AXSChat Podcast
Podcast by Antonio Santos, Debra Ruh, Neil Milliken: Connecting Accessibility, Disability, and Technology
Welcome to a vibrant community where we explore accessibility, disability, assistive technology, diversity, and the future of work. Hosted by Antonio Santos, Debra Ruh, and Neil Milliken, our open online community is committed to crafting an inclusive world for everyone.
Accessibility for All: Our Mission
Believing firmly that accessibility is not just a feature but a right, we leverage the transformative power of social media to foster connections, promote in-depth discussions, and spread vital knowledge about groundbreaking work in access and inclusion.
Weekly Engagements: Interviews, Twitter Chats, and More
Join us for compelling weekly interviews with innovative minds who are making strides in assistive technology. Participate in Twitter chats with contributors dedicated to forging a more inclusive world, enabling greater societal participation for individuals with disabilities.
Diverse Topics: Encouraging Participation and Voice
Our conversations span an array of subjects linked to accessibility, from technology innovations to diverse work environments. Your voice matters! Engage with us by tweeting using the hashtag #axschat and be part of the movement that champions accessibility and inclusivity for all.
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AXSChat Podcast
Advancing Digital Solutions for Disability Inclusion
Carrie Chow takes center stage as our first guest of 2025, bringing a wealth of knowledge and experience in accessibility. Her journey, rich with stories from her telecommunications and marketing background, reveals a personal passion that aligns with her professional advocacy for disability inclusion. We explore her involvement in events like the CYBATHLON in Zurich and her role at Atos, where she merges her insights in precision medical solutions with digital accessibility initiatives. Carrie exemplifies the intrinsic motivation needed to drive forward both digital and physical assistive technologies, proving that dedication can lead to impactful change. We then navigate through the intricate web of corporate disability inclusion, highlighting the indispensable contributions of individuals with disabilities.
Our conversation sheds light on how advancements like 3D printing and AI are transforming healthcare, making it more personalized and accessible. We emphasize the power of cross-sector collaboration, recognizing the potential for sectors like elder care and technology to unite in creating cohesive solutions. This synergy could propel corporations and influential events such as CES to new heights in accessibility, making an indelible mark on the future of inclusion.
As we reflect on the progress made so far, there's a palpable sense of gratitude and optimism. We celebrate the achievements and milestones reached in recent years, acknowledging the pivotal role of 2025 in shaping accessibility frameworks globally. With a nod to the long-term benefits of accessibility innovations, we raise a toast to the promising developments on the horizon. Special thanks go to Carrie for sharing her insights, and to our listeners for supporting our journey towards a more inclusive world. Cheers to continuing this important work and embracing the exciting opportunities that lie ahead.
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Hello and welcome to AXS Chat, and our first guest of 2025 is Carrie Chow. Carrie is actually a colleague of mine and Antonio's and, yes, I'm abusing my privilege and inviting my team members, but Carrie's not been on Access Chat before and I thought it'd be a great opportunity to share the work that you're doing. I've known Carrie a very long time, but that's because we've been working in the same organization for a long time. So, carrie, please introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about the work that you're doing and your background, because it's quite an interesting background and journey into accessibility it's quite an interesting background and journey into accessibility.
Carrie Chow:Yes, so thanks, Neil, for this session and hi Debra, hi Antonio. It's great to be on this session, to be also the first one in 2025 in this legendary show of 10 years, so congratulations for this longevity. It's amazing, so really privileged here for me. So, Carrie Chow here, middle-aged just a short description of myself Asian woman, long hair, wearing spectacles. Just a short description of myself Asian woman, long hair, wearing spectacles, and today in a black blouse.
Carrie Chow:I'm based in Zurich, in Switzerland. I've been in Atos for a long time so, like what Neil said, we've been colleagues for a long, long time, worked in a lot of different areas, so really glad that he finally got me on board to join his team doing great stuff here. Yes, it's been a long journey. So I'm actually a telco solution architect. So I've been in telco for 20 years and move on to business development and alliance partner management as well for a bit Before I got into marketing. So I was a head of Marcom for Switzerland. I was Swiss office as well, and then I joined the global marketing. So I was the head of Marcom for Switzerland, I was Swiss office as well, and then I've joined the global marketing, and I think I'm only in about maybe five years or so in marketing. And then Neil came to me and said hey, I've got something interesting here in accessibility, and I think that's great, because he already knew me in the past, that I've been involved in disability inclusion, so that's something really on a personal side right. So work is one thing, but on the side, I've always done something within the disability space, and accessibility came to mind as well. So maybe Deborah will remember that we met in Geneva at the ILO Global Business and Disability Network there and I think that was a really great one.
Carrie Chow:The 2019 event, where all the rock stars were there, I would say so that was a really great one. The 2019 event, where all the rock stars were there, I would say so that was a really great event. And I thought you know really seriously about it. You know how can I launch myself professionally there as well, so not just doing something on the side. And then, yeah, got involved in a lot of different things, a lot of things on a voluntary basis. I'm still volunteering in this space outside of Atoz as well in disability inclusion, promoting a lot of things in there. So it's just amazing that, you know, I have a professional job where I don't have to leave the company, but I can do something about it in this area of accessibility, because we are delivering a lot of digital accessibility services there, so it fits really really nicely. So that's in a nutshell of my journey, and I'm really looking forward to growing this side of things.
Carrie Chow:So, yeah, so then it's not just you know, something I do on a site. For example, like we recently in zurich, the university eth had the cybatlon. Cybatlon is a race for um assistive technology, and every four years they they have this event. It's really great, and I think I started volunteering there in 2020 as a scorer because you're raised right, and then since then, I've been a referee there as well, so it's really interesting to see how the tech grows there. So, all in really nice. You know you've got hardware and things for the physical part, but at least on the digital side we also address things on neurodiversity.
Neil Milliken:So you know, a disability that's unseen. I think that's a really, really big topic. So you mentioned the 3BZN conference of 2019 and you surprised me too, because I was at this conference in a different country and oh look, there's my colleague from the scientific community, which was our corporate think tank at the time. So this is how carrie and I got to know each other. We were part of the, the sort of the company think tank. What are you doing here? So I thought that this was interesting because, as deborah, as you know, we were talking beforehand I'm really interested in finding people to work with who are motivated right and have intrinsic motivation to work in the space. So, you know, turning up conferences unannounced, it's a good sign, right? So I just thought I'd drop that in. I know you have, you have a question, but you, you but I was pleasantly surprised to be Carrie at the conference, as you were to meet her as well. Over to you.
Debra Ruh:Yeah, I remember I was very impressed with Carrie, so it was like, when you told me I didn't realize that you two had joined together as a team, that was very cool. But I remember you talking about precision medical solutions, carrie, and so I know that you have a background in that and a scientific background and, as Neil said, I just love how creative many of the people that work for Neil are. One of the first people I met was Antonio, and I've always thought Antonio is like black magic when it comes to marketing. He understands the way the trends are in ways others don't. But I remember that it was tied to the medical field and so I'm just curious are those two things coming together? And maybe you could just tell the audience a little bit about that, because that's a very impressive background, I believe.
Carrie Chow:Yes, and I think precision medicine is really something that was so like, neil mentioned something about a scientific committee, that was our thing at that time, and what we did then at the scientific committee is that we always research into technologies and so on, something that is to come in the next four or five years, so not you know what you see in the future now.
Carrie Chow:So at that time, we were writing a paper on precision medicine, and that is really one area where Atos as a company, we have a lot of good stuff in the technology base where we can help clients excel in that area, and I think what really shined then was the how we could help with the advanced computing to be able to speed up the processes. And, of course, at that time, right when we were writing those papers, it was like 2018, 19, 20 or so, before this whole AI buzz came about, and so nobody really believed that you know, you could actually use AI to speed things up. So it was really. It's really nice. I mean, if I've published, you've probably seen on my LinkedIn some papers that we wrote. So not just me alone, but as a chief editor for those papers, I've got my colleagues around there as well and to see that you know the things that we talked about, that it's happening now, all right.
Carrie Chow:So it's really very encouraging to to to see it that way, how we can bring to life things. Yeah, and you know you're talking about how, how it links as well, and what I can see right now is one of the things that I really promoted already then was also nobody talked about assistive technology at that time. But I say, come on, guys, if you're doing precision medicine, you don't need to bring in a little bit of assistive technology because, at the end of the day, technology, if you create something that's just there's no one size fits all. We know that Something that's more there's no one size fits all. We know that something that's more personalised, then everybody's life can be better.
Neil Milliken:Let's say you know we can't boil the ocean, you're not going to change things overnight, but one step at a time we're going to reach there and yeah, so I still very, very encouraged here but if I think back to 2019 or whatever, and think forward, if that's five and a bit years just over five years now actually, you know and we had covid in the middle of that a lot has changed in terms of the acceptance of accessibility and the adoption of assistive tech and to a certain extent, covid accelerated some of that because people didn't have the informal support networks around them at work and so on. But I but I do think that that group of people thinking about those things was one of the most enjoyable things that I've had within my professional career, outside of my day job, because it was. It gives you the opportunity to see what an enormous organization like the one that we we work for is doing in lots of different spaces, because quite often when you work for an enormous corporation, you're you're just in your little area and you know I spend a lot of time thinking about accessibility. Okay, it's a transversal topic, but I'm thinking about that. You know, as part of this, I got to understand about quantum computing and you know quantum safe cryptography we were working with, you know, data scientists and people working on genetics programs and supercomputing and thinking about AI ethics and all of these kind of things and gene sequencing and that cross-pollination, I think, was one of the things that really helped form some of the thinking around how we might strategize and how we deliver stuff.
Neil Milliken:And I think that every organization could benefit from having these groups of people coming together and actually fertilizing each other with these different ideas and making sure that you're taken outside of your comfort zone. You know, because when people were first explaining quantum computing to me and saying that you're taken outside of your comfort zone, because when people were first explaining quantum computing to me and saying that you're actually in two states at once and this whole idea of it not being either on, off or binary, and so on, and I was sitting there thinking, am I really stupid? It's quite, it's. It's quite good to to be challenged sometimes when you're a subject matter expert, to be taken out of your comfort zone and and to meet people that are cleverer than you, uh, it's really, it's really a a real pleasure. So I think that that that, you know, made us think about lots and lots of stuff. Yeah, please, deborah, I know, I think you have a question. I can see you itching to ask.
Debra Ruh:Well, I sort of have a question for all three of you. I know we haven't heard from Antonio today and but also I mean I remember when I did meet Kerry, because she stood out to me in the conference, because the way you know, the way she expressed herself. But you know, we often say when we're talking about disability, inclusion, accessibility, and we're being left out, constantly, we're left out, we're left out. What are these corporations doing? But the reality is you are the corporations right? I mean, I worked for what we call here in the States corporate America for many years, even global corporations. You know, I worked for what we call here in the States corporate America for many years, even global corporations.
Debra Ruh:You know, I think something that I've been thinking a lot about lately, because our community does work. We do have people with disabilities in these corporate roles, and I was thinking about what Carrie was talking about first, as she was talking about how y'all brainstormed, we got together why don't we do this? And the different lived experiences and putting this all together. And it just continues to show me how important the role is that people with disabilities working for corporations, especially if they're in a place where they can be heard, it is so critical to our community. So, as we're talking to you, carrie, and also antonio and neil have these same you know they also have this same walk.
Debra Ruh:I was just curious if we could just explore that a little bit, because how do you, working for a billion dollar brand, really help our community? How do you really help us? We talk about this a lot, but you're talking about Kiri when you were making me think about it, when you're talking about precision medicine, and then you're like, okay, was anybody thinking about assistive technology and how it goes into precision medicine. These are the times, these are the days when we change the world. This is the opportunities, regardless of what's happening and there's a lot happening I think this is where we start to really have true impact. So, carrie, you want to go first, but I thought it would be cool if we could hear from all three of you, if y'all don't mind.
Carrie Chow:Yeah, I think. Well, let's just say well, there's precision medicine and there's precision healthcare, right, and there's precision healthcare, right. So precision medicine is mainly more towards more into, like genetics you know different things like that but let's expand it on the precision healthcare in this sense. So different things that people might need and all. And if you took I like it that Neil brought up what we did in scientific committee before, because we have got different tracks and we all research in different areas. One of the big things that we did then, one of the research was in 3D printing, for example. So now, as things progress and as I also work more in this area for this assistive tech, and you can see how people very quickly 3D print some prosthetics or different devices and all, and that can make it more. How do you say affordable? People can get hold of them more easily. So the affordability and the reachability, let's say, I think is very important. So I think in this sense, you can see more of this, how healthcare and digital can come together, and I think we need to watch this space because it's going to grow, because it's going to grow and it's going to grow really, really fast.
Carrie Chow:Also with the advent of. We all know that with computers, there was this thing about the exponential growth of the speed of processors, and all that has gone shot through the roof and what we see right now. If you look at how AI is moving and just the CES has just ended in Las Vegas and I think all the high tech that's been out there, and I'm not sure if you saw the post from Frances West this morning on LinkedIn. She gave a summary of her time at CES, which was really really cool, Cool, cool. I love her Catch up with that as well.
Carrie Chow:And then I think with that also with the fact that a lot of things you can't change things, just as is right, it has to come, there has to be some incubator grounds and I think, with all this high tech coming in, there are a lot more coming to the education, let's say so. People, the younger people, get to get into tech. How do you say people get into tech at a younger age right now? And with that, I can see a lot more acceleration in there towards the fact that, how we can leverage digital to speed up personalized healthcare and medicines.
Debra Ruh:Wow, you give me a lot of hope. Neil, you want to go?
Neil Milliken:I think Antonio was sitting patiently.
Antonio Santos:I think we still need to do a lot of work in what I call intersections. What I mean by this? We still have even looking at CES and looking for even taking CES as an example, where we have conversations about elder care, we have conversations about accessibility, we have conversations about technology mainstream technology and AI but everything here is still running on different tracks. Nobody's trying to okay you guys over there, you need to link. Nobody's trying to work on the intersections, and I think there's an area where actually events like CES will actually be very relevant to work on those intersections. But enterprises can also do some work moving and supporting partners and customers to understand these kind of intersections.
Antonio Santos:I can give you just a very basic example that would relate with AI. We know that openAI creates this amazing technology that allows us, for example, to create subtitles. So when OpenAI was communicating across the different social media channels, they were not using their own technology to make communication accessible. They have it, it's free for them, but they're not able to do it. And sometimes we see entities in the space, for example, of elder care, talking about how they can use and improve the life of elderly people using technology, but they never talk about this. They don't look at the point of accessibility, they see the person as a patient. So I think there's a lot of work to be done in those intersections.
Neil Milliken:I don't disagree. Often we're addressing similar needs through different tracks and different groups. One of the things and go back to this think tank that we had the scientific community, because it really was a pleasure. We'd have maybe 15 to 20 different thematic tracks and they could be on really, really varied things. So Carrie was talking about precision medicine. Another one we were looking at was around beyond sustainability, what comes next.
Neil Milliken:Another one might be around you know micro and nanobots and how, connectivity of networks and so on and you've got these really interesting, really complex, future looking topics interesting, really complex, future-looking topics. And one of the things that we had to do because we produce this document every couple of years was build a narrative about how these are interconnected. So if you go back and you look at the documents, there's always a narrative saying well, we think that in five years' time, some of these things are going to be happening and you have to sort of see how they are interconnected. And for me, it was that thinking about the interconnectedness of things and the conversations with people about this and, frankly, the arguments that would rage about it as well, because it was a little bit like academia was part of that sort of learning and thinking curve. Deborah, you appear to be muted yeah, I think you're probably sorry, you know.
Debra Ruh:It's interesting because I have not worked for a very large um corporation, um, since 2000. That's when I left the big banking industry and started to become an entrepreneur. Anyway, regardless of all that, I think it has changed a lot since I was there 25 years ago. I think it's changed a lot. I don't think we've kept up with what's happening. And so I am curious you know how you take somebody like Carrie, that's a brilliant scientist, technologist, and you, because often I guess this is a question maybe to you, neil in that accessibility is still not taken as seriously as it should be. Disability inclusion is still often a little bit too much of an afterthought. I mean, antonio used the word intersections, but you know all the different intersections. These conversations are being blown up and confused right now and I just wonder you know where are we navigating to?
Debra Ruh:And, by the way, I remember, carrie, you mentioned Francis West. I love Francis West, and when Francis West was working with IBM, I was blessed to be one of her vendors, and I remember then we would have a lot of conversations on what they were trying to do at IBM and was it really beneficial? How beneficial was it to the community? And I remember at times saying to her well, what we don't need IBM to do is compete with little companies like mine at the time, tech Access, which was a little less than a million dollar a year accessibility company. We need IBM to be IBM.
Debra Ruh:Well, that's never been more true with Atos or any of these other billion dollar brands. We don't need you doing the stuff that the little vendors can do. We need you doing these really complicated things that we, of course, will add a lot of value to these conversations. But it just feels to me that things are shifting. What we need corporations to do, what we need teams like yours to do, to add the most value, really, at a time when the world is in some places on fire. I'm just, and I'm taking the conversation in a little different place, but don't y'all think that it seems like your responsibility has shifted? Maybe, kerry, you want to?
Debra Ruh:Yeah, I don't know yeah go ahead, whoever wants to grab it.
Carrie Chow:Are you going, Neil?
Neil Milliken:Yeah, oh, all, right then. So I think we've always had a responsibility to think about our impact on society. The way that we go about it has definitely evolved and it will continue to evolve. Some of the evolution at the moment because we're going through the process of adapting our reporting to fit with CSRD, which is the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive, and, frankly, frag, which is the Environmental Standards Reporting. People don't understand all of the other topics that you're required to report on there, so they don't really understand disability, inclusion or accessibility. So that's challenging us in terms of how we structure stuff and how we communicate about things.
Neil Milliken:Part of the reason that I brought Carrie in was to because I knew she was working in marketing and communications and understood portfolio. Because I knew she was working in marketing and communications and understood portfolio was to communicate within this huge disparate organization and to start putting the accessibility topic into our offerings in all of the rest of the organization, and that's why Carrie is our evangelist. So it's not necessarily carry is a technical person, and you said it yourself, but it's more about being able to talk to the other technical people and the sales people and be that bridge at the intersection. Going back to what antonio was saying. You know, we have to couch what we're saying in the language of the people that we're addressing, to a certain extent to get it into the so that they can understand it. And and I think that this is where we are, you know, making progress, not just as a company but as a topic, is that there are more and more professions and areas that understand that this is something that does relate, that they can relate to. It's not somebody else's silo. We've seen it with the gaming industry. We've seen it with some of the design topics. We see it with, you know, people that are building and developing houses and so on.
Neil Milliken:I see it. I'm still in thailand at the moment and they don't talk about accessibility but they do talk about universal design, right? So you know, I'm seeing, because they've got a highly aging society, and this was what we talked about with francis rest as well with with taiwan. You know, you've got an Asian society. I'm sat here in my mother-in-law's house. She's 90, you know. Actually, you know all of those steps are not too good. So you know when, and they're building stuff all the time in Asia. Right now, all of this new stuff, all of this new growth is far more accessible than when I started coming here 25 years ago. Eric, do you want to go?
Carrie Chow:Yeah, I was just going to say that you know, you know how, like when we're born, when you're kids and all people always teach you skills that you need in the future, right, so you learn math, you learn language, you learn science and you know environment and all, and then we start to grow up. Normally, it seems like after growing up people tend to forget that after growing up, you will grow old. So my pitch to friends and family and all is that you know whatever we're doing right now, especially doing accessibility. A lot of people don't care about it because they don't see the need right now. For example, I just say you know, fast forward 10, 20 years or something. You know what you're doing right now. It's really for yourself, for future.
Carrie Chow:Selfishly, it's for yourself, but of course it's for writer society as well. But that's one of the ways to just remind people that you know what we have right now. Things will change and just be think people start to wake up, like you know, like what people always forget that. Oh yeah, the keyboard was, you know, first developed as an assistive tech, spectacles as well, things that like that has gone mainstream. So, yeah, I think, like what you said earlier, debra is like you know, it's a wake-up call. When are people going to wake up? And I think this year, I agree.
Antonio Santos:I think in this area, we cannot say lower the guard. What I mean by this I can. Just recently I was looking at the report on diversity, equity and inclusion from the World Economic Forum, something that they just released a few days ago. So I'm sure we all know that there have been plenty of discussions about disability inclusion around the World Economic Forum, but on this particular report, from the different lighthouse cases that they bring forward, only one includes the inclusion of people with disabilities. We're talking about an organization that has a huge responsibility. So I think what I mean by not lowering the guard, I think organizations that, for example, that work with the World Economic Forum, have the responsibility of not lowering the guard and keeping the standards up and not letting things like this happen. So that's my take so that's my take.
Neil Milliken:I mean, I think WES is a challenging organisation to influence because even the people that attend don't necessarily influence their publications. But I agree with you. I think that more needs to be in there. And it is pay to play and if you're paying then maybe you can influence love to see how this year develops. As I said last week, you know it should be the year of accessibility. Someone pointed out that it it was like a 20th anniversary of a french accessibility law. It's the 30th anniversary of the Disability Discrimination Act in the UK. The European Accessibility Act comes into force in June. There's a lot for us to be 200 years of Braille.
Neil Milliken:There's a lot for us to celebrate.
Debra Ruh:Some people say it's this year. So there's a debate about if it was last year or this year, but we'll say it's this year. So there's a debate about if it was last year or this year, but we'll take it 200 years. There has been progress, but we've still got lots to do.
Neil Milliken:I don't need any excuse for a party Excellent.
Debra Ruh:You should celebrate.
Neil Milliken:I think we need to accentuate the positive. I think that there's an awful lot to be done, but there's an awful lot that I think we need to accentuate the positive. I think that there's an awful lot to be done, but there's an awful lot that I think is happening.
Debra Ruh:We should celebrate that.
Neil Milliken:Oh yeah, absolutely I'll drink to that. Yes, now, don't normally drink whilst on our recordings, because normally we're recording at 3 o'clock in the afternoon but it's 11 o'clock at night here.
Debra Ruh:That's right.
Neil Milliken:I'm going to get away with it. Thank you, carrie, for joining us. I look forward to you joining us to continue the discussion on Blue Sky, and here's to 2025.
Debra Ruh:And here's to thank you, amazon. We love you, we appreciate you, and my clear text thanks for being with us for the whole time. We're so thankful.
Neil Milliken:Yes, thank you, thank you.
Carrie Chow:Carrie, thank you, thank you for having me.