E36: Falling into Accessibility: From Opera Dreams to Inclusive Tech Innovations

In this episode of the IAAP United in Accessibility Podcast we host Christopher Patnoe, Head of EMEA Accessibility and Disability Inclusion at Google. With over 25 years in tech at Apple, Sony, and Disney, Christopher leads Google’s EMEA initiatives, focusing on product accessibility, policy advocacy, and partnerships. Discover Christopher's insights into Google's commitment to digital inclusivity. 

Transcript

00:02 Speaker  

Welcome to the IAAP United in Accessibility Podcast, the podcast where we discuss the latest trends and developments in accessibility and inclusion. In this episode, we are honored to have Christopher Patnoe head of EMEA accessibility and disability inclusion at Google. Christopher leads Google's efforts around the accessibility of product people policy and partnerships across the EMEA with a particular focus on emerging markets. With more than 25 years of experience in tech, working at companies like Apple, Sony, Ericsson, and Disney he's built hardware, software, games and services. His current passion is accessibility at the intersection of immersive technologies and consumer hardware. Christopher is the chair for the immersive caption’s community group with a W3C, the Accessibility Working Group co-chair for the XR Association and has sat on the board of trustees for the American Foundation for the Blind and the GAAD Foundation. He also holds a degree in music from UC Berkeley. Join us for an exciting conversation with Christopher as we explore his insights and experiences in making the digital world more inclusive on the United in Accessibility podcast.

01:17 Sam Evans  

Hello, this is Sam Evans, the Certification Director at IAAP, a division of G3ict. And I'm so pleased today to have Christopher Patnoe, the Head of Accessibility and Disability inclusion for the EMBA region for Google joining us today on the United in Accessibility podcast. Christopher, thank you so much for joining us.

01:42 Christopher Patnoe  

Oh, it's my pleasure. It's nice to see you again.

01:45 Sam Evans  

Likewise. So, Christopher, we're always, of course, going to talk about accessibility. But I'm most excited to learn a little bit more about your background. I'm familiar with some of your background before you came to Google. But mostly I'm wanting to hear a lot about what's happening with Google. I've seen lots of really exciting things about Android phones and accessibility and you've been part of some really great discussions about AI and accessibility. So, I hope you'll have a moment to think about how you'd like to share information about that, but for those who are not familiar with you yet, Christopher, can you talk just for a few moments and introduce yourself and talk a little bit about your journey? You started in, like most of us do in many organizations working in customer service and direct service and engagement and have moved on become the head of accessibility and disability inclusion for Google and EMEA recently moving across the pond from the States, and you've mentioned before that you kind of have fallen into accessibility, because the products that you're working with originally weren't actually usable. So, I think it'd be a great way for people to learn a little bit about your background, and how you came into your role. Yeah,

02:56 Christopher Patnoe  

Yeah, so I even fell into tech by accident, not just accessibility, I keep on stumbling into things. I studied classical music. I wanted to be an opera singer when I was young, and, and even tried, but it wasn't very good. In my mid-20s, I realized I was making more money waiting on tables than I was singing. And so, in 1995, when I was 25, I made the decision that I may have a better day job doing this new computer thing. So, I found myself doing tech support, customer service and then within a year of joining tech, because I was lucky enough to be born and raised in the Silicon Valley. I found myself at Apple, I ended up being at Apple for 10 years where I've worked on the first iPod and worked on the first iTunes, G4 towers, G5 towers found a good studio and then a couple years of Sony Ericsson making phones and at Walt Disney even making games. And now I've now been at Google for more than 12 years. And it was here at Google where I learned about accessibility. To take to your point, because we weren't there. I was leading I was the technical program manager for Google Play Music. And we had a test engineer coming to one of our meetings. She turned on Voiceover and I heard button button button button. I asked, “What's that? And she said, well, this is Google Play Music for someone who's blind, said, Well, that's stupid. How do they use it? Just that they don't. That's why I'm here. So that was my introduction to this work. And within a couple months, I realized I couldn't look away. I kept on thinking about it. So, I volunteered to take on accessibility for the Google Play suite of products that I hired that test engineer, who's now one of the people running accessibility for play. So that was a really good hire that I did d'Elegance in VR, but we don't really talk about that. But I joined the Centro accessibility team. And my first job was to help make all of Google's products accessible, and we help set up to do that we helped set up accessibility teams around the company, and then in 2020, entered 50, oh that 25 years later from when I joined tech, and I realized that I wanted to keep growing and keep learning. So, I saw the European Accessibility Act and in a paper that you know, that's really interesting. So, I pitched my job to my boss saying, send me to Europe, and I'll get Google ready for the EAA. Well, my boss said Yes, her boss said Yes, her boss said yes. And the family moved to July 2021. 

04:19 Sam Evans  

That's exciting. Can I ask it? Going back to your music background? What was your favorite opera?

05:27 Christopher Patnoe  

Oh, boy, Don Giovanni, by Mozart. For me, it's one of the first ones I ever saw, and liked. I just love the drama. I love the writing. Yeah, the last scene with the Commendatore. Bringing Don Giovanni down to hell is just really powerful. And when I was performing, I was actually a devil in Don Giovanni. And we were like, under the stage, with the room being filled up with smoke, and the door pops open. And we all jumped out one for dramatic effect and two, because we couldn't breathe, because all of a fixed smoke in the room. It was apparently it was a great look. But yeah, for me, that's an opera that I just deeply, deeply love. 

06:05 Sam Evans  

Anyone who works in theater music, I always am interested to find out what their favorite production is, so thanks for indulging. So, in your role at Google, you came in wanting to learn how to use that discovery moment that, why doesn't this work? And how do we fix it on so you obviously went to an actual disabled user to get their first person lived experience and learn that which is, I think most of us would agree the best way if it's not your own, to have that kind of nearby over the shoulder learning opportunity. So, you have different responsibilities, you came up learning, and you've kind of grabbed that passion, and Google's so much the better for that. So, you've worked in an advisory role as an in board member positions, and, and you obviously Keynote, and we're all in the community very lucky to have your contribution to this Keynote, when you participate in conferences. Do you have an approach that you take for how you balance of sorts of responsibilities and how much of that is driven by your passion for advocacy? As as part of how you contribute and engage?

07:18 Christopher Patnoe  

That interesting question, I don't get asked about that very often. So, I probably do it poorly. I think I'm probably at risk of burnout, more than I should be closer to risk of burnout, that I shouldn't be. Because this isn't a job. This is my passion. This is what I want to do for the rest of my life. I want to continue to to learn and teach and grow and make the world better than it was when I got here. I've been like that since I was like, when my mom asked him, what do you want to be when you grow up, I said happy. You can't be happy when you grow up. But the reality is, I've always wanted to have a positive impact on the world. And I was lucky enough to discover disability and accessibility, when I was mature enough in my career, that I had a bunch of great experiences that I could lean on. And then was still young enough to be able to spend 20 years to refine my art and refine the message and really build an understanding as much as anyone can about this science and art that we have is accessibility. So to your point, advocacy is tremendously important to me, because I'm one person in one company and Google happens to be pretty great company to be at. And I feel very lucky to be here and I think I'm probably more effective being here, because I have Google, than if I was a solo consultant. So, I respect that and understand that and frankly, I want to use it to my advantage as much as I can, because it helps the advocacy, it helps the mission. And working for Google is as frustrating as for any big company. But I still think our spirit is such that we really want to do well. And we need to do something we need to do well in a sustainable fashion, and in a way that leans into our advantages and leans into our skills. But that doesn't mean we're perfect. No company is perfect. But the crazy we have here is the best kind of prior to that kind of crazy for my mind.

09:14 Sam Evans  

I think it would probably be a big energy bank to draw on to have people that are passionate about bringing a whole ecosphere of tools and products and services together. And so, I I've never worked for a large tech company, but I imagine that there's probably a lot of energy that is a bit infectious and shared across, you know, both on the excitement on the positive side and on the troubleshooting side. So, I think it's really, it's very clear that you enjoy your time and what Google can bring to the world. And it's very clear as you share your passion for accessibility and advocacy. So that's exciting to hear. So, what I'm talking about You're at Google, and you're in EMEA, the Europe, Middle East and Africa, division, so many companies have regions of the world and so you've crossed the Atlantic, coming from San Francisco and Silicon Valley, and then moving further east, to Western Europe. What kinds of projects and initiatives have you worked with since you moved to Google EMEA that you've really been excited about leading? Or which products or services have you found success in and making more accessible? That is part of the positive story you get to tell your team.

10:38 Christopher Patnoe  

Thank you, I generally describe it as Africa and Middle Eastern Europe. Because in my mind, and this is this is a personal thing that I do, because it helps remind me where our opportunity really lies and where our impact can be greatest, I don't want Africa to be the afterthought. Africa needs to be an intentional focus on what we do. So, and this is directly to your question. Some of the stuff I'm most proud of that we're working on right now is some of the work in emerging markets. Google is partnering with, AT Scale out of the UN and GDI hub of the University College of London, doing research trying to understand the impact of mobile devices, as assistive technology, are taking this social model of disability social model accessibility, and proving that it works in a way that it hasn't been done before. So, we are funding several 100 phones in India, several 100 phones in Kenya and several 100 phones in Brazil. And we've partnered with carriers, and each of these countries, or at least in Kenya and Brazil, to provide free data half dedicated to blind low vision, half dedicated to Deaf Hard of Hearing, with training on how to use the tools. And then we see what happens and we're doing so UCL, the GDI hub is doing the research, Google is watching it, hoping to learn how we can make Android better how we can make our tools better and, and the results we just we just came back from inclusive Africa. I was in Nairobi last week and we did a checkpoint, and we're getting those amazing stories. One of my favorite stories is a person said, I got to find, select and play my favorite music for the first time by myself. Another person says, I'm a YouTube creator making content for my channel. And other people that I'm starting to send out my own CVs, all of this is just because they have access to a phone. And a phone that is highly accessible, nothing's perfectly accessible. But the features we have there are good enough for people to do these things for themselves. So that's huge for me and I'm really excited about the work that we're going to continue to do say with Chrome and on the continent, and really drive the understanding and opportunity, because the socio-economic situation is different. So, the technology has to be different. You can't assume everyone has ready access to Wi-Fi, let alone electricity. So how our technology needs to evolve can only be learned by being on the ground and partnering with people understanding. On the other side, the other thing that are probably really proud of is the accessibility discovery centers that we've started launching across Europe. We've opened the first one in London in December of 2022 and since then, we've had almost 4000 People from outside Google come through, understand about inclusive design, and learn about accessibility to learn about disability and why it matters and what are the tools that need to exist and can exist and do exist, because as we all know, awareness is a real problem. So, we've been able to teach advocacy organizations about tools and Android and Chrome that can make our lives better, but we don't have just Google get there. We're using the Xbox adaptive controller to show a video game being played with assistive technology. We have a PS5 and an access controller from Sony. We have even an iPad where I show off that lovely live speech that our friends at Apple have made. It's a place to have a conversation where no one has all the answers. So, no company has all of the tools. Each person's needs are so varied and so subtle. You need to put together the tools that make your life better. If you don't know what those tools are, you don't have the benefit of that of that understanding.

10:41 Sam Evans  

I want to come back to what you started with. And we talked about the acronym EMEA. We at IAAP are discovering to and with G3ict in our country advisor programs to discover that our greatest opportunity for growth and impact is not going to be in the large western industrialized countries that the greatest opportunity for growth and change is going to be outside of the G8, and there's the outside of the EU. So, we're finding the same in our country advocacy groups with g G3ict are taking advantage of that opportunity. And I'm so excited you were at inclusive Africa and our colleague Irene. We met her many years ago when she had an idea that she wanted to grow awareness and accessibility and policy in Africa. And she and her colleagues are really, it's amazing to see what they've put forward and the strength that it's gotten out of support from organizations and policymakers. So, shout out to Irene and Inclusive Africa and all of that work that's happening with our colleagues there. So, I'm jealous that you have got to go but I'm always looking forward to learning more about what comes out of the conference each year. So, you were talking about the centers and your London program? What I've learned about people who've come to the center is their misconceptions that they're able to turn around and become more aware is, so as we talked about common misconceptions about accessibility or about disability and how people address them. Do you have something that you think is one of the most common misconceptions and that you frequently get to turn around or is there something that's come out of the center that has been chatter as people walk out their big aha moments that you think that awareness in an exposure helps to change perceptions?

16:37 Christopher Patnoe  

I think there's like three themes that seem to resonate with people. One is that it's a process, it's not a destination. So as Merlyn, I like to say it's progress over perfection. We talked about the wooden sign that we built in the space that I asked that it be tactile, but it's also now nine feet wide and four feet tall. So, the reason it was asked to be tactless as someone who is blind to the vision can understand it. But when it's that big, it's not understandable. So, I asked them to make a little version of it next to it. And it struck me as we were installing it, this is accessibility, where we are getting started, you have an idea, you have the intention to do it, right, you build it, you screw it up, but then you fix it. And then you move on to the next one, same thing, idea, intention, build, screw up, fix. At some point, you stopped screwing up as much. And then that's when it started to become part of the DNA of your organization, this iterative process, this humble perspective, that you're never going to get right for everyone. Because it's a process where there's no such thing as a silver bullet. And when we were leading some conversations with educators here in the UK, this one sends teachers special education needs teacher came back to us afterwards and said, you’ve completely changed the way I think about my job. I was afraid of tech, because it was never going to solve the problem. And then when we realize just getting the tech isn't the problem isn't the solution. Understanding it, adapting it and modifying it is the solution. She said, “I feel free to experiment. I feel like I have permission to mess up because I'm going to fix it and together, we can create that solution that's relevant. That's a really big thing. It's the process. The second thing that is resonating with the way that I give a give our tours and we have like seven of us that give tours and we've just opened up sites in Zurich and Dublin and there's a there's a difference as well. But the story I tell there's also about the empowerment that accessibility can provide. So, taking one step away from compliance, it's about empowerment. So, we talk about the use of button remapping and video games with a Tobii eye tracker allowing someone to race cars. But the racing the car is just frankly exercise teaching someone how to use a mouse. 

18:53 Sam Evans  

Right.

18:54 Christopher Patnoe  

So, we also talk about the haptic controller which isn't quite shipping yet but this it's the controller that L'Oreal is making that uses a little bit of AI to measure a sense of tremor, allowing someone to do their own makeup

19:06 Sam Evans  

A counter to the trim I've seen it in in flatware for people to have the freedom to eat on their own independently with tremors. Is it something that similar?

19:16 Christopher Patnoe  

It's the same technology, what you've seen at least it's what I'm thinking of is from Verily, which is called Lift wear. And L'Oreal has licensed this lift wear tech as applying it to their haptic it was about to CES a couple of years ago. That's really exciting. And then we end tours with the taking a selfie, completely voice guided using the guided frame on our Android phones on our Pixel phones more specifically, and it really sort of brings it home, that yes, a blind person would want to take a picture and share it with their friends. This is a way to tell them how to do it with real time, AI based and haptic informed guidance and how to how to take a better picture. You turn left and turn right you need to turn up oh, you've moved your phone, move it back. And it is just really subtle things. And we've been working on it for a couple years now. And it’s getting to a point where it's quite useful and it’s a really neat way to end the conversation of the tour, and the conversation of all the technology that Google has. But leaning in on that message of empowerment that accessibility can provide. So, it's video gaming with your friends is doing your own makeup. It's taking a selfie, as much as making sure that you're you can do your homework, that you could do your banking, you can go to school, all of it matters.

20:33 Sam Evans  

I think there's moments where we get to share opportunities where people get the first where they get to do it on their own, that that independence and empowerment and removing the barriers that I kind of think that's our job. It's our job to remove the barriers or identify them so that we can help others, break them down and remove that. So that it's not a focus on the disability is not the challenge. It's all the things that prevent somebody with a disability from being able to live, learn, work and play in their community of choice and have those freedoms. So, I'm going to get to one of your centers and go on a tour sometime soon. I'll have to put that on my travel map. So, you talked a little bit about the Google phone and some of the technological advancements with your Pixel phone. And so, I think it just in the last week that you've talked about ways to control your Android phones and I think you just spoke on that this week of so do you want to share a little bit more about those new advances for Google phones and Pixel phones?

21:34 Christopher Patnoe  

Yeah, so all of these things are attractive. Nothing, none of this, this is out of the blue you. If you look back far enough, you can see where these things come from. So, we recently announced the ability to control your Android phone using your face. And if you're as much of a nerd as I am, you'll remember that last year, we introduced this really cool thing called Project Game Face, that allows someone to be on a computer using their face. Well, we've ported it onto the phone and onto Android. And this will I think, if I remember correctly, is there 52 gestures that we can recognize, and use provides you a lot of ability to customize how things happen. So, you can literally control your phone by flirting with it. Whatever you can do, you can map to features on the phone and map to interactions on the phone allowing you to do what you need to. But it started off last year as an open-source thing that we that we did announce that at our Google IO. If you go even farther back, we have a really cool tool called look to speak. It runs on Android, and it uses very simple eye tracking left and right to allow you to bisect lists and then have seen things for you. So you could look back and forth. And you can say hello, stop getting a glass of water. Or you could tell someone to eff off. Because you can even put in swear words there. Because it's part of it part of communication. And if you if we, for example, if you look at YouTube, you know, we put estrous there, because if the AI deciding what the word is, and if and we don't want to get that wrong a platform as big as YouTube, but if it's two people sitting in a room or at a pub, and you want to tell someone what you really think you have to put it in yourself. But then you select it and then it said out loud. And that's very simple AI terms the AI is going back and forth. But it's also text to speech and very, very simple, old school AI kind of tools necessary to build this really unique experience. And now what we're doing in fact, this also something we announced last week, we've added Swahili and pictures pictograms, and emojis into this application. So now you can look at pictures and you can have selected pictures. But then you have to also decide what you want it to say. Again, my daughter is 15. She uses the skull emoji very differently than I do as a 53-year-old male. For her that means Laugh, laugh to die or something like that. And for me just you're dead. So, we would use the same tool, the same image but say something really differently. The customization of these tools is also an important part of our accessibility journey, because my needs are going to be different than hers. And we can use the same tool with the same image to say something almost the opposite.

24:28 Speaker  

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25:01 Sam Evans  

Sounds like a really great way to personalize what, in years past in augmentative, and alternative communication tools were pointing to pictures or having to type things and wait for things. So that seems like just another step forward and progress and a little bit more personalized ways to let personality come through. So, I'm going to have to check that out. And I know that our colleagues in the states in all of our territories, we have an assistive tech Act program, where people help match people to the technology that best supports them. So, I'm going to call on our colleagues here and the ATA act and ask if they have that in their lending libraries in their learning libraries. So, it'll be a big, a big progress for occupational therapists and speech therapists that work with folks to help provide communication opportunities that maybe aren't as simplified as carrying around a picture board or writing on a whiteboard or having it in your hand and use eye tracking. That's, that's really exciting. See, I learned something new every day when I talk to our colleagues and accessibility. So, I want to ask and see what how you want to talk about this is AI and VR on the Internet of Things? What kind of advice or guidance would you have with your premise and your connection to accessibility and disability inclusion? What kinds of we know AI is going to help us scale a great bit you just talked about AI helping with the tools that you mentioned, but what kind of implications or considerations do we need for people to keep in mind about AI, given that algorithms are based on data in to make sure that we keep the right information about disability as part of AI as it builds out? So that's kind of broad, but I'm sure you have some thoughts about that as we harnessed the power of AI for the good.

26:58 Christopher Patnoe  

Yeah, I think you said something that a lot of people talk about, that AI is a scaling factor. But you also just said, you talked about customization and AI can provide that kind of customization as well. So, it's interesting that the same tool can be both the macro and the micro, allowing someone to be, I wouldn't say better, but better able to communicate or process information in ways they might not be able to if they do if they didn't have that help. Looking at things like VR, and an IoT and AI, I think what we need to realize is that we're still in early days, so we have a chance to screw up less, I think it's probably a better way to describe it. Because AI technology is about finding the commonality and optimizing for the most common factors. And those of us with disabilities, we don't necessarily exist on the center of the scatterplot, Jutta Treviranus had this wonderful expression is that of saying, we need to have AI progress as fast as the speed of trust, I'm saying it slightly poorly, but the idea of a progress at the speed of trust is really important. I think one of the most important things that we can do as we move forward with AI based tools, is as transparent as we can about the algorithm and inherent bias that's there, transparent about the data set and who was included and who's not. So, people know what to trust, because AI tools have the bias that builders created. And this could be impactful in terms of everything from beating apps to job applications and getting into universities. Susan's Scott-Parker out here is spoken quite a bit about her concerns around AI and HR technologies. So, say you have a tool, watching your video, and you notice the person isn't responding or is pausing a little longer. That is quote unquote, normal, that's flagged, and it might be completely normal for that person who is talking, but it's not normal to the algorithm. So, transparency is something that we need to learn how to understand and how to advance and make sure we have broad datasets. So, in terms of people that there is a built off but also making sure we have people with disabilities making the technologies themselves, because it's nothing about us without us and we should be part of every stage of the pipeline. Looking at the VR. This is an area where we can practice using AI in the real world. I've been talking for years about VR being sort of a steppingstone towards AR when it comes to accessibility because allows us to figure out sort of the real-world screen reader interaction like what does a screen reader in the real world like? What is important like what's the ARIA live for real life? How do you know what you want to say? Think of the meta specs that are out right now they have the cameras, the EMS our friends at open AI and have Bemyeyes like is showed that really cool video We have a live video feed going into an LLM, one of the Large Language Models telling this person that it's time to get on into the taxi, a Google we hit a Gemini, we have a video, we have similar kind of videos. So, we're at this point now, where the real world can be described in real time. And this opens up the world for someone who's blind to go exploring. That's the future. And when we're getting there, there's some really interesting here mystical questions we need to answer like, how do you describe the real world, what is important, what is not important? It will have to be customized, but it has to be accurate. And so, there's a lot of really exciting things happening the next five or six years, I'm really stoked to be here at Google being able to work on some of these kinds of problems.

27:00 Sam Evans  

Using VR as a way to explore AI, either that's really interesting. Putting that together that way, it's a totally different perspective for me about thinking about what VR can do. So, I'm going to have to put a different spin on, on how VR gets used. So IAAP is a membership organization, and all of our members are people that work in accessibility, or they are pursuing careers in accessibility. And our colleagues in G3ict, with their advocacy and policy work and research are around accessibility. And things are changing so quickly and without and I'm going to give a nod to our friends at Teach Access, who are working to get accessibility built into curricula in higher education around the world and we have some colleagues in the UK that just put out a book that's kind of a primer for everybody. It's designed for engineers to learn about accessibility, but I really think it's a good introduction to accessibility for higher ed, but higher ed may not be the only place to get education and training and skills and in accessibility itself. Skills Development is different than and I think technology is understanding degrees may not be the only place or may not be the best place to find the new career teammates. So, thinking about accessibility as a profession and as a career track. What kind of advice or thoughts do you have having worked in this and around this in support of it for so many years? For people that are interested in pursuing a career in accessibility, as in education is one part, skills development as another and then opportunities and how to engage to find pathways? Do you have thoughts on that? 

32:30 Christopher Patnoe  

Yeah, so in terms of education, I described to you my path, I'm one who's learned everything literally on the job. And I think there's a real advantage to doing that, because I didn't have to unlearn some theoretical stuff that I would have been taught in school. So, I think we're at a point now where the education system and the tools are evolving in sync almost, because the tools that we would have learned about 10 years ago are far less relevant in an AI based world. So, my advice to anyone getting into this into the field is stay interested and hungry, don't burn out, be willing to ask stupid questions and if you don't understand it, look it up. Because only you understand how you learn. And only you know what you don't understand. And this technology is evolving so fast, you can't rest on your laurels. I spend far more time than I should probably reading nerdy articles about AI and technologies and all this kind of stuff. But it really helps me sort of crystallized where I think things can go. But I'm a musician in training. So clearly, if I can do it, anyone can. So, everyone has the opportunity and if you have the drive, that's what it takes to be a success. But don't burn out. Because it's really easy to care too much. You have to learn to care enough, but you don't want to care too much, because I've been there yourself. And, and it's hard to come back when you when you get too far gone. But the education and tools and the opportunities, they're all turning into one. One sort of blob Ish kind of thing, but they're really becoming connected in ways that they hadn't been before. Teach access is teaching at university students and professors, a thoughtful curriculum where it's just part of everything that you do. It's all the same, but we all sort of go into it at a different point. So, if you're in school, take these classes if you're if you're not in school, take these classes or go check out their curriculum or take a look what our friends at Microsoft had done with them with their exclaim stuff, or check out the things that we're doing. There's a lot of information out there and it's constantly evolving. You can't just trust YouTube to give you the right information because we'd have some great videos on Chrome but about six years old, and technology that six years old has evolved visually and has been improved greatly. So don't just use YouTube, go to the experts and see what the experts are looking at. And then using that, go find an opportunity, go break something, go fix something, go talk with people, we accessibility nerds are pretty talkative people that we've become the sort of extended family always trying to help each other. I got a call from someone at Microsoft, I connect him to someone at Meta and I got a call from this other person and say, Hey, ABA did this, or Microsoft did this wrong. Hahaha, I'm on WhatsApp, hey, you should go fix this. We're all doing these things to help each other, because in the end, no matter who we work for, working for ourselves, working for the disability community, it doesn't matter who pays your bills. As long as we're all working together, and we help teach each other, we help provide the tools for each other, we help give jobs to each other. And that community becomes self-sustaining.

36:02 Sam Evans  

I think you mentioned a couple of things and I found it very, very welcoming. I had some wonderful introductions when I came into accessibility via several different places, but with my own personal experience as a disabled person, and with loved ones with disabilities, that kind of trying to find resources for everyday life. But then I had the opportunity to learn about accessibility and accessible services and products. And I was like, this is amazing. I didn't know this existed. So, you know, after 40 years of discovery, and Aha, but what I've learned in the last 10 to15 years is that accessibility community is really and in any professions, you will find people that do the same thing, but I watched the accessibility community, not just within IAAP, but externally, it's a safe place for most people to be vulnerable and ask questions. And for those of us who've been in it for a while to know that, hey, this is somebody who's open to learn, here's an opportunity to show them, what lies before them and what we learned looking back, it's been really impressive to me. And when I tell people they're like, well, what do you mean, the accessibility communities like it's a whole group of people around the world that their only goal in their professional and meaning in their personal life is to remove barriers to make the world a better place. And they're like, that sounds really lofty. And I was like, but it's very down to earth because we have actually progress that we can point to, and we can show you how it changed. And they're like, oh, I want to do that. I was like, well, you could be accessibility champion, too. So. So I think the community is really, really strong. And I enjoy seeing people come in and ask questions. There's lots of ways in do you have thoughts about how you would want to share with the community people that maybe are new end? Or people who are long timers? Any thoughts about how we keep that going and keep feeding that so that we ensure the next two to three generations of accessibility, passion project leaders?

38:08 Christopher Patnoe  

This isn't a question I've been thinking about the next generation legacy, how do we, I came into this work, because I want to make the world a better place. But I'm leaving I am not leaving. But I'm at this point in my career, when I'm looking at a point where I will be doing it less. And how do I set up the people who how do we set up the next generation of people who wants to do this? And how do we empower them. And for this reason, I regularly accept, I can't do all of the requests from LinkedIn that come and ask him to talk but accept as many as I can. Because I never know what I'm going to learn. And I never know what I'm going to be but either inspire or connect and help them get that next opportunity. To this next generation reach out. Don't be afraid of someone thinking about that. You don't know what you're doing. Because we all started somewhere. Every one of us started somewhere. So as long as you're humble saying, hey, I'm just getting started. But I want to learn more people will help you. It may not be the first person that helps you but stay diligent stick, stay humble, stay kind, because regardless of what you do, but in our world and accessibility and disability, it's particularly important because we are fighting for ourselves. We are fighting for our loved ones. We are fighting against things that have existed literally for 1000s of years. And we have work that we need to do, and we have to band together and do it. And even at the corporate level, Google Microsoft and Apple friends. I go I have dinner with Sarah when she comes to London. I've had Jenny over to the ADC. We support each other because we're supporting the community. And our tech may fight to the nail to be the best. But in the end, we're all here to sell it celebrate the community. I mean And let me give you an example. When Google when we were putting together our disability support team, we didn't know what we didn't know. So, we, we had calls with Apple and Microsoft and Mehta, what do you do what's important? And Microsoft was really helpful they gave us they gave us a bunch of really great data that allowed us to plan our support system, which is brilliant. They didn't have to do that, if this was a cutthroat thing, they wouldn't have done that. But they recognize that we're all doing this stuff together. And we're all helping, because no one has all of the tools, no one has all the answers. Because we're all different, and technology never stops changing. So, we have to do this together. Because only by doing it together, can we do it at all.

40:41 Sam Evans  

It's always refreshing to get a chance to chat and talk with other people and refill our cups. So, Christopher, I hope that you, you, know, that when you're sharing these, these words, and your thoughts, and these leadership concepts about sharing the work and the cooperative nature, even in the tech stack, that really will be refreshing and help people recenter and refill their cup and find that core about the how and the why we do this. I tried when I talked to people about accessibility, I said, we have to start with the Who. We have to first understand the people. And then we can start to understand their Why before we talk about anything about the What are the How. And so, I really like the bases that you and your teams are putting together. And you've come from far back in the tech stack to technologies about focusing on people and how people use technology so that we can understand why we need to do our work. So, thank you for making time, if you have anything that you want to share with us about upcoming projects that you're working on, or that Google is leading that you'd like to give a hat tip to and heads up for people to be on the lookout for. Please feel free to let us know what's coming up that you want us to, to watch for? 

42:07 Christopher Patnoe  

Well, I can't preannounce anything. But let's just say where this intersection of AI and accessibility is. It's not new. We've been doing it for decades at AI has been around a long, long time. But these new large language models provide some really interesting interaction models and ways of doing things. So please watch there and listen, because it can be profoundly helpful. When it comes to sort of general thing I'd say, if you ever come to Europe right now, we have ADCs in London, Zurich, and Dublin. And we have more coming in Europe. So, by the end of this year, we'll have five. So if you're coming to Europe, let me know reach out to me on LinkedIn, I'll give you the right address, or you can start with adclondon@google.com. And we can get we can help facilitate a tour so you can see what it is that we're doing. We're talking about disability inclusion, we're talking about inclusive design, because it's all about building these things together. 

43:05 Sam Evans  

So, Christopher, thank you again for making time to join us today. I know that you're busy and like you said you engage as much as you have the opportunity to share a share your experience and background and help people find their passion progress. You know, we're you mentioned Merylin, progress over perfection. I think people are always afraid of not doing it right. And that vulnerability of being able to test and tinker, I think, is where lots of great discoveries happen where we get to adapt the tools, we have to the needs of whomever needs it individually. So, I encourage people to follow Christopher's advice, Christopher Patnoe, thanks for joining us today on our podcast with IAAP and G3ict. We appreciate you so much. And it's always a treat to get a chance to listen to and learn with you. Thank you so much.

43:56 Christopher Patnoe  

Thank you if it's been really fun.

43:59 Speaker  

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