
struggle with such a simple task of completing an application?
And it brought me to tears more than once.
I eventually landed on my feet with a start-up company,
but that company folded within three years and I was out of a job again.
But this time my wife and I had built a house in the D. C. area,
and we had also welcomed our first son, both of which are not cheap.
And the stress of it all caused my sight to go even faster
and even the magnification software and the inverted colors, nothing helped.
I couldn't see the computer screen and I thought my career was over.
That’s when I heard about this software
that was developed at a data science company called SAS,
and it was designed to help people who’re blind in their vision,
visualize graphs and charts using sounds.
I thought it was awesome, but what was really cool was the guy who designed it.
His name was Ed Summers, and he had the same eye condition as me
and lived in my hometown of Cary, North Carolina.
The very same place I never thought anyone who’s blind could ever live,
and I tried for months to get in touch with this guy with no luck.
Finally, my wife said: “If he can live in North Carolina, maybe we can, too.”
So we found a house online and we told my folks and I got so excited.
My dad immediately jumped in the car and started driving to go look at this house
as we’re talking on the phone.
He started to yell at something.
What are you doing, dad?
He’s: “Oh, there’s a blind guy in the road.
Maybe it’s the guy you’re trying to get in touch with.”
Dad, please don’t yell at blind people on the road.
Don’t yell at anyone on the road!
He gets out of the car and walks over this poor guy.
And he says: “Are you Ed Summers?”
And the guy says: “Yes, I am.”
And my dad puts the phone in this poor guy’s ear and says:
“My son’s trying to reach you.”
(Laugher)
Dad!
And so after apologizing to him profusely, he agreed to meet me,
and I came down there next weekend.
A 30 minute conversation, turned to three hours
and Ed became a friend and a mentor.
And he showed me that accessibility would enable me to continue my career
and that my dreams of being an executive,
they weren’t dead.
He was soon after this encounter that I hit reset on my career,
and I joined an organization
that happened to be the largest employer of Americans who are blind.
And it was located just seven miles from where I grew up.
I was tasked with starting a new business
that would create upward mobility for people who are blind.
And we were going to do this by creating technology based jobs.
But because of my own lived experiences,
I knew if we wanted to help set them up for success,
we had to address the accessibility barriers.
And so that’s what we’re doing.
But as I wrap things up,
I’m not asking you to travel 30,000 miles around the world like I did,
nor am I asking you to join an organization
that’s focused on serving the disability community.
But what I am is challenging you to add accessibility to your DEI program
and build a sense of belonging for all people,
because this just might be an idea worth spreading.