SASHA BLAIR-GOLDENSOHN: I'm a born and bred New Yorker.
I've lived in this city my entire life.
And I've been at Google now for 12, going on 13 years.
Summer of 2009, July 29th, I was taking my usual morning
walk through Central Park.
But that day, I never got to work.
As I was walking through the park,
a dead limb fell, at the exact moment
that I was walking underneath that tree, onto my head.
After being, more or less, in a coma for a month
and having a number of surgeries and many things
to bring me back from the brink, nobody
knows what they're going to get.
Nobody can see what's inside.
But I knew I was in there, that I felt the same.
The body certainly felt awfully different.
But what I came to see, what I came to learn about
was that there's a whole hidden world out there
in this very city that I grew up in that's
very excluding and endangering to people with disabilities.
And I came to realize, oh, snap.
This place that I was already working
and slowly was able to get back to,
Google Maps, Google Maps that a lot of people
use to get around, doesn't work for people like me.
Sure, I could look up directions.
I could look up a restaurant to go to.
But it doesn't say, is it wheelchair accessible?
Can I get in the door?
Can I go to the bathroom?
So we started to assemble what I lovingly
still refer to as my rag tag team of 20-percenters.
We were able along that way with that ragtag committed group
to put together things that weren't just barely a demo,
but were really features that could go on Maps.
And I'm proud to have been part of that.
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The idea that I always try to raise
when I'm positioned to talk to people
and get it in their consciousness
is the curb cut effect.
Curb cuts is the technical name for those little ramps
at the edge of curbs in cities on sidewalks,
that those little things that you
use when you're rolling your luggage, or your stroller,
or your wheelchair, or your delivery cart--
when you build things to protect and enable the most vulnerable
people, it helps a lot more.
Putting wheelchair accessibility on maps is a curb cut.
The concept is also known more as universal design.
Build in the way that enables the maximum number of people
to benefit, and build thoughtfully.
There's plenty more work to do.
No doubt about that.
We're still after it.
We're after barricades.
We're out there, and we're making our voices heard.
And it makes all the difference to know
that you're not in it alone.
And to form those groups and find those allies at Google,
around New York and the world, in the legal world,
and to know that is indescribably, enormously
empowering.
And whether we get there tomorrow,
the next day, the next year, to know you're making progress
and that you have allies and people who've
got your back makes all the difference and makes
me want to keep after it.
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