[NFBP-Talk] Fwd: [tech-vi Announce List] To mark National Disability Employment Awareness Month, meet the people making a difference at Microsoft | Microsoft On The Issues - Microsoft

[Jan Lattuca]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: David Goldfield <david.goldfield at outlook.com>
Date: Sun, 11 Oct 2020 13:55:51 +0000
Subject: [tech-vi Announce List] To mark National Disability
Employment Awareness Month, meet the people making a difference at
Microsoft | Microsoft On The Issues - Microsoft
To: "tech-vi at groups.iotv" <tech-vi at groups.io>

"Accessibility" - Google News - Friday, October 9, 2020 at 1:21 PM

To mark National Disability Employment Awareness Month, meet the
people making a difference at Microsoft | Microsoft On The Issues -
Microsoft

This October marks 75 years of National Disability Employment
Awareness Month<https://www.dol.gov/agencies/odep/initiatives/ndeam>
in the U.S. – with increasing access and opportunity as this year’s
theme.

In today’s workplace, it has never been more important to include
everyone, and accessibility is the vehicle to inclusion. It is a
responsibility and an opportunity. Microsoft is passionate about
creating products that help people with disabilities unlock their full
potential at work, school and in daily life. Designing with and for
people with disabilities leads to innovation for everyone. As
Microsoft chief accessibility officer Jenny Lay-Flurrie says, “A
diverse and talented workforce brings new perspectives that help
advance our ability to delight all of our customers.”

This month, Microsoft celebrates those talented and diverse teams, and
shares some of their stories.

Angela Mills uses the Seeing AI app to confirm the location of a meeting room.

Angela Mills, Director of Program Management, Game Developer Experiences

Angela leads a team on the PlayFab game developer platform. Her
colleagues knew she used a screen reader, but it was only 20 years
after joining Microsoft<https://news.microsoft.com/features/im-visually-impaired-sharing-disability-helped-others-feel-more-welcome/>
that she began to tell people about her visual disability. In 2018,
Microsoft released Seeing AI, a mobile app that describes nearby
people, text and objects for users with low vision. It meant she could
find meeting rooms and choose her lunch without help. She says, “Every
person with a disability has honed skills to work around the
limitations that their disability brings. I cannot imagine having been
more successful in my career if I didn’t have the disability.”

[Subscribe to Microsoft On the
Issues<https://news.microsoft.com/on-the-issues/> for more on the
topics that matter most.]

Anne Taylor, Director of Supportability, Accessibility

At 7, Anne told her family in Thailand she wanted to live and work in
the United States. A scholarship helped further her dream, and she
eventually joined Microsoft as an agent of
change<https://news.microsoft.com/on-the-issues/2019/09/25/accessibility-supportability-anne-taylor/>.
Anne, who is blind, works with engineering teams to ensure products
are designed with disabilities in mind. She says, “I want to
encourage, inspire and motivate teams to think outside the box and
innovate with accessibility design as an essential component to any
product or service.”

Craig Cincotta, Senior Director, Communications

In 2013, while director of communications for Xbox, Craig took two
months’ leave to treat debilitating panic attacks with cognitive
behavioral therapy, meditation and medication. He opened up to his
manager<https://news.microsoft.com/features/who-i-am-top-manager-opened-up-mental-illness-found-compassion/>
about having obsessive-compulsive disorder and generalized anxiety,
and the move allowed him to be his authentic self. He says, “Any time
you have a more inclusive environment, you’re able to see fresher
ideas, broaden your perspective and get the best version of people.”

Dona Sarkar, Principal Cloud Advocate

Dona had already been at Microsoft for a decade when she was diagnosed
with dyslexia<https://news.microsoft.com/features/i-have-dyslexia-chief-engineer-spoke-up-help-others-learning-disabilities/>,
which means she can find it challenging to read charts, graphs and
metrics reports at work. But she kept the diagnosis to herself and
managed, until she heard about a dyslexic boy who improved his reading
with Microsoft Learning Tools. In 2018, she started to talk about her
disability and encourage other leaders to do the same “to make a far
safer space for employees to open up about their disabilities.”

[Read more: Understanding accessibility through
ABCs<https://news.microsoft.com/on-the-issues/2020/08/07/accessibility-abc/>]

Heather Dowdy, Senior Program Manager, AI & Accessibility

Heather was just six months old when she started learning sign
language<https://news.microsoft.com/life/started-learning-sign-language-six-months/>
– to communicate with her parents who had both lost their hearing as
toddlers. “My life has given me a special lens for people marginalized
by the intersection of race, gender, class and disability,” she says.
She trained as an electrical engineer and joined Microsoft in 2016 to
develop strategies and drive change to make the internet accessible
for everyone.

Jenny Lay-Flurrie, Chief Accessibility Officer

Measles and ear infections in childhood left Jenny with hearing loss,
something she tried to hide until her 30s, before she slowly began to
accept and celebrate her
disability<https://news.microsoft.com/stories/people/jenny-lay-flurrie.html>.
But then came an embolism, which has left her with long-term damage to
her leg and needing canes to walk. “It happened in the space of 90
minutes. The learning was immense,” she says. “There are things we
need to do better. This experience has been a good reminder of why we
need people with disabilities to be in the process of product design.”

Jessica Rafuse, Director of Strategic Partnerships and Policy, Accessibility

An employment attorney, Jessica joined Microsoft in 2016: “I really
wanted to be a part of what they were doing for people with
disabilities.” Her role involves going out into the community and
asking experts for their perspectives. “I love that idea that the
things I do day in, day out can help someone get a job
someday<https://news.microsoft.com/videos/microsoft-inclusive-hiring-jessica-rafuse/>.”

[Read more: ‘We are at a crossroads’ – How Microsoft’s Accessibility
team is making an impact that will be felt for
generations<https://sway.office.com/CJt2kqkQ5u0UI6qF>]

Joey Chemis, Data and Applied Scientist

Joey came to work at Microsoft through the company’s Autism Hiring
Program that started in 2015. Unemployment rates for those with
autism<https://news.microsoft.com/life/widening-the-spectrum/> are
estimated at 70% to 90%. Joey had advanced skills in math but was
finding it difficult to get interviews. The hiring process allows
people with autism to “show their true colors and abilities,” he says.

Swetha Machanavajhala, Founder, Hearing AI

Swetha was born with profound hearing loss, so her role, using data
and machine learning to enable people who are deaf or hard of
hearing<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NrE3-I-H2x4> to better
understand the world around them, is a personal mission. Inspired when
her carbon monoxide alarm rang for two weeks without her noticing,
Swetha founded the Hearing AI research project. This interface aims to
visualize the surroundings of people with hearing loss, translating
sounds such as alarms and volume changes into visual cues and written
materials into speech in real time.

For more on Accessibility, visit On the Issues:
Accessibility<https://news.microsoft.com/on-the-issues/topic/accessibility/?v=5EKoy9DlcfI>.
And follow @MSFTIssues<https://twitter.com/MSFTissues> on Twitter.

https://news.microsoft.com/on-the-issues/2020/10/09/national-disability-employment-awareness-month/


     David Goldfield
Assistive Technology Specialist

Feel free to visit my Web site
WWW.DavidGoldfield.info


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