growing up, or in college in Ann Arbor Michigan,

none of this came to the forefront till I had a child

with a disability.

(upbeat piano music)

Part of what we need to do is come up with a vision for

what was his life gonna be like?

And my wife and I thought long and hard about that,

and the thing that kept coming to the forefront,

is that he would feel like he belonged.

Think of who you are as a person, now, you have a job,

but you also have hobbies, and interests, and passions,

and a lot of that was formed growing up,

not just through the academic experience of school,

but through the social and emotional experience of school.

Being with lots of different kinds of kids, and people,

and learning to be challenged in your presumptions,

and learning that diversity is a broad spectrum of people.

Unless you live that diversity day in and day out,

I don't think you ever grasp that,

and I don't think you ever develop socially and emotionally

the way that you need to.

To belong when you're a child that uses a wheel chair,

that has a significant speech disorder,

and other challenges, you need to be in a community

that believes that all people belong in your schools,

in your extra curricular activities,

that all kids can learn, that all kids can go on to college,

and when you think about that level of accessibility,

you're talking about every part of our society.

So, thankfully we're in a community that believes that

kids with disabilities belong in general education

because 30 years of research shows that inclusive

education for kids with disabilities yields better

outcomes academically, socially, in terms of their jobs,

in terms of their access to college.

(happy music)

Access, accessibility, inclusivity, has to be a lens that

you start from the very beginning, when you're thinking

about what software to purchase, how do you write code,

who do you work with on your team, can we bring in a more

diverse team of people to think about this,

can we beta test our projects with people who have different

challenges and different abilities?

Once you have that lens of inclusivity and accessibility,

you start looking at all different aspects of our society

and saying hmm, is this really designed

in the best possible way?

Is it the most universally designed technology?

I think that IT folks, first they have to have that

motivation, they have to believe that college is a place

for all learners, and there are increasingly students

of all different kinds of abilities and disabilities

going to college.

They're actually 270 programs around the country

at universities that are specifically geared towards

bringing more students with disabilities

into the college environment.

So, once you have that lens and that motivation,

then you think, how am I gonna universally design

the technology from the beginning,

especially when you have the opportunity to take on

new projects and build new infrastructure,

if that's your lens from the beginning, you're gonna save

so much work in terms of trying to retrofit down

the line to meet new ADA requirements,

or new accessibility requirements.

(upbeat banjo music)