Shaping an Inclusive Future in Technology

Embark on an intimate exploration of the transformative power of accessibility with Nadia Törnroos, a beacon of change in the tech industry. Nadia, a seasoned software engineer and accessibility specialist, recounts her personal voyage from academia under Professor Mike Walt at Southampton University to pioneering an accessibility revolution at Tietoevry. Her narrative is not just a tale of individual perseverance; it's a blueprint for embedding inclusivity into the fabric of corporate culture. Through her eyes, we witness the uphill battle to locate allies within a sprawling enterprise and the tireless effort to ensure that the digital world is open to all, regardless of ability.

The conversation then turns to a broader canvas, painting the critical importance of inclusive design and the pivotal role of organizational leaders in championing this cause. It's a candid discussion about aligning the principles of Diversity and Inclusion with the practical goals of accessibility, all while navigating the social nuances that can make or break these initiatives. As Nadia shares her insights, we also celebrate the unsung heroes contributing to a more open society, urging everyone to rally together in this endeavor. This episode is an ode to those who dare to redefine the limits of technology and society, inspiring a collective march toward a world where no one is left behind.

Transcript

Neil MIlliken: 0:00

Hello and welcome to AXS Chat. I'm really pleased that we're able to welcome Nadia Tornbros to AXIS Chat today. It's been a long time coming, because I first met Nadia nearly a decade ago when she was finishing off studies at Southampton University under Professor Mike Walt, who does amazing work on building accessibility in computer science courses and studies. So we had a conversation way back when, to see the light in Nadia's eyes, she'd fallen for accessibility and we've stayed in touch ever since. But it's taken a long time to get you on to AXIS Chat. Nadia, please tell us about your background and how you came to work in the field, because I like to say you don't need to be a rocket scientist to do accessibility, or rather accessibility in rocket science, but that's your background, right.

Nadia Törnroos: 1:01

Yes, yes, thank you very much for having me here and I'm very happy and honoured to be on this same virtual stage with you. So my name is Nadia. I work as an accessibility specialist and software engineer at the big Nordic consultancy company, especially international and not only Nordic, and my journey actually started around 10 years ago at the UK, at Southampton University, where we had accessibility course. Before this course, I had no knowledge about accessibility, no awareness at all, so it was an eye-opener for one year and all my thesis and coursework actually were related to accessibility since then. Actually, I must mention like again, also thanks to Mike Weil, because this was the lectures which were early in the morning, but every student, almost every student, were coming there, even though the lectures were recorded with the captions and so on, so you could have skipped it, but it was so interesting that we all attended that. Then, after university, I moved to Finland and then started my job as a software developer and then last couple of years I'm privileged to work as accessibility specialist at Tietoevry, so doing everything from auditing to advocating accessibility in the company and outside of that very possible. And also three years ago I decided to do my certification, but the goal wasn't to get certified, but just to restore and gather the knowledge, because the knowledge was kind of rusty, because the journey was quite bumpy.

Nadia Törnroos: 3:10

For me as well, accessibility was on and off in my career path. But since then, since when I get my certifications and I went through this process, I got very inspired, very empowered, I felt. So I started to find like-minded people in the company, because our company is 24,000 people so it's also very difficult to find right assets, people who are like-minded, people who are passionate or have knowledge and so on. That's why I was struggling. Before. I couldn't find anyone in the company and it was difficult for me to find someone actually like, searching in this amount of people like. But now I found out. So we actually formed the team. We have accessibility team on board Meeting regularly that belong to different locations, different business units and so on. So we discussed things. We're thinking how to promote accessibility, how to raise awareness, how to make it more sustainable within the development, design processes, like, and so on. Yeah, that's what. That's what that means.

Debra Ruh: 4:34

Not yet. Um, first of all, welcome officially to AXSChat chat. I mean, we, as Neil said, long time coming, but before we got on air you were talking a little bit more about the journey you took to even get into the accessibility field, and so I wanted to explore that a little bit. But I also wanted to congratulate you on, first of all, caring about accessibility is so passionately, like the rest of us, and so, as Neil said, the minute he met you, he could see the fire in your eye to make a difference. You're firing your eyes to make a difference, and so I wanted to compliment that as well. But and I really appreciate that you took the time once you got into an accessibility position To talk to other people in your organization To really figure out how y'all could get together, collaborate and make it better for everyone, including that brand. I think we see that happening a lot of times, with accessibility professionals Just really going over the top to make sure that you know their brand is doing the right thing by our community, and I'm grateful for that.

Debra Ruh: 5:42

But I was wondering, Nadia, if you could talk a little bit more about you know how difficult it was to connect with other like-minded people even to move into the accessibility field. Because we've talked about this on access chat before, I also will give a toast, a lot of credit for some of the things They've done, like their apprenticeship program that they created and we appreciate, like work that I double AP is doing and stuff. But still it's very difficult. Once you get a spark and you really want to make a difference in accessibility, it's actually difficult to enter the industry in a meaningful way, and so I love that you not you did not let any of the obstacles stop you, but I was thinking that would be something Interesting for the audience to hear that that's still happening. But luckily, bright stars like Nadia are making it into the industry anyway. But do you mind just exploring it? It seemed like it was difficult for you to really find your way to an accessibility position.

Nadia Törnroos: 6:47

Yeah, so After university I was in the UK, so I was naturally trying to find a job there. So it wasn't easy and thanks to my professor, mike, who already mentioned here, he actually like tried to help me very greatly. So because he had the connections and I could have talked to people like Neil or I had interview actually with the Google as well. But Well, probably I didn't have enough experience or something, because they actually were looking for evangelist and Back in the days I wasn't in that, in that position at all, so it was more or less like theoretical knowledge and I wasn't this spoke woman at all. So I didn't go well. And then of course, I was naturally trying to find also working in software development. But then opportunity comes that I could. I couldn't go to others but unfortunately, due to some Constraints of my me being in the UK, I had to leave the country. So I moved to Finland to digital advertisement company and, well, accessibility wasn't in the picture back then. So and like, for me it was like the rocks were actually there on my path. So because, like, when you don't find inspired people or someone who could help you, motivate you, maybe mentor you, because you are newbie, you know. So it's kind of difficult to pick it up and start to advocate for accessibility. So you try, you try a couple of times. When you don't get a good response, you just give up. You know, yeah. So and then in 2017 we were trying. We were trying to run accessibility meetups, which quite common concept in Finland. We have many meetups like software meetups, design meetups and so on. So we were thinking with one of my colleagues, so actually was starting at Southampton University as well. It happens that we met, so we tried to run the accessibility community here, but by then it's also didn't fly. So we tried to do a couple of sessions, but maybe due to our busy times I don't know, maybe interest of people it didn't fly out. And then in the company as well, it was challenging to like in locally to find people who care about accessibility in general, who would like to explore the topic and make changes and so on. So I give up again. So it was like fun enough all the time with accessibility.

Nadia Törnroos: 9:47

And then after, like during my return to live, probably I don't know what happened, I don't know I felt very empowered so that I can do it now. It's a time now I can do it and that's why I went for certification. I came back to the company and I have actually a little bit funny story, because it was a global accessibility awareness day in 2022, I think, and luckily likely, we start the topic started to bubble and we start to have people who are interested in accessibility and we decided to do some talks internally like dedicate those talks to global accessibility awareness day, and I was in contact with Deku and Deku actually helped me to broadcast it. People who attend AXCON previously in spring, they broadcasted those people to contact me. So that's how I found the community within our organization.

Nadia Törnroos: 10:49

I found like 10, 12 people who actually wrote to me and say, hey, we got this email from Deku, like you wanted to talk to us or it's a spam, what's going on? So that's how we started to build the team, actually the accessibility team in our organization, and I'm honestly, I must say like I'm very proud of that, because like to find these people, these gems, this knowledge, which we already had, but nobody kind of be aware about that and trying and starting to collaborate rather than doing things in parallel or repeating the same things. It makes so much difference. So, and now it's, like you know, for me personally, like when I meet these people, my colleagues, every week, I feel so empowered, like even if you feel down, something is not going on well, and so on. After one hour of conversation it's like okay, I can continue. I can continue advocate and knock to the door so convince people are doing some job.

Debra Ruh: 11:55

So yeah, very, very powerful. It's very powerful. You should be proud and and and you're a good case study for anybody else that's trying to get an accessibility and it. Yeah, so we really really appreciate you. I know, antonio, you had a question. Let me turn it over to you.

Antonio Santos: 12:14

So welcome, Nadia, good to have you here. So when you are, you know, talking with your colleagues trying to bring awareness of accessibility in your organization, what are the topics that you see that trigger more interest from others and somehow may okay, no, I can win my colleagues if I go on this path and what can you tell us about something that you tried that didn't work, that you realized, this was a good lesson and that could be important for others to learn from. What can you tell us about?

Nadia Törnroos: 12:52

Yes, thank you for the question, actually it's. It's very interesting and relevant because I'm I'm kind of trying to tailor my speech and advocacy depends on the role, because different people motivated by different reasons. There is no one fit, one fit all as well in the in this aspect. So, like, some people are motivated by legislation, it's only way to talk. So when you start a conversation with like, okay, this is right thing to do, we have this percentage of people who can be affected by inaccessible services and so on, it might not work, but for some reason the, for example, legislation works through. But, for example, if I would start to talk, for example, with a developer or designer about legislation, they totally don't care. They want to do actually usable, accessible services, you know. So the speech for them would be tailored differently. And then actually we have one developer.

Nadia Törnroos: 14:01

I always give him as example, because I really love things, what he said. He actually went through accessibility, he started to dig himself, so he didn't have any help or any guidelines or anything. So he was kind of exploring the field himself because of the project. And when he was asked, like okay, how much time it takes for you to implement accessibility, he said once I spend a lot of time for it, but now I can't do another way. So it's already like built in his DNA, like in things, what he's doing.

Nadia Törnroos: 14:38

And about the again about the topics how to pursue people, like specifically in the company, and convince them. I found this like you know, people need time. So because you drop something new for many and they need time to process it, to understand, to kind of so you kind of put the seed to the ground and wait until it's grown. And in my experience I kind of I figured the rule of three meetings. So usually in average it takes three meetings with the same person to get message through, like at least it happens several times. So first it's like you're warming up, then you try again and then it might click.

Neil MIlliken: 15:30

So yeah, yeah, and I think that really aligns with, maybe, your rule of three in terms of your own experience as well Starting hit a barrier, stopping for a bit, you know, and third time, luckily you end up in the role. But I totally agree with you on shaping the discussions around accessibility to what motivates an individual. You can't go in there and hit the development team with the legislation bat because they don't care. As you say, they want to make good, engaging experiences. So there we need to infuse and empower by showing them techniques and new technologies. They're actually delightful for users that are also inclusive.

Neil MIlliken: 16:24

Whereas you know you're the captains of industry, you know the people at the top of your organization want to know that it's going to keep them out of jail, that it's going to make them profit, it's going to win them more customers. So what I think accessibility teaches you as a leader and you are a leader because you're leading this within your organization is that you have to be able to be a diplomat and the power of the equation is really a really key part of the progress of accessibility or any topic within an organization, and it is definitely not a quick thing because you're asking an organization to essentially change the entirety of the way that they do things, and so working out how you can bring a really large, complex organization around to your way of thinking to do what you want to do is not something that happens overnight, and it's also something where you need to think, well, what is it that my organization wants to do? What does it do well? How are those things maybe aligned? What can I borrow from what they do well already and take that and align what I want them to do to make stuff accessible?

Neil MIlliken: 17:58

So, when you were having the meetups and you're now bringing the people together, what are the key things that your organization does that you find aligned with accessibility? So what does Theatre Every do well and how do you relate that to getting people to engage within your organization?

Nadia Törnroos: 18:24

on accessibility, yeah, I think we have in place several programs which I could align with accessibility as well. So it's basically DI programs like supporting women's equality and at workplaces, for example, and, for example, sexual preferences as well. So it's kind of big topic for our company and we're also promoting and doing a lot of work in terms of sustainability. So I think those programs are very aligned with us. So it's something which we can reflect and build upon to grow the topic as well.

Nadia Törnroos: 19:17

But I think the key problem, I think just in community in general, in DI community, is again awareness. Awareness is the key. So we need to understand more the topic to start to talk and promote and make things around that like good things. And I understood like I was actually exploring a little bit why in many DI meetings and communities we don't talk about people with disabilities and accessibility and apparently there is a sort of ladder of priorities but it's not like priority per se, but it's kind of easier to understand and people with disabilities are actually in one of the last places. So it's so complex topic, it's so difficult to understand, that people just scared to pick up this work and start to push it forward, you know.

Neil MIlliken: 20:20

I think it's interesting and sorry I tell you, I see that you've got a question but I think it's really interesting because we've for years been trying that accessibility was not really at the forefront of DEI conversations. But at a recent ILO conference, what was really interesting was to see that the people turning up at the conference were less from the HR function but more from the sustainability functions. So, and the climate in certain parts of the world towards diversity and inclusion at the moment is getting a little chilly because of political opposition to some of the DEI topics. So sometimes I think I'm counting my blessings that we weren't at the forefront, because we're not getting the same pushback that some of the other DEI topics are now encountering, and that we are embedding ourselves into the sustainability reporting, you know, esg frameworks, which businesses understand and they attach financial and corporate governance values to. So I think that this, whilst it was a shame that we weren't engaged earlier, I think we now have an opportunity that we can grasp. Antonio, I cut across you.

Antonio Santos: 21:51

So now you're using that. Sometimes people don't talk much of disabilities. Is there any cultural elements in relation to talking about disability that people are not comfortable about it? Is that the fact that sometimes they might have a disability, they might wear something like this, but they don't recognize it as a disability, or you just know this notion that we all need? We are all perfect that people are afraid of disclosing any type of vulnerability.

Nadia Törnroos: 22:28

It's actually, I think, all of that in some aspects and gave for different categories of people, because I think lack of knowledge, lack of awareness, try to push you away from the topic. So you know there is a, let's say, there is a mass, big mass, and you need to dig into that, but you try to avoid it until the very end, as late as possible, you know. So I think that's happening and in this sense it's my personal opinion on this kind of legislation and European Accessibility Act a little bit pushing people forward to react, to start to talk and so on. And I know there is an argument in the accessibility community like, okay, you shouldn't be driven by legislation, and I totally agree it shouldn't be a motivator. But I believe and I say that whatever is driving you at the first stage, it's fine, it's absolutely great. If you start to think about accessibility, if you start to include people with disabilities, let's be it, let's be legislation. But I kind of hope like we can change your mind, we can like extend your knowledge about this topic along the way.

Nadia Törnroos: 23:42

You know, and there are people also who are afraid to disclose their disabilities. I think it's about the trust also and in the company it's very important. So, because when trust is built, when we talk more about accessibility and that we are doing things for people with disabilities and so on, I think you're building this trust. You let people open up, speak about accommodation you know, about, like, how you can be provided for making the best performance and so on.

Nadia Törnroos: 24:19

And then, as you mentioned, another thing like some disabilities are not recognized. For example, how many hidden disabilities we have and we don't think about that. You know, okay, we've heard about the HDO, dyslexia, etc. But you kind of you don't see it, you don't know it. You know this kind of it can be a set of mind. That's why we're trying, in every possible event internally I'm doing a lot of post-stance work during my working hours I just would like to bring this knowledge. I would like that people start to think about accessibility, about people with disabilities, about different disabilities, about different ways of developing or designing the products and how it can affect different people. Like building this knowledge, because I think knowledge is the key to everything.

Debra Ruh: 25:18

I agree, and I also think that what we need to do is actually I think we're confusing everybody saying you know, make sure you're designing to include people with disabilities, because what we're actually saying is, you need to design so humans can use your products and services, because humans sometimes can't hear as well, sometimes we can't see, sometimes we can't move as well, sometimes we're temporarily disabled. I mean, it is ridiculous. I get so aggravated with everybody, because the reality is you need to do planet-centered design, which we've talked about here on AccessChat, but you also need to really focus on making sure all humans are included and we know how to do it. So I appreciate efforts that are being made in the EU, where they're going to really, you know, they're going to try to teach everybody to do it. They're encouraging collaboration. But if you don't, there'll be consequences, because I think our community is just so tired of waiting and also, as you said, nadia, a large percentage of our community have invisible or hidden disabilities, which I also think is part of the problem.

Debra Ruh: 26:24

I think we've legislated so many people into this community that it's confusing, which I think once again, if we would design so that all humans can use your technology, get into your buildings. I just don't understand why we have to keep saying this. We can call it accessibility, we can call it universal design, we can call it human design, we can call it planet. We cannot throw a kind of word, say, but it's ridiculous that you're leaving us out. So, instead of just complaining, nadia, that's why I'm creating billion-strongorg, but also there's a lot of other efforts. But I think the community needs to come out and join these conversations in more meaningful ways, instead of just expecting the brands to figure it out on your own and, by the way, it's wrong how you're doing it. But so I think everybody has responsibility here.

Debra Ruh: 27:14

But the community also has to come out with pride. You know, I don't understand why people don't own who they are, but I do understand it's because other human beings hurt them, disenfranchise them, don't include them. But at some point I think we've got to get a lot more brave, and your journey, it feels like a journey of braveness to me, nadia, as you explain it. So I just want to thank you for that courage and say I do believe that, if you look at it from the lens of our community of people with disabilities that you're all working so hard to include through accessibility.

Debra Ruh: 27:50

Our community needs to convene, come together, be discoverable and really start joining these conversations in different ways than we have been. So I just wanted to say I really appreciate what you're doing, nadia, and also I've always appreciated what you know, neil and Antonio and Eytos and others, but at the same time, it feels like a lot of people are now not really focusing on the right things in our accessibility field, and so I'm looking forward for us going back to the basics of why are we even doing this? We're doing this so that humans can be included, so I appreciate your efforts. Sorry, brad.

Neil MIlliken: 28:29

I think we all do and, yes, let's work together to build for humans, build for humanity, because, ultimately, when we build something that's inclusive, we're building something that's better for society and we're building a better society. So, thank you so much for joining us. I'm really looking forward to continuing the discussion on social media and need to thank Amazon and MyClearText for keeping us captioned and on air 10 years, 10 long years, and thank you for being patient and waiting 10 years to come on.

Nadia Törnroos: 29:04

Thank, you 10 years to go.

Neil MIlliken: 29:09

You know what. This is a long journey and we're all in it together and this is part of the community. You know we have to be patient and also prepared to work together and collaborate. So thank you very much, it's been a great pleasure to have you on.

Nadia Törnroos: 29:28

Thank you very much, thank you.