Learning from others' experiences: How did they make it happen? How did they move from viewing inclusion as an obligation to a mission with significant benefits for their company and/or community, with regards to efficiency, creativity, innovation, products.
Speakers will provide practical tools towards implementing inclusion in the workplace.
What can I do in my community to facilitate inclusion of people with disabilities? (The Community, the synagogue, the school, the youth movement) Promoting a Culture of inclusiveness. What tools and skills do I need to accomplish my goals?
Regroup & Debrief to include presentation of the outcome by groups for the entire group
I was the VP Business Development for Voiceitt a company working on developing a voice recognition solution for people with speech disabilities, where I was responsible for marketing and engaging the disability tech community and building our Voiceitt brand therby marketing to our potential market of users who have consistent speech disabilities and would benefit from the Voiceitt solution.
During that time I was a part of the lobbying for greater government funding for disability solutions in the Knesset. I spoke at many events including the international women’s forum, edtech summit, was part of the IBM Alpha Zone accelerator. Helped to establish a subsidiary of the company in upstate new York and to work on creating pilots and build a community based on testers, medical professionals, alpha parents and corporate medical device distributors. I have had a chance to discuss and be involved with disability tech and voice recognition technology around the world including the US, Europe and Japan.
In my current role as the Director of the TOD Innovation Lab I recognized the need to integrate an overall solution platform for offering accessibility solutions to visitor centers including archaeological sites which are protected and are limited from major structural changes. With the integration of technological solutions, live streaming and VR experiences, every visitor regardless of cognitive or physical capabilities, can experience the museum or visitor site in its entirety.
Together with a well-known disability organization, we are working on the development of this platform via the input of a prestigious advisory board and building further on our special needs programs that we offer in the museum already. We don’t approach the table with solutions. Rather we allow our visitors and our users to be a part of creating these solutions.
Starting a family is an adventure. Just ask Cisco’s Amanda Diston. The birth of her third son, Benjamin, was full of surprises from the get go. Amanda discovered she was pregnant just as she joined Cisco in 2013. She broke the news to her leader on her first day on the job. Then, 20 weeks into the pregnancy, a scan revealed there was something wrong with the baby.
Amanda, an HR director for the EMEAR region, was referred to a special fetal unit in a London hospital. Baby Benjamin, it turned out, had a bowel disorder and could be born with breathing difficulties. Fortunately, he was born without incident. But half an hour later, he threw up bilious fluid—material that should have been in his intestines. And it was off to the next set of emergencies. In the back of Amanda’s mind was the worry that, as a brand-new employee, she had no entitlement to maternity leave.
Benjamin was rushed by ambulance to another hospital where he was put in pediatric intensive care. After tests showed the bowel blockage was worse than initially thought, he underwent surgery to remove a section of intestine. If the doctors hadn’t acted when they did, Benjamin’s bowel could have burst. This could have been fatal to him and, if it had happened in utero, to his mother too.
After more highs and lows, and a pair of blood transfusions, Benjamin finally began to turn a corner. After two months in the ICU, he was transferred into more moderate care at a third hospital.
Throughout this ordeal, Amanda battled feelings of helplessness and guilt. But her team members were able to carry her workload and her manager was extremely supportive. Rather than counting her hours, he counted her output. He checked in on her and Benjamin’s well being through an occasional no-pressure text.
Amanda’s story underscores the need for flexibility and support from your leaders as you create your family.
Today, Benjamin is a cheeky, happy-go-lucky three-year-old with a scar on his tummy, but no ongoing health challenges. He has a small chance of bowel blockages in the future, but they wouldn’t necessarily be complicated to treat.
Amanda’s advice to leaders in situations like hers? She says giving employees the support they need in these moments is everything. That means letting employees know that you have their back with work coverage, and checking in with them to see how they are doing.
Amanda says a certain amount of worrying is normal when employees become parents—worry about job security and career prospects, for instance. But she urges employees to remember that work will survive without you, and that your colleagues and experts will have your back.
“Your role may change, but you will adapt,” she says. “However, missing precious moments with your family will be lost forever if you don’t take them in the moment.”
Klaus Höckner, born 1966 in Austria, married (2 daughters), is member of the board of the Austrian Association Supporting the Blind and Visually Impaired (Hilfsgemeinschaft der Blinden und Sehschwachen Österreichs) based in Vienna. Having more than 4400 members, the Hilfsgemeinschaft is the leading organisation representing and helping visually impaired persons in Austria. He is also member of the board of the Austrian Disabilty Forum - an umbrella organisation for Austrian organisations working in the field of Disablilty - and vice president of the Austrian Computer Society.
Klaus is working for more then 14 years in the field of Accessiblity, especially regarding to ICT an standardisation and is member of various working groups as well as participating in many conferences and projects in this context on an european and national level.
Dana Dimant is an artist. She is a graduate of the Betzalel Institute of Art and Design in Jerusalem, in the field of photography and visual media. She is a screenwriter (was nominated for the Ophir prize in 2012) and is a director of documentary films.
She is an activist for human rights for people with disabilities, using media and communications. She has autism and she is the mother of a daughter with autism and a son. She lives in Berlin with her partner and their two children.
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For Cancellations done until November 15th, participants will receive a refund of 50% of the registration fees paid.
After November 10th, there will be no right of refund for cancellations.
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