AXSChat Podcast with Darryl Adams from Intel

Darryl is an Assistive Technology Innovation Program Manager in the Accessibility Office at Intel.​

He works at the intersection of technology and human experience helping discover new ways for people with disabilities to work, interact, and thrive.​

Darryl’s mission is to connect his passion for AT innovation with Intel’s product development pipeline to make accessible computing experiences available to everyone, regardless of ability.​
 

Darryl Adams 

Transcript

WEBVTT

1
00:00:03.689 --> 00:00:14.880
Neil Milliken: Hello and welcome back to access chat. It's great to have Daryl Adams with us today and great not to have a plant growing out of the top of my head. THANK YOU, DEBORAH for pointing out that I was

2
00:00:15.450 --> 00:00:21.270
Neil Milliken: Having a bit of a green haircut last week so Darryl is the assistive technology innovation managers.

3
00:00:21.960 --> 00:00:36.660
Neil Milliken: In the accessibility division Intel's Darrell That's sounds like a really exciting role. Can you tell us a little bit more about the work that you're doing and how this fits in to the, the bigger picture at Intel

4
00:00:37.980 --> 00:00:47.700
Darryl Adams: Sure so well. So I'm in a work within the accessibility office which we do a very broad spectrum of accessibility work.

5
00:00:47.760 --> 00:00:55.500
Darryl Adams: Across the company. So my role is in the context of all the, the traditional work that you would assume would be happening.

6
00:00:55.890 --> 00:01:00.240
Darryl Adams: With an accessibility office where we're really driving awareness across the company and

7
00:01:00.960 --> 00:01:14.370
Darryl Adams: With with the experts are over the intent of growing and accessible culture through training and education and events and just continuously getting that word out. So a lot of what I do.

8
00:01:15.090 --> 00:01:23.460
Darryl Adams: Involves that as well. But we have a team of people that are just, you know, that are continuously going down that path to make sure that intel is becoming

9
00:01:24.090 --> 00:01:34.890
Darryl Adams: The, you know, the most inclusive and accessible workplace that we can make it so for me, in particular, one of one of the pillars.

10
00:01:35.550 --> 00:01:47.160
Darryl Adams: focus areas of our accessibility office is around inclusive design and innovative solutions. And so I primarily focus in that in that focus area.

11
00:01:47.580 --> 00:02:07.290
Darryl Adams: And what I, what I'm doing is I have a program that's called accessible computing innovation and this allows me to work across the company with all the different organizations to identify different technologies and different products that we where we can drive more accessible experiences.

12
00:02:08.550 --> 00:02:11.790
Darryl Adams: Into into our customers hands and so

13
00:02:12.840 --> 00:02:33.300
Darryl Adams: I think you know there's a lot of work here, it's you know, it's a very broad scope. But along the way we're looking at, you know, we do everything from basic research in our labs to product design that's, you know, more that that's coming to life know in the next couple of years, so

14
00:02:35.160 --> 00:02:36.720
Darryl Adams: What are we like, what are we should, where should we begin

15
00:02:38.220 --> 00:02:39.510
Neil Milliken: Well, well, I mean,

16
00:02:41.580 --> 00:02:45.000
Neil Milliken: Let's, let's think about that because, you know, people think about

17
00:02:46.110 --> 00:02:47.400
Neil Milliken: Intel as being

18
00:02:48.450 --> 00:02:55.980
Neil Milliken: The chip manufacturer, but it's so much more than just chips. Right. So, so what are some of the areas that you touched upon.

19
00:02:57.690 --> 00:03:08.040
Darryl Adams: Well, yeah, so that's actually, it's important to note that we obviously we do manufacture chips and along the way. In addition, we don't typically just

20
00:03:09.330 --> 00:03:19.830
Darryl Adams: Create the chip and provided to the customer. We actually do the full system development as reference designs for customers. So we can demonstrate

21
00:03:20.220 --> 00:03:31.800
Darryl Adams: What capabilities, what what the new capabilities of the chips translates into when you think of it from the context of a user experience. So we build laptops, we build

22
00:03:32.640 --> 00:03:52.110
Darryl Adams: PCs and servers and all these things. And in addition to that, we also have a large Internet of Things group and we do a fair amount of work in five g and and very significant presence with our just in a very general sense with artificial intelligence across the board.

23
00:03:54.990 --> 00:04:03.690
Darryl Adams: So where it's also, I think, important to note that, that we are we have like

24
00:04:04.740 --> 00:04:21.720
Darryl Adams: We have labs that do basic research and, you know, and so the function there is is typically fairly heavy with, you know, what is the user experience intended to be. Then we also have our product teams that have embedded research.

25
00:04:22.800 --> 00:04:38.550
Darryl Adams: Activities in them as well. So what I'm trying to do is get into each of these different groups and and basically bring the story around inclusive design and the importance of listening to the disability community to begin with because I don't think that

26
00:04:39.990 --> 00:04:48.480
Darryl Adams: This is one of those certainly one of those areas where it's not as scenario where we create, you know, throw the technology at the problem. I think what we're trying to do.

27
00:04:48.930 --> 00:05:02.130
Darryl Adams: Is be aware and to be listening to understand exactly what these problems are and then how we can apply our technology or more, hopefully, how we can evolve our technology to specifically address these problems.

28
00:05:02.610 --> 00:05:20.280
Darryl Adams: So I'm really one of the big things. That's kind of a foundational component to what I'm doing is creating the systemic processes to where the voice of the disability community is consistently heard across all of these research and design activities that occur company.

29
00:05:28.590 --> 00:05:40.740
Debra Ruh: You know, I think one thing Darryl that and also welcome to the program. One thing that some of the corporations that I work with have complained about the most is almost

30
00:05:41.760 --> 00:05:54.000
Debra Ruh: The lack of understanding by accessibility experts to understand the complexity that someone like an Intel, or even a toast. Who are these big companies Dell Microsoft

31
00:05:54.300 --> 00:06:00.810
Debra Ruh: Just the sheer volume of, you know, where you have to go. I mean when we talk about including all the stakeholders.

32
00:06:01.050 --> 00:06:08.700
Debra Ruh: Just so you brought up a couple of really good points like the embedded research, you know, the projects are being done, but there's embedded research in there and

33
00:06:09.420 --> 00:06:11.730
Debra Ruh: Really bringing together all the true

34
00:06:12.210 --> 00:06:20.880
Debra Ruh: I say stakeholders, but all the different operations and just it just the sheer volume of what you have to get your hands around to make sure

35
00:06:21.120 --> 00:06:29.400
Debra Ruh: That you are supporting inclusive design that things are fully accessible that you know you have the right accommodations in place so that your employees can bring their

36
00:06:29.640 --> 00:06:42.510
Debra Ruh: Best self and be as productive. There's so many moving parts. How can you really get your hands around all those moving parts. And also, do you and Neil might want to weigh in on this as well. Do y'all see that

37
00:06:43.710 --> 00:06:50.580
Debra Ruh: Sometimes the accessibility community, the disability community other communities don't really understand

38
00:06:52.170 --> 00:07:00.270
Debra Ruh: All the different moving parts that you're having to deal with to make sure that things are fully accessible to all people customers or employees.

39
00:07:01.560 --> 00:07:03.660
Darryl Adams: Oh yeah, I have to imagine that

40
00:07:03.720 --> 00:07:10.680
Darryl Adams: That is the case because you're absolutely right around the complexity. I sometimes Marvel around

41
00:07:11.250 --> 00:07:23.310
Darryl Adams: The fact that that products get produced at the end of the day when, when you think about the the thousands of people that are required to end and produce a single product.

42
00:07:24.000 --> 00:07:30.450
Darryl Adams: That you know from the planning and the, the research through the design through the

43
00:07:31.110 --> 00:07:41.370
Darryl Adams: All the systems engineering work that's applied in that process. And then we haven't even gotten to the to the manufacturing part yet, which is a whole nother level of significant complexity.

44
00:07:41.790 --> 00:07:48.030
Darryl Adams: But not only is this thousands of people, but it's also all around the world. And it's not like

45
00:07:48.780 --> 00:08:03.420
Darryl Adams: All of the people that work on a product work in the same organization, either. So we have serious organizational boundaries to be crossing to get these things done as well. So just in the context of doing business. And that is in itself an absolute

46
00:08:04.530 --> 00:08:14.880
Darryl Adams: massive challenge. And I think, you know, in for you know what we're concerned with is sort of both sides of this. I think you just touched upon that where

47
00:08:15.360 --> 00:08:25.080
Darryl Adams: We want to be able to have a a workplace environment that is not only accessible to people with disabilities but welcoming and

48
00:08:25.920 --> 00:08:35.430
Darryl Adams: I want to see until be the place where as somebody with a disability. You want to come to work because it's a great place to work and you can do your job and you can contribute

49
00:08:36.090 --> 00:08:45.780
Darryl Adams: And you know, that's true. I think in a large part across the company we that can be that reality can be had. But like everything and I think

50
00:08:46.170 --> 00:09:01.860
Darryl Adams: You've touched on this in the show in the past as well as that, this is such a journey. I mean what you had mentioned it, it is complex and it's not perfect and we are on that journey with everybody else. And one of the things I'm really

51
00:09:03.090 --> 00:09:13.170
Darryl Adams: hopeful for here is that I are in one of the projects that I'm involved with as part of the accessible computing innovation program.

52
00:09:13.740 --> 00:09:20.850
Darryl Adams: Is this notion that we're actually doing research with Intel employees with disabilities. So we're directly engaging

53
00:09:21.390 --> 00:09:25.980
Darryl Adams: That the employee base to understand where their barriers are in the workplace.

54
00:09:26.550 --> 00:09:35.010
Darryl Adams: And then looking at our labs technologies to see if we can apply work that we're doing in the lab to directly help in this workplace environment.

55
00:09:35.610 --> 00:09:49.110
Darryl Adams: And that's exciting because, you know, regardless of what comes of that it's engaging the Intel community and people want to be involved. And that's the one big finding I've seen is that everybody is excited about being involved in that type of research.

56
00:09:52.920 --> 00:10:08.520
Debra Ruh: Sorry, I'm the first did not go off mute do a real quick. I'll follow up and then I knew Antonio has a question but you yourself have been impacted as a member of the disability community. And I was just wondering if you wouldn't mind exploring that a little bit.

57
00:10:09.180 --> 00:10:10.920
Darryl Adams: Oh, sure. Yeah, I probably should have

58
00:10:11.550 --> 00:10:14.160
Darryl Adams: Explored that up front. Yes, I got

59
00:10:16.230 --> 00:10:24.810
Darryl Adams: My yeah so I didn't just land here on accident, this, this, like, speaking of journey is I've had a significant journey. I didn't tell where I have

60
00:10:25.530 --> 00:10:36.360
Darryl Adams: I started at the company in 1996 and so I've been here quite a while and I have a degenerative eye condition Retinitis Pigmentosa

61
00:10:36.840 --> 00:10:48.420
Darryl Adams: And I'm legally blind today and I'm also completely deaf in my right year as a result of a surgery that I had back in college. So it's been quite some years where I've been dealing with pretty significant.

62
00:10:49.470 --> 00:11:03.120
Darryl Adams: sensory impairments or, you know, sensory deficit. But over time, because I've had a degenerative eye condition. It's like the my my context has been changing. And so when I first started working there was no

63
00:11:03.660 --> 00:11:13.590
Darryl Adams: No need for assistance or accessible solutions, but over time. It's become more and more necessary and so I've been self taught in terms of what

64
00:11:14.310 --> 00:11:22.170
Darryl Adams: Assistive technologies will work for me in which contexts. But what I really realized, and I think this is back in about 2013

65
00:11:22.800 --> 00:11:31.170
Darryl Adams: Is I was spending a lot of time trying to figure out how to do my job just treading water basically like how can I just perform the basic tasks of my job effectively.

66
00:11:31.740 --> 00:11:36.630
Darryl Adams: And then I thought, well, I'm working at a company where to go, these brilliant engineers, creating

67
00:11:37.140 --> 00:11:53.520
Darryl Adams: Awesome technology. Well, I need to figure out how to redirect my time to not just help me in my job, but I can make this a career and I can, I can figure out how to help Intel create products that will be more useful to more people around the world. And so that's what I've done.

68
00:11:57.360 --> 00:11:57.780
Antonio Santos: So,

69
00:11:58.950 --> 00:12:01.020
Antonio Santos: Can you tell us more about

70
00:12:02.250 --> 00:12:14.580
Antonio Santos: Are you are supporting your own employees at at the workplace and, you know, and to the course of your career. What are the things that that you that you felt

71
00:12:15.000 --> 00:12:26.610
Antonio Santos: That if someone today is going into a journey of creating a collaborative inclusive workplace what they really need to be ethical they need to do at the core

72
00:12:29.340 --> 00:12:34.290
Darryl Adams: Great question there. Well, I think there's a lot of core

73
00:12:35.640 --> 00:12:35.940
Darryl Adams: Work.

74
00:12:37.500 --> 00:12:45.240
Darryl Adams: And, you know, just thinking about what we have done it just says, as you know what, I guess, speaking from the example that I that I've lived

75
00:12:45.870 --> 00:12:58.950
Darryl Adams: Is that. And this took a long time. So, so our accessibility efforts have been have have not are not nearly as old as the company. So we're I would say we're fairly new to the game in terms of the the longevity of our company.

76
00:13:00.060 --> 00:13:12.120
Darryl Adams: But what's what's been interesting is the the rapid rate of of success that we're having they stay over the last four to five years.

77
00:13:12.660 --> 00:13:21.840
Darryl Adams: And it should be that a lot to not only executive sponsorship but but broad leadership sponsorship.

78
00:13:22.530 --> 00:13:30.540
Darryl Adams: Where it's not just a single person that has an interest in space, who decides to take on the you know the champion the champion role.

79
00:13:30.870 --> 00:13:41.340
Darryl Adams: But across the board. When I speak to leaders it until they're, they're very bought into the ideas and to ensuring that we are an inclusive company, period.

80
00:13:42.060 --> 00:13:54.180
Darryl Adams: And I think a lot of why I see the success here is because we're thinking about inclusion, you know, in a very broad sense and doing some remarkable things in that space as far as bringing

81
00:13:55.800 --> 00:14:03.630
Darryl Adams: Just equity to the workplace. In general, and then because we have a an accessibility office, we're now able to

82
00:14:03.990 --> 00:14:14.430
Darryl Adams: Continue to to push the message that disability inclusion is a very core part of the inclusion message and it resonance. I think

83
00:14:15.270 --> 00:14:22.530
Darryl Adams: You know, the stories resonate and people want on it almost I would say daily. If not, or weekly if not daily basis.

84
00:14:23.040 --> 00:14:38.100
Darryl Adams: And working with people or meeting new people at the company that I haven't met before talking about what our story and what we're doing and people want to help it just bottom line is, they, you know, people love to be involved in projects that do good things.

85
00:14:43.980 --> 00:14:44.520
Debra Ruh: I was

86
00:14:45.060 --> 00:14:54.150
Debra Ruh: I was talking yesterday on a show, we were talking about employees. Regardless, you know, where they work more and more, they will

87
00:14:54.810 --> 00:15:05.820
Debra Ruh: Purpose. They want to have purpose. Yes, I want Intel to be wildly successful. I'm so happy to work for them. But I want to have purpose. I want to feel that the work I'm doing it. Intel or a totes or

88
00:15:06.120 --> 00:15:11.460
Debra Ruh: While we are wherever you are, is actually adding value to the world. I know that something's

89
00:15:11.940 --> 00:15:24.480
Debra Ruh: Done to both Antonio and Neil working with a toast. And I know it's very important to do you Darryl but more and more. This is something employers need to understand employees want to have purpose they want to make

90
00:15:25.020 --> 00:15:38.580
Debra Ruh: They want they want to be better that they want it to be bigger than just a paycheck. And I think the work that you're doing the work that we're all doing is one way that we can make sure everybody's included, but the employees feel like they're adding value. Go ahead.

91
00:15:39.840 --> 00:15:44.340
Darryl Adams: I totally agree. I think I'm seeing that. And I think that, well,

92
00:15:46.230 --> 00:15:56.220
Darryl Adams: I see the trend. I don't know that it's necessarily a new trend. But as far as it feels to me like it is like it's it's becoming more of the conversation where

93
00:15:56.760 --> 00:16:00.480
Darryl Adams: And just, they're just they're just any more interest and there are

94
00:16:01.200 --> 00:16:08.700
Darryl Adams: I find people wanting to volunteer to participate, which is which is incredible thing because everybody is so busy.

95
00:16:09.090 --> 00:16:21.570
Darryl Adams: You know, nobody is sitting around looking for things to do but they're still willing to volunteer and to contribute, where they know where their expertise makes the most sense. So it is, it's, it's nice

96
00:16:24.390 --> 00:16:32.400
Neil Milliken: So I fully agree with, with what you said. I think that when we look at the studies have been done.

97
00:16:33.420 --> 00:16:38.850
Neil Milliken: And we look at employee engagement employees are happy when they

98
00:16:40.470 --> 00:16:52.890
Neil Milliken: What they do in their daily work and what the ethos of the company is it relates to doing something that they can buy into so that that sense of alignment of purpose really does.

99
00:16:54.000 --> 00:16:54.540
Neil Milliken: Help

100
00:16:55.590 --> 00:17:05.370
Neil Milliken: People be satisfied and happy at work. And let's face it right now for a lot of people works all we've got or homework blaring, the whole thing is

101
00:17:06.810 --> 00:17:12.540
Neil Milliken: It's pretty messy right now in 2020 as we, you know,

102
00:17:13.560 --> 00:17:32.760
Neil Milliken: Welcome work into our home lives and our, our, our world has shrunk dramatically to to sort of closer environments due to various sort of lockdowns and so on. So I think that that sense of

103
00:17:35.010 --> 00:17:49.230
Neil Milliken: Mission for an organization that that sense of, we're here to create something great. And it's not just a new shiny thing that goes faster and processes more but actually

104
00:17:49.830 --> 00:17:55.950
Neil Milliken: Thinking about how that impacts for positive impact on the world and positive good is

105
00:17:56.580 --> 00:18:06.390
Neil Milliken: is fundamental to how we really get our organizations to be effective because effective organizations are ones that get the best out of their employees.

106
00:18:06.750 --> 00:18:12.990
Neil Milliken: It's not the ones that have the best technology is the ones that have the most engaged workforce. So

107
00:18:13.980 --> 00:18:20.280
Neil Milliken: And so I think that aligning that and bringing that back to the sort of disability inclusion piece.

108
00:18:20.790 --> 00:18:37.590
Neil Milliken: Now when you can demonstrate that you're building technology that is actively includes people when you can demonstrate that you're building programs within your organization and frameworks and organizational norms, where

109
00:18:39.030 --> 00:18:47.160
Neil Milliken: There is not just an acceptance of disability but a welcoming of it as both a source of innovation and as part of

110
00:18:47.940 --> 00:19:03.090
Neil Milliken: people's everyday lives and workloads, then I think that you're you're helping your organization to be more effective. That said, doing all of that is really complex, especially in really, really large organizations and and

111
00:19:04.740 --> 00:19:08.370
Neil Milliken: When people tell me not, not to boil the ocean.

112
00:19:09.630 --> 00:19:11.580
Neil Milliken: I usually respond in that

113
00:19:12.660 --> 00:19:19.740
Neil Milliken: In that I have to actually because it's the only way that we're going to to do some of this stuff. We have to take a sort of

114
00:19:20.160 --> 00:19:30.990
Neil Milliken: Ecosystem wide approach and that requires us getting lots of things working in lots of different places and spinning all of those plates and I'll stop gesticulating now.

115
00:19:32.580 --> 00:19:35.160
Darryl Adams: Well, you know, one of the things that we're that we're doing.

116
00:19:35.220 --> 00:19:37.890
Darryl Adams: This starting this year earlier this year we

117
00:19:38.400 --> 00:19:45.390
Darryl Adams: announced this program company wide program called rise, which is responsible inclusive sustainable.

118
00:19:45.990 --> 00:20:01.230
Darryl Adams: And how we enable all of those things in as a 10 year set of 10 year goals and one of those goals is to increase the number of employees who self identify with a disability to 10% of our workforce globally.

119
00:20:02.370 --> 00:20:09.960
Darryl Adams: And in order to do that, there's a there's a lot involved in that statement around, you know, the hiring processes and the

120
00:20:10.440 --> 00:20:17.040
Darryl Adams: How do you sell by the across the world because there's a lot of differences around in different countries around what's what. You can cannot do.

121
00:20:17.640 --> 00:20:28.620
Darryl Adams: And creating an environment where people are comfortable doing that. And so where this is. We're now very focused on all of these elements of figure out how do we make that goal. How do we achieve that goal.

122
00:20:29.370 --> 00:20:37.230
Darryl Adams: And that's exciting to me because that is now. You know, when we talk about accessibility, we now have framework to say

123
00:20:37.860 --> 00:20:48.210
Darryl Adams: No, we need to have we need an environment physically digitally and otherwise that is accessible to all people, including across the spectrum of disability.

124
00:20:48.630 --> 00:20:56.460
Darryl Adams: So how are we going to do that because this is a reality that we are no this is our workforce and this is the world because our workforce to be representative of the greater

125
00:20:57.360 --> 00:21:10.440
Darryl Adams: Our customers and then the world in general, and it's just nice to or not. So it's not our accessibility office in a corner, trying to make this happen. It's now broadly accepted that this is the path that we are on our we can be successful doing

126
00:21:13.740 --> 00:21:20.910
Debra Ruh: It, it's really, it's exciting listening to the things that you're doing and I know that intel is

127
00:21:21.180 --> 00:21:28.530
Debra Ruh: Partnering with other large corporations to having a bigger impact because Intel us obviously big partner with other companies, but

128
00:21:28.830 --> 00:21:35.580
Debra Ruh: I know you talked about other things that Intel was doing besides chips. I think a lot of us know, you know, we all have those little

129
00:21:36.090 --> 00:21:44.700
Debra Ruh: The little stickers that say, you know, powered by Intel, but you'd mentioned that y'all do you know artificial intelligence IoT

130
00:21:45.120 --> 00:22:04.740
Debra Ruh: 5G, things like that. How are with some of these newer really big technologies that are emerging like five g i took about five g all the time connectivity is critical technology if we don't have good connectivity with all these rural problems and lack of, you know, reliable internet it's

131
00:22:05.940 --> 00:22:14.610
Debra Ruh: You know, for example, stop 40% of the children the united states of being able to be educated during code crisis. So connectivity is very important. And part of it, but

132
00:22:14.880 --> 00:22:30.600
Debra Ruh: When you look at you know the AI projects or the IoT, and I understand those blend together the five g have how you apply what you're doing and other parts of the company to those big efforts that are changing every moment of the day.

133
00:22:31.440 --> 00:22:33.030
Darryl Adams: There's a lot here and I think

134
00:22:33.870 --> 00:22:37.260
Darryl Adams: One key for me is there's a big difference.

135
00:22:38.700 --> 00:22:51.360
Darryl Adams: A ship, they'll say in technology. When you bring AI into the mix and edge it in a very general sense. So as an example, we, you know, so our the processors that we make today.

136
00:22:52.110 --> 00:22:58.080
Darryl Adams: They're, they're known as systems on a chip. So pretty much the industry has shifted to this notion that

137
00:22:58.470 --> 00:23:15.270
Darryl Adams: You don't just have a general process or if it's a generic thing that you can plug into the machine and just does everything so on that single product dying is a set of core processing units that we that we know today as a processor within it's surrounded by a

138
00:23:16.440 --> 00:23:25.230
Darryl Adams: Bunch of supporting technology or co processors or accelerators that do very specific workloads like AI machine learning in France.

139
00:23:26.130 --> 00:23:33.660
Darryl Adams: That are specific to computer vision or or audio, you know, speech recognition and these kinds of things. So they're very

140
00:23:34.500 --> 00:23:46.680
Darryl Adams: Very purpose built and extremely efficient power efficient and extremely low latency and they don't affect anything about the traditional usage of a computer. It's the process of doing it still doing all that work.

141
00:23:47.460 --> 00:23:54.900
Darryl Adams: So it's kind of complex. But the point is that because we have all these specialized bits going on in that in that product.

142
00:23:55.410 --> 00:24:01.860
Darryl Adams: We now have an opportunity to become had over the years. Pat like prior to now where we can start looking at

143
00:24:02.400 --> 00:24:08.790
Darryl Adams: completely new ways of interacting with a computer because you can know the ability to talk

144
00:24:09.300 --> 00:24:17.340
Darryl Adams: And for the computer to recognize your voice and recognize what you're saying all these things is becoming significantly more powerful and

145
00:24:18.030 --> 00:24:29.040
Darryl Adams: And without even impacting what the computer already does. And because of that, now it really this is opening up some doors that that haven't been able to be open in the past.

146
00:24:29.790 --> 00:24:34.470
Darryl Adams: And the same thing goes with the computer vision, being able to, you know, imagine

147
00:24:35.220 --> 00:24:44.640
Darryl Adams: You know, computer vision algorithms really being able to understand what's what this what is displayed on the screen beyond what a screen reader can do so. Screen reader.

148
00:24:45.390 --> 00:24:59.700
Darryl Adams: Is simply reading the text. But it obviously has problems when when what's on the screen is not text, but a computer vision algorithm can can address that problem.

149
00:25:00.540 --> 00:25:19.650
Darryl Adams: And I think there are a lot of very broad applications, kind of in that general space that are going to be coming to fruition over the years to come, because of these way that AI and kind of very low power inferences being just baked into everything that we do.

150
00:25:21.240 --> 00:25:26.130
Antonio Santos: Intel is also known for being the company gave advice to see Dr. Stephen Hawking.

151
00:25:27.210 --> 00:25:35.040
Antonio Santos: Know, you know, yeah, I was before the interview, I was reading some of the work that you did and is particularly interesting to see.

152
00:25:35.430 --> 00:25:44.370
Antonio Santos: The book the multidisciplinary and the number of engineers that were that are involved on this type of projects. So, and you see that you know is a

153
00:25:44.700 --> 00:25:53.910
Antonio Santos: continuous process of change and you were just mentioning about some develops in technology know in the area of a artificial intelligence, but

154
00:25:55.110 --> 00:26:10.380
Antonio Santos: In terms of technology that is being created by Intel and being created by others. What are the thing that you see that excites you and that you see great book so of improving improving accessibility.

155
00:26:12.960 --> 00:26:27.630
Darryl Adams: I think, well, sort of expanding on the work that Stephen Hawking. So, so we were deeply involved with the Stephen Hawking's voice, but also basically his computing environments for for many years.

156
00:26:28.260 --> 00:26:40.110
Darryl Adams: And, you know, it was very fortunate that for all involved that you know not everybody in the world gets to have a team of engineers dedicated to to their to their computing needs but you learn

157
00:26:40.710 --> 00:26:50.460
Darryl Adams: So, you know, it was so important for Stephen to continue to communicate, you know, as, as his disease progressed and the challenge the technical challenges were significant

158
00:26:51.540 --> 00:26:58.800
Darryl Adams: But what we did with that is we took all of those learnings and all of that, the software and the hardware that that created that

159
00:26:59.850 --> 00:27:06.540
Darryl Adams: dev environment for him and we made it open sourced. It's called the assistance of Context Aware toolkit.

160
00:27:07.140 --> 00:27:18.030
Darryl Adams: And you can Google that and see and basically you have access to all those pieces. So if you are somebody or know somebody that has something similar to what you know ALS or

161
00:27:18.420 --> 00:27:29.940
Darryl Adams: Little neuron disease that types or anything that really prevents you from accessing a computer. The traditional keyboard and mouse display type of scenario you this

162
00:27:31.110 --> 00:27:39.510
Darryl Adams: Toolkit can adapt to whatever functions. A person has. And today, you know, you still need to have somebody that actually does that for you.

163
00:27:39.780 --> 00:27:59.490
Darryl Adams: But we're getting to a point where I think you know this, that the adaptability will be to will be fairly straightforward and it'll be easy to map this technology to somebody is specific needs, which I think is really important point is around disability in general is very individualized

164
00:28:01.290 --> 00:28:07.830
Darryl Adams: problem statement. And so, you know, even, you know, two people with the same physical disability in two different contexts need different things.

165
00:28:08.310 --> 00:28:17.460
Darryl Adams: And so we can't. We have to figure out how to continue to build and introduced technologies that are highly customizable configurable and adaptable.

166
00:28:18.240 --> 00:28:28.590
Darryl Adams: And that's what I think that's the kind of the path that I'm wanting to go down one quick thing around. We've recently extended the, the, the work that the toolkits

167
00:28:29.160 --> 00:28:36.180
Darryl Adams: From Stephen Hawking to working with Peter Scott Morgan, who's the kind of builds himself as the world's first human Cyborg

168
00:28:37.140 --> 00:28:58.050
Darryl Adams: Same ALS type of situation he no longer speaks and he's he's now an avatar that that that he uses his computer to speak and we've integrated I tracking to help more well a combination of eye tracking and Predictive Predictive text and speech synthesis to help him communicate more

169
00:28:59.400 --> 00:29:11.550
Darryl Adams: More regularly and more in a more normal cadence then otherwise. Then he would otherwise be able to do. And I think that technology is extremely exciting where we can take that in the future.

170
00:29:12.570 --> 00:29:24.510
Neil Milliken: That, that sounds really interesting and I've got someone very close to me in the organization that would probably benefit from from from that, too.

171
00:29:26.040 --> 00:29:29.550
Neil Milliken: So I'd like to follow that up with you later.

172
00:29:31.920 --> 00:29:32.670
Neil Milliken: Am I on mute.

173
00:29:33.330 --> 00:29:36.900
Neil Milliken: Nope. No W A signaling to me and

174
00:29:36.930 --> 00:29:39.900
Debra Ruh: See me to rosemary Musashi oh it's

175
00:29:40.050 --> 00:29:42.810
Debra Ruh: Cheap festival, the officer, she would greatly benefit for

176
00:29:42.810 --> 00:29:51.630
Neil Milliken: Some, yeah. Yeah, so, so, so, yeah, I'll see to advisors would definitely be super interesting. I'm

177
00:29:53.370 --> 00:30:09.090
Neil Milliken: I'm, I'm an old time speech recognition guy I've been working with speech recognition for like 20 years now, and I thought it was really interesting. What you're talking about with the you know the dedicated chips because

178
00:30:10.290 --> 00:30:16.530
Neil Milliken: When I started with speech recognition. We were actually building computers specifically

179
00:30:17.160 --> 00:30:24.750
Neil Milliken: To run speech recognition systems and we were looking at things like the physical placement of the cards and the fans and everything else that

180
00:30:25.170 --> 00:30:37.020
Neil Milliken: To deal with mechanical noise interference and everything else and and the fact that all of that processing is now done on dedicated chips, taking the load off everything else is

181
00:30:37.680 --> 00:30:52.230
Neil Milliken: You know, is a really big significant step forward, because it is processor intensive, it is to get to get speech recognition right to understand the nuance to get there. The correct concatenation of words and to to really

182
00:30:53.520 --> 00:30:55.560
Neil Milliken: do a great job.

183
00:30:56.850 --> 00:30:57.870
Neil Milliken: Is complex

184
00:30:59.280 --> 00:31:05.790
Neil Milliken: And I think that that beyond dictation those conversational interfaces.

185
00:31:07.290 --> 00:31:11.040
Neil Milliken: Are going to be one of the significant steps forwards in how we

186
00:31:12.270 --> 00:31:17.640
Neil Milliken: Interact with technology over the next decade or so i think that

187
00:31:19.530 --> 00:31:21.510
Neil Milliken: The recognition part is only

188
00:31:23.310 --> 00:31:27.660
Neil Milliken: Only the start of the challenge that we have that, because actually

189
00:31:29.100 --> 00:31:36.930
Neil Milliken: Presenting the information back to people when you're having this kind of two way dialogue with it with a computer system.

190
00:31:37.830 --> 00:31:47.760
Neil Milliken: Needs some thought in how we design those systems. Because the moment you can talk and the computer will recognize what you say it's that next step.

191
00:31:48.240 --> 00:31:54.570
Neil Milliken: As you start having that interaction processes to understand when it presents you with choices that it doesn't overload you with choices.

192
00:31:55.260 --> 00:32:05.700
Neil Milliken: Yeah. One of the things about a drop down menu is that you can still see all of the choices. So if you have a mega menu, you may have 20 choices, but you can see them all. Whereas if you go into a

193
00:32:06.840 --> 00:32:16.080
Neil Milliken: You know, you call your local insurance company just say, you know, you've had a little accident on the road, maybe run over some

194
00:32:17.130 --> 00:32:17.970
Neil Milliken: Some creature

195
00:32:18.990 --> 00:32:29.550
Neil Milliken: And damaged your car and you need to get something fixed you dial the insurance company and they present you with 15 different voice options and you go through this voice me and and and

196
00:32:30.480 --> 00:32:45.300
Neil Milliken: If you're anything like me or Deborah, or my parents or anyone that's older your memory. Can you can only hold so much in your working memory. So, how we then design these dialogues from this flow to be truly conversational

197
00:32:46.860 --> 00:32:57.660
Neil Milliken: Is what's going to really drive that user adoption and usability and that's going to take tremendous not only design but computational power. So I'm really interested in what you're doing in that space.

198
00:32:58.950 --> 00:33:04.140
Darryl Adams: Yeah, I agree with everything you said. I think that is where I want to see at least

199
00:33:05.430 --> 00:33:11.910
Darryl Adams: There's always going to be a visual component to computing for people that that see you know that there's a lot of great

200
00:33:12.570 --> 00:33:31.170
Darryl Adams: Things going on in data visualization, in particular, but when it comes down to whether you cannot see or cannot see well or or contextually in a place where we're seeing is not the primary thing to do. Having that really rich voice conversational computing type of interaction.

201
00:33:31.290 --> 00:33:33.030
Darryl Adams: Is really where I want to see things

202
00:33:33.030 --> 00:33:45.090
Darryl Adams: Go. Personally, I believe that, and what your points around kind of cognitive overload and getting the design right is important. And I think a lot of that has to do with prediction and

203
00:33:45.630 --> 00:34:04.950
Darryl Adams: In predictive mechanisms in many different senses, but is a system becomes more more aware of what your patterns are it will, it'll be able to eliminate a lot of the options and a lot of the things that it might have provided otherwise because it knows where you're already going and

204
00:34:06.300 --> 00:34:09.750
Darryl Adams: And a lot of that it's actually also an interesting thing, because from a privacy perspective.

205
00:34:10.380 --> 00:34:21.120
Darryl Adams: What I'm most of what I'm talking about either can or at least in the near future will be able to be done locally on the computer. So it's not something that needs to go to a cloud or some other company to get process and come back to you.

206
00:34:21.510 --> 00:34:37.170
Darryl Adams: This stuff can be done locally. So you have real extremely low latency. So we can get back to that national voice cadence and voice interaction, back and forth, but it's also know hopefully we're moving to a point where it can be extremely private as well.

207
00:34:45.210 --> 00:35:00.630
Neil Milliken: Failing again I muted. Um, I think that's really interesting because we've we've seen the, the mass movement of things like speech recognition and and to a certain extent text to speech and all of these services.

208
00:35:01.290 --> 00:35:11.910
Neil Milliken: Into the cloud, because that's where the power has been, but that has given great opportunity, but also created a great deal of fragility.

209
00:35:12.720 --> 00:35:22.710
Neil Milliken: In the, in the services because as soon as you lose connectivity, you lose the ability to use the service so

210
00:35:23.400 --> 00:35:40.320
Neil Milliken: This for me was always a problem why I'm one of the reasons why I was always still very keen to do speech recognition on device and for the processing for all kinds of assistive tech to be on device, wherever possible, because it means that it's much more robust

211
00:35:41.910 --> 00:35:56.040
Neil Milliken: So because that that that if you need assistive tech you you need it all the time. Or you or you need it to be available all the time. You may not need it all the time. But you need it, that that availability and reliability.

212
00:35:57.090 --> 00:36:02.670
Darryl Adams: And one of the things that I think about along those lines, as well as a sort of a foundational

213
00:36:03.600 --> 00:36:18.750
Darryl Adams: design concept for me is that not only do I want to see the assistive technology on the device but i want i want to consider accessible experiences and assistive experiences as core to the device and so

214
00:36:19.410 --> 00:36:36.480
Darryl Adams: Every thing that we build. It's built into rather than needed somebody needing to buy a special assistant version or accessible version of something. It's really know if you think about the device market and all of the cost of the customized assistive technologies.

215
00:36:37.980 --> 00:36:48.690
Darryl Adams: Expensive and one of the ways that we can drive down costs is to include these things as core capabilities and when you do, you know, high volume manufacturing and high volume.

216
00:36:49.470 --> 00:36:56.970
Darryl Adams: Business, then that drives down costs and just makes it normalizes everything and it makes things over time, less expensive.

217
00:37:00.510 --> 00:37:15.480
Neil Milliken: Yes, and that's it you know we scale and we scale, you get price reduction and it becomes normal and yeah I'm like you wanting to see this stuff and embedded animation so so

218
00:37:16.470 --> 00:37:23.940
Neil Milliken: We just talked about stuff being on device, but there's also, you know, ubiquitous computing. Now it computing is everywhere, so

219
00:37:26.610 --> 00:37:36.900
Neil Milliken: A lot of a lot of stuff is going to happen on the edge. So you've got all of this sort of processing going on on the all of these little

220
00:37:37.530 --> 00:37:49.080
Neil Milliken: Devices, you know that you don't traditionally think of computers, how do you, how do you see that working in terms of inclusive because some of these and then they're not

221
00:37:49.560 --> 00:37:57.480
Neil Milliken: Having huge amounts of processing power. But how do you, how do you see us being able to use these devices that are connected

222
00:38:00.030 --> 00:38:10.140
Neil Milliken: In conjunction with assistive tech or or how, how can how can we use this kind of New Age technology IoT to really include people

223
00:38:12.240 --> 00:38:13.140
Darryl Adams: Wow. So, you know,

224
00:38:14.640 --> 00:38:15.480
Darryl Adams: I

225
00:38:16.920 --> 00:38:21.570
Darryl Adams: I'm a big user of those types of devices. So I have

226
00:38:23.070 --> 00:38:27.360
Darryl Adams: You know, smart home devices. As an example, smart lighting lighting switches

227
00:38:29.070 --> 00:38:35.220
Darryl Adams: Anything that's automating workload in the home is particularly interesting to me because

228
00:38:35.880 --> 00:38:57.870
Darryl Adams: With limited with the eyesight limitations. A lot of things I do are just inherently inefficient. And so the more that I can automate something and outsource like manual tasks around the home. I'm all for it. So I think in terms of inclusion, that is, that's a big deal. Like, it's the

229
00:38:59.220 --> 00:39:08.670
Darryl Adams: The ability to automate tasks and then in schedule. So it's not just automation, but it's smart scheduling. So you're also

230
00:39:09.480 --> 00:39:19.020
Darryl Adams: Bringing the, the other the lighting to the task, and only then and managing you can manage costs that way as well. So there's a whole bunch of really of goodness around that.

231
00:39:19.560 --> 00:39:29.010
Darryl Adams: The question for me is always going to be the complexities around the environment and how fast the industry can continue to consolidate on standards so that

232
00:39:29.430 --> 00:39:34.740
Darryl Adams: Every product will interoperate with every other product without having to buy into specific ecosystems.

233
00:39:35.640 --> 00:39:50.730
Darryl Adams: There's some of that going on but that needs to improve because it does get very complex. If you have multiple ecosystems in your house or if you're as a basic user that just wants to have a simple function, it has to be simplified and so I think that's one of the challenges.

234
00:39:51.840 --> 00:40:01.680
Darryl Adams: And then also the cost of these things today. It's to collect a household to build a smart home is involves a lot of different

235
00:40:03.300 --> 00:40:18.060
Darryl Adams: Edge devices which is it can be costly, but I do think like everything else that that that continues to fall and at certain price points that make them more attractive and we're getting there. And I think it's just a matter of

236
00:40:19.140 --> 00:40:24.660
Darryl Adams: A bit more time before that becomes just really you know really the go to

237
00:40:26.490 --> 00:40:29.910
Darryl Adams: Technology for folks with varying disabilities, I think.

238
00:40:30.540 --> 00:40:53.730
Neil Milliken: Excellent. So we reached the end of our time. Now I could ask questions for longer just thank you very much doubt it's been a real pleasure chatting with you. I need to also thank our friends right access micro link and my candidates for helping us stay on air. Stay captioned stay relevant

239
00:40:55.350 --> 00:41:00.780
Neil Milliken: Thank you once again. Have a great weekend and we look forward to chatting with you on Twitter on Tuesday.

240
00:41:01.650 --> 00:41:02.400
Darryl Adams: Thank you very much.