Crafting a World without Barriers in the IT Industry

Discover how the path less travelled can lead to a world-changing journey with Vishal Pujar, the  Head of Accessibility for Atos India. In an enlightening conversation, Vishal recounts his transformative leap from mainstream IT to the heart of digital accessibility, a move shaped over a decade of innovation for individuals with disabilities. His narrative isn't just his own; it's a beacon for mentorship's power and a testament to his impact on major banking clients and community initiatives, such as his work with the Pune Blind Men's Association and a pioneering eye hospital.

This episode takes you to the intersection of necessity and creativity, where Neil's team at Atos is redefining the standards for accessibility and inclusion in both the digital realm and the physical world. Compliance begins here as we explore the essence of true inclusion. The conversation delves into the importance of weaving accessibility into the fabric of brand operations and the advantages of harnessing diverse perspectives. With an eye on the global picture and another on localized needs, we unravel the complexity of catering to an estimated 1.3 to 1.7 billion people with disabilities, advocating for an evolution of accessibility that benefits everyone.

Wrapping up, we focus on the systemic integration of accessibility in corporate culture and IT systems. The discussion addresses the challenges of large organizations and the necessity of fostering increased awareness and competency within these entities to break free from a cycle of failures. Ending on a note of gratitude, we underscore the importance of the tools that have enabled this accessible discussion. We invite our listeners to continue the conversation on social media, emphasizing the collective responsibility towards building a more inclusive world.

Transcript

Neil Milliken: 0:01

Hello and welcome to AXSChat. I'm delighted to welcome Vishal Pujar, who is a colleague of mine. So nepotism in action today on AccessChat. But in all seriousness, it's great to have you with us, Vishal. We've featured a number of our team and the billion strong and global team over the years, and that's because everybody's doing good stuff in the world of accessibility. So please tell us a little bit about your role. Of course I know, but for the rest of the audience, please tell us a bit about your role. And then we'd love to hear about your journey into accessibility, because we're always curious as to how people come to work in the space of accessibility, because most of our journeys aren't in a straight line.

Vishal Pujar: 0:48

Sure, yeah, many thanks, Neil and Deborah. I mean I would like to first of all extend my heartfelt gratitude for inviting me to the AccessChat. It's truly an honor to be given this opportunity to share my insight and experience with your audience. Many thanks for this. So I'm Vishal Pujar, Head of Accessibility for ATOS India. Overall 17 plus years of IT industry experience, and out of which 12 plus years of into the accessibility space. So that's what I mean I'm happy to be here and have a discussion and knowledge sharing session. Thank you.

Neil Milliken: 1:32

Great and we're glad to have you here. So you said you've worked for 12 years in the accessibility space. But how did you come to work in that space? And I know that you, aside from the work that you're doing for me and ATOS and art clients, you also do volunteering work in the space, so maybe we'll touch on that shortly. But what was your journey from working in mainstream IT into oh, now I'm going to do this accessibility?

Vishal Pujar: 2:04

thing. Yeah, I mean, that's really a great story. Actually, I started my career working for a startup a couple of startups, initially, and it was like for the customers, like Paramount Pictures and Warner Brothers, doing a localization kind of testing and auditing kind of stuff. And when I joined Capgemini I wanted to kind of lead bigger teams. So HR came and, okay, told me, there's a project going on, just go and start leading the teams. And when I ended up looking at the team, I realized that it was a big team and we wanted to deliver auditing and remediation for the banking clients because there was lawsuits filed and we wanted to make them compliant from accessibility standpoint. While I was kind of supporting the team, I realized that we are not up to the mark while delivering the things, because we are raising issues, we are trying to remedy the things, but still it was not up to the mark and I realized that the user experience touch is missing. It's just not fixing the issues and seeing everything is working with different assistive technologies, but, yes, the user experience touch was missing.

Vishal Pujar: 3:37

While I was doing this, I was mentored by one of the manager in Capgemini, gansham Tiwari. He always supported me and helped me to do different innovations. So that was the area. I realized the pain that disabled users are going through it and I decided that, yes, this is one area, this is a special skills that we need to start looking into it. While doing the excellence and innovation in this field, we also try and support the disabled users and this is how my journey started.

Vishal Pujar: 4:20

So after working for five years or more than five years with Capgemini, I was kind of hired by HSBC for doing the accessibility stuff for India and I started taking care of accessibility for HSBC, trying to do a digital transformation for them, and I met a nice guy who was also my mentor, suresh Dwarthasi, who led the digital part of HSBC. He gave me a freedom and he also ensured that I engaged with all the stakeholders to see that the accessibility is taken care from the design phase. So we had a good kind of wavelength matching with each other and did a lot of things to ensure the digital transformation happens and we reached an excellence where everyone started thinking and caring and taking care of their accessibility needs in their day job. So I worked for HSBC for more than five years and then it was Neil who thought that I should join him and we had an interview discussion and he offered me. So I joined ETOs more than two years now with ETOs.

Vishal Pujar: 5:51

While working with ETOs I realized that the things I was doing earlier from accessibility standpoint, like website accessibility testing, mobile application auditing, testing or document remediation part digital transformation is more like more or less 30, 40% of the work. But there are quite a few different things apart from the auditing and testing. And then I started learning the things and I also wanted to validate my knowledge. So during this journey I validated my knowledge with getting certified on IWAP. I'm IWAP certified, cpac, was and CPWA. I'm trying to. The next target is the ADS certification.

Vishal Pujar: 6:41

So along with this, I now also get the opportunities. Because I work with Neil and Etox, I meet a lot of different stakeholders, different communities, different senior leaderships. I normally get an opportunity to go and talk in different forums and different conferences about the diversity, inclusion, equality and accessibility. This is one area, while in other area I go and support some blind organizations like Pune Blendments Association. I go and train the vision impaired students to get market ready for jobs. Also, I work with one of my friends who is a doctor. He is MD in Ayurveda and he has a concept to start and run an eye hospital with help of vision impaired staff. It's a unique concept wherein we achieve two things the caring of eyes along with giving a job opportunity to vision impaired individuals.

Debra Ruh: 8:03

Are both of those efforts in India also, and those are your non-profit, I should say your volunteer efforts that are separate from Atos. I appreciate that too, but I just wanted to.

Neil Milliken: 8:21

Although I have been dragged in to support some of those Right. We all, I think, in the team do this stuff.

Debra Ruh: 8:39

People in this field are in this field because they care about the community.

Vishal Pujar: 8:45

You know what? Because Neil has the supporting hand, I'm able to do all these different things along with my day job. That's one of the things I keep on learning on a daily basis. Accessibility domain is so vast. I feel that daily I see something new for me. I keep on learning some new things.

Debra Ruh: 9:09

I agree.

Debra Ruh: 9:09

So, are you saying not to compliment Neil, because I don't want to do this, but are you saying that? One reason why you're saying it Etox as somebody that is extremely talented? You just talked about some of the brands you've worked with. Obviously, you have a lot of experience. You are the type of person we are all looking for that has a vast amount of experience and understands you won't even learn more. So it sounds to me and I don't want to put words in your mouth but one thing that I think I heard you say was because Neil supports you, so you can not only thrive in your work, but also do things outside work that are really meaningful to you and, at the same time not that it matters it also makes you better at your work. But is that what you're saying? Because if it is, I wanted to just comment on that, but I didn't want to put those words in your mouth.

Vishal Pujar: 10:02

No, obviously I mean because of the support. I always tend to go extra mile. The day job is one aspect of it, but apart from my day job, I also enjoy supporting the CSR kind of activities and the activities which I do apart from my day job. Right, right, right, it's only because of his support.

Debra Ruh: 10:28

I agree, and the point I was making once again don't mean to accidentally compliment Neil, but the point that I am making, though, is that brands need to pay attention to what Neil and Atos has done, because accessibility as you just so wisely said it's gigantic. Even before we got on air, you and I were talking, and we were talking and I was saying accessibility people are going to. I don't think it should be a field. I know it's a field, but accessibility is everything. Accessibility is technology. You can't have any digital or technology or built barrier conversations without accessibility. And, by the way, privacy, security, all those things have to be. Don't build a building that you can't make secure. Don't do it. We need them to be secure. So, at a time when everything accessibility needs to be in every single thing humans do, it feels to me that the way Neil did it now give a little tiny bit of credit to Atos because they let him do it, but I believe more credit goes to the individual.

Debra Ruh: 11:34

Neil went out and found very unique people working in accessibility and disability inclusion and said I like how you're looking at this, and it wasn't. You obviously are one of our top experts, but that wasn't good enough for you. You wanted to go out and support the industry by getting certified in all the IWAT programs. That is who we need. We need people like you that are making a difference, localizing it on a huge national level in India but then taking it international.

Debra Ruh: 12:05

But I don't see that's happened. I don't really see this happening very often. I can't think of another company that's doing this, and that's one reason why I'm always sort of nagging Neil to have the rest of the team on, because if you all were all coming on and talking about accessibility 101, we wouldn't invite you on. But the reason why I want you on is because you were looking at this from such a different lens and even and I'll say one more thing and then be quiet in that before you started, you told me you were actually the head of the Global Delivery Center, so I want to get into that too. But, neil, I will let you talk now.

Neil Milliken: 12:51

Okay, Thank you, and yes, I'm a fully paid up member of your fine club and the checks and the post so goodness me. Yes, I mean I like to find people that are not necessarily traditional in the sense of just matching the basic skills for accessibility. We're always interested in doing the stuff outside of the norm and I think that Vishal's added to what we've done over the last few years by leading on some of our events, coordinating our innovation competitions with GIZ and stuff like that. So I think it's those areas that I've benefited from Vishal being in the team, but also probably the things that keep Vishal motivated. It's not there. Let's do another audit. I mean, everybody's motivated to grow and we can talk about the global delivery centres. They are what our organisation terms for. These are where we have capabilities and and skilled people who are in offshore locations that then go and do all of the complex work for our clients.

Debra Ruh: 14:12

So Vishal is responsible in that country, then that place where they understand the culture.

Neil Milliken: 14:18

Yeah, but also delivering to other countries. So delivering to UK, delivering to US, because, like most large tech companies, we have a presence in India a large one and in some other countries as well, where we deliver offshore services, and so our global delivery centres support our clients around the world.

Debra Ruh: 14:44

Right. But I think really and I just think that the other corporate brands because one thing I'm trying to do, vishal is I'm trying to and we are having some success, we're creating a billion strong to where we get the 1.3 to 1.7 billion people with disabilities come together with pride, blah, blah, blah. But at the same time, our community does not feel heard. We do not feel like these corporations understand what our needs, are listening to us, except with the few exceptions. And I'm always asked which corporate brands do you think are doing it right? And it's not that brands are doing it right or not doing it right, but I do appreciate Neil's leadership and ATOS because accessibility is so much more than what so many people are making it. Most people are talking about it from one to one in compliance and that is not helping our community. So from my community perspective, the community of people with lived experiences with disabilities, we need brands to be more innovative, like you are being we.

Debra Ruh: 15:53

I want to know who Vishal is, I want it localized, I want to know he's speaking for the people there, but then he's taking that knowledge and he's taken it into other countries. So I get that this could look like an ATOS commercial. But I'm not making this an ATOS commercial. I'm making this. Neil's accessibility team is really amazing and this is the kind of teams we need brands to have. Atos is just smart enough to have these talented individuals. But I really and I know you all can't completely have this conversation with me, because ATOS pays you, but the reality is we do need brands to be acting like you're acting. So I was just wondering if we couldn't explore that a little bit more. Because, vishal, don't you agree? Because this is you cannot make this about accessibility 101. We can't keep doing that. We're not driving innovation, it's. We know how to make technology and buildings everything fully accessible. We know how to do it now, but we're not doing it. So I'm just curious what y'all think.

Vishal Pujar: 17:05

Yeah, I mean. So when we talk about disability and accessibility, I mean I would want to quote my example. So I have experienced disabilities at the times because I got glasses at my ninth class and it has broken many a times while playing because I was fond of playing cricket and volleyball. I was playing at the state level cricket and volleyball. So I mean I realized that I mean when my glasses broke. I mean until I get the new one a day or two I have to face the challenges. So in a way I am disabled because now I'm using contact lenses to fix my vision and I feel proud talking about the disability, because actually, if you think from India perspective, while you raise the question about the numbers and percentages of disability, the percentage is like 2.2% of whole population in India, if that's what we get normally when we Google out the percentages.

Vishal Pujar: 18:18

But these are just the percentages who have been registered themselves as disabled. Apart from that, the number we don't know who have not registered, the number we don't know, the aging group, the number we don't know like me. So the number in comparison to the total population of India is huge, huge number. And that's where I mean in comparison to other countries. I still think that we only see the infrastructure that has been improved for disabilities in airports and railway stations, but there are other areas like public transports in India, the roads, the food parts. This needs to be more accessible. So that's my viewpoint when I connect the dots that the question you asked.

Debra Ruh: 19:19

Well said, I agree, neil. Do you want to come in?

Neil Milliken: 19:24

Yeah, and when we've been working on some of these infrastructure projects and the innovation challenges, we were looking at how we could use technology to mitigate the impact of climate change and disaster on people with disabilities in India, for example, and we were working with one of our colleagues, yasmin Akhanna, who also had a sideline with running an NGO looking at physical access because she's a wheelchair user and campaigner. That was really pushing for better physical infrastructure. But it's a mixture. So we recognize that it's a mixture of physical and digital infrastructure. And to go back to your comments about people know how to make buildings accessible and apps accessible, I'd actually say that the knowledge is there. It's documented how to do it, but lots of people don't actually know how to do it Because they have the knowledge there.

Neil Milliken: 20:36

It's documented how you can do it. It's not a problem that's never been solved before, but it's a thing that still comes up as almost like that oh, I never knew Far too often in conversation. So, whilst you say we don't want to do 101, actually we find ourselves doing 101 a lot of the time. So how do you keep yourselves from dying of boredom doing the same thing every day? Well, you do that by trying to find innovation, whether that be through running competitions, or you see new things and you connect to new groups, or I like the stuff we're doing with zero projects and GIZ. Now that at least gives us something fresh, because actually you know what, after 20 plus years, people are still talking about old text. Damn it. Last night's access chat was also talking about old text, but it was in the context of actually we can do something better, and so I think that that's Part of it. But the other part, in terms of you're asking about vision, is is actually Whilst you can know how to do individual things.

Neil Milliken: 21:46

It's how do you do it systemically, and so how do you do it?

Neil Milliken: 21:51

Organizational level or a meta level? And that's where there aren't systems and there isn't knowledge, and where we are in sort of somewhat uncharted territories and I think that this is where where we're interested in in growing and and going as an organization, because there are people out there, there are companies out there, there are Professionals out there that are extremely talented and doing great work in accessibility, but we're a large IT systems integrated transformation organization and so the vision is to integrate, to make it part and parcel of how you transform Organizations and part of a DNA, and to have platforms that enable people to manage, and I think that that's a somewhat Different proposition to we're capable of testing and giving you an audit result. You know, obviously, you know fishel team have the capabilities to do that testing, give you audit results, support you to fix the things and whatever, but that's not the the long-term vision and you know so. So I know, debbie, you've got another question for fishel, I think, so I'll shut up because it's not meant to be an interview about me.

Vishal Pujar: 23:10

Yeah, before before you go to the next question. I mean my motivation, because Neil Neil talked about our vision. I mean it's not about just auditing and testing and other things, but my motivation comes from the desire to make a positive impact by Breaking down the barriers and enabling equal access for the resources and opportunities for all individuals. Because while I was working with HSBC, I closely worked with the vision impact colleagues and I understood the real pain and their needs actually, and that's how I I normally think in the same angle and try to implement the things within the organizations I normally go.

Debra Ruh: 23:54

Yeah, it's so. I was gonna ask the question, but she actually answered it, neil, because one thing that I Sometimes ponder is if these gigantic brands need another gigantic brand to support him, because there's so many moving parts and, as I ask myself that question, especially as somebody that is in the field that offers accessibility as part of our services, it's a smaller part these days, but I I do believe that the smaller groups absolutely can add value. But I also believe that there is something if you had never worked in a gigantic Corporations I have, I've worked in multiple ones in the banking field fish out. I didn't work at HSBC, but I worked at gigantic organizations and it is interesting as a whole different animal in the way they relate and don't relate, in the way it's so complicated.

Debra Ruh: 24:54

These gigantic entities and and I was working at a hundred million dollar ones Well, you know, we have trillion dollar ones now. So, but sometimes I do wonder if we need the expertise of the large brands to support the other large brands, because they understand that oh, yeah, okay, you've come up with a plan, you have a maturity model, you're doing the training, you doing all this and also, and oh, we just acquired what? Oh, no, so but but I think that sometimes and I don't know if that's fair and I was just curious what y'all think about that- yeah, yeah, you, you rightly said.

Vishal Pujar: 25:36

I mean we need the brains actually to develop and create some, some kind of innovations, right, because the technologies have potential to revolutionize the accessibility by enabling some person I then adaptive solutions. But if we have such kind of brains together, we can, we can go an extra mile, we can develop the solutions and we can bridge the gap. For For the disability community, I mean, it's just not for a disability community, it's for everyone. That's that's what I think, and you always need a support, you always need a hands to join to Work, and that's what I have seen. I mean I'm working with me. It's brilliant. I mean there's no words. Actually, I can go to.

Neil Milliken: 26:29

So that's two checks in the post now, one to India, one to the US. Good job, antonio is not here blind.

Debra Ruh: 26:34

Smoke up my behind as well, because I so sorry to say nice things, but it is. There's some truth to it, though, because we need to be creative, okay or or shucks.

Neil Milliken: 26:49

So now I think that the a couple of points that I think we do need the small vendors and the expert vendors and they're part of an ecosystem and lots of the large companies, even the implementers, quite often rely on vendors in their supply chain, where I think that Large systems integrated I'm using an old-fashioned term because actually I think it's still what a lot of what we do and it explains it better than digital transformation, which is a bit nebulous we we spend a lot of time helping organizations Get that, getting their tech to work with other bits of their tech, and supporting end users, and so on and so forth, and and and and it's that bit I and understanding the complexity where the rubber hits the road, and we can be the orchestrators of that.

Neil Milliken: 27:40

That adds real value and not just creates jobs but enables people to still stay effective and motivated and will be able to continue in their jobs. And I think that in the new world which I was mentioning about tech being able to give you new options and empowerment and I'm sure you know people when they watch this will have just come off the back of Microsoft's ability summit and seeing a whole bunch of stuff about copilot and how copilot supports people with disabilities. But that's embedded in your workplace tools, so the people delivering workplace needs to understand the pros and cons and the configuration of copilot and how to enable that.

Neil Milliken: 28:28

To enable people so I think, that that's where Organizations that understand complexity and that do the orchestration can benefit other large and complex organizations. And that's not just that. I think other SI should be able to do that as well, and you know we like to think that we lead on that. But and that's where there's a difference between the bespoke consultancies and and the large companies. They can play a complementary role. There's certainly enough business for both, right, and I think there's a real value in both. But I think that that's where where the real sort of the differences is, especially where we're delivering that experience with, you know, we're connecting those systems with delivering those systems, we're doing the integration. Then not only can we identify and hopefully prevent those problems but we can also fix them when they do occur.

Debra Ruh: 29:28

But I will also say that not all large corporations that offer accessibility services are the same. I have been contacted by lawyers in the United States because several times large, very well known brands have provided Accessibility services and they didn't know what they were doing. So I agree with what you're saying. It is you, we need us all in the infrastructure. But just because the brand is really big, please take the time to make sure that they know what they're doing. You should be able to find out Very easily if they're engaged in our, our community conversations. And if a brand does not just understand, the community does not understand why, and we have concerns by that. So I would recommend selecting brands that are engaging with the community.

Neil Milliken: 30:15

I think that's fair, but also I would say in in in terms of balance, that most of these large organizations are so large and so complex that things will always fail and that there will always be projects that go south, where they don't, where, even if they've got experts, they don't, you know, they don't assign them or they don't know to assign them.

Neil Milliken: 30:44

And so there's because, you know, in an organization of hundreds of thousands of people, people don't necessarily make the connections, they make the wrong decisions. So so I think that there Is a lot of work to do on raising just baseline awareness across the board, because I don't want to be bored doing living the rest of my life as Groundhog Day and neither does this fish out and neither do you but also because we need to raise the base level of competency and the base level of awareness. So I know we're at the end of our time. Thank you to Amazon and my clear text for keeping it on there, keeping us caption and accessible Visuals being a pleasure. We will definitely enjoy you interacting with us on social media as well. So thank you very much for joining us today. Many thanks for this opportunity and I kind of loved being here with all of you.

Vishal Pujar: 31:42

Thank you.