Épisodes

  • Podcasts By Dr. Kirk Adams: Interview with Sheldon Guy, Director, Women's Athletics, Improve Her Game

    Podcasts By Dr. Kirk Adams: Interview with Sheldon Guy, Director, Women's Athletics, Improve Her Game
    Dec 18 2025
    🎙️ Podcasts By Dr. Kirk Adams: Interview with Sheldon Guy, Director, Women's Athletics, Improve Her Game https://drkirkadams.com/podcasts-by-dr-kirk-adams-12-18-2025/ In this deeply moving episode of Podcasts by Dr. Kirk Adams, Dr. Adams speaks with Sheldon Guy, Director of Women's Athletics with Improve Her Game and, by his account, one of the only blind basketball coaches, about the sudden, life-altering loss of his vision and the raw, real-time process of rebuilding a life. Sheldon recounts how quickly his world shifted, the heartbreak of what that meant for his son, and the moment he reached a breaking point, only to find a reason to keep going through messages of love and belief from his son and the players he coached. From there, he made a conscious decision to "pivot," return to the gym, and keep his commitments, launching a story of resilience that later drew major media attention and led to documentary coverage of his journey. The conversation expands beyond personal triumph into advocacy and systems change. Sheldon shares how he's pushed major organizations to improve accessibility (including voice-enabled options that reduce barriers for blind customers) and how his guiding philosophy, "see something, say something", turns everyday friction into concrete progress. He also speaks candidly about the added reality of navigating disability as a Black man, including harassment and safety concerns, while continuing to pursue hard goals, speaking to schools, inspiring young people, and taking on athletic challenges like obstacle races as a fully blind competitor. Together, Dr. Adams and Sheldon explore the evolving question of purpose, and how vulnerability, community, and relentless forward motion can become a lifeline, and a platform for change. TRANSCRIPT: Podcast Commentator: Welcome to podcasts by Doctor Kirk Adams, where we bring you powerful conversations with leading voices in disability rights, employment and inclusion. Our guests share their expertise, experiences and strategies to inspire action and create a more inclusive world. If you're passionate about social justice or want to make a difference, you're in the right place. Let's dive in with your host, Doctor Kirk Adams. Dr. Kirk Adams: Welcome, everybody, to another episode of podcasts by Doctor Kirk Adams. I am, said Doctor Kirk Adams, talking to you from my home office in rainy Seattle, Washington. And today I have a really interesting guest, Sheldon Guy. He's director of women's athletics with Improve Her Game and as far as I know, he's the first and only blind basketball coach that I am aware of. And Sheldon, say hi. Hello. Thanks. We'll be back to you. So I, I was born when my parents were in college, attending Western Washington college at that point in Bellingham. And my dad was a basketball player, college basketball player, highly competitive. He held a single game rebound record at Western for over 40 years. 29 rebounds in one game. Sheldon. Wow. And then my dad was a high school basketball coach. For for his career. He's he's passed away four years ago, but I I spent a lot of time at the gym. I spent a lot of time at basketball games. I, I had a I always had a hoop in our driveway, and I shot lots and lots of free throws and I was totally blind since age five, so my dad rigged up. It was actually like a light weight chain that you would use to chain for a dog, and he attached it to the bracket and the back of the back of the basket. Dr. Kirk Adams: And then I would hold one into my hand and tug on it so it would make a noise so I could know where the hoop was, and I'd release it and I'd shoot. And I owe many, many thousands of baskets as a kid. So I read about you in access Information news. And for those who aren't aware, that's a weekly publication that talks about what it sounds like new news about accessibility, disability inclusion. And I'm a sponsor. My consulting company is called Innovative Impact, LLC. And I'm a I'm a sponsor of Access Information News. And I read it weekly, and I read about a blind basketball coach who happens to live just north of Surrey, B.C., British Columbia. And so I reached out to Sheldon via LinkedIn and said, just read about you in Access Information news. I want to get to know you. So we had a call and chatted a little bit and invited Sheldon onto the podcast and really want to hand the microphone over to you. Sheldon would love to hear about your journey. Looking at your LinkedIn profile, it looks like you've been a sales sales executive. Very successful. You talk about public speaking, you talk, you use the word pivot. Which of course is also a basketball term, but just would would love to love to hear your story. Sheldon Guy: Well, thank you Mr. Adams, and thanks for having me on your podcast. I really appreciate it. I'm not a I'm not as polished as maybe some of your your other guests may have been on your podcast. And the reason I. Dr. Kirk Adams: We look for authenticity. ...
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    40 min
  • Podcasts By Dr. Kirk Adams: Interview with Alyssa Dver, Founding CEO, Speaker, Educator, Motivator, Spokesperson, ERG Leadership Alliance

    Podcasts By Dr. Kirk Adams: Interview with Alyssa Dver, Founding CEO, Speaker, Educator, Motivator, Spokesperson, ERG Leadership Alliance
    Dec 4 2025
    🎙️ Podcasts By Dr. Kirk Adams: Interview with Alyssa Dver, Founding CEO, Speaker, Educator, Motivator, Spokesperson, ERG Leadership Alliance https://drkirkadams.com/podcasts-by-dr-kirk-adams-12-04-2025/ In this insightful episode of Podcasts by Dr. Kirk Adams, Dr. Adams sits down with Alyssa Dver, Founder and CEO of the ERG Leadership Alliance, to explore how employee resource groups (ERGs) can drive both inclusion and business performance. Alyssa breaks down what ERGs are, why they're different from social clubs, and how volunteer leaders navigate the paradox of doing "extra" work that still has to align with business goals. She and Dr. Adams discuss the current backlash against DEI, the recent U.S. executive order that both constrains and reinforces the importance of inclusive ERGs, and why organizations that were already committed to DEI are now doubling down on ERGs as engines of belonging, innovation, and retention. Throughout the conversation, they connect ERGs directly to disability inclusion, emphasizing that disability crosses all demographics and that every ERG can and should be disability-ready. Alyssa also shares her personal journey, from a traditional marketing career to brain-science-based confidence research sparked by her son's neurological disability, and explains how belonging and psychological safety are literally "hardwired" performance factors in the brain. She and Dr. Adams connect this science to everyday workplace realities: when people feel safe and included, they think more clearly, collaborate better, and are more likely to raise tough issues or innovative ideas. Alyssa describes how the ERG Leadership Alliance supports organizations at every stage, starting, restarting, or optimizing ERGs, through research, training, tooling, and a global network of more than 100 million ERG participants. Dr. Adams closes by urging listeners, especially disability advocates and employers, to leverage ERGs as a powerful, practical mechanism to build truly inclusive workplaces and accelerate disability employment. TRANSCRIPT: Podcast Commentator: Welcome to podcasts by Doctor Kirk Adams, where we bring you powerful conversations with leading voices in disability rights, employment and inclusion. Our guests share their expertise, experiences and strategies to inspire action and create a more inclusive world. If you're passionate about social justice or want to make a difference, you're in the right place. Let's dive in with your host, Doctor Kirk Adams. Dr. Kirk Adams: Welcome, everyone, to another episode of podcast by Doctor Kirk Adams. I am that Doctor Kirk Adams talking to you from my home office in Seattle, Washington. And I have with me today a remarkable person that I'm getting to know better and better who's doing great things in the world. Alyssa Dver. She's founder and CEO of the Leadership Alliance. Alyssa. Alyssa Dver: Remarkable. That's one of my favorite words. I would use that to describe you too. Dr. Kirk Adams: Well, there we go. Well, I I'll. In full disclosure, Alyssa and I had a conversation about employee resource. Resource groups and the Leadership Alliance several weeks back, and the recording disappeared. So we're doing it again. But I'm going to call it a blessing in disguise, because so much has happened in the last last six weeks as our our topsy turvy world continues to turn. And so I wanted to touch on a couple of recent insights and get your take on it. Alyssa. Yeah, yeah. Before we do that, just to let people know I am Doctor Kirk Adams. I am the immediate past president and CEO of the American Foundation for the blind. Prior to that, the same roles at the Lighthouse for the blind here in Seattle. I have a consulting practice called Innovative Impact. Focus on fun, innovative, high impact projects that will lead to greater inclusion of people with disabilities. I have a PhD in leadership and change. My doctoral work was an ethnographic study of blind adults employed in large American corporations and ergs. Employee resource groups came up quite often in my ethnographic interviews of blind people working in big companies. And in a in an appendix of my dissertation is called Journeys Through Rough Country, by the way, and you can find it by searching Journeys Through Rough Country by Kirk Adams. And in an appendix, I, I have a fictitious scenario when I'm talking, when I'm talking to parents of a young blind child who are very fearful about their child's future and very uncertain because like my parents, my my retinas detached when I was five. Dr. Kirk Adams: They had never met a blind person before. They didn't have any experience in that area. And most parents of blind kids don't. And so I, I focus on employment. So I this fictitious scenario is talking about employment and the things they would need to do in order to prepare their child to be successful in the world of employment and be independent and to be able to thrive in the way that that they want ...
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    38 min
  • Podcasts By Dr. Kirk Adams: Interview with Ssanyu Birigwa, M.S., Co-Founder, Narrative Bridge

    Podcasts By Dr. Kirk Adams: Interview with Ssanyu Birigwa, M.S., Co-Founder, Narrative Bridge
    Nov 5 2025
    🎙️ Podcasts By Dr. Kirk Adams: Interview with Ssanyu Birigwa, M.S., Co-Founder, Narrative Bridge https://drkirkadams.com/podcasts-by-dr-kirk-adams-11-05-2025/ In this illuminating episode of Podcasts by Dr. Kirk Adams, Kirk shares how a stressful season leading the American Foundation for the Blind and pursuing his PhD led him to the healing work of guest Ssanyu Birigwa. He recalls powerful half-day sessions in New York that began with reflective writing and moved into energy practices like the hara seven-minute meditation, creating "energy bodies" with the hands, and chakra work. Those tools, which he still uses most mornings, helped him re-center, move from heaviness to lightness, and live with greater intention and body awareness. Birigwa, co-founder of Narrative Bridge, weaves her lineage as an 80th-generation Ugandan bone healer with her roles in narrative medicine at Columbia University and research on clinician well-being. She explains her Pause Three method, gratitude, intention, forgiveness, which downshifts the nervous system in under three minutes, then shows how story, slow reflection, and deep listening build trust inside teams. The conversation connects personal healing to organizational change, reframing "wealth" as health, relationships, spirit, and material capacity leaders can actually hold. Listeners leave with a palpable invitation to pause, tell truer stories, and align values with daily practice at work. TRANSCRIPT: Podcast Commentator: Welcome to podcasts by Doctor Kirk Adams, where we bring you powerful conversations with leading voices in disability rights, employment and inclusion. Our guests share their expertise, experiences and strategies to inspire action and create a more inclusive world. If you're passionate about social justice or want to make a difference, you're in the right place. Let's dive in with your host, doctor Kirk Adams. Dr. Kirk Adams: Hello, everybody, and welcome to another episode of podcasts by Doctor Kirk Adams. I am that Doctor Kirk Adams talking to you from my home office in Seattle, Washington. And today I have the most special guest I've had so far, a very important person in my life named Sonya Gregoire. And Ssanyu is co-founder and CEO of Narrative Bridge. She is an architect of systemic transformation frameworks that enable organizations to operate with authentic alignment between their stated values and their daily practices. And the more organizations who can do that, the better for all of us. Ssanyu, if you just could say hi, then I'll talk a little bit about how awesome you are. I'll turn it back over to you. Ssanyu Birigwa: Thank you. Kirk. Hello everyone. It is a deep pleasure to be here with you and your audience. Just having the opportunity to connect is really important, especially during times of such change that we are all feeling, you know, beyond what I think we can describe with words. Thank you for having me. Ssanyu Birigwa: All right. Dr. Kirk Adams: So as many of you may know, I am a totally blind person. Have been since age five, when my retina is detached and had a lot of surgeries, unsuccessful, painful surgeries, a lot of hospitalization between age five and 12, which, of course, I didn't think of it as childhood trauma at the time. But now now I know I experience some significant childhood trauma. Went to a school for blind kids for second and third grade and then into public school where it was sink or swim. I was always the only blind student. And I had a family that really did some great things for me, including holding high expectations for me and treating me on an equal footing with my sighted siblings. Didn't didn't attend to a lot of psychosocial elements of having a significant disability and weren't equipped to do that, but made my way through school and got an academic scholarship and went to college. And then you know, had a lot of challenges around finding meaningful employment, as so many of us do, with only 35% of us in with significant disabilities in the workforce. But but made my way and with a lot of support from a lot of great people with a big investment by the lighthouse for the blind, Inc. here in Seattle and my professional development, I was was able to become the president and CEO of of that organization here in Seattle. Dr. Kirk Adams: And then I was hired by the American Foundation for the Blind AFB, Helen Keller's organization, to take on those same roles for AFB and lead them through a financial turnaround and an organizational transformation which involves strategic planning and restructuring and doing lots of hard things like eliminating positions and closing programs and the hard things that needed to be done. So in the midst of all that, I, before I was hired by FBI, started a PhD program, a PhD in leadership and change through Antioch University. So I was in the middle of that dissertation process. My wife, Roz, and I moved from Seattle to New York City and lived in a tiny apartment in ...
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    57 min
  • Podcasts By Dr. Kirk Adams: Interview with Vanessa Abraham, Speech Language Pathologist

    Podcasts By Dr. Kirk Adams: Interview with Vanessa Abraham, Speech Language Pathologist
    Oct 23 2025
    🎙️ Podcasts By Dr. Kirk Adams: Interview with Vanessa Abraham, Speech Language Pathologist https://drkirkadams.com/podcasts-by-dr-kirk-adams-10-23-2025/ In this candid episode of Podcasts by Dr. Kirk Adams, Dr. Adams sits down with speech-language pathologist, author, and ICU survivor Vanessa Abraham to trace her extraordinary arc from clinician to patient and back again. Abraham recounts the rare Guillain-Barré variant that left her paralyzed and voiceless, the disorientation and aftermath of Post-Intensive Care Syndrome, and the painstaking work of reclaiming speech, swallowing, mobility, and identity. She explains why she wrote Speechless, to humanize the critical-care experience, and makes a compelling case that communication access in the ICU is a basic right, not a luxury. The conversation moves from story to strategy: how lived experience reshaped her practice, how she founded A Neu Healing Therapy to bring neuro-rehabilitation innovations to survivors, and what clinicians, hospital leaders, and families can do now, build trauma-informed teams, ensure reliable ways for non-speaking patients to be heard, and measure recovery by dignity as well as function. Throughout, Dr. Adams draws out practical takeaways and a wider systems lens, leaving listeners with both hope and a concrete roadmap for more humane, effective care. TRANSCRIPT: Podcast Commentator: Welcome to podcasts by Doctor Kirk Adams, where we bring you powerful conversations with leading voices in disability rights, employment and inclusion. Our guests share their expertise, experiences and strategies to inspire action and create a more inclusive world. If you're passionate about social justice or want to make a difference, you're in the right place. Let's dive in with your host, Doctor Kirk Adams. Dr. Kirk Adams: Welcome, everybody, to podcasts by Doctor Kirk Adams. And I am said Doctor Kirk Adams talking to you from my home office in Seattle, Washington. And I have a I say amazing guest today, Vanessa Abraham, who's a speech pathologist who's not only practiced speech pathology but has experienced the need for speech therapy herself, and I'll let her tell her story. I did want to acknowledge Mai Ling Chan, who is the source for me knowing Vanessa. Mai Ling is a an amazing disability advocate and she has created a platform called Exceptional Leaders Network ELN and it's a very small monthly subscription fee to be amongst some amazing people and get to spend some, some focused time with Mai Ling as well. So I, I met I met Vanessa through the ELN and she has brought her talent, skills and passions to the world to help support individuals who need support in their in their speech and articulation. And she's developed some amazing new technologies. And I was just speaking to the disability ERG at Russell Investments here in Seattle yesterday. And we talked about the fact that anyone can join us as disabled citizens at any time and people can become disabled and non-disabled, and it's very fluid. Dr. Kirk Adams: And we talked about the difference between impairment and disability. For instance, I have a visual impairment. I'm blind, I can't see, but if I have my Jaws screen reading software, my Refreshable Braille display, and my computer with the tools I have, I'm not in a disabling situation. If you take those things away and I just have a regular computer with no screen reading technology and a monitor, I am in a disabling situation. So Vanessa, I just want to turn it over to you. I know you were working with students in public schools for quite some time, and then something, something really transformational happened in 2019. And if you could take, take us, take us through your journey. Where? Where have you been? And where are you at now? Where? Where do you hope to take things? Where are you planning to take things and what? What's what's working well for you? And are there any any challenges you'd like us to know about? Vanessa Abraham: Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for having me here today. And you're right. My journey began in 2019. So a little over six years ago as you mentioned, I am a school based speech pathologist. I work with school aged kids with communication challenges. So anyone from using things like text to speech or eye gaze, augmentative communication devices to students that may be working on stuttering and producing smooth speech or articulation. So that's kind of where my world has been for the past 15 or so years, just working as a school based speech pathologist until one day 2019, when I became the patient in the bed receiving speech therapy. And that's really when my world got turned upside down, where I realized what it was like to have a communication impairment not only a communication impairment, but a voice and swallowing impairment, too. And I required extensive speech therapy. How it all began. I talked extensively about this in my book, speechless, that I launched about ten months ago. Launched in ...
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    32 min
  • One National Door, Local Results: How Kathy West-Evans' NET Turns Inclusion into a Hiring Advantage

    One National Door, Local Results: How Kathy West-Evans' NET Turns Inclusion into a Hiring Advantage
    Sep 25 2025
    Here Dr. Kirk Adams frames disability inclusion as a hiring advantage powered by one national door and local execution. He spotlights CSAVR's National Employment Team (NET), led by Kathleen West-Evans, as a single gateway into every state and territorial public VR agency, with TAP (the Talent Acquisition Portal) and on-the-ground VR specialists turning postings into interviews, OJT, accommodations, and retention. The article walks leaders through why inclusion breaks at the national-to-local seam, how the NET's "one company" model fixes it, and where the ROI shows up—shorter time-to-fill, stronger 90/180-day retention, and reduced compliance risk. Case patterns from Hyatt (1,000+ trainees), Microsoft (dozens of hires), CVS Health (hundreds of hires), and Kwik Trip (300+ hires across 600+ stores) demonstrate repeatable designs: employer-built curricula, alternative assessments, role redesign, and national agreements executed locally. He closes with a six-step playbook (name a national sponsor, execute a NET agreement, activate state POCs, instrument training/OJT, pre-plan retention, measure and scale), rebuts common objections ("we already have job boards," "accommodations are costly," "multi-state is messy"), and shows how to integrate the NET into ATS, accessibility roadmaps, workforce pipelines, and governance. Compliance is the floor; performance is the flywheel. The invitation: join the September 25 LinkedIn Live with West-Evans, bring one stubborn multi-state requisition and a draft KPI set, and leave with a 90-day plan to pilot the NET in two regions—because inclusion isn't charity; it's recruiting math at enterprise scale. TRANSCRIPT Podcast Commentator: Welcome to podcasts by Doctor Kirk Adams, where we bring you powerful conversations with leading voices in disability rights, employment and inclusion. Our guests share their expertise, experiences and strategies to inspire action and create a more inclusive world. If you're passionate about social justice or want to make a difference, you're in the right place. Let's dive in with your host, doctor Kirk Adams. Dr. Kirk Adams: Hello, everybody. This is Doctor Kirk Adams talking to you from my home office in sunny Seattle, Washington. And this is my monthly live streamed webinar, which I call Supercharge Your Bottom Line through Disability Inclusion. And today we have an expert in the area of disability inclusion and employment, Kathy West-Evans, my dear, dear, long time friend and colleague. Say, say. Say. Hi, Kathy. I'll be back to you in a minute. Kathy West-Evans: Okay. Hi, this is Kathy West-Evans, and I'm joining you from east of Seattle. A long time partner of Kirkson. Thank you for having the conversation today, Kirk. We both know that this we we supercharge the bottom line working as a team. So thank you. Dr. Kirk Adams: That's right. So I just wanted to reflect a little bit. So Kathy is involved in the vocational rehabilitation system which is a powerful engine for disability inclusion and employment. She'll be talking to us about how the vocational rehabilitation system works and how they work with employers and all of the resources they can bring to the table to assist people with disabilities and and their employers make successful employment outcomes. But I when I was at the American Foundation for the blind. So I am the immediate past president of AFB, and I was privileged to hold those roles in the same roles at the Lighthouse for the blind, Inc., here in Seattle, where we employed hundreds of blind and deaf blind people in various business activities, including aerospace manufacturing, which was a lot of fun making parts for all the Boeing aircraft. But when I was at AFB, when we did our strategic plan, you know, we wanted to support blind children in education. We wanted to support older people who are visually impaired. Most people who are legally blind have become so as part of the aging process, not not lived their lives as a blind person as I have. But we really decided we wanted to focus on employment because only 35% of us with significant disabilities are in the workforce, and that's that's compared to 70% of the general population. Dr. Kirk Adams: So as far as working age people in our country, about 70% are working. And in the folks with significant disabilities, only about 35% of us. So half. And for the official unemployment rate, people seeking work. The Bureau of Labor Statistics if it's 4% for the general population, it will be 8% for us who are actively seeking work. So how you slice it, our outcomes and employment are half as good or twice as bad as the general population. But in preparation for designing our employment related strategies, we did a literature review. We hired a brilliant blind researcher named Doctor Ariel Silverman. She did her doctoral work here in Seattle at the University of Washington, and now she is a head of research at AFB. But we we asked Ariel to do a literature review on employment,...
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    51 min
  • Podcasts By Dr. Kirk Adams: Interview with Elizabeth Whitaker and Rachel Buchanan, Vispero

    Podcasts By Dr. Kirk Adams: Interview with Elizabeth Whitaker and Rachel Buchanan, Vispero
    Sep 9 2025
    In this engaging episode, Dr. Kirk Adams sits down with Elizabeth Whitaker and Rachel Buchanan of Vispero to explore how AI and JAWS' 30-year legacy are converging to expand employment and independence for people who are blind or low vision. After Kirk shares a personal JAWS origin story from 1995, Liz and Rachel trace their own paths through VR and training, then introduce Freedom Scientific's new "Learn AI" series: live, first-Thursday-at-noon ET webinars that begin with fundamentals (terminology, prompting, hands-on practice) and progress to specific tools, ChatGPT in October, then Gemini and Copilot in November. Each session is archived with step-by-step exercises and resources, and early interest is strong with 900+ registrants for the kickoff. They also preview FS Companion AI, built into JAWS/ZoomText 2025, which delivers up-to-date, task-level answers for JAWS, ZoomText, Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, and web navigation. The trio candidly addresses AI's fallibility and bias, underscoring the need for accurate, representative training data, while swapping pragmatic tips (e.g., using an iPhone's Action button for instant Voice Mode) and hinting at forthcoming features to streamline interaction with web pages and apps. The conversation closes with a shared commitment to evolve the series and tools so blind users can turn AI into a practical, competitive advantage at work. TRANSCRIPT: Podcast Commentator: Welcome to podcasts by Doctor Kirk Adams, where we bring you powerful conversations with leading voices in disability rights, employment and inclusion. Our guests share their expertise, experiences and strategies to inspire action and create a more inclusive world. If you're passionate about social justice or want to make a difference, you're in the right place. Let's dive in with your host, Doctor Kirk Adams. Dr. Kirk Adams: Welcome, everybody, to podcasts by Doctor Kirk Adams. I am Doctor Kirk Adams, talking to you from my home office in Seattle, Washington. And I don't use the doctor title too often, but I use it sometimes. And it's because I have a PhD in leadership and change from Antioch University and my dissertation is called Journeys Through Rough Country, an ethnographic study of blind adults successfully employed in large American corporations. So I talked to lots of cool blind people working at lots of companies that we all know and found out what their elements of success, were. First I asked them, why do you how do you identify success? What what what do you use as your criteria to say I am successful, employed, and everybody said money in one form or another, to have enough income to have economic independence and freedom and to be able to make decisions about how to spend the money they earned. Looking at the success factors, everyone talked about family and friends support. Many of them, talked about working on a team like a sports team or a choir when they were younger. Many of them talked about having a strong internal locus of control, a real sense that they could overcome obstacles, solve problems. Dr. Kirk Adams: And many of them attributed that to some experiences when they were young, usually in the teen years, and often to do with outdoor experiences like horseback riding and rock climbing and downhill skiing and things like that. And before I get to the next success factor, I will say that they all expressed disappointment that things were so difficult still, that they were perhaps the only blind person who'd reached their level in their company, that they didn't see role models in the C-suite or on the board who were blind that they continually had to battle for accessibility and accommodations, and many cited instances in which their employers would make changes to systems without considering accessibility, rendering them unable to do their jobs. And another factor everybody talked about was accessibility, the need to master assistive technology and to be able to access systems. Which leads us to today's guests. And we have Rachel Buchanan and Elizabeth Whittaker with us today from Vispero. And say you say hi, Rachel and Elizabeth. Hi. Elizabeth Whitaker: Hello. And thank you for having us. Rachel Buchanan: Yeah, we're so happy to be here. Dr. Kirk Adams: So for those who don't connect Vispero with JAWS. Vispero provides us with Job Access With Speech, JAWS, screen reading software. This is year 30. I am a proud, proud to say that I use JAWS version one. Rachel Buchanan: Oh, wow. Elizabeth Whitaker: Right. Dr. Kirk Adams: And what would that be? 1995. And. Rachel Buchanan: Yeah. Dr. Kirk Adams: Working for the Seattle Public Library Foundation. And I had a refreshable braille display and JAWS. And I was able to do my job access systems, and and it's been it's been my constant daily companion ever since then. I have a daughter named Rachel who's 35, and she grew up she was born in 1990. So she's she's her, her, her JAWS as she grew up. And...
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    29 min
  • Podcasts By Dr. Kirk Adams: Supercharge Your Bottom Line Through Disability Inclusion Webinar: Interview with Paolo Gaudiano, Founder & Chief Scientist, Aleria (PBC)

    Podcasts By Dr. Kirk Adams: Supercharge Your Bottom Line Through Disability Inclusion Webinar: Interview with Paolo Gaudiano, Founder & Chief Scientist, Aleria (PBC)
    Aug 28 2025
    In this engaging episode, Dr. Kirk Adams sits down with Paolo Gaudiano, Founder & Chief Scientist at Aleria to unpack how measuring day-to-day workplace experiences, rather than headcounts or vague culture scores, translates inclusion into business outcomes. Gaudiano traces his path from computational neuroscience and complexity modeling to a 2015 "lightbulb moment" that led him to build simulations and tools showing how inclusion lifts productivity and retention, and how focusing on diversity alone can spark backlash. He outlines the premise of his 2024 book Measuring Inclusion: Higher Profits and Happier People, Without Guesswork or Backlash, and makes the practical case for aligning inclusion with financial performance rather than sentiment. Together they dig into method and evidence: an anonymous platform that captures specific incidents interfering with success, tagged by experience categories (e.g., respect, advancement, compensation) and sources (policy, leadership, managers, peers, clients), then linked to satisfaction, productivity, and attrition, quantified with an "impact calculator." They explore turnover and productivity costs (from months of salary at entry level to years at senior ranks), human-factor risks in cybersecurity, and simple fixes (structured reviews, better meetings) that benefit everyone, often disproportionately helping disabled employees and women. Adams adds historical data points (DuPont; Walgreens) and closes with ways to engage Gaudiano's work (Aleria, LinkedIn, TED talk), a limited-time $0.99 Kindle promotion for the book, and a promise to reconvene for a part two on building true meritocracies. TRANSCRIPT: Podcast Commentator: Welcome to podcasts by Doctor Kirk Adams, where we bring you powerful conversations with leading voices in disability rights, employment and inclusion. Our guests share their expertise, experiences and strategies to inspire action and create a more inclusive world. If you're passionate about social justice or want to make a difference, you're in the right place. Let's dive in with your host, doctor Kirk Adams. Dr. Kirk Adams: Welcome, everybody, to Supercharge Your Bottom Line through Disability Inclusion, which is my live streamed webinar that I joyfully host every month. I am Doctor Kirk Adams, talking to you from my home office in Seattle. And really, the premise of this monthly session is how can organizations become better, stronger, more aligned with their missions and their values and their objectives by being intentionally inclusive of people with disabilities in their workforce, which falls under the umbrella of inclusion writ large. And today I am thrilled. I'll use that word thrilled to have Paolo Gaudiano with us. He's the chief scientist for Illyria. I became aware of Illyria when I was in my role as president and CEO at the American Foundation for the blind, and a blind friend and colleague, Sara Minkara, invited me to attend a virtual event that Illyria was hosting. And I signed up for the newsletter. And I've read faithfully ever since. And what what Paolo focuses on is measuring inclusion and creating true meritocracy. And I've been thinking a lot about meritocracy this year. Really catalyzed early in the year with the terrible mid-air collision between the military helicopter and a domestic airline flight over the Potomac. And some statements by President Trump in the immediate aftermath, really linking the accident to the fact that the Federal Aviation Administration was intentionally inclusive of people with disabilities in their applicant pool and making a pretty, pretty jarring connection between disability and incompetence. And the conversations I often have with employers center around how people develop strengths. And we develop strengths as human beings by overcoming challenges and living every day with a with an impairment or impairments which places a disabling situations allows us a blind person such as myself, a person with a significant disability to develop some really unique strengths in areas that are are great assets and a wonderful characteristics that people with disabilities can bring to an organization through being employed. Dr. Kirk Adams: So when I read the Aleria newsletter and I read about creating true meritocracies and how to measure the impacts of inclusion there's a lot of resonance with me. And I had a chance to get on a call with Powell earlier in the year and, and talk to him about some of his, his prescient thinking several years ago about the, current backlash attack on Di, which which he saw coming, and the way that Paolo and Aleria are approaching, creating inclusive environments for the betterment of all, for the betterment of society. So I'm just I'm thrilled to have you with us, Paolo. I'd really like to hand you the talking stick, and you can take this conversation wherever, wherever it may lead you. And I happily chime in with a question or two as they arise to me, and then we'll...
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    59 min
  • Podcasts By Dr. Kirk Adams: Interview with Rich and Brittany Palmer, Managing Partners, Adaptation Ventures

    Podcasts By Dr. Kirk Adams: Interview with Rich and Brittany Palmer, Managing Partners, Adaptation Ventures
    Aug 18 2025
    In this engaging episode, Dr. Kirk Adams sits down with Rich and Brittany Palmer — Managing Partners of Adaptation Ventures — to trace the personal and entrepreneurial paths that led them to launch an angel, member-based fund focused on disability innovation. Brittany, a bilateral below-elbow amputee, shares how early prosthetics, supportive parents, and careers spanning environmental law and global consulting shaped her founder lens; when she built Beyonder, a live virtual-tour startup for people with limited mobility, she ran into investors who mislabeled the opportunity as "niche," a pattern she later saw across disability-tech. Rich recounts a winding route from RPI to Wall Street to startups, a life-threatening brain aneurysm at 28, and a reset at Babson that culminated in building and exiting an AI-for-philanthropy company — followed by leading one of the nation's largest angel groups and testifying to Congress about early-stage capital. Together they explain how Adaptation Ventures aims to be "first money in" at pre-seed and seed, typically leading ~$250K checks and targeting four investments per quarter, with a low barrier to member participation and optional fee-free, carry-free co-invest alongside the fund. Rejecting concessionary mindsets, they argue that disability markets deliver venture-scale returns — citing outsized economic multipliers for both angel dollars and assistive technology — and emphasize bottoms-up validation, universal design's "curb-cut effect," and aging demographics as powerful demand signals. They preview their first member meeting in mid-October/early November 2025 and invite founders and prospective members to connect via adaptation.vc, while Adams underscores how inclusive products expand total addressable markets and how entrepreneurship can be a natural fit for disabled innovators. TRANSCRIPT: Podcast Commentator: Welcome to podcasts by Doctor Kirk Adams, where we bring you powerful conversations with leading voices in disability rights, employment and inclusion. Our guests share their expertise, experiences and strategies to inspire action and create a more inclusive world. If you're passionate about social justice or want to make a difference, you're in the right place. Let's dive in with your host, Doctor Kirk Adams. Dr. Kirk Adams: Welcome, everybody, to podcasts by Doctor Kirk Adams. I am Doctor Kirk Adams, and I am doctor by way of my PhD in Leadership and change through Antioch University, I did an ethnographic study of blind adults employed in large American corporations. So I interviewed a lot of cool people working for a lot of cool companies. And I'm a blind person myself. My retinas detached when I was five years old in kindergarten. I became totally blind very quickly, and I went to a school for blind kids, Oregon State School for second third grade. Learn my blindness skills and my confidence and how to love myself as a blind kid. And then a long and winding road. Fourth grade on. I was the only blind student in any school I attended through my several graduate schools and the doctorate. So have had the experience of being a frustrated job seeker with a disability and a successful blind employee in corporate America and leader of a couple non-profits. I'm the immediate past president of the American Foundation for the blind. So I've had the privilege of employing it and and helping create career paths for for hundreds of blind and deaf blind people. I set up a consulting practice about three years ago, and I'm talking to you from my office in Seattle. I work with companies to help them accelerate inclusion of people with disabilities in their workforce. Dr. Kirk Adams: I work with several nonprofits to help them scale past the founder stage. And kind of unexpectedly, I have been contacted by a pretty big handful of startups in the disability tech space. Innovative people who are striving to use technology to make the world a more inclusive place for people with disabilities, and to create more opportunities for us to thrive whatever way we choose. And in doing so, I've been learning a lot about startups and incubators and angel investors and venture capital. My my fundraising history is is long and and positive, but it's primarily been in philanthropy. So raising money for non non-profit causes. So I, I'm privileged to have met Rich Palmer. We had one conversation and I'm just meeting Brittany Palmer today for the first time. Rich and Rich and Brittany are co-founders of Adaptation Ventures. And I have invited them to join us today to talk about their their journey. Hopefully you'll go way, way back. And I would love to hear I want to hear the the love story, too, of of how you met and what brought you to create adaptation ventures and and what, what your strategically what what your initiative is focused on now. So so Brittany and Rich, I'm handing you the talking stick. Brittany Palmer: Thank you so much, Doctor Kirk. We ...
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    50 min
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