Adam Choong discusses why it is vital for young disabled technologists to be at the forefront of innovation.
Just shy of 4 months ago, I attended a life-changing conference in Singapore about Asia’s booming technology industry and diplomacy in the region. A consistent theme throughout this packed summit was the need to embrace diversity. In fact, during this summit, when I talked to prominent leaders, CEOs and technologists, all of them repeated the same message: we value diversity.
Some of the reasons why included diversity of solutions, perspectives and knowledge. Yet, when companies talk about diversity, inclusion and equity, a greater emphasis is placed on cultural and gender diversity first before considering diversity from the disability community.
In fact, only 19 of the Fortune 500 companies last year reported disability statistics in their labour force (Rynkiewicz, 2023) but not disclosing whether disabled workers took on prominent leadership roles. Don’t get me wrong – gender and cultural equity are still vital for companies to thrive and should not be neglected at the expense of increasing diversity from the disabled community. So, what can we do to achieve a fine balance between promoting all kinds of inclusion, specifically the tech sector which dominates almost every aspect of our daily lives.
The first thing you might be asking me is why the technology sector and not any other sectors? Even though it’s important to promote disability leadership across the board, I believe that it’s especially important to encourage disabled technologists to step up in their industry. Their insights into the technology being developed directly affects their lives and without their contributions to the process, advancements in technology will always be lacking that crucial aspect of greater accessibility.
For example, Apple’s track record of integrating features intended to make its technology more accessible. Accessibility features for early generations of the iPhone had included Voiceover, a function to help blind and low vision users – the first of its kind on a smart phone. This innovative push for accessibility could be attributed to its founder, Steve Jobs, having dyslexia. Apple’s history as a pioneer in accessibility to technology serves as an example of why disability leadership does indeed shape how technology can be developed to meet a diverse range of needs.
As the younger generation whose lives have almost always revolved around technology and digitalisation, I believe it is our responsibility to shape the future of the tech sector.
This means that it is important for those among us who identify as having a disability to take a lead on finding ways to meet our and our peers’ needs, just like Apple has in the past.
In recent years, we’ve seen a surge of tech startups by young people, which is a promising sign that the new generation wants to take on the challenges faced by their community by proposing innovative solutions. However, how many of these startups are made by disabled people and perhaps more importantly, how many of these startups tackle the issues faced by the disabled community?
Globally, there have been a more upbeat trend within the startup scene when it comes to promoting assistive technology. We’ve seen more companies reinvent ways to use new and existing technology, such as Smart Glasses, to assist disabled people with communication as Paris-based tech startup company, WYES (When Your Eyes Speak) has done (F6S, 2024). At their tech startup, the main product being sold is Smart Glasses that allow quadriplegic people communicate by blinking their eyes.
With regards to startups in Australia and New Zealand, a significant portion of these relate to implementing systematic solutions (increasing accessibility to NDIS for example) rather than tech-based solutions. While these are equally important, to take the lead I believe it’s crucial to tap into our renowned sense of ingenuity to provide long-term technological solutions that benefit the disabled community globally. And who is better suited to the task than the younger generations of disabled Australians? They certainly understand their own issues better than those not experiencing them and as they have the freshest perspectives and ideas of how technology can be leveraged to solve the problems they face today.
We’ve now observed some case studies of how technology has begun to impact disabled people’s lives but that’s just the tip of the iceberg. What lies underneath is so much more. That’s why it’s especially important now for young disabled people to take the lead on having their voices heard when the next solutions in the tech sector, or the latest policy implementation arises to impact their community.
About the author:
Adam (he/him) is a person of culturally diverse heritage who uses his lived experience with disability to amplify the voices of disabled CALD communities in his advocacy work. Outside of his advocacy work, Adam is a data science student at Monash University who is actively researching the intersectionality between artificial intelligence and disability. He is also a 2024 Westpac Asian Exchange Scholar who is going to the National University of Singapore to study its AI practices.
References
Rynkiewicz, S. (2023, November 9). Corporate Diversity Data: What Fortune 500 DEI Reports Reveal. Purpose Brand. https://purposebrand.com/blog/diversity-report-examples-fortune-2023/
F6S. (2024, November 14). 100 top Disability companies and startups in November 2024. F6S. https://www.f6s.com/companies/disability/mo
AI for Accessibility 3 years of progress Microsoft’s $25 million program supports AI solutions to improve independence and inclusion for people with disabilities. (n.d.). https://query.prod.cms.rt.microsoft.com/cms/api/am/binary/RWRbwS
