{"id":119119,"date":"2020-10-09T15:01:27","date_gmt":"2020-10-09T15:01:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.microsoft.com\/?p=439459"},"modified":"2020-10-09T15:01:27","modified_gmt":"2020-10-09T15:01:27","slug":"its-national-disability-employment-awareness-month-meet-people-making-a-difference","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/2020\/10\/09\/its-national-disability-employment-awareness-month-meet-people-making-a-difference\/","title":{"rendered":"It\u2019s National Disability Employment Awareness Month: Meet people making a difference"},"content":{"rendered":"

This October marks 75 years of National Disability Employment Awareness Month<\/a> in the U.S. \u2013 with increasing access and opportunity as this year\u2019s theme.<\/p>\n

In today\u2019s workplace, it has never been more important to include everyone, and accessibility is the vehicle to inclusion. It is a responsibility and an opportunity. Microsoft is passionate about creating products that help people with disabilities unlock their full potential at work, school and in daily life. Designing with and for people with disabilities leads to innovation for everyone. As Microsoft chief accessibility officer Jenny Lay-Flurrie says, \u201cA diverse and talented workforce brings new perspectives that help advance our ability to delight all of our customers.\u201d<\/p>\n

This month, Microsoft celebrates those talented and diverse teams, and shares some of their stories.<\/p>\n

\"Angela<\/strong>Angela Mills uses the Seeing AI app to confirm the location of a meeting room.<\/em><\/p>\n

Angela Mills, Director of Program Management, Game Developer Experiences<\/strong><\/p>\n

Angela leads a team on the PlayFab game developer platform. Her colleagues knew she used a screen reader, but it was only 20 years after joining Microsoft<\/a> that she began to tell people about her visual disability. In 2018, Microsoft released Seeing AI, a mobile app that describes nearby people, text and objects for users with low vision. It meant she could find meeting rooms and choose her lunch without help. She says, \u201cEvery person with a disability has honed skills to work around the limitations that their disability brings. I cannot imagine having been more successful in my career if I didn\u2019t have the disability.\u201d<\/p>\n

[Subscribe <\/em>to <\/em>Microsoft On the Issues<\/em><\/a> for more on the topics that matter most.]<\/em><\/p>\n

Anne Taylor, Director of Supportability, Accessibility <\/strong><\/p>\n

At 7, Anne told her family in Thailand she wanted to live and work in the United States. A scholarship helped further her dream, and she eventually joined Microsoft as an agent of change<\/a>. Anne, who is blind, works with engineering teams to ensure products are designed with disabilities in mind. She says, \u201cI want to encourage, inspire and motivate teams to think outside the box and innovate with accessibility design as an essential component to any product or service.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"A<\/strong><\/p>\n

Craig Cincotta, Senior Director, Communications<\/strong><\/p>\n

In 2013, while director of communications for Xbox, Craig took two months\u2019 leave to treat debilitating panic attacks with cognitive behavioral therapy, meditation and medication. He opened up to his manager<\/a> about having obsessive-compulsive disorder and generalized anxiety, and the move allowed him to be his authentic self. He says, \u201cAny time you have a more inclusive environment, you\u2019re able to see fresher ideas, broaden your perspective and get the best version of people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dona Sarkar, Principal Cloud Advocate<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dona had already been at Microsoft for a decade when she was diagnosed with dyslexia<\/a>, which means she can find it challenging to read charts, graphs and metrics reports at work. But she kept the diagnosis to herself and managed, until she heard about a dyslexic boy who improved his reading with Microsoft Learning Tools. In 2018, she started to talk about her disability and encourage other leaders to do the same \u201cto make a far safer space for employees to open up about their disabilities.\u201d<\/p>\n

[Read more:<\/strong> <\/em>Understanding accessibility through ABCs<\/em><\/a>]<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Heather Dowdy, Senior Program Manager, AI & Accessibility<\/strong><\/p>\n

Heather was just six months old when she started learning sign language<\/a> \u2013 to communicate with her parents who had both lost their hearing as toddlers. \u201cMy life has given me a special lens for people marginalized by the intersection of race, gender, class and disability,\u201d she says. She trained as an electrical engineer and joined Microsoft in 2016 to develop strategies and drive change to make the internet accessible for everyone.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Jenny Lay-Flurrie, Chief Accessibility Officer<\/strong><\/p>\n

Measles and ear infections in childhood left Jenny with hearing loss, something she tried to hide until her 30s, before she slowly began to accept and celebrate her disability<\/a>. But then came an embolism, which has left her with long-term damage to her leg and needing canes to walk. \u201cIt happened in the space of 90 minutes. The learning was immense,\u201d she says. \u201cThere are things we need to do better. This experience has been a good reminder of why we need people with disabilities to be in the process of product design.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jessica Rafuse, <\/strong>Director of Strategic Partnerships and Policy<\/strong>, Accessibility<\/strong><\/p>\n

An employment attorney, Jessica joined Microsoft in 2016: \u201cI really wanted to be a part of what they were doing for people with disabilities.\u201d Her role involves going out into the community and asking experts for their perspectives. \u201cI love that idea that the things I do day in, day out can help someone get a job someday<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

[Read more:<\/strong> <\/em>\u2018We are at a crossroads\u2019 \u2013 How Microsoft\u2019s Accessibility team is making an impact that will be felt for generations<\/em><\/a>]<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"A<\/strong>Joey Chemis, Data and Applied Scientist<\/strong><\/p>\n

Joey came to work at Microsoft through the company\u2019s Autism Hiring Program that started in 2015. Unemployment rates for those with autism<\/a> are estimated at 70% to 90%. Joey had advanced skills in math but was finding it difficult to get interviews. The hiring process allows people with autism to \u201cshow their true colors and abilities,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Swetha Machanavajhala, Founder, Hearing AI <\/strong><\/p>\n

Swetha was born with profound hearing loss, so her role, using data and machine learning to enable people who are deaf or hard of hearing<\/a> to better understand the world around them, is a personal mission. Inspired when her carbon monoxide alarm rang for two weeks without her noticing, Swetha founded the Hearing AI research project. This interface aims to visualize the surroundings of people with hearing loss, translating sounds such as alarms and volume changes into visual cues and written materials into speech in real time.<\/p>\n

For more on Accessibility, visit On the Issues: Accessibility<\/a>. And follow @MSFTIssues<\/a> on Twitter.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This October marks 75 years of National Disability Employment Awareness Month in the U.S. \u2013 with increasing access and opportunity as this year\u2019s theme. In today\u2019s workplace, it has never been more important to include everyone, and accessibility is the vehicle to inclusion. It is a responsibility and an opportunity. Microsoft is passionate about creating […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":119120,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[63,50],"class_list":["post-119119","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-microsoft-news","tag-accessibility","tag-recent-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119119","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=119119"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119119\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/119120"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=119119"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=119119"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=119119"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}