Remarkable Insights | Thinking Beyond Future of Work

Remarkable Insights | Thinking Beyond Future of Work

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Welcome to our next remarkable  insights beyond the future of   work my name is Pete Horsley  i'm founder of remarkable we're   a the startup venture arm of cerebral palsy  alliance it's so good to have you with us today Remarkable as i said is a division of Cerebral  Palsy Alliance and we have the backing of a   number of partners i care Telstra Vivcourt and  Microsoft Remarkable is really the place where   technology meets human potential and we do this  mainly through our 14-week accelerator program for   early-stage startups equipping them with seed  funding the knowledge the skills the networks   uh to be able to grow and commercialise their  technology i want to begin also by acknowledging   the traditional owners owners of the land i'm  on Gadigal land and this is their land it was   never seeded and it's always sacred i pay my  respects to elders past present and emerging and i   acknowledged that we have people joining from many  other places both here in Australia and around the   world and i've paid my respect to the traditional  owners in those places too i'll also acknowledge   the disability advocates who have come before us  in advancing the rights of people with disability   they've paved the way for us and we carry  both a privilege and a responsibility   because of the work that they have done and  the only way to really think and create the   inclusive now is to do so collectively  together with them so today's event   beyond the future of work is part of remarkable  insights it's a series of webinars exploring   the question of who's left behind as technology  transforms the society around us we know there's   a significant opportunity to leverage uh  techno technological innovation to drive   an inclusive future and so remarkable ask the  questions how might we create an inclusive now um   so for anyone who wants to join the conversation  on socials please use uh on twitter facebook and   Linkedin our handle is uh at remarkabletech  and on instagram at remarkable underscore tech   and if you could also please use the uh  the hashtag remarkable insights as well   this event has live captioning by otter ai and  also we have hopefully an auslan interpreter   joining us very very soon um we'll be recording  this event and it will be made available to post   events on our remarkable tech youtube channel  and be sure to subscribe to subscribe to that today we are joined by Gina Kline  founder and ceo of smart job   Sue Boyce CEO of abilityworks Australia and  Dwayne Fernandes co-founder of minds at play   and disability inclusion part now it's so good to  have you all here welcome and it's so good to have   all the people who are joining us on this webinar  as well and for those who will watch it afterwards   um so we've all seen statistics around labor  force participation rates uh for people with   disabilities they're low um or possibly they're  very light uh here comes uh jerry our auslan   interpreter so Gerry Shearim thank you for joining  us it's so good to have you here uh if you'd like   to pin uh jerry's video on there for those who do  require auslan that would be great welcome jerry um we've all seen the the statistics around low  uh labor force participation rates for people   with disability and depending on what part of your  world that you're living in that is either low or   incredibly low and it doesn't just impact income  and economic security but it also impacts other   areas of of life like well-being um housing  and people's place in the community so   gina i might start with you you talk  about closing the disability wealth gap   uh why have you focused on this kind of core  area of focus for your impact investment fund   thank you Pete and any opportunity to speak with  you Pete i i i'm always there this is so much so   exciting with such lovely panelists so thanks for  my inclusion so answering your question live from   Washington DC area here in America why do i  want to focus on the closing the disability   wealth gap as we all do because people with  disabilities globally are the most conspicuously   unemployed group of people on earth that's why um  we're dealing with statistics that are dramatic   and have remained so for quite some time  there's nearly two-thirds of working-age   people with disabilities around the  globe that are not in the labor market   let's just think about that for a moment um we're  talking when we're speaking about disability we're   speaking about an innate characteristic of  the human experience if you don't have a   disability today you might age into a disability  tomorrow and and statistically we're talking about   20 you know 20 of people on earth with some  relationship disability at this point in time   so if the question should be rephrased Pete  Horsley why are we not focusing more on   closing the disability wealth gap because the  ramifications are global they have to do with   a multi-trillion dollar hole in the global GDP  and in the economy civil societies around the   globe are expending billions of dollars of public  expenditure on medical models of disability and   supervision care giving and support um but the  the whole that is in the economy is about talent   and there are people that are out that should be  in and that's our investment thesis at smart job and and i always say who are the people  that we're not hearing from that can help   help solve some of the big challenges that  we've got we're obviously all living through   a global pandemic right now we're um we're  kind of subject to climate change and some   of the impacts around that there are so many  challenges that if we're not collectively hearing   all the voices around us then we're actually uh  losing out on on seeing innovative solutions come   there's talk of uh a growing number of  organisations starting to wake up to   that opportunity around this kind of neglected  talent pool um and also as a way of being just   surely more representative of their own customer  base because people with disability make up 20   of the population um and also as this kind of  source of innovative thinking as well Dwayne um   are you seeing a greater openness around  diversity and inclusion in policy and practice and   then at a high level um you've been involved  in kind of policy and practice change so   what's actually changing to shift workplaces  to be more inclusive for people with disability   so generally speaking i think as a society  we're still at a foundational level   and there are people over here that have been  actively doing this since like 1963. you'll meet   her later she's in this panel and um and in this  space what we're noticing is that how can we still   be at a foundational level after all those years  now some organisations are far ahead of others   but overall i don't think we've gone anywhere  that with being super um super inclusive what i   did experience quite recently that really changed  the way the uh the way it worked through is that   where i am right now in department of planning  and industry environment DPIE they are working on   accessible policies for national parks they  have created a workplace adjustments passport   so you come in and you tell them you need a  few things and you literally fill out a form   and i got my entire um my minor adjustment and  my major adjustment in a span of three hours for   like that's unheard of like there's a  there'll be an article about that somewhere   uh that'll pop up but uh but that's unheard  of but the fact that that is unheard of is   a problem why isn't that not a standard why is  it the personalisation i need to do my day job   not something that everybody gets and if  you think about it it's not about inclusion   it's personalisation you and i use an iPhone or  whatever technology but i'm quite sure the apps   on my phone are different to where your apps are  that's personalisation in the same way you do work   you don't need to all do it the same way we're  still moving away from that role description   model of how we do things to actually how um  uh focusing on the outcomes back to you Pete. That's amazing and and i love that kind of thought  around yeah what we're talking about here is is   personalisation it's what do we need to do to  do our best work and we want all of our staff   all of our leaders to to be in that same position  as well um globally there's there's big shifts   in workforce needs as well um as we embrace kind  of more technology and as labor shifts away from   kind of manual repetitive tasks to perhaps higher  order thinking creativity and they've even talked   about resilience is kind of one of these the newly  needed skills in in work um and while this might   be good for some people within our disability  community they innately come with some of those   skills um alarm bells could be ringing for those  that work closely with people with intellectual   disability and so you've looked at this shift in  technology differently you've you've been able to   show how technical technological transformation  can actually if it's done in an inclusive   way actually offer people with disabilities  better access to the job market um i'd love to   for you to explain some of those um the the  situations that you're working in right now   so um i'll give you a specific example  um we have a light engineering facility   where we do wire metal fabrication and we  manufacture products for building and construction   and we trialled Microsoft HoloLens headsets  using augmented reality um to for one of our   manufacturing machines and so what we did was  we um the headsets will take someone who has to   work the machine from start to finish and take  them through the whole process but in addition   to that we we used um programmers who were experts  in gaming technology so it was also a bit of fun   because the work is quite repetitive and um so the  combination of you know showing them so anybody   who had who has problems with sequencing you know  remembering what comes next or just remembering   the entirety of the task the HoloLens will  just um you know help them through that   and you know smiley faces pop up and trees  are growing when you get something right   and so it's just very motivating as well and  that's how we've been able to get people who   wouldn't normally be able to do a particular task  to do something that's more challenging for them   i love that and i think you know they they talk  about uh that ai isn't actually replacing jobs   it's it's person plus ai is actually going to  be the thing that wins um and i love what you're   doing in that space um Dwayne you're a multiple  record holder as a double amputee stair climber   and and much like climbing towers um most  of the time all the effort seems to be put   in by the applicant with disability to  ask for those adjustments that they need   what should we be doing differently all right  so um and i'll get to that probably a little   bit later on but i suspect what we need to do is  take it away from from the individual saying i can   do the following things and go at it uh usually  the job that is not built for them uh if you look   at your strengths and apply to those strengths  you should apply for things that work for you   right now because if society overall is at this  foundational uh standing lean into your strengths   and apply for things that are your strengths in  that distributed space i know that's not great   but from an organisational perspective  you need to do a cosplay of analysis going   which types of disability can you hire into  your job that actually adds a low financial cost   to maintain now when i talk about that  now i know that's a touchy area over here   effectively if you're thinking about something  like this bus driver person who's blind   doesn't make sense right but amputee in a bus  driver yeah sure it's a simple adjustments   and it's about taking it away from rather than us  going at it from an individual perspective we need   to come at it like a large societal uh perspective  find a spot that works for everybody being that   we're at the foundational level still and it's not  the greatest news but i think that's the step we   need to take now so that the next level afterwards  is going well why did we stop people from this   community applying to this job what was the  stupid investment decision i made that prevented   this much population from applying for this job or  able to service this percentage let's take it that   way society because we're in that societal model  of disability not the medical model thank you um that's great Dwayne uh as i said it's okay  if our panelists do disagree we don't mind that   it can sometimes make for more interesting viewing  so if anyone does want to disagree with Dwayne   that's okay as well um there was a report released  by ILO in 2019 that outlined five key and that's   the international international labor Organisation  uh five key objectives for inclusion of people   with disability in the future of work and they  they included number one new forms of employer   employment and employment relations to  integrate disability inclusion number two   skills development for lifelong learning made  inclusive of persons with disability number   three universal design embedded in development  of all new infrastructure products services   uh number four assistive technologies uh  existing and newly developed to make affordable   to be made affordable and  available and number five   measures to include persons with disabilities  in growing and developing areas of the economy   um gina i've spoken to you a number of times and i  can hear lots of parallels between that report and   what you're doing and i know you travel to kind of  almost every state in the us when you're you're an   American civil rights lawyer particularly looking  at um at what's working in disability service   i'm interested in in hearing your opinion on  what's what's both the burning platform and also   the opportunity we've got right now starting  to emerge hopefully from a global pandemic well you're still on youtube excuse me thank you  Pete for such a lovely question so um and a loaded   a loaded question i see you're wanting me to you  want me to disagree with Dwayne maybe i'll start   to disagree with myself as i get the answer you  know uh i did travel through a number of states in   the united states as a civil rights lawyer and i  think that it um it informed me about where where   workers with disabilities are in the American  economy but also in the global marketplace   there's a long history of discrimination  against people with disabilities not only   in the united states but in the world and part  of that principally amounted to exclusion from   discriminatory exclusion from the workplace  there's been a long uh and storied civil   rights movement that precedes our conversations  tonight with so many people that have advanced and   vindicated the rights of people with disabilities  to be treated equally to be included in workplaces   and um they've done so with the suggestion that uh  people should not be given different opportunities   disparity in pay disparity and advancement and  opportunity on the basis of disability alone   but now you you mentioned a loaded term the  the burning platform which suggests that we're   caught between a rock and a hard place so to speak  that the platform is on fire do we stay or do we   dive in and do something differently because  there we have to change up what we're doing   and um what does that mean why did you ask me  that question well we've had a long history of   civil rights but we haven't had a corresponding or  concomitant increase in labor market participation   as a result of the civil rights advancements  we're in the middle of the civil rights movement   globally for people with disabilities to be  treated equally and work but let's pause for   just a moment and ask ourselves whether we should  be focused exclusively on the attributes of the   worker or whether we should change our lens and  be looking about set about to look at how we work   the ways that we work and whether we should invest  in new and different ways of approaching work   and we spent the last century of both philanthropy  and governmental enterprises focusing on   increasing the attributes of the worker changing  the attributes of the worker and modifying   existing workplaces there's a whole  new generation of innovators that are   calling for work to be fundamentally changed and  they're not um they're not alone in that movement   we've just said about in the middle of a  pandemic which taught us all that people can work   excessively adaptively sustainably remotely and  in a distributed workforce from wherever you are   place has been severed from work uh  and it's been in a very adaptive way   people with disabilities have been fighting  forever to work remotely they were the first there   asking for remote and flexible and adaptive  work the burning platform question is whether   work will whether new work opportunities will be  generated from the experiences of the pandemic   from the from the acknowledgement that flexible  work is now the wave of the future and and now   available and we have said about the look at  workers with disabilities as a natural the most   untapped talent pipeline in the universe in  the global workforce and yet we can't assume   that people with disabilities will come into  the technology infrastructure and support in   order to avail themselves of this new flexible  remote work this new way of working without   corresponding investment in a new  workplace in new workplace technologies   and so with that acknowledgement we've divided  our investment thesis into up-skilling and   re-skilling workers future proofing work not  the worker thinking about supporting innovation   hubs around the world that support early stage  ideas and early stage entrepreneurs looking at   the next generation of workplace and work related  technologies sue just gave a tremendous example   of work-related technologies and how it can  innovate access and opportunity for workers   with intellectual and developmental disabilities  and looking around the globe at underrepresented   founders with disabilities i think that the next  phase of unfinished business and civil rights   is not merely a question about equality it's  now a question about equity and it's about   who is accessing it corresponding investment in  new ways of working as opposed to merely advancing   only the argument of equality so equality is  definitely important and sufficient maybe not   maybe necessary but definitely not sufficient for  for competitiveness in the new global marketplace   so that's that's a long-winded answer is it a  burning platform probably not because probably uh   the why you know diving into the water is a lot  easier when you realise that there's both profit   and purpose in this there are truly tremendous  investable ideas all over the world that are   being advanced today by disability entrepreneurs i  love that that's fantastic and and i i kind of was   ingest kind of um baiting the two of you  you actually think that you both agree it's   it's agree with that no you can't disagree with  that because there is money behind it and there's   profit behind it which is unfortunately that's  the way our society works right it's all about   is there is a bottom line that  uh makes our society go ahead and   the answer is yes there is there's actually 40  billion dollars in the Australian market about   people with disabilities and that's just being  left on the table because they don't cater for us   and if you don't cater for us well that's a  whole bunch of money you're missing out on   and that's the message that's missing from from  the the leaders conversation because there aren't   leaders with disabilities and then therefore  you don't expect them to focus on that community   back to you people well Dwayne i might i  might kind of continue with you then that   so that that kind of that piece around i know  you touched on it earlier and then gina just   touched on it then about kind of hacking the  job and not trying to fit people to the job   um that don't suit them um what what do you like  about this approach and what would you like to see   so um social model of disability is disabilities  equal impairments plus barriers i modified that   formula a little bit uh here's what i did i took  that u un formula and took it to an application of   a job which is you get rid of the dis you keep the  impairment and you just find the adjustment level   so the job equals impairment plus adjustment level  that's exactly what regina is talking about right   here and if you think about it from a disability  discrimination act it's effectively impairments   barriers and how you adjust it if you want to  say adjustment or personalisation same thing   same thing right so if you're thinking about it  from a large organisation perspective if you have   and disability is not as complex as you need  to think about it from a corporate perspective   there's only a handful of things  you need to focus on um site um   hearing mobility touch think and there is the  invisible discipline which is about basically   from a work perspective it's  about capacity right how much   stamina you have you add that into a standard uh  standard kind of formula you can take your job   solve for the amount of adjustment that  each type of disability sub-community   needs to have and get rid of the excuses  because the issue that we have right now is that   we have a tokenistic approach to job uh to hiring  we say we can we can probably do a targeted role   here or there i'm saying run every one of your  jobs through this criteria and i will guarantee   you that you will able to say something like 70  to 80 of my jobs can be done by a person with a   disability just not the same type of disability  and then you can question why not all the jobs   can be done by all the disabilities and that  becomes a targeted blunt question that executives   can ask themselves of how are they actually  doing this thing and if they if you do this   you're actually taking a really good first step if  you manage to successfully i did this for like two   organisations i looked at going i can actually  put a person with a disability in a 30 000 one   i can hire a person with a disability in every job  in this 30 000 person organisation the easiest one   to do believe it or not is all the leaders because  they have like 20 or so people reporting to them   giving them everything that they need all  the leadership roles are disability friendly not so much support systems in there but if  you put a whole bunch of disability leaders   you'll find all those frontline  jobs becoming display friendly too   that's my controversial topic for the moment  thanks Dwayne and i encourage you if anyone else   from the audience has got questions we've got  a couple of questions that have been rolling in   already encourage you to click on the q a uh tab  down below and enter your question there um so   if we kind of think then about um you know this  opportunity for disruption through innovation   how can innovators look to further disrupt  the coming changes to labor market needs   i'm going to answer that with an example  again um and this is something that we've   done at Abilityworks so we we have for the last  10 years been working with trans urban era road   toll provider your e-tape so as a customer  uh you know you have an e-tag in your car   and when there's something wrong with it you'd  send it back to trans urban well it doesn't go   back to Transurban it comes to us and um because  we've been running this for 10 years we've been   able to do a lot of innovation around it to  get more and more people particularly with   intellectual disability or complex support needs  into work so something we've done recently is um   we purchased a robot called Matilda who is driven  by artificial intelligence and machine learning   and when you as a customer return your e-tape  you normally send some correspondence and you   write on it you know what the issue is  with your e-taker that you want fixed   so Matilda is what we've done with Matilda is  we've fed into Matilda some key words so Matilda   can read the correspondence and the reason  we've done that is because many of our people   don't have literacy challenges  so what it's allowed us to do is   enable people who wouldn't normally be able  to work on the trans urban account and edible   ability works it's considered to be  a very prestigious account to work on   so people who couldn't normally work on that  account to work with Matilda and Matilda talks   to them and gives them feedback and helps them  to sort the tags um you know according and and do   what they're supposed to do so i love this example  because it's it's what it's done for a lot of our   guys who have literacy challenges it's it's helped  them their self-esteem their self-confidence to   work on something as important as this and it's  really meaningful work so my answer to your   question is you really need to look at the need  and also to Dwayne's point around personalisation   we really do that at Abilityworks we we look to  break jobs down into their component parts and to   match somebody's abilities with that particular  part and on the transverse account again   using that we've actually created jobs so we  initially only we did that work with seven   people who were quite highly you know they  didn't have complex support needs but we've   now been able to double from seven to fourteen  and put many people with complex support needs   on the trans urban account just by breaking  jobs down working with technology training as   well so there's a number of things it's not just  technology that you use to get people into work that's brilliant um and we've we've had a  couple of questions come through i might ask um   this one's from mike um big company for  his company right now exceptional um one   company that we know quite well i came through  remarkable a couple years ago he said it's hard   to get support and adjustments if you don't  disclose and a lot of neurodivergent people   as many years up to 60 are fearful of  disclosing because of being discriminated   against what would the panelists recommend for  addressing this at scale who wants to take that   i i might have a go at that um i used  to work at beyondblue prior to um   working at Abilityworks so beyondblue is an  organisation that does mental health advocacy   um and raising awareness reducing the stigma  around mental health and they had a formula that   they used and the more awareness you raise the  more stigma and discrimination you can reduce and   the more stigma and discrimination you reduce the  more times you've got of people um disclosing that   they've got you know getting help and disclosing  that they've got a mental health condition   and therefore reducing the prevalence  of mental health conditions and i think   in the disability sector or particularly  disability employment we are lacking a similar   type of organisation that can do that awareness  raising and advocacy work because corporations   and governments are full of unconscious biases  around people with disabilities and um you know   it's too it's uh too hard to employ them if they  cost more uh they'll take more leads particularly   like there's a whole lot of unconscious biases  that are operating in leaders and i think   what beyond blue did for mental health we need  somebody in disability employment to do the same so so yes as a society we need to keep advocating  going for that thing specifically for the person   um my in my when i do an application my  opening paragraph says i'm a double amputee   and everything i disclose it straight away now  is that is there value in that in disclosing   do i know if my resume will be thrown straight  in the bin the question is you've got to stop   carrying as a as an application it's a  numbers game for you applying for a job so   put it in there disclose it's better for you to  disclose and get it over with because then you   know your organisation knows that you're you're  going to be someone that's upfront and honest   there's value add in that now it's not great right  it's not the society that we want that we don't we   can keep ourselves private the society that we  currently have is tell people i i walk around   in three-quarter shorts everywhere i mean it's  a zoom world so you don't get to see it now but   um i went from wearing long pants at work to  wearing three quarter shots at work just to you   know drum up the awareness and that helped people  not even in meetings with me to start thinking   about the disability issue in the workplace you  can't change the workplace if you're not in it so   put the information in there and get yourself  out there that's all i can say to that person   yeah i i guess i i'd um Dwayne like when we're  still in this situation where they know that um   that a number of them are going to be  discriminated against um how do we how do we   kind of start changing some of that i don't know  if there's any easy answers to any of this to do   its care absolutely not so it's it's for us right  now for the community it's all about resilience   and then again we've had ten thousand nodes  thrown at us already we've had that happening   for almost everything we have the resilience  at hand right uh and it's once we're in   we then make it easier for the next person  and that's the objective that we have to play   as people with disabilities  as leaders with disabilities   now it's not for everybody to do that it's  exhausting i can tell you that it's exhausting   and then you tap someone on the shoulder to take  the thing further get it to as far as you can   and then take a break good relax reset your mind  and try again but if you're someone that can you   should advocate for your community but do that  subtly and personally as part of your regular life   not don't over stretch because you're  an individual you're not a corporation   uh that's advocating so we're there and there  are corporations out here that here to do that and Dwayne we might stick with you there  there's a question from Mujahid who   asked um how do i go about getting a job and  this is obviously someone who is keen to find   a job so someone how do i go to find a job in  Australia um when when they do have a disability   what what are some of the what's maybe the top  one or two tips that you give to that person   okay in a government organisation um in new south  wales there's something called GSEA rule 26.  

as a government organisation we can  break the rules of recruiting to higher   diversity types it works for people  with aboriginal aboriginal background   people with disabilities refugees is a  criteria that fits on that thing as well as   whoever the governor decides i think he randomly  selects some people based on what the stats are in   that space i think i'm missing one more thing  might be youth as well now as a government   job skating that you are a person from these  communities there are background criteria that   people check if you're ticking boxes that meet  their criteria yes you might get selected by that   it might progress you up the line to get actually  reviewed but you still need to have the merits   for the job can you still do the job and the  answer is yes you can well then you have an equal   way to do it now each state legislation has  similar things the disability discrimination   act and there's the anti-discrimination board  that each organisation to ask for exemptions so   that they can focus on diversity i personally  found that in my organisation mindset play   when we put it out there uh for people to come  and work with us the disability community came   working with us why because we're we're completely  online and uh they all self-identify we had in our   first three people we had more diversity we had  the LGBTQI community we had the autism community   we had people with disabilities and all just it it  made up our stats and they just came out of there   so maybe the role itself needs to be innovative  it's and interesting to get that that space   that's awesome um we've had a question  from tara asking what tech solutions are   needed to help people with intellectual  disability find a role in the workforce   sue would you be able to take that one um i find  that tara a little bit difficult to answer because   you know we have we employ a lot of people  with intellectual disability but they   um they have very very different needs so you  know you can't look at intellectual disability   like it's just one one thing so you know we've  um we've used a range of technologies as i've   just described already from a combination of  robotics artificial intelligence machine learning   but i think it's quite individual and it and that  also as i've described um previously and there's   a range of apps as well um that you can use but  i don't believe it's just technology there's you   know we use a number of different techniques  um which i've already described about breaking   jobs down a lot you know looking at aligning a  particular job to somebody's skill set we also   use a lot of training and support so um i'm  sorry if that doesn't answer your question   directly but that's yeah i don't believe you can  look at just intellectual disability as a whole   as one thing i think that's a good response  um Dwayne we've had a question here   um from Filipa asking how can we change reform or  reshape the k-12 curriculum and teaching methods   to improve employment participation rates for  people with disabilities how do we kind of go   right back and start influencing change  back there what are your thoughts on that   stop segregating schools as simple as that i grew  up i grew up in New Zealand my education was in   New Zealand um during that that time that really  shapes your identity the physical disability unit   and that was the unit that needed the people it's  now called a disability unit in Mount Roskill in   New Zealand was in the heart of the school perfect  centre of the school and i would check in there in   the morning and then go to all my regular classes  what that did for students was that they knew that   society had more than their perfectly able people  every class had people with disability if person   needed an additional adjustment they would use the  universe resources and go to the class and do so   reshape our schools to be absolutely inclusive  of everybody in society yes some of us may be   disrupting and then we can have specialised things  within the school itself not a separate place 200   Kilometres away none of that if you have inclusion  at the start you do not you you you'll have   inclusion in the work it's simple as that build  our schools to be inclusive of everybody and have   them all together now if you want specific classes  let's teach inclusive infrastructure let's teach   inclusive service delivery let's teach inclusive  employment those are broad categories that you   can teach to year 11 and year 12 that they take  and they play alternatively just let's play d and   d together the great equaliser around the table  and if you're playing with people with disability   well you remember them from their youth and then  you're thinking about them when you're hiring them   because they were so creative around the digital  table and uh that's something that you can do too   that's awesome that's great and uh thanks Ann  Massey as well for uh um for your hat tip to a   program that i used to manage uh just like you  programmed that was run in primary schools all   over um all over the state of new south wales and  now um has been taken over by a variety is being   run all over Australia and actually in Canada  now as well um we've got one more question here   from from Ricky and Gina i might direct  this to you what are some of the things   that leaders with and without disabilities can do  to ensure that companies start taking action on   employing people with disabilities and and not  so not doing so for tokenistic or KPI reasons   yes well i think that there is a um on  an optimistic note i think that there are   companies um many of which have a huge market  share of consumer products that are committed to   inclusive design principles and to accessibility  and we're seeing great efforts around the world   around diversity equity and inclusion but here's  the reality i mean the reality is that 80 to 90   of labor market participation in the world is made  up of small and medium-sized businesses and not   the largest companies of the economy so what are  we to do about that i mean the real question is   not whether well-meaning actors at the top of  the fortune 500 see disability diverse talent   pipelines is of use and onboarding is utterly  necessary to their company's operations but   the worldwide economy is missing trillions of  dollars of talent and what is it going to take   to bring people back into the labor market and  so the question has to be seeing diversity and   inclusion and building an inclusive workforce from  the bottom up as equally as mutually a beneficial   strategy is building it from the top down and how  do we build it from the bottom up let's look at   the workers that we're talking about we're talking  about a group of people who've experienced a lack   of access to not only social capital around the  world as a consequence of historic discrimination   but lack of access to financial services into  banking when we're talking about the collateral   to access a small business loan to start an early  stage company we're talking about people that   utterly need risk capital here's what they don't  need is great ideas what we're seeing is that   there's an equanimity there's an equal opportunity  distribution of fabulous ideas all over this world   and we're finding so many disability entrepreneurs  everywhere and this conversation of how do we   stick people into companies that are well meaning  and ready to do dei onboarding maybe we should   broaden the conversation a little bit in the  in the places that we chat we should be talking   about how do we build a robust bottom-up strategy  to bring great people into ownership over their   own ideas into mediation minimum viable product  of their ideas owning an equity stake in their   own future how do we get people with disabilities  around the world to not only own their ideas but   fully develop them and bring them to market and  we know that this is possible we know that people   with disabilities that we've met that you support  pete that we all are friends with and friends and   family that our natural design thinkers that have  spent their lives solving problems have been spent   their lives excluded from traditional ways of  working have dreamt up new ways of working and   being employed and so part of my answer about  how do you take action to build utterly diverse   talent pipelines is you think differently  about a bottom-up strategy you believe in   supporting people not to give away their  ideas to the large companies but to own them that's brilliant that's so good um now we've  really run out of time now we've only got about a   minute to go so i'm just briefly across the panel  what's what's your last what's your kind of final   remarkable insight that you could give around uh  the future of work so sue might start with you   um i think we need to approach  the future of work with   optimism and an attitude of harnessing technology  rather than stereotypical thinking that it will   reduce jobs however at the same time i think  we need to combine that with rethinking   about how we define ourselves you know many of  us define ourselves through work and a job title   and purpose can be acquired not just through  work but volunteering supporting others no   close connections with family and friends and we  may need to think more in terms of contributing   likes for some of us because not all of us may  necessarily find an opportunity in the new economy   thanks see that's great Dwayne what about you jobs equals impairments plus adjustment levels  take that formula apply to your workplace   as a corporate as a small business and  hire people that you can financially handle   uh and get that space but for the rest of us keep  keep keep yourself visible even if you are an   invisible disability person put that  down let people know because that will   reduce the stigma foundations will go higher  thanks Dwayne and gina finally over to you   in the near future disability will be  synonymous worldwide with innovation oh that's i love that that's fantastic um that  is all we've got time for we've gone a little   a minute over so far thank you so much to our  panelists gina sue and Dwayne also to our auslan   interpreter Gerry thank you for uh for signing for  us today remarkable is about harnessing technology   and uh innovation for building social and economic  inclusion of people with disability next month   we'll be running our annual Design-athon where  participants can gain first-hand experience at how   good design enables human potential by tackling  one of three challenges and future of work is   one of those challenges so we'd love to see  teams apply for that teams have a chance to win   from the twenty thousand dollar prize pool uh  including uh prizes and potential cash funding   to invest back into your solution at the end  of the four week challenge you can see more   details for that on remarkable.org dot a u forward  slash events also we'll be seeking your feedback   on today's event so if you do have any feedback  we'd love to hear that this recording will be made   available on our youtube channel subscribe if you  don't want to miss the recordings um we need some   more subscribers we've got lots of people watching  things but not subscribing so please subscribe   um this kind of conversation is vital we hope it  brings about actionable insights for each of you   and we encourage you to continue and share those  remarkable insights on social media please tag   remarkable tech and remarkable insights our  next event is on Thursday the 9th of September   on science or science fiction of brain  computer interface so we hope to see you then   thank you so much for joining us and  enjoy the rest of your day thank you.

2021-08-22 08:46

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