AXSChat Podcast

AXSChat Podcast with AXSChat with Josh Wintersgill, Open's Inclusive Innovation Programme Lead

August 19, 2022 Antonio Santos, Debra Ruh, Neil Milliken talk with Christine Hemphill
AXSChat Podcast
AXSChat Podcast with AXSChat with Josh Wintersgill, Open's Inclusive Innovation Programme Lead
AXSChat Podcast +
Help us continue making great content for listeners everywhere.
Starting at $3/month
Support
Show Notes Transcript
Josh is Open's Inclusive Innovation Programme Lead. He is leading our work on a grassroots inclusive innovation for an exciting global initiative being launched in 2022. He also works across the broader Open team on innovation projects we are working on internally and externally.

Prior to stepping into this significant innovation role, Josh had joined Open as our Lead for the Mobility / Dexterity Community. He still ensures that we remain aware of and up to date with the community's concerns, needs, and interests. With the other Community Leads, he continues to help co-design research to ensure that the needs of people with physical access needs are well-considered and incorporated in our work.

As a powered wheelchair user for the last 19 years, Josh got fed up with the lack of dignity, safety and comfort when flying by air and now produces award winning products to improve flying for wheelchair users around the globe, alongside other fantastic innovative products. He is an entrepreneur himself and the Founder and Director of Able Move.

His background is in technology and he takes every opportunity to work in research, design, and innovation on new cutting-edge products and services that look to enhance diverse opportunities and improve inclusive design and outcomes.

Josh has a competitive nature and loves to compete. He is currently on the talent and development squad for Great Britain in Air Rifle.


Support the show

Follow axschat on social media
Twitter:

https://twitter.com/axschat
https://twitter.com/AkwyZ
https://twitter.com/neilmilliken
https://twitter.com/debraruh

LinkedIn
https://www.linkedin.com/in/antoniovieirasantos/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/axschat/

Vimeo
https://vimeo.com/akwyz




This is a draft transcript produced live at the event and corrected for spelling and basic errors. It is not a commercial transcript. AXSCHAT Josh Wintersgill

NEIL:

Hello and welcome to Axschat. I'm delighted that we are joined today by Josh Wintersgill, Josh was introduced to me through Christine Hempel of Open Inclusion. So, welcome Josh, you are doing a bunch of stuff around the Open Inclusion Awards. Simply Open Awards. But first off, you know, welcome to Axschat and tell us a bit about yourself and how you came to be working on what you're doing with Christine but also some of the stuff in your background?

JOSH:

Yeah, hi Neil, Debra, Antonio, really great to be on Axschat and you know thanks for allowing me to take time to share a bit about my story and what I'm doing with Christine at Open Inclusion. So, I'm 29 now, my background has historically been in IT management and business. And I started out in software development before that, before I went to university and then did an IT management degree. Graduated from Uni back in 2015, which seems like a lifetime ago. Moved into Cyber security for three years. I worked for Hewlett Packard Enterprise in that space, which is also now known on DXC Technology. And through my lived experience of being in a wheelchair, I have got spinal muscular atrophy, it become quite apparent that as I got older, with the condition deteriorating, travel become increasingly more difficult and we see a lot of bad press at the moment around aviation with people really struggling to fly with dignity and their rights really to travel and in a lot of cases, we're seeing those rights breached, which has got some really bad press recently in terms of the industry and I realised that there was a gap in the market, where wheelchair passengers or wheelchair users were being let down in terms of the way in which they were being treated, actually getting on and off aircraft from being physically lifted from their chair into the aircraft. And I decided to come away after a holiday, back in 2017 and I always say, it's really weird because it actually started off a with a pint of Corona and a book that actually sparked the idea, which is quite cool, right. So, for those people that enjoy reading, one of the people in industry around leadership, Simon Cynic, has a fabulous book called 'Start with the wine,' and that was the book I was reading with the time. And it started me thinking why I was doing what I was doing in the corporate world and I realised actually maybe I want to make more of an impact and how can I make more of an impact outside of the corporate world and that got my thinking about my lived experience and I realised there was this issue with the way I travel and I couldn't be the only person on the planet that was experiencing it and that really kicked started my idea of creating a product that would enable wheel chair users to better transfer from their wheelchair into an aircraft and it spiralled from there. So, I ended up winning the UK Disabled Entrepreneur's Award back in 2018, which just so happened to be run by the founder of one of Europe's largest budget airlines, Easy Jet, so Stelios and he decided to invest, and he asked me, he goes to Josh, would you like some money to help get your business going and I of course said yes. And that allowed me to get enough funding to step away from the corporate world and really kick start in the entrepreneurial side of things. So, that was my route into entrepreneurship and then with the lockdown coming around, with COVID coming around, sorry, being in the travel industry that really impacted us massively and as an entrepreneur you quite quickly learn to adapt and one of the things I learned was how do I pivot my business so I'm not completely reliant on the travel industry or aviation for that matter and so, through COVID, we actually developed some more products, which is really exciting and through that transition of changing the business, the Open Inclusion came about. So, that is where the tie with Christine came in . So, effectively Martin Sibley, for many people who know Martin, was supported Christine around mobility and dexterity, me and Martin have the same question, and with Martin spinning up his company, Purple Goat, Agency, I was the one that got poached to replace Martin and I have been supporting Christine now for a year and a half and recently picked up some more work for her in January this year, spinning up the Simply Open Awards, which Christine has given me. So, again, that is very quick sort of five minutes introduction of how I got to where I am today now.

NEIL:

Excellent. So, that is a great potted tour, potted history. And I am really interested that as someone that works in enterprise, with different lived experience, but lived experience nonetheless that you felt that you couldn't make a change or maybe you couldn't make that same kind of impact within enterprise. What was it about working in a really large corporate that made you feel if you went outside to do it?

JOSH:

Yeah, it’s really interesting right? So, I think when you start off an intern and a graduate, you kind of feel very much like a cog in this kind of big wheel, so to speak. So, in terms of the presence and impact that you're having, it feels very much, this role of satisfying your line manager or your functional manager and a lot of it, because my role, was not really client facing, it was very much internal, it was very hard to feel somewhat satisfied and I think I got myself into this place where I was comfortable and I wasn't really being challenged enough and it just got me thinking about where am I going to go next. I could go into senior management but is senior management again going to be client facing and do I want to be in this cutthroat corporate managerial role. And I don't know, I felt like, it's weird okay, Neil, where you come across a product, or you realise there is people out there having real world struggles and they haven't got solutions to change that quality of life that really does change your mindset and gives you a different perspective on just sitting behind a computer. And it doesn't mean that people sitting behind a computer aren't having real world impact because we know that people are doing that. But I suppose that just kind of triggered me to just think slightly differently. And sure, I mean there's lots of risk being an entrepreneur and there's lots of safeguarding of being in the corporate world. But I don't know, when he creates something, and you try and improve a person's life it's a very different feeling verses doing a role internally satisfying somebody else if that makes sense.

NEIL:

I do understand it. Yeah, absolutely, because I can understand, I can understand the facelessness of large organisations, Antonio and I work for a very different you know, a similar organisation, but slightly you know French focussed is the word for ATOS, French headquarters and DXU being very much more US focused. But sort of yes, coming as a graduate, you might feel like you're a cog in a wheel. But what I would say is I actually choose to stay. I have run a couple of businesses. So, I started up something, it wasn't in the disability space, but I chose to actually move from small and medium enterprises to go into a large one because I felt it was an opportunity to leverage the scale of that large to make a difference. But I think the thing is you then have to be in the role to be able to do that. And so, I think that we have got similar aims but very different approaches to what we are trying to do here so, yeah?

JOSH:

And it's interesting because there is nothing to say that in 15 years’ time that I don't go back into the corporate role and potentially that on a role of that kind, who knows and it's interesting because I think when you're younger I think those kind of roles are out of your reach in the early days and for me it was more of appropriate transition to make an impact, I suppose. But yeah, it's interesting, it's all about perspective, isn't it?

NEIL:

I know Debra has got a question but just following up on that, I didn't do marvellously as an entrepreneur, I learned some great lessons, I went to some great parties. My entrepreneurism is being around in the music industry, having a record label and stuff like that and vinyl, at that point was more niche than it is now because sales are back on the uptake. But I think that I came to a large organisation, I was medium senior, I was mid management and over the period of time that it's become senior management and all the rest of it, and I have been lucky to work for an organisation that is allowed me the latitude to be the entrepreneur to help these things in an organisation. So, I think it takes both. And yes, I think also, organisations should be keen to bring in people with different experiences from different types of backgrounds at regular points and at different points in their career as well because it enriches the sort of cognitive diversities and the diversity of experience that then helps them make better decisions and products and services and all the rest of it. I'll shut up now Debra, and hand over.

DEBRA:

No, no, because I agree too. Because one thing that we were saying was when we're bothering to meaningfully include people with disabilities, a lot of times I know here in the States, we were always expecting you to be in the disability field and there were very talented people with lived experiences with disabilities that were like, I don't want to be in the disability field. I don't want you to throw me into a box and so, I thought that it was just really good points that I thought you both were making, and I think we should all do that. We should look at where are we in our lives and what does make the most sense. And I appreciate Neil that you are willing to stay with a big corporation and help lead it and at the same time we make a lot of progress with being an entrepreneur. I have been both. I've been in senior, senior positions and large, what we always call corporate America, even though they're a multinational but I've also been an entrepreneur since 2000 and it is not for the faint of heart, the cash flow problems, two o’clock in the morning worrying about how you're going to pay your payroll. It is not for the faint of heart, but once it gets in your blood and I think Josh is experiencing that, we all are experiencing that we are all entrepreneurs on this call but and I do think it’s really important and I remember I have talked to multiple people with disabilities that said, I'm not going in the field, no, I don't want to be labelled, but actually we need you in the field, we need you telling us, we need Josh, creating Able Move so that people using wheelchairs on aeroplanes can be more successful and we're not treating people like they don't matter. So, I think we are all needed. Some of us needed in universities and we are all needed in these different places. But I think it’s always so powerful that we're digging into what does it mean to be a person with a disability. Does it just mean wheelchair users. People that are blind? Does it include neurodiverse people like Neil and I, are we disabled enough to be part of the community. These are the times to really pull all of that stuff apart and really look at it and to look at what we have already contributed but I just think it’s very important right now with 80% of our community having to tell you they've a disability if they've the courage to do that for the 20% that are visible to really help continue to help. Well, I think all of us need to help. People be able to be proud of their lived experiences no matter what their lived experiences are. So, I really appreciate you know all the stuff, you've been doing Josh, so tell me, could you tell me more about how you came up with the design for the Able Move? I mean, because you did was you told us you won the award, a CEO saw you and it moved forward. But I assume there's a little bit more to the story behind how you got there.

JOSH:

Sorry, Debra just repeats the question for me, I just had a drop of connection there.

DEBRA:

I was just wondering how the Able Move; how did that get started? Why did you start it? I mean you talked a little bit about it. You talked about winning the prize and the CEO so, I just want to know a little bit more about it because it's a great idea.

JOSH:

Yeah, so I was on a flight to Tenerife in 2017 and I remember watching a gentleman, he was about 6 foot 2, I think he was tetraplegic, and he must have been best part of 15 or 16 stone and I'm watching four members of staff trying to lift this poor chap into a window seat with no transferring equipment whatsoever. His trousers were coming right up at his back, I could see two women at the front and two men behind trying to lift him. And I'm thinking, well if I'm struggling, he's really, really struggling, and this can't continue. And so that for me, I had bad experiences before but when you see it on other people, it just doesn't sit right. And it was at that point I realised , whilst reading the book and seeing that, that is really what sparked me to then do something when I came home and what was really interesting, I always say to people it’s like, when you put something into Google and the search doesn't come back, it’s like the odds of winning the lottery but not winning the money if that makes sense because the odds are so slim, and yeah, after a few Google searches, I realised that there was a gap and that's kind of what really sparked it off Debra, to answer your question.

DEBRA:

Yeah, what a powerful story, thank you, thank you. I know Antonio has a question but wow that is powerful.

ANTONIO:

Josh, welcome. I think we know that over the last couple of months airports and the industry aviation has been struggling, it’s not difficult to spend four or five hours in the airport, families with children, people with disabilities, basically everyone. I know that some progress has been made in terms of supporting people at mobility level within that industry but what have you seen lately that really concerns you? You know? Because we know that many airports don't have the same resources that they used to have in the past. A lot of change in terms of human resources within the airport industry. So, I would like you to give us a kind of a status where you see the industry today and what things you feel that you were moving in the right direction and suddenly you went back and the things that you feel that really need a kind of urgent fix?

JOSH:

That is a very, very good question and a very, very complex question to answer because there are lots of variables that impact why the industry is the way it is. But if we just take a step back and look at the industry before COVID, the industry was doing a lot of work. It was putting a lot of time and money in trying to improve accessibility, but the problems were there before COVID and there were still large problems that were happening affecting the experience of disabled passengers and when you go through a crisis like COVID of course, the industry goes into meltdown. Their businesses are trying to survive and unfortunately what we saw was a lot of cuts being made to, we saw cabin crew, lots of good staff being lost, we saw good experienced special assistance staff being lost. You can't replace that overnight once they've gone, it can sometimes take years to build that and unfortunately the way in which the industry operates, it has quite a high level of turnover of staff as well, which also doesn't help. And when we look at businesses going into survival mode, coupled with the fact that, in particular in the UK, we've just left Brexit and recruitment has been quite a large issue now we've left the European union. We've also got issues with security, getting clearance for staff to be able to go airside and there's lots of challenges Antonio that affect the airports from a logistical operational point of view that actually lots of passengers don't recognise. They actually don't need to recognise it; they are a customer, and they shouldn't need to know what is going on in the background. But the point is that there are lots of challenges where the industry have really struggled and I think there's also a large responsibility here on the government to ensure that passengers, where their rights could be badly affected like we're seeing in the aviation industry, I think there should be more production from the government to ensure that services like this protected you know we see lots of money being spent by government to help bail airlines out and try and help them keep them afloat, but of course, human rights is really important. And I think in lot of cases disability has been neglected in the industry and unfortunately, I don't think it’s going to get any better any time soon, we are nowhere near out of the woods. The airlines are still trying to get back on their feet, so to speak and I think it's going to be several years until we actually get to a point where we were before COVID. And like I said at the beginning, there were still lots of problems before COVID. But what I do want to reiterate though, is all of the people that work within the disability arena within the aviation industry all have hearts of gold and they're all trying to do the right thing. It's just the nature of the beast of the industry and it's really sad because everyone trying their hardest because they don't want bad experiences to happen. But unfortunately, we need more security from government but also better regulation improvement because a lot of the regulations were written, were actually written years and years ago which actually aren't fit for purpose for the world in which we kind of live today.

ANTONIO:

Just following that, we seem to be, this industry seems to be going to also to a period of rebooting, to a period of restarting, with many executives changing. Many new people coming. Where do you see opportunities to do better than where we were doing before, whilst we are at this phase?

JOSH:

Culture. It's culture. I think it's the organisational culture of businesses that are employing staff in this space and getting that right. That is where we see a lot of the big gaps within staffing, a lot of interaction that people get around assistance is person to person and communication. And I think that is where the biggest improvement can be made because when you get rid of staff that potentially have been there for years and years, you can argue that they are good at what they do but also, people that have been in a role for years and years get into very bad habits, right? And so, you get the opportunity to actually develop a new culture with new staff with better habits and I think that is probably the best place to start is culture because if you have the right attitude, it drives the right mindset and with the right mindset, we can treat people the way they should be treated.

NEIL:

Excellent and we are going definitely in the topic of the air travel and everything else, I'm conscious that we also need to talk about the Simply Open Awards. But before you do, one thing that I'm really interested is you know again you alluded to it, there are multiple moving parts there. Multiple responsibilities across the chain, because you have got the you know, the airports and the management of the airports, but they, the staffing is usually through contracts sot then, as the contract companies delivering those services also and then you have got the handover point between that and the airline itself and then you have got the responsibility of aircraft designers and fitters and so on as well because actually how the aircraft are designed impacts on that, you know the experiences of travellers. And so, I think there is so many elements to solving the problem that yeah, I mean you have come up with a what is a solution, it's almost a hack. Right? I mean because what you have done is created for people to cope with an imperfect world. But if we were to design.

JOSH:

Yes, yes.

NEIL:

If we were to allow power changes to be able to actually go on planes, then okay to business. But it would, you would probably come up with another product anyway, but the problem that you just described would have disappeared if you had a wheelchair accessible toilet and a removable seat in the front row of the aircraft.

JOSH:

Yeah.

NEIL:

Insurmountable problems but what you are asking for the prime real estate of the airline and then it comes down to money.

JOSH:

And this is I go back to culture because we should be doing things because it's the right thing to do, but unfortunately with the way businesses operate, they operate profit first, in a lot of cases. And so what we actually need is people at the top of these organisations with a culture that is focused on accessibility, where it's important in their goals and aspirations of their business where accessibility is considered at every stage of the business where it's researched, trying to identify new products or services and then when they identify a product or service and they want to build it up that they are including the right people with accessibility in mind with every single stage in the journey. Don't include people with accessibility requirements at the point you think it's a good idea. Get them in the room to discuss what is actually needed rather than assuming building and then asking because you're missing that real crucial bit at the beginning. So, I think that is kind of the bit to your point, Neil.

NEIL:

Excellent. So, thank you for that and let's talk a little bit about Simply Open Awards. Tell us about and we need to hack and Simply Open Awards, has a big focus on hack. Can you tell us a bit more about the awards?

JOSH:

Before I do that to set Open Inclusion up to in terms of what they do. So, effectively Open Inclusion is all about businesses create products and services that are more beautiful, inclusive and effective for everybody. And they have a community that are made up of people with lived experience of disability or like the old age and all different backgrounds of neurodiversity etc. And one of the roles that Christine has asked me to do is bring into the business, these awards called the Simply Open Awards. Now, these started, we are not the originators actually of these awards, they started in India back in 2019 by an organisation called Enable India and they realised that in India, being a low to middle income country, they realised that actually people in the outreach communities, that people were having this come up with hacks to overcome day to day barriers that they faced because in India healthcare is not as sophisticated as it what might be here in the UK. And so, people are having to think about frugal innovation and come up with solutions or hacks that really help them get around in the home or getting out and about and they had a really good success over the last two years. And what they have done is, through that success they've decided to bring in partners from around the world to really take the concept of asking people to share by recording the hacks and submitting it into the Awards. And so, what is happening now, is through Enable India they have reached out to various companies and through the work with Christine at Open and the connections with Enable India, we have decided to take on the Simply Open Awards for six countries, the UK/Ireland, the US/Canada and Australia/New Zealand. What we are effectively asked people to do is if you have a life hack to help you overcome barriers around you or they might help other people then we want you to record what that hack might be and submit it into the Simply Open Awards and you get the opportunity to to win some money. But the most important thing about the Awards, is being able to share your hack with somebody else around the world that would benefit from that solution. So, to give an example, I have a set up here at home which is a metal bar. It goes along the ceiling. It's hooked by two screws and I have attached a stretchy band around it and I put it over my arms or over my legs and it allows me to do my exercises at home which saves me having to go to the gym, where if you go into the gym, a lot of the equipment in the gym is inaccessible, right, so why pay a gym membership to go and use equipment that you can't really use, let's do it at home and again, it was a very, very simple hack that allows me to do exercise at home. And we're seeing lots of other innovations, so we have got a particular person who has adapted their manual wheelchair, to hook all of their bags, and everything on to the back of their chair so they can basically be hands free and push their chair. We have seen a guy adapt a 3D, it's basically he printed a 3D dog dispenser, so that a treat dispenser for his dog which he hooked up to his wheelchair with a button, a 3D printed dog dispenser that is attached to his chair to feed his dogs independently and lots of other examples. I could talk for hours on examples and that is really the essence of the things we are trying to capture about what people are doing to improve their day-to-day life. So, we are spanning those six countries, we have got various categories, which range from education, communication, getting out and about, employment and advocacy and daily health and wellbeing. So, as long as your solution comes under one of those five categories, then we really want you to apply.

DEBRA:

I would also like to say that we also at Billion Strong are part of the Discovery Awards and we are bringing our 90 countries to it. So Open Inclusion is part of it, I know Billion Strong is part of it and I want to give one other hack that I heard, and I just love this hack, when they were doing the awards in India. I mean the Discovery Awards. There was a young man that could not write and so what they did, was they took a pencil, or a pen and they put it in a potato, he could wrap his hand around it and he could write and then as he did that his had strengthened until the potato became smaller and smaller and smaller until he could actually write without the potato. So, I love beautiful examples like that. So, Billion Strong has also joined, now it's the Discovery Awards where Josh is talking a little bit more narrow inside, that is the Simple, I forget what you called it Josh?

JOSH:

Simply Open Awards.

DEBRA:

Simply Open Awards, and Josh said there are multiple partners involved and we are very proud to also be representing, well we have 90 countries because those are our partners at Billion Strong and of course, you are one of our partners at Billion Strong too. So, I just wanted to say I agree with Josh, this is a wonderful opportunity to show how innovative our community is and what we can do so I really appreciate the leadership that you are showing over there Josh, so thank you. Go ahead economy.

JOSH:

It was just to say that our prizes for the Awards are being funded by our sponsors, as well. So, we have three sponsors, Eli Lilly, AMV BBDO and Fiverr, so without them we wouldn't have been able to put the funding for these awards together. So, I just want to say thank you to those as well.

DEBRA:

We love those companies; we love the brands that support us like ATOS. So, I want to say thank you to My Clear Text. Speaking of supporting us for years, allowing us to say captioned and transcribed. We really, really appreciate them. And Josh thank you for being on the show today and thank you to Antonio and Neil as well. So, bye everyone.

JOSH:

Thank you.