Category: blog

Transcript

Viv Mullan 00:00

Hello, I’m Viv and welcome to the last episode of season one of Remarkable Insights. And today also marks International Day of People with disability. This year, the United Nations is observing this date by exploring the role of innovation in fueling an accessible and equitable world which fits the theme of our podcast perfectly. To start today’s episode, we took the microphone around the remarkable community to ask those with lived experience what today means to them.

Katy Gaastra 00:55

My name is Katy Gaastra. And I have cerebral palsy. What’s so exciting to me about the theme for this year’s International Day of People with Disabilities is the fact that this community has deep roots in innovation. We’re an adaptive group. And we’re changing the way that the world understands things like accessibility, equity and inclusion through the power of technology and through the shift in language. And by harnessing the power of innovation and technology. We’re challenging expectations about what disabled people are truly capable of. My life has been completely transformed by mobility technology in the last six years. It’s allowed me to reimagine a better future for myself, but also to be a part of a better world where people with disabilities are really the ones leading the call for change.

Sophie Marmont 01:50

Hello, my name is Sophie Marmont and I have cerebral palsy. To me, International Day of people with disability is an important day, as it is the one that is internationally recognised by the UN. The day for me highlights the achievements of people with a disability and sometimes highlights that we have a long way to go in this space. To me the day is an opportunity to start the conversation that continues throughout the year.

Viv Mullan 02:39

This season, we traveled virtually across the globe to speak with some remarkable people who are harnessing the power of tech design and advocacy to shape a more accessible, inclusive and equitable world. For this season finale, we’re going to play some unheard moments from these conversations. First, let’s head to New York to hear from Forbes columnist Jonathan Kaufman about how the disability community has and continues to transform tech at large.

Jonathan Kaufman 03:04

A Metaverse has to be accessible, you know, the accessibility I think it’s such a big part of the technology now that we’re sort of pushing in. And so the idea is to say, we need to think about what we can learn from people with disabilities who’ve had to navigate the world for ages, I mean, throughout history, and realise that the world wasn’t designed for them. So we have to rethink how we design for this new environment for this new work environment. And that I think is important, but I also think they’re not doing this for nothing. I’m under no illusion that they’re doing this. Oh, because this is really wonderful. Yeah, there’s certainly some of that, but there’s a cost benefit to this. And it’s a cost benefit for people with disabilities who want to work, want to continue to work, or people who are aging for saying, okay, you know, what retirement is in for me, I want to sort of take the next step, but I’m dealing with health issues, but my brain works. And I can continue to work. That’s going to be a very interesting question. I think, as particularly baby boomers start to retire, or reimagine what’s the sort of next step beyond core of their lives and dealing with again, disabilities, and particularly those that are at the C suite are saying, You know what, maybe I don’t want to retire, maybe I want to do something else, and to reimagine what the world of work looks like. That in itself will have a trickle down effect.

Viv Mullan 04:43

Charli Skinner, an advocate and co-founder of Soda, a tech company, moving the dial on accessibility and inclusion explains why chronically ill and disabled people are natural entrepreneurs.

Charli Skinner 04:54

Disabled people are innovators. I almost even want to call them hustlers because they literally have to hustle their way through If, you know they’re hustling their way through creating alternative solutions that because they’re not being offered them, so, you know, disabled people are the people who are at the forefront of working, you know, multiple different interesting jobs not doing nine to fives, you know, everyone talks about oh, the nine to five working for the man, it’s awful, meanwhile, disabled people who realise that years ago, and are hustling their way through their lives. So there’s a lot to learn from us hustlers, I think. But yeah, I mean, there really is this really important space around enabling people into those environments. And, you know, for example, recognising that remote work actually is something that people can do productively tech can enable working processes as well. Employers can use tools to be able to stay in contact with their employees in a much more facilitated way, these days as well. And then I think there’s, you know, for me, I can use myself as a good example of someone who was on that middling ground and has managed to establish a place of balance with my work, it is a constant work in progress. But I actually made a shift from a really big shift. And it was a difficult decision to make from going from working from for a nine to five job to saying no, I actually need to work for myself, because the only way that I will be able to create the access environment that works for me is if I work for myself, but it’s also a huge negative because the fact that I was driven out of work because I couldn’t access work, and essentially actually was left with no other choice than to start my own thing in itself is a problem. So we, you know, we need to create the environments for people to be able to choose whether they want to do something that is a, you know, the equivalent of the nine to five or a part time role, or working for themselves, or working as a freelancer and being able to explore all those models with all the tools that are available to them without being forced to just assumed that it’s not possible for them to work.

Viv Mullan 06:52

Professor Sébastien Jodoin, director of the disability inclusive climate action research programme shines a light on the intersection between disability and climate change.

Sébastien Jodoin 07:03

We are doing the first empirical study on the climate resilience of people with disabilities in a region of India, and looking at sort of how climate change there affects people with disabilities, but also like what tools, what strategies have they developed to be resilient? What lessons can we learn? And I have to tell you, one of the reasons we chose India actually, was that they had done a better job of protecting people in heat waves than many Western countries have. They had these heat waves that were quite deadly many years ago. And more recently, honestly, they’ve had fewer deaths from heat waves in India than we’ve had in Canada. So why? So we have a few hypotheses, but that’s why we’re doing the research, right. And also actually here in my hometown, as Montreal is sort of trying to address its largest share of carbon emissions. So in the transportation sector, there’s all these things happening, right. So introducing rapid bike lanes, electrifying vehicles, car sharing programmes, of course, expanding the transit system. And this is the thing that we’re recently doing is trying to figure out, okay, well, how many of these solutions are accessible? Like how many of these solutions are perhaps even creating new barriers for people with disability? So we just don’t know. And that’s why we’re doing this research. But one of the things that we’ve learned, for instance, is that these rapid bike lanes, they have not been designed in ways to think about like, how does a blind person cross the street? If this, like rapid die claim is like designed for the bikes to basically never stop? So again, it’s sort of no one thought about that barrier. And no one thought about how you could design it in an inclusive way. And I like to say that disability inclusive design is just, it’s just good design, right? It’s just figuring out how to build something that’s going to benefit as many people as possible.

Viv Mullan 09:04

Matt Pierri, CEO, and co founder of sociability has built an app designed to empower people to understand the social and economic advantages of accessibility

Matt Pierri 09:14

Technology for lots of people, particularly non disabled people, has given them back brain space, right. So you can type into Google Maps, point A and point B. And it just tells you how to get there. And you don’t really need to think anymore. You don’t need to read a map, you’re not looking at the stars, you don’t have a compass, right, it just tells you when to get on the bus or the tube or the taxi, and you just get there. You have all these things at your fingertips. And we live in a world of so much information. A lot of these sites just help you pass that and kind of get to the things you need. And then take away that need to sort of use your brain to figure out a bunch of that stuff. for disabled people that doesn’t work. Disabled people are still working to do all those things. And often, you know, two or three, four or five times harder than non disabled people. And that takes energy and time. So for me to book a restaurant or to meet a book or Hotel takes much longer than somebody who doesn’t have a disability who can just go online and click the price and location and pick something they like. So sociability, our mission is really to organise the world’s accessibility information in a way that removes this anxiety and the stress and his time and his effort for all these tasks that still exist for disabled people today, because the platforms and technologies that we’ve built don’t have the right information. So you know, I can’t use Google Maps to readily find a way to get from point A to B, because it doesn’t know which forms of transport are accessible to me, if we can help them unlock that. That means that for disabled people, transport is much easier. And we don’t need to build a navigation platform or, you know, a booking site, or whatever it is, the goal really is to help unlock all these other existing platforms and services. And to really be in some sense, that idea of like a layer of the internet that can help, you know, facilitate and empower, to sell people to access all these other services and platforms that exist, and to give them back their brand space to give them back that time to give them back that you know, kind of confidence, peace of mind that they don’t have, but that other people have and take for granted.

Viv Mullan 11:12

Creator of NFTY collective Giselle Mota is on a mission to bring disability inclusion and representation into web three and the metaverse.

Giselle Mota 11:20

We’re working with an individual who has muscular dystrophy. And he is an artist and actually based in Singapore and an amazing rapper, super talented young man. And we he, you know, he lives with the reality that he just, he doesn’t know because he has a degenerative disease, and what I’m really aiming to do as well. And I don’t want to get emotional here. But what I am aiming to do is also give people a chance to see themselves in an experience. That’s so cool, and so forward thinking that they could say I was a part of that during my lifetime, I was a part of this experience. And so those are the kinds of doors that open up as well. And now we are being invited to create games and inclusive art galleries with some of our characters and learning and development experiences for organisations. And some people have asked us Can we use your characters to, you know, add on to our products, so that we can, if we do have a little character in our product somewhere, it can be someone with a disability. So there’s so many different opportunities that are coming up, and the sky’s the limit.

Viv Mullan 12:23

Bernard Chiira, founder of Innovate Now is on a mission to raise the business profile of investing in assistive tech startups in Africa.

Giselle Mota 12:31

Assistive Technology has not proven itself, you know, as a high return sector, yet, we are trying to take it there. But many investors, you know who our commercial investors are, who are looking at it from especially the metrics of just the return on investment, they need to see that there’s potential, they need to see that building an assistive tech business can be equally rewarding as being a FinTech, for example. And this is very difficult to do when you don’t have, you know, cash for r&d. And some of these innovations, they do require, you know, significant amounts of capital, especially when you have things like hardware involved, or new disruptive technologies, you know, involved. And so what we strongly believe in is that we need to work with impact investors who can see the potential of these businesses at a very early stage and give them access to early stage capital, that then goes ahead to make them ready and investable for your traditional investors down the line. And I think that’s why some of the amazing initiatives we’re seeing coming up, make a significant step towards saying how do we address this gap? How do we link disability innovators to capital and set them up on a path to become investable and sustainable? And I think this should be the mindset of every accelerator or programme that supporting entrepreneurs in this space. We all know that there’s been proven ways of helping companies that are changing the world today. Succeed and we need to bring that mindset we need to bring that talent we need to bring that capital to the disabilities.

Viv Mullan 14:27

Andrew Gurza, Chief Disability Officer at Bump’n provides a unique glimpse into sex tech and disability.

Andrew Gurza 14:34

We made up that role for me, I said to Heather, you know, we never have disabled people in power. And companies. We never have a CEO with a disability. We never have a CFO with a disability. And she was like, Well, what would you want to do in this role? And I was like, I want to make sure everything is accessible. And we’re talking about disability as often as we can. And she was like, Well, what if we just made him a role, Chief disability officer, so that you can be in the room and look over all of our stuff and make sure it’s all the way you want it to be, before we do anything. And to the, from the beginning of anything to the end of any part of the project, there’s a disabled person looking over, it’s been really, really powerful to say that I do that. And I think we’re the first in the world to ever do something like that. And it makes me really proud to be like, see, disabled people can innovate and make change, and be in positions of power. Like, it’s really it’s to me, it’s so important. And also, it was using both Heather in my expertise, she’s got 10 plus years in marketing, and she’s really, really good as an ad person. I have 10 plus years, being a public figure in the disability space. So we were like, Let’s do this together and some more so then, you know, starting that conversation, it was about reigniting conversation around sex. It’s always been everywhere to have the right to have and saying, This toy doesn’t have to be about masturbation. It’s not always about Yeah, you gotta get off. It’s about liking the intimacy you can have with the toy. And so I love that it’s able to do both those things.

Viv Mullan 16:02

Wow, what a year. It’s been so many amazing moments, talented, insightful guests and topics to the full unedited interviews, please subscribe to our YouTube remarkable tech. I’m Viv Mullan. And this has been the remarkable insights podcast. At Remarkable we’re committed to developing tech startups that positively impact people with disability and amplify human potential for those who want to join the remarkable family applications for our 2023 accelerator program open now. So head to our website to learn more

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Please note the following episode contains sexual themes and references.

Transcript

Viv Mullan 00:03

In the following episode, we chat all things sex, tech and disability with none other than the brilliant Andrew Gurza. Andrew is an award winning disability awareness consultant, and the Chief Disability Officer and co founder of bumping a sex toy company for and by disabled people. He’s been featured on BBC CBC, Huffington Post, Mashable, Wall Street Journal, and the list goes on. Andrew is also the host of Disability After Dark, the podcast shining a bright light on disability stories, and has spoken all over the world about sex and disability. In our conversation, we discuss Andrew’s personal journey, and the work Bump’n is doing to dismantle ableism and broaden the accessibility of the sex-tech industry. Well, thank you, thank you so much for joining me today, your evening over in Toronto. And you know, me already, I’m Viv. But for the purpose of this podcast, we get our guests to do a visual description of themselves before we startup. So if you could describe what you look like, and the setting you’re in, that would be great. 

Andrew Gurza 01:05

Yeah I’m sitting in my downtown Toronto apartment, it is looking out over a foggy, cold, Toronto, this is winter here, and I am a person who uses a power wheelchair. I have a black headrest behind me and I’m wearing a white plain t shirt with a pink lanyard around my neck and a black microphone above my head so I can record this. And I’m the sexiest person in the room.

Viv Mullan 01:31

Oh, always without a doubt that goes without saying of course. Okay, so on that note, you’ve established you’re the sexiest person in the room always. But first off, you know, identity and language is such a powerful part, you as an individual and you in the in an advocacy and professional space. And you identify as a “Queer Cripple”. Can you speak to how you kind of landed on that on that title?

Andrew Gurza 01:54

Yeah, and I know that some people listening are like, whoa, but those words are, you know, full of history and full of some not so great history for both disabled people and queer people. And I use, I use that only to describe myself and I use quicker ball because it makes people in both those communities. And outside those communities. Pay attention to me when I reclaim it, and they pay attention to all of a sudden I’ve said two really bad words. And they’re like, What are you say? Why do you say that I better listen, what’s good, what, what’s happening, and they get really concerned that I set all these words. And then I talk about ableism. And I talk about queerness. And I talk about disability, and how I can’t get laid because people don’t talk to me because I’m in a wheelchair. And then they pay attention to the words for me are words that I’ve reclaimed words that people have called me all my life, in a derogatory sense, not so much queer, but cripple a lot. When I was younger, I heard it a lot in a derogatory sense. And I was like, why can’t we play with this? Why can’t this be something that we play with? But I would never give them or assign them to someone else? Without having a big conversation about why would I think it’s important. It’s only for me, it’s words that I reclaim for me,

Viv Mullan 03:04

Brilliant, and part of the work you’re doing is advocating for people to care about your sexual identity. It is interesting that people need that kind of awareness about why people with disabilities deserve sex. And to understand pleasure,

Andrew Gurza 03:20

I think I’ll just reframe what you’re saying, I don’t think we deserve sex. And I mean, anyone deserves sex, I think we deserve access to pleasure. Because when you say you deserve sex, then like, you know, you assume then that you deserve someone else’s body. No, I disagree with that. I think we deserve pleasure. And we deserve access to your own pleasure. But I think that’s what you’re trying to say. Anyway, I just want to clarify,

Viv Mullan 03:39

I love learning about how to phrase things, that is a huge learning in that it’s, it’s what you’re doing with Bump’n is you’re creating, you know, sex tech and toys that allow people access to pleasure. And I think that there’s so much awareness around this understanding, you know, me included of what that even means, from a human rights perspective.

Andrew Gurza 03:59

I mean, before I’d never thought about it, I’d never consider it. And really, the catalyst for that was my co founder and CEO, Heather was the reason that I even started doing it. And she was, we were on the beach in Bondi, I got to visit her, she lives in Sydney, Australia, and I got visited in 2018. And she had seen him film that I had done with the National Film Board of Canada, called Picture this. And in the film, I talk about how I can’t sell pleasure of the film got sent down to Australia for queer for Sydney pride. And so my mom and sister were there, and they watched the movie, and then I never thought my sister would see me talking about my masturbatory habits. And I talked about how I couldn’t sell pleasure. And then so I went down to visit her four months later, and she was like, I watched your movie. It was great. I heard you talk about how you can’t drink off. Tell me more about that. And I was like, Well, none of the toys on the market really worked for me and none of the toys like because of my dexterity, my hands. I can’t really use the small toys on the market. And so we talked some more about it. And she goes, well, there must be a toy for you isn’t there? And I said, well, not really. And so we talked some more, and we’re just standing there on the beach and she goes well, did you want to make one and at first we were both like, do we want to make a toy with our with a sex toy with our sibling? But then we took the question of, you know, do you have trouble? masturbating? Do the hand limitations to read it, and a bunch of people on Reddit said, Yeah, this is a problem. My experience 92% of people we spoke to in that survey said, I want a toy like this, where the hell is a toy like this for me. So he very quickly realised this wasn’t a one off endeavour to get Andrew masturbation aid. This was like, this could change the world. And so we, we went, and we cold emailed Dr. Judith Glover out of RMIT in Melbourne, who is like the leading, she has a PhD in sex toy design. So she’s like the leading person in the world. So we didn’t, we had no idea of this. And we just emailed her call and said, here’s who we are, here’s what we’re doing. Can we work with you? And she was like, I had been waiting for someone to come up with an idea like this. Yes, I’ll work with you. And so really, from there, she connected us to OTs, PTs, disabled community members to really get it going. And then you know, we came up with a bunch of designs, and the joystick is where we landed. But that’s kind of how it all came to be.

Viv Mullan 06:04

Can you explain the toy itself, it looks like?

Andrew Gurza 06:07

If you married your favourite body pillow, and a foam roller, and you put it together. So the top is designed for people with limited dexterity. So if you don’t have fine motor skills, you can grab on to a tiny button or a lever to like turn on a toy or turn off a toy. So the top is like a pillow, there’s a big soft pillow that you hug into, and you use your gross motor skills to hug into the top. And the bottom part is a purple peg that has a bunch of holes in it that are designed to hold your favourite toys. So your favourite wand, your favourite dildo, your favourite sleeve goes in there and its held in place. So you can then put it in position you like to snuggle.

Viv Mullan 06:50

A huge part of your work is sort of armouring up everyday with this this incredible vulnerability that you manage and you show. How do you go with managing that you’ve mentioned previously, you get a bit worried?

Andrew Gurza 07:03

Oh, I’m always worried because in our social environment, the way you hoped you’re supposed to look at disability is one of two ways is supposed to pity them and feel bad for them. And they’re supposed to become the sad pinball creatures, or you’re supposed to be a superhero and you’re supposed to like rise above your disability and all this bullshit that I don’t agree with. And I don’t think we talk enough about what what being disabled really feels like? What are the emotions that go behind, needing somebody to wipe your ass, needing someone to dress you needing someone to help you in the shower? Only being touched when somebody with a glove and who’s doing care touches you like what? What are the emotions behind that I don’t think in the disability space, we spend enough time exploring that vulnerability and really like tapping into Oh shit, that feels really hard. Let’s talk about that. And so that’s my favourite place to be is to be right there and in the tough spots, and bringing that to the masses on my social media platforms. And on the podcast, because I think disabled people again, they’re herded into these two categories. I think that there’s so much more grey than a pitiable creature or superhero, there’s somewhere there’s somewhere in between. And I want to be there,.

Viv Mullan 08:14

I kind of want want to know about what that feeling is being in the tiredness and exhaustion you feel from the ableism. Just within those two communities?

Andrew Gurza 08:23

It is exhausting. And because when you’re in the queer space, you have to present constantly that you’re viable, that you’re sexy that you deserve a space here, if you don’t meet a very specific part of maleness that is White says able bodied, muscular, if you don’t meet any of those standards, and I don’t meet any of them, then how do you present? How do you fit in those communities? If we talk about Section Disability, in the disability space, usually and no shade to these people, they’re all great. But usually, the community that we’re talking about is men with spinal cord injury, who’ve sustained an injury or women with spinal cord injury or non binary people with spinal cord injury, but we’re not really talking about queer people. So a lot of the times when I go into disabled spaces, I say I’m queer. other disabled people will say, Oh, no, but we you will find your girlfriend, don’t worry about it. You’re not really queer. You’re not gay, what are you talking about? And I’ll have to be like, No, I really am like, no. So it can be and it can be exhausting to present how sexy I am and how sexually viable I am and how hard it is to be with a disabled person. And I can do that day and night. I know how to tap into that narrative. But it’s exhausting to constantly be like, I’m desirable, I deserve to be here. Sometimes I want to be like, can someone just want to be here because they want to be here. And I love sex workers and I think they’re amazing. But if nothing sucks, the majority of my sexual life is paid for by me from the work I do, to have intimacy like, I love that it’s there and I’m so thankful I can access it, and it’s a huge privilege. I’m not dissuading that, but I wish somebody would be like, I want to spend the night with you, because I want to spend the night with you. And you don’t have to spend, you know, a couple $100 to make that happen. That part is really hard, knowing that a lot of my work in the sexual space is transactional. And it’s constantly me pushing how great it is. Those are the things that make me like, I’ll do it. If you tell me there’s a paycheck in the end, of course, I’ll do my job. But that doesn’t mean it’s not taxing on me to do it.

Viv Mullan 10:28

You’ve got quite a large social media following on various channels. And it’s a bold assumption. But I know that being on social media comes with a lot of pros and a lot of cons, which is people pretty harsh. And it kind of Amin on it, and how when you introduced a sex toy that is accessible, how did you go with navigating all the various responses? And did you get negative responses?

Andrew Gurza 10:55

We had a lot of positive feedback. And we had some negative feedback. People were like, well, this toy wouldn’t work for me, or why are you pricing it’s so high, or I can’t afford that. And we you know, we took that feedback, and we listened and we did our best to we had, you know a preorder where you could spend 99 US dollars and then pay the rest off later. Or and we’ve done a fun an orgasm campaign where we’ve asked non disabled folks to go to www dot get bump in.com and put down 5075 100 bucks to basically give us money so we can make more toys, so that somebody who couldn’t afford a toy, we can then gift it to them later and be like, Oh, you couldn’t afford this cool. We have some people that helped us get made. Here’s a toy. So we’ve done really everything we could to make it accessible. And yeah, people on social media were like, Ah, this is confusing me. What is it like work? I’m confused. So we realised we had to do a lot more education on teaching people what it was. And if people want to get upset on social media, go ahead. Like I’ve been, you know, call that run social media a bunch of times for stuff I’ve said. And it’s hard because for a lot of us in the disability community, that’s our community. And when they turn on you sometimes it’s like, whoa, what are we okay, how do I get out of here, but like, I’m too old now to really give a shit if you want to be upset, fine, if you want to have a conversation about it, and then like, work through it with me, let’s do that. But if you want to just be upset, I can stop you.

Viv Mullan 12:25

It’s incredible that you have that tenacity, and that that sort of thick skin, but also that you’re vulnerable about it

Andrew Gurza 12:32

I’m kind of pleased. And I’m honest, I’m kind of pleased that Twitter’s dying. I’m kind of really happy that Twitter’s kind of burning to the ground right now. Because not so much because I’m like, oh, Twitter deserves to die. I also realised that Twitter was a really big part of the disability community getting our stuff out there. But now it’s like, cool, we can all start fresh. Again, we don’t have to be beholden to this persona on social media, we can start again, and we can build our own platforms. And so when I found out it was dying, I was like, Cool, the pressures off I can just be myself know a little bit more good.

Viv Mullan 13:06

And have you thought about thinking about the new opportunities that are popping up in tech? Have you thought about what the metaverse might afford? The future of bumping?

Andrew Gurza 13:30

Wouldn’t it be cool to have a Bump’in sex-toy to turn on for you and like that could through VR that like the person you want to sleep with? Or look like somebody really hot? Wouldn’t it be? That’d be cool. You know, so there are so many applications of it. Like, I know, they’re working on VR porn right now. Like, I know that that’s a thing that’s been around for a while. And like, how cool would it be to have VR porn stories like that are connected to the disability community? Like, that’d be awesome. Again, all it would take is having some disabled folks in the room and being like, what tech would work for you? What do you need? What do you want? What wouldn’t make it work for you? Google got up and talked about their phone that did the things for voice recognition. I was so excited because I was like, wow, I would never have thought that a phone company would listen that hard. And do something like that. Like, that’s cool. All they need to be is like, what are the problems? How can we fix it? What do you need? And like, Google has money, Microsoft has money, they all have funds to make it go. So you can like they could change the world. All they have to do is listen, and I think that’s really what it boils down to just listen to us. We’ll tell you what we need. We’ll tell you what tech works and doesn’t work. Like what their toy people told us right away. Oh, yeah, that wouldn’t work for me or Oh, yeah, that would work or oh, here’s what I need. Like they told us. All we had to do is listen.

Viv Mullan 14:55

As the finishing question. What I like to ask people is to learn Leave our listeners with an insight or a remarkable insight about the space you’re working in. And that could be a piece of advice. It could be just something that you’d hope they’d leave this with a learning. I’ll pass it to you. But please share?

Andrew Gurza 15:13

All of us are going to be disabled one day, what are you going to want when you’re disabled? And what are you going to do when you’re disabled? Just think about those questions. Because it’s going to it’s going to come up faster than you realise. And you’re going to need support, you’re going to need help, you’re going to need care in a way that you didn’t, you weren’t ready for. Think about that and start having a conversation now. So that when it comes into your life, you’re not freaked out, you’re actually ready to talk about it. And then another time just thinking about another learning is like, can interrogate Why Does that scare you? Why does it Does it scare you? Because you can’t imagine that you’ll be a disabled person? Or does it scare you because you can imagine and that terrifies you like interrogate where that comes from? And really sit with yourself for a minute and be like, Why am I afraid of this? Let’s talk it out. Journal it, write it out, put it somewhere and really think about it. And then ask yourself the question again, and see what happens.

Viv Mullan 16:08

And you thank you so much for joining me.

Andrew Gurza 16:11

It was so great. Just such a pleasure to be here.

Viv Mullan 16:15

The full interview that guests can be found in the link below where you press play on this podcast, our show notes, make sure you subscribe or hit follow to not miss another remarkable insights episode.

DOWNLOAD A WORD VERSION OF THE TRANSCRIPT HERE.

Watch the full video recording of this podcast here.

Check out Andrew’s Instagram, Twitter, and website, as well as, the Bump’n linktr.ee

Transcript

Viv Mullan 00:03

When we think of what it takes to be a successful entrepreneur, we think of innovation, determination and ability to adapt to change, it should come at no surprise then that there has and continues to be a growing wealth of talent and disabled entrepreneurs. But how can we do better to harness this largely untapped talent pool? In this episode, we speak with advocate and founder Charlie Skinner, who’s on a mission to empower young adults who are chronically ill and disabled to design a radically inclusive world around us, Charlie shares her experience of acquiring a brain injury and how this expose the stark reality of inaccessible workplaces the hidden costs of disability, and also has taught her how we can do better to tap into the potential of disabled entrepreneurs.

Charli Skinner 00:43

Thank you so much for having me. I’m very excited to be here. Yeah, I’m Charlie, as people listening probably already know, I am a white woman with blonde hair. I’m sitting in my boat, actually, in London, you probably can’t even tell by the video, what it looks like. Because behind me is just a boring old white door with a couple of pictures hanging on the wall. That’s incredible.

Viv Mullan 01:07

On a boat in London, you said, Yes, I’m coming to visit.

Charli Skinner 01:12

Yeah, it’s a very peaceful and relaxing spot to live, when things are working. When they’re not, it’s not that easy

Viv Mullan 01:19

Now, I’d love to just sort of start off, if we could just jump into as little or as much as you’d like to share about your experience acquiring your disability sort of later in life, and how that sort of positioned you into this chapter of your life professionally. And personally.

Charli Skinner 01:35

Yeah, you’re right, I acquired my chronic illness, which is essentially a disabling set of chronic illnesses about just over four years ago. Now, actually. So it’s not even that long into my adult life. But definitely at a time when it was in my late 20s, I was in a kind of position in my career where, you know, thinking about what’s next. So, you know, pretty stable in my job and had built up a solid amount of skills and figured out, you know, a little bit of the groove of where I was at. And I actually sustained a head injury, which was the catalyst for a whole series of events over the last four to five years, which essentially have left me with long term health conditions that I will be I live with now and have to manage and I will be we’ll be living with for the rest of my life. So it’s, it’s been quite the process in the sense that it was, it was a really, really big shift in my life, that organisation that I have found in now, partly comes from me being that individual who was looking for all of this type of support and support in accessing things like work, accessing the outdoors, accessing, even just social environments, with my friends, accessing health care, all that kind of stuff that I basically spent, you know, years and still do spend years trying to navigate my way through and advocate my work my way through. And then the other side of it is the flip side of, you know, financial stability, which is a huge, huge challenge for people who are chronically ill and disabled. And yeah, the price tag, I think it was some statistics show that it’s something like on average, more than 500 pounds a month for a disabled person to live with the extra accommodations that they need.

Viv Mullan 03:17

And as you navigated that journey of advocating for yourself, did your relationship with technology change, because you weren’t getting that support from the systems?

Charli Skinner 03:26

Tech is actually a really interesting one. Because it’s something that initially for me, as an individual, I found really inaccessible because of my brain issues. And because something that I relied on, like my phone, or my computer screen, became inaccessible to me because of visual sort of interference and noise interference. And those kinds of things that my brain just you know, was essentially got to a place of finding it really difficult to process those kinds of things. So initially, I struggled with that, because I didn’t know how to navigate tech in an accessible way. I only knew how to navigate tech in the way that I was used to, for example, you know, texting on WhatsApp, or FaceTime video call. So those kinds of things that I was really used to, I tried to continue to do and I tried to use tech to keep me connected because I was so isolated, but I wasn’t using it in a way that works for me, because I didn’t know what was available to me from a tech point of view, that would make my life a lot easier. So even now, even though now I can easily go on a FaceTime or video call. I mean, I’m on a video call right now. I now I always use dictation on my phone to write out like text messages and those kinds of things. It’s almost mind blowing to think that such a simple tool before I didn’t use or rely on, and how transformative that was, for me that small simple tool like that. And then of course, like as you go along, the more years you spend and the more tips you get from people about different sort of tech things that you can use to facilitate the way you access people on the other side of whatever that tech thing is was one huge thing around you know, not being socially isolated

Viv Mullan 04:59

And before we dive into the world of Soda, I’m still learning about this concept of access intimacy. Could you explain that concept to people who don’t know what it is?

Charli Skinner 05:11

Access intimacy is a phrase that’s coined by me, I’m Angus, who is an absolutely brilliant disability activist, disability justice activist, she does a lot of work in this space of access centred work. So access intimacy is, for example, when you go to an employer, they’ve already done some, some research, and they’re coming to you with you know, we’ve thought we’ve tried to understand your condition, we’ve taken also what you have, you know, what you’ve put out there already, and what you told us already, and we have, like, proactively tried to address your access issues. It’s the same as you know, a friend, when they asked you to hang out in the evening, you know, can we check the venue is, okay, in terms of is there going to be loud live music, there was something that I would I would stop me from going into a venue, it wouldn’t be that I couldn’t, for example, access that table itself, because I could walk up to the table. But if I sat down at the table, and I couldn’t hear what my friend was saying, and that would make my brain, you know, go into a process of shutdown, then that’s not accessible for me, and the fact that a friend who, you know, had addressed my access needs, proactively is another example of how access intimacy is as a concept, and essentially recognises that there is a lot around us that allies can do to support our access needs. And that when they’re doing that, they’re recognising that that’s allowing us to be more of to live our lives more fully. And for us to be more of a full person without having to, I won’t go back to that sort of explaining yourself and advocating for yourself concept, which, which basically, it kind of recognises that everyone who is chronically ill, and disabled is very tired of having to do that for themselves. So when you’ve got allies around you supporting you with access intimacy, then that’s the dream

Viv Mullan 06:58

Is this your solution to this? Have you created this brilliant organisation, as a way to, to solve this problem of constantly being told no, by people when it comes to accommodations and design? So two questions, is soda your solution? And what is soda?

Charli Skinner 07:19

Yeah, I would say soda is definitely our solution. But it’s born of a recognition that there is a whole group of people in our society who really want to reach their potential, who are innovative, who have got that hustle, and who want to make stuff happen, but aren’t being given the tools to do it. And we, I’ll describe what Soda is because that will help place it all. Soda is an organisation that is building a community of young people with chronic illness and disability. So one of those people would be someone like me, we’re working with 18 to 35 year olds recognising that there’s a there’s a little bit of a gap, particularly in healthcare, and also just a kind of societal, I think, assumption that when you’re have that sort of age, it’s your prime time and you know, you’re good to go, especially when it’s an invisible illness, because the classical sort of term of your, Oh, you’re too young to be Ill type of thing is a huge issue. So we recognise that there’s a group of people who are navigating these types of issues. And so we have this community of people that were brought together, the ambition is that they can firstly help support one another. And looking at the examples that I raised earlier around, you know, these types of communities don’t really exist apart from in particular disease groups, there are a lot of, you know, if you’ve got a particular condition, there are communities that are there for you. But there aren’t necessarily communities that are based around access and around access needs, which often tend to be universal, even if you have completely different conduct conditions. So one of the aims of soda is to build this community of support of other people, you know, other people like me, who I can identify with, who can help point me to resources, give me advice, those types of things, if I’m also a member of the community. And then the other kind of the really vital thing for us is we want to actually also make that change. We want organisations to be giving people access, and we want accommodations to be the bottom line. And we want everything to be above and beyond. And so we want to use our community expertise to go to organisations to work with them to make their services more accessible. So for example, when you’re talking about things like the healthcare system, employers who are going through processes of employment, or who are dealing with current employees who might be experiencing access or accommodation issues, public spaces, restaurants, you know, service type areas like that, and then there’s a whole other space around products and accessible product and that’s where, you know, tech also comes into the space I think of a service under product but there’s a there’s a lot going on these days around, making making sure tech is accessible and triple A and all those kinds of things. So, we also you know, I’m working in that in that type of space as well, getting our community to provide their expert insight on how, yeah, how products and services can be more accessible.

Viv Mullan 10:11

With Soda do you have much of a relationship with the startup space? Are you working more with, with sort of bigger companies? Where do you want to make noise in both? I suppose I’m saying?

Charli Skinner 10:21

Yeah, interesting question. I mean, I think making noise everywhere is the goal. But I want to make noise everywhere. Yeah, literally everywhere. So massive organisations like we need to go in and change it all from the inside. But it’s interesting, you asked about the startup space, because the startup space is, as well as being a space of exciting new ideas, innovation, of course, highly, highly creative space, it’s also a space that is interested and wants to make social impact as well. And I think there’s a recognition that a startup organisation can because you can pivot and you can, you know, be agile and aligned to what your needs are, but also what’s going on around you much more easily than a big organisation can that has its all of its systems entrenched, there’s a lot of change that can be made, not only because startups are trying to do that already. But also because you can get in and you know, I’ve had some really interesting conversations with your colleagues at remarkable around, if you get in early enough to make that change, and get the voices heard at the beginning around how something can be designed in the startup world, then you are golden, because you’re already thinking ahead of the curve, your, your organisation may end up, you know, a billion dollar company. And it may end up being one of those massive ones with a huge system one day, but if you’ve integrated that process, from the start of listening to voices of the people who are going to be using your product or service, or whatever it is, then that’s a really valuable space for us to be working in. So we definitely have one client base, which is this public service space, which is a space, which is there’s always going to be work to be done there. It’s just a never ending space of work in, you know, the health care system and employment systems and social care systems. And we love working in that space. Because it’s, yeah, there’s just there’s a lot of traction as constantly more to be done. But we’re also Yeah, actually, one of our kind of next ambitions is to find an organisation that is already already bought onto the idea, especially of inclusion and diversity, that also also considers disability because one of the biggest issues of the kind of diversity and inclusion movement is that it often forgets, but there are other really important intersections like disabilities, and finding organisations that are to some extent already bought on but don’t know how to actually implement. And that’s where we want to get in and make that change. And once you’ve kind of proven yourself in that space, I think it’s a lot easier to then go into the big dogs.

Viv Mullan 12:53

And I think there’s there’s also a conversation that needs to be had that when we talk about the startup space, there is this sort of hustle culture that’s encouraged. And historically, that hasn’t been a very balanced approach. And it’s been very much work at non stop, never stop thinking about it. And I refuse to encourage that, because I think especially in this space, we have to be mindful of the fact that if we’re not encouraging balance and health first, then we’re sort of backpedalling because mental health conditions, invisible disabilities, all of this chronic illnesses rely on this real and disabilities in general. But also just the human condition relies on prioritising your health and your happiness first and foremost. And I think that is sort of critical to the next wave of startups that I hope that we can start encouraging and how does that lend itself to your experience as you’ve navigated building soda?

Charli Skinner 13:45

Yeah, yeah, it’s, it’s, it’s absolutely central to it. And Alex, Ollie and I are constantly going through this process of iteration of ways of working because the company is not going to survive if the co founders aren’t looking after themselves. And particularly if we’re but we’re, you know, we’re building a business around one of us has chronic illness that is disabling it, you know, it sends me off into a crash every so often, and I have to stop working it. That’s literally just how it is. And it, you know, to some extent, will always be like that. Some stages of life, it’s going to be worse and other stages, it’s going to be more manageable. You know, Alex deals with neurodiversity as well. So there’s access issues around neurodiversity that are really important for us to implement in the way that we work on a daily basis. And you know, Olli has childcare responsibilities, like these are the types of things that are again, it’s an access issue. We’re not talking about chronic illness or disability, but we’re talking about access still and the types of things that benefit me as someone who’s chronically ill to make sure that my energy is saved like my working hours being quite flexible. You know, I work part time I don’t work full time and I won’t probably will never work full time again. That is partly because of my illness, but it’s also because actually I’ve made the proactive choice to live, you know, a more balanced life, knowing that my business is going to probably benefit from it. And it’s a really important thing around the ethos of the way we want to also grow. So a big principle of what we want to do when we grow is, is prioritise hiring disabled people recognising that disabled people are 15% of the population. And yeah, we, you know, we really want to have that at the centre of our ethos around how we work and how we hire people, it’s going to be centrally disabled people. I guess the last thing I want to say around this sort of area of access, particularly in the startup space and founding space, is that yeah, you’re right. It’s not a very accessible space. The Hustle culture comes with its fun, kind of like, Oh, I love the idea of being a hustler. But it also which we want to, you know, we want the good parts of being a hustler. But we don’t want the bad parts of being a hustler, because they Yeah, they don’t work for. And, you know, even just things like access to funding and the type of accelerator programmes that actually aren’t designed to have a curriculum or a support structure or mentor structure that is, is accessible, it might be full time, for example, like that is not going to be accessible for many disabled people, you know, funding opportunities might have specific deadlines that aren’t flexible, again, that might not be accessible to someone who may be dealing with an acute or chronic health issue at that moment. And building in mechanisms that allow people to navigate things like accelerator programmes, or funding programmes in the startup space, and also even just to get hired into a startup to see if they like the taste of the experience. And then maybe they want to launch off and do their own thing. Those kinds of mechanisms are vital for getting that you know, all of these amazing brains into fun and creative employment really.

Viv Mullan 16:46

And we tend to finish these conversations with asking brilliant guests to share a remarkable insight. And that sort of stands for some sort of insight into your own experience that you would like to share or a piece of advice moving forward for people looking at doing co design working with people like soda. So I’ll pass the mic to you. For you to share whatever insight you feel.

Charli Skinner 17:13

I feel like there’s a kind of community insight and a personal insight, I think that my nugget of insight around my experience with this community is that the tiniest, tiniest thing around listening to someone can make the biggest difference to the way that individual feels acknowledged and recognised and empowered in a community. It is vital to the way that for example, our business is going to work because we want people who don’t get listened to to be listened to. And I know what it feels like to have even just one person in your you know, even one person in four years, who says I understand what you’re going through, and we’re going to do something about it. Hearing those words or something to that effect is enough to give someone the motivation to Yeah, want to be involved in a change process and provide that expert expert insight. And we really need to see people as experts and that’s my I think that’s my piece of insight when it comes to anything like CO design. So yeah, that’s my piece of insight.

Viv Mullan 18:20

Thank you so much for joining me today. It’s been such a pleasure and honour to talk to

Charli Skinner 18:26

Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. I’ve loved it. I really enjoyed it.

Viv Mullan 18:31

The full interview with our guests can be found in the link below where you press play on this podcast our show notes, make sure you subscribe or hit follow to not miss another remarkable insights episode.

DOWNLOAD A WORD VERSION OF THE TRANSCRIPT HERE.

Watch the full video recording of this podcast here.

Connect with Charli Skinner on LinkedIn and learn more about Soda.

Transcript

[00:00 – 00:25]

Remarkable acknowledges the traditional custodians of the lands on which we are gathered today, and we pay respects to the elders past, present and emerging for they hold the traditions, the culture and hopes for the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples across the nation. And we would also like to acknowledge the advocates who played a role in advancing the rights of people with disabilities, leading to addressing the inequalities faced by people with disabilities.

Did you know that more than 1 billion people globally are living with some form of disability, and that 80% of this population live in low and middle income countries, and that only one in 10 of those have access to the assistive technology they need. In the following episode, we speak with Bernard Chiira, founder of Africa’s first Assistive Technology Accelerator based in Nairobi, Kenya, to talk about his life growing up with scoliosis and his mission to raise the business profile of investing in assistive tech startups in Africa. We discussed the accessibility, equity and affordability of assistive technology in Africa, and how regulation must meet the needs of innovation in order to get the technology into the hands of those who need it most. Hello, Bernard, it’s so lovely to have you here on the Remarkable Insights podcast. Before we jump in, we’d like to ask our guests, if you wouldn’t mind, could you do a visual description of who you are as a person and the setting that you’re in?

Bernard Chiira 00:58

Yeah, I will try. So here it goes. So I, African man, black hair, brown skin, and wearing a pink shirt. And I’m joining you all the way from Nairobi.

Viv Mullan 01:13

Brilliant. Thank you so much Bernard, I would love to just start off with if you could just give a bit of an introduction to who you are, and how you know where you grew up in the world and how that led you to the current position you are in now with your career

Bernard Chiira 01:28

So I was born and raised in Kenya. And I remember the story goes because I was too small a country. Remember that when I was two weeks old, I was shipped back to the hospital. And that’s because I couldn’t stop crying. And my parents were trying to figure out why. So at the age of two weeks, I was diagnosed with brittle bone disease. And my childhood was one in and out of hospital. So at some point, when we were like three, four years old, we moved to the city mainly to try and access better health care. So my entire family moved, I come from a relatively big family seven in total. And I do have other siblings in my family who also had a physical disability. So I would say that disability and inclusion and diversity has been a feature in my family, because some of us had a disability and some didn’t. And we basically learned how to thrive together and support each other. So my mama was a farmer. And my dad used to work in the bank. And I think it was alive when having a disability and living in the village was not easy, especially for my mom, because she had kids, multiple kids with disabilities. So from a societal perspective, of course, the stigma was quite a thing. You know, in the African setting, culturally, things like disability are not, you know, well received. So people kind of resolve to Yeah, why does she have kids with disabilities? What did she do? But I think the most powerful thing I would say is basically the power of love and family because most families are split by disability in Africa. Like, I think my parents are my biggest heroes, because they’re my mentors. They’re my support system. And that was very important at that age, giving a child the confidence that look, you can make it and and giving you an equal opportunity like other kids. I think that’s all that’s needed. You know, back in 2019, I joined the Global Disability Innovation hub to launch innovate now in Kenya, which is Africa, squats, assistive tech accelerator, and we’ve been running it now for three and a half years. And kind of bringing the mindset of technology and innovation in the disability world, which was something quite new on this side of the world.

Viv Mullan 04:12

Yeah, your parents sound like pretty incredible people. That kind of speaks to where I’d love to take this conversation to next, which is when we look at the climate of assistive technology and these conversations around accessibility and affordability. We can kind of see, 80% of the world’s population of people living with disability come from low to middle income countries, I believe is sort of some of the latest statistics as someone who grew up in a rural part of of Africa and then had to move to the city just to access more of the support. How does that sort of statistic feel, as someone who’s been through your journey and as someone that is pioneering assistive technology in Africa

Bernard Chiira 04:59

Unlike In the West, where some of the leading factors are driving factors for disabilities and aging population, here you have, most of the people affected by disabilities are young people whose futures need to be secured, literally. So, for me, that feels like, that’s why we can’t, you know, be business as usual, in matters of disability, and we have to address matters disability in a very sustainable way. And I believe in this nexus of capital meeting, philanthropy and the responsibility of government, everyone working in unison, to play their role so that we can give access to pass and see disabilities across many things. You know, assistive technology, of course, is one of the major gaps because only one in 10 have access. And for me, coming from a background of technology, and entrepreneurship, I have had the privilege of leading accelerators and incubators that produce success, and great companies in other sectors like energy education. And I think when you know, at the nexus of technology, and entrepreneurship, you can start doing amazing things in addressing the gaps we have in assistive tech. And for me, this was really exciting to live my career in university where I was leading an incubator to try this, and three and a half years later, and not only I will try this, we’ve actually been able to validate that we actually need to do more to secure the assistive technology products and services in Africa by supporting small businesses, or startups that literally scale their services across the continent. And we are beginning to see that now. So for me, it’s very exciting to be contributing in a very meaningful way, in an area that is so untapped and to unlock new possibilities. Yeah, for the people in Africa and for the world.

Viv Mullan 07:17

Can you talk about some of the assistive technology that you’ve been able to support and how you discovered this technology that is emerging out of Africa?

Bernard Chiira 07:25

Sure. So I’ll start with frugal innovation. So imagine this, one of the biggest challenges we have in most emerging markets, and in most developing countries, is this idea of accessible mobility or transportation, public transport. So most of you know, our countries in Africa did not build accessible cities. And in that case, it means that most of our transport is not accessible. So it’s very difficult for wheelchair users to move around, even in short distances. So back in 2019, when we took in our first cohort, I remember we took in an entrepreneur, his name is Lincoln, and Lincoln, I discovered Lincoln in the most exciting way through a YouTube video. And it was a video that was shot by the BBC. And I saw this young man give a story about coming to Nairobi to look for job opportunities. And he was a self taught engineer, and he learnt a lot of his engineering on YouTube auction. So Lincoln comes to Nairobi, and he had this experience where he sees disabled people not being able to access transport, it’s raining, this person is being rained on. And he said to himself, you know, I’ve been building drones and other electric vehicles, why not build an accessible tricycle that had long power range that will take someone from, you know, for short distances where they don’t need to build a vehicle. So he actually went and built what he now calls the little cell tricycle. So it’s a fully motorised Price Cycle built out of initially out of 80 to 90% recycled materials. And the most amazing thing is how he went about to build the battery, which is the, you know, the most important thing in a motorised vehicle and he went around and started collecting old laptop batteries, you know, from Jenkins from offices, and he would go and take them apart and rebuild them, calibrate them and build an entirely new battery. That power was an electric tricycle, and he would go and get, you know, an office chair you go and get, he literally built his fast tricycle like this And when he did a demo of it, I mean, it was truly amazing because you see entrepreneurs, most of the time they face a double challenge, you don’t have the capital to start what you want. And at the same time for you to show potential and be investable, you need to show what’s built in what you have solved. And this is a type of innovation that in Africa is very common, where we work with what we have, and we solve problems. And today lean sell, lean sell technology is one of the leading motorised tricycle, accessible tricycle products, and they have literally almost sold hundreds of this price cycles. And the most amazing thing is they cut down the costs by almost 50%. And they want to do it even more, if they reach even able to manufacture at scale. Wow. So when we found that this was very impressive for us, we took him in, and we are seeing this type of innovation having immediate impact. You see, assistive technology is one of those things, where you don’t really have to wait for 10 years to see the impact. The new part is immediate, because now you have a lady, one of his first customers is a lady that sells vegetables in the streets, and she’s able to move in very difficult terrains. And one of her stories is now beyond going to business he’s able to go to church and interact more in our community.

Viv Mullan 11:35

And with the startups that you’re supporting with Innovate Now, are you seeing these startups largely driven by people with disability? Or is it allies and people that work in this space?

Bernard Chiira 11:47

That’s a brilliant question. And I think most of these startups that have made significant steps for the progress in our accelerators have actually been led by disabled entrepreneurs, or teams that are very diverse in terms of their employees, they have, you know, disabled entrepreneurs, or even at the leadership and strategic level at the board level, they have disabled advisors. And I think we can’t, you know, downplay the significance of this, because it goes back to the, you know, the principle about inclusion, and you cannot include, without involving persons with disabilities, I think they say nothing about us without us. But for me, it’s not to say that if you don’t have a disability, you cannot solve for disability. And not at all, I think it’s how deep is your understanding of the root cause of the problems and the what’s your, what’s your driving force, and I think having people with disabilities are the centre of this is one of the most powerful driving forces. And he’s also one thing I’ve come to learn is about what you call the allies or you know, the peripheral of disability, when you look at the Global Disability opportunity, or the last opportunity to date, nearly $2 trillion. And this is by those with disabilities and their families or other allies. And I think we have to look at this, as you know, an opportunity that needs to be unlocked, and a way to elevate disability not just as a good inclusion or diversity theme, but as a real area of opportunity as a real life changing opportunity and a driver for prosperity, even in business. And I think companies that have realised this are making significant efforts and investments in driving inclusion of persons with disabilities in business. And I think business is one of the biggest forces for good, that can make a significant difference. And I think we need more of them to kind of say, Okay, how do we support other market driven solutions coming out of accelerators, I think we need more corporate involvement in supporting disability innovation.

Viv Mullan 14:27

And it’s so brilliant to see around the world. There’s been these people driving this change when it comes to assistive technology, with remarkable with innovate now, you know, and with the initiatives that Gina has just helped launch with moonshot and the inclusive innovation network, seeing all of these communities come together, and seeing that sort of collaboration. Just unifying and igniting this real movement is so exciting, because there’s no real competitors. It’s the same goal which is just a more inclusive and accessible world. So thank you for the work you’re doing. And we like to wrap these conversations up by providing our guests with a remarkable insight. So something that you’d like to share about your hopes for the future or some advice that they can take away from this conversation

Bernard Chiira 15:15

Yeah, thanks, we I think we are at a very interesting time in history, where the power of technology, the power of connectedness, the farmer, the internet, is really connecting all the right people across the world. And it’s no longer lonely to be working in this sector. And we are beginning to see possibilities. And to believe that, you know, we can drive this change in a more sustainable way. So my, my dreams for the future, my hope for the future is that when we invest in disability inclusion when we invest in startups, in disabled leaders in disabled entrepreneurs, we are not just investing. For today, we are investing for the future, we are going to create a more sustainable world, we’re going to create a more inclusive world. And I think we are taking the right steps. But we have to make those decisions today so that the future can be better. So invest in disabled leaders, invest in disabled entrepreneurs, and will create the world that you want to see in future.

Viv Mullan 16:24

Thank you so much, Bernard. It’s been such a pleasure to have you here for this Remarkable Insights conversation.

Bernard Chiira 16:30

Thank you very much, it’s a pleasure.

Viv Mullan 16:33

The full interview with our guests can be found in the link below where you press play on this podcast, our show notes, make sure you subscribe or hit follow to not miss another Remarkable Insights episode.

DOWNLOAD A WORD VERSION OF THE TRANSCRIPT HERE.

Watch the full video recording of this podcast here.

Connect with Bernard Chiira on LinkedIn and learn more about Innovate Now.