Supercharge Your Bottom Line Through Disability Inclusion: Blind and Low-Vision Workshop by Dr. Kirk Adams and Aaron Di Blasi: ChatGPT Advanced Voice Mode Demonstration: Cutting Edge AI For The Blind: How We're Using It

👉 More: About This Webinar that took place on June 26, 2025 live on LinkedIn. 📽️ Recording: Available for free on YouTube here. TRANSCRIPT: Podcast Commentator: Welcome to podcasts by Doctor Kirk Adams, where we bring you powerful conversations with leading voices in disability rights, employment and inclusion. Our guests share their expertise, experiences and strategies to inspire action and create a more inclusive world. If you're passionate about social justice or want to make a difference, you're in the right place. Let's dive in with your host, doctor Kirk Adams. Dr. Kirk Adams: Welcome, everybody. I am Doctor Kirk Adams, and this is my monthly live streamed webinar. And it is Supercharge Your Bottom Line through Disability Inclusion. And today we have a really special focus on technology. And my dear friend and colleague Aaron Di Blasi is here with us today. So say hi Aaron. Aaron Di Blasi, PMP: Hello, everyone. How are you? Dr. Kirk Adams: And I'll ask you. I'll ask Aaron to talk a little bit about himself and what he does before he he teaches us, teaches us a thing or two. But but the focus today is really on technology and use of technology as blind people and how important and essential it is. And in preparing for this meeting, I thought of a couple things. One is the concept of the expanded core curriculum, and that is a framework that was developed by Doctor Phil Kaplan along with the American Foundation for the blind. And I had the honor and privilege of serving as president and CEO of American Foundation for the blind. Afp for a time. And I got to know Doctor Phil Hanlon, and I actually recruited him to the board of directors for the Seattle Lighthouse for the blind when I when I was in serving as the leader here. But the expanded core curriculum is is something that blind kids in school are made aware of at some point where they're told, okay, blind student, you need to learn all the things the sighted kids learn and these nine other things that you're going to have to work longer and harder than your sighted classmates, because you're going to need to learn orientation and mobility so you can travel independently and safely. You're going to have to learn self-advocacy, because you are going to have to advocate yourself in ways that your sighted classmates will not have to. You're going to have to learn to access print materials and alternative formats, whether that's braille, large print, magnification, audio, and you're going to have to master assistive technology. Dr. Kirk Adams: And that's what we're going to talk about a bit today. It also made me think of my dissertation. I have a PhD in leadership and change from Antioch University, and employment is my passion for people with disabilities. People who are blind in particular, as only 35% of us are in the workforce. About half of the the percentage of the general population, working age adults. And that means there's a lot of poverty and a lot of bad things happen. Poverty. So all all the bad health, health outcomes, the substance use disorders and depression and you know, all, all, all the bad things. So I personally and professionally and academically try, try to address that by creating opportunities for blind people and people with other disabilities to thrive in employment settings. So my dissertation is it's called Journeys Through Rough Country and ethnographic study of blind adults employed in large American corporations. So. So I interviewed a lot of really cool blind people who self-identified as successfully employed. And when I asked them what what what's your what's your metric for success? They all said money to to earn an appropriate salary, to have the freedom and flexibility to make spending decisions and have the resources to to do the things I want to do in life. And then I ask people, what were the factors that allowed them to be successfully employed in these large American corporations? So it was it was the usual usual suspects Google, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, meta, AT&T, Chase Bank, Boeing. Dr. Kirk Adams: Et cetera, et cetera. And there were some themes that emerged. There were there were eight success themes and family support was one being involved in some sort of team activity as a youth, like on a sports team or a choir or a debate team or something like that. A sense of agency, a strong internal locus of control where people felt that they could create their own pathways forward. If they had obstacles, they could figure out how to overcome those obstacles. And a lot of folks trace that back to some pivotal experience or experiences, and a lot of them that were outdoors, like rock climbing or skiing or horseback riding or something that that that gave people the feeling in their bones that they could, could do what they wanted to do in their lives, as opposed to a strong external locus of control where you feel stuff. Stuff happens to you and there's there's not much you can...