 All right, and we are going to begin in a moment. Welcome to the Center for Global Enterprise Global Scholars Expert Connect series. My name is Ira Sager and I am Vice President of Global Learning Initiatives for the Center for Global Enterprise or CGE. We're excited to explore a new topic today, Authentic Inclusion. Our presenter Francis West is author of a new book, Authentic Inclusion Drives Disruptive Innovation. Over the next 60 minutes, Francis will illustrate how putting people first and build the inclusion and diversity of the business strategies. We'll, I'm sorry, into business strategies at technology infrastructure. Products and services and organizational processes can help companies recruit talent, expand markets and differentiate their business. Francis is an internationally recognized thought leader, speaker and trailblazer for women in technology. She is known for her work in innovation, technology and business transformation, and she is the founder of Francis West Co., a global strategic advisory company. Her approach comes from her wide-ranging experience as a global executive in sales, marketing, business development and as in research, as well as a groundbreaking work as accessibility and inaccessibility as IBM's first chief accessibility officer. But before we begin today's program, a few housekeeping notes and we always do that for every Global Scholars Program. For those of you new to the Center for Global Enterprise and our Global Scholars Program, CGE is a non-profit research institute focused on the study of global management best practices, modern corporation, economic integration and their impact on society. Our Global Scholars Program is a worldwide learning community for business-interested students, academic faculty and business professionals. Through Global Scholars, we offer online courses and digital internships, as well as this and other Expert Connect series. Participation in all our Global Scholars programs and membership is free. You can find out more information about our activities on the CGE website, Today's program will be recorded and is available on demand from the CGE YouTube channel. We will leave approximately 15 minutes at the end for audience questions. If you have a question for our presenter at any time during the presentation, you could submit your questions using the Q&A feature at the bottom of your Zoom screen. We will try to get to all your questions time permitting. It is my pleasure to turn you over to Francis who for the next 30 or 40 minutes will propose new ways that business leaders can affect sustainable and scalable change and tap into tremendous opportunities by viewing inclusion as strategic and by addressing diversity proactively. Thank you. All right, Francis. Well, thank you, Ira, for this great invitation and I'm really excited to be here and to share with the audience a topic that I actually wrote a book upon, Authentic Inclusion Drives Destructive Innovation. I think everybody knows that today the topic of inclusion is everywhere. Every day when you open the newspaper or the TV network, you hear people talk about inclusion. But my view of, in this case, of authentic inclusion is different somewhat from the quote unquote the current state of a talk. My view of the inclusion in this case is not so much as the HR topic because usually when we talk about inclusion, people think about talent, acquisition. For example, we want to have gender equality or really make sure that people who are underserved by race, by religion is included in the society. But my view is that in today's world, it's not just a talent that we need to think about, but also technology. And the second thing about inclusion that in my mind that needs to be talked about is that a lot of time we also pay attention to, like I said, gender religion or sexual orientation and background. But very rarely we think about, for example, people with disability or aging as a demographic audience that needs to be thought about. Ira, in your introduction, you talked about my role as IBM's first chief accessibility officer and the word chief accessibility officer means that we actually work on technology to make sure that the technology does not create barrier for people with different disabilities or different abilities. So I feel very strongly that when we talk about inclusion in today's world, we really have to think about technology and that is truly inclusive of all people beyond gender, race and all that. But in some incidents, and actually in this particular case, with a very specific focus on learning from, for example, how to use technology to support people with disabilities so that we can create an understanding and a use case to build on, for example, in a workplace environment when employment can be rendered to everybody and create parity in productivity. So in this context, I wrote a book about authentic inclusion. It is, like I mentioned, it's really focusing on inclusion in the technology context, but it's also is very much an organization transformation topic. I feel that in today's world, if we're talking about inclusion in a real sense, then we really have to think about the economic impact of inclusion. And the best thing we can do for any demographic or constituency, I call it, is to make sure that he, she or the person with disability or with aging abilities actually have equal access to employment opportunities. So if you read the definition, which is on the slide, it says, the institutional insight that human diversity is at the core of disruptive innovation. It calls for holistic actions across all parts of an institution to respect an individual's human's ability to make a difference, not in spite of, but because of their difference. And by putting human first, prosperity can have longevity because principle purpose and profit are harmonious aligned. So the keyword in this definition is, like I said, is that the human diversity is really at the core, especially in the innovation that we're talking about not just today, but tomorrow. And I would take the audience through why I feel so strongly that inclusion has to be the base for our current and future innovation because it has significant impact on future work, future society and future humanity. But why do I think that inclusion or want to move inclusion from a more of a HR perspective into a business imperative? There are actually many drivers, a global driver is causing the rethinking of inclusion from HR to business. One of the major trend that's happening is demographic. For the audience on this webcast, I don't know whether you know, but according to the United Nations studies, 15% of our population has some kind of a disability. So that translates to about 1.2 to 1.5 billion people on the planet Earth, which is about the equivalent size of the market of China. Everybody, of course, look to China to have, you know, to expand their business and growth, but you think about it, there's 1.5 billion people naturally born with some kind of disabilities. And then about 60 to 70% of us most likely in your lifetime will encounter either accident in some unfortunate cases, war that will create disability as well. And then on top of that, you have aging population. When you age, you naturally going to acquire disabilities and therefore your ability to, for example, function is going to be different. And in this case, technology can provide a tremendous augmentation or assistance to people with different abilities to fully participate in the economic independence. So this is one big reason why, you know, inclusion I mentioned earlier has to think about not just the person side, the human side, but also the technology side. Another major factor is the legislation. United States government actually is the leader in this area in that, back in the 1970s, United States signed the American Disability Act, which really ticked a that as a country, we want to make sure that the society and workplace and business is as inclusive as possible. So when it started out to be a very much a physical kind of focus. So for example, we all benefited from, you know, the ramp, you know, we're building and elevators and all that. Those are all direct results of American Disability Act. But now that kind of a thinking is applying to the digital side as well. The digital inclusion, meaning making sure that your technology infrastructure or internet infrastructure, your web, your mobile, your IOT, your cloud is as accessible to all citizens is becoming a very key focus of all governments. Leading again with the United States government. Now we have, for example, the procurement law such as Section 508, meaning that if you are a startup or enterprise want to deliver your services to the federal government, you have to declare whether your product services as accessible as possible. And the European Union, for example, this year just passed the European Accessibility Act. And then you got countries like Canada, Australia, even China, all beginning to pass a similar kind of legislation. Because as a, as a, I think as a society, especially at the government policy level, they recognize that, again, technology is underpinning everything. So it is very important we have the right legislation. And in some countries actually beginning to have enforcement to make sure that the digital barrier is not accidentally created. Again, an example is the country of Japan. In the past that the Japan government has dictated that, you know, you need to make your product and services as accessible. But some, you know, some companies chose to just pay the fine if you, but, you know, because sometimes it's maybe a little easier, you know, cost of doing business. But, but about a couple years ago, that the Japanese government had decided, no, we're not taking fines because that's too easy, you know, to, to, to get out. We want to see real hiring quotas and being really exercised. And by the way, the US has a Section 504 law on the, on the federal contractor to, in this case, to say that there should be a aspiring, aspiring goal of a 7.5% of the employee base should be people with disabilities. So these are just a data point of indicator that, that there are about 177 countries around the world now have signed the UN Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities. So what that means is this 177 countries over the next year or decade is going to begin to institute policies and legislations that will really monitor, in some cases really enforce, that digital inclusion is really in place. So as a business, as all of us are out there, you know, thinking about today, but certainly plan for tomorrow, then this topic of digital inclusion or authentic inclusion has to be top of mind. And another point is the social expectation. I think everybody recognize that as a society, we are really actually, it's a good thing that everybody is beginning to rise to the point where we want equality and not just in word, but indeed in action, right? When there is, when there is a disparity in equality, then you, you hear the voice coming out loud and clear and social media can certainly create a channel for kind of communicating that content. So if you are, again, as a business, it's very important your brand reputation, your brand equity has to be mindful that you are there to serve. I always, when I talk to my customer, I always say, are you serving the little C customer or are you serving the big C? Because every customer or every business owner or executive would say, we want our customer or our employee to be, you know, to be satisfied or happy with our services. But if you truly believe that's the intent, then you have to think about every one of us is very different and that have different wants and needs. And in this case, you really need to leverage technology to, you know, to support the quote unquote, the personalized services and expectation of the individuals. And, and which leads to the last point on the on the global drivers is on technology. We in the past 20 or 30 years, we have seen a significant shift of technology from what I call the back office, you know, a system, a kind of optimization model, which is where I started with IBM, you know, back in the late seventies and early eighties, that we sell mainframe computers that drives processing in the back end, like for example, banking, a tech processing system. But now technology has evolved, you know, to the front end in that everybody's carrying technology, you know, for example, on their iPhone in your pocket, right? So the technology now is moving to what we call the personalized experience era that everybody wants everything to be individualized or personalized. So again, if you talk about personalization with technology, then one has to think about human difference in humans and different of abilities. And again, and that's why I feel that, you know, having put in human first, back in into in this kind of inclusion or technology discussion is a must do. And I mentioned earlier that the technology is moving very quickly to a, in a world where everything is personalized. And therefore, if you are either a startup or you are a established Fortune 500 companies, you really have to think about, you know, how do you service this very diverse, what I call the market one now. In the old days, if you study marketing, people would say, let's do a segmentation, right? We have the baby boomers, we have the millennials, we have the Gen X, Gen Y, it usually is in these kind of a category and then you design your marketing campaign, your product services to that segment. But we are moving to what I call market one, in other words, very targeted selling. I mean, Amazon certainly has, you know, kind of perfected or led in that revolution is that, you know, they customize based on the data analytic as to what you want, right? Or suggest what you perhaps need to read or need to buy. And one can see very quickly, we're going to evolve to a world of technology where everybody will want not just the content on the knowledge, but also the experience of the product to be highly personalized. So if you're going to address that kind of personalization in the business executives, and also along with academia, really have to have a very strong awareness that we have to really teach ourselves and also our institution to really authentically, respect not just diversity as a kind of a slogan, but really understand why diversity, how to leverage diversity in a quote unquote action state so that it really help to drive the innovation. Because without kind of diversity point of view, you will not be able to have the kind of innovation that really address the market one of phenomenon. So based on this kind of kind of overarching drivers and also perspective on diversity, I, you know, I spent a lot of time thinking about what the technology future should look like, right? Again, like Ira mentioned, I worked in IBM Research for over a decade. And so really had an opportunity to work with the brightest and the sharpest, you know, scientists and researchers. And also now working as you know, strategy advisory companies, I spent a lot of time in the, you know, in the Silicon Valley with the startups and also with think tanks. And again, coming back is that we are definitely seeing a movement to put human back in the center. And that because the technology is becoming such way that the technology is becoming more human. And if the technology is becoming more human, then human has to become even more human in that we have to really understand what is the essence of the humanity, and that using that knowledge to create the next generation of society next generation work. And there are already a lot of work of the future studies coming out through McKinsey, through, you know, Ernst and EY. And many of them talked about in the future, the job is going to change, you know, very quickly, but some of the, what they call the soft skills, which is really the human skills, right? Empathy or creativities, things like hard to put in the box, but we all know is very essential. So, as we move along the technology design or technology development or deployment or testing the entire process, we have to think about how do we actually put human back in to make sure that it doesn't either derail into thinking like a machine or actually inadvertently creating bias. Another point that I think that we really should really kind of spend time thinking over and also take action is that if you think about the technology, you know, especially the internet, you know, the original intent of the internet is actually is to create democracy, right? Everybody have access to information. So, in a way, it's a very quintessential American idea, which is, you know, you know, whether it's the build of rise of US constitution really talked about, you know, we every human being in this society have an equal opportunity and equal access. So I think for the companies, especially US, you know, companies, or even in this case, you know, companies around the world, who really strive for the equality and quote unquote, the democracy in human kind of a participation, then we have to think about, you know, the technology by designing human, by having human first kind of thinking that we really create a technology for all the people and then by all the people. And then at the same time, we are at, I think, an inflection point in the society because the technology in the past 20 years certainly contributed to the convenience, the productivity, but, you know, it also has accelerated the society in pursuit of profit, right? We have seen that without balancing of a profit and a purpose or principle that there could be a real imbalance of opportunities. And that again, I think, if we start really authentically thinking about the top of inclusion, either in institution like a business or academia, then we have to think about, can we institute or begin to think about a new construct, a business construct that really put, you know, the profit and purpose in a more alignment or value alignment, right? MicroPorter actually had a Harvard Business Review paper about 10 years ago. I talked about that basically capitalism, as we know it today, will not exist or cannot exist unless we have a better alignment of a shareholder value against profit. I think we're at the point where we really have to think hard about, you know, perhaps it should be a new model. And that's why there is this idea in my book I talked about in the Silicon Valley. There is this beginning thinking that maybe Fortune 500, which completely focused on profit, should begin to evolve into impact 500, meaning it's not just about the profit, but what is the value you bring to the society and what is the purpose. By the way, to a data point, on this kind of a concept, some may think, oh, this is too aspirational in this society today, you know, Francis, you may be just kind of a dreamer. But this year at the World Economic Forum in Davos, for the first time, the topic of disability or inclusion made the list, so to speak. And then there is actually a movement called Valuable 500, which actually asking key global, you know, 500 executives to think about should this topic of inclusion, especially people with disability, it should be part of the board agenda. So this is, again, World Economic Forum, we all recognize that they're kind of, you know, forward-looking, you know, organization that everybody looked to to provide some kind of guidance as a future of the development economy. So for them to take on this topic this year, I think it's significant. And the second point on return on innovation, you know, I mean, I've been in the business for 30 plus years, and we all understand the return on investment is crucial, right? But as I think about the topic, especially talking, think about the work of the future, the society of the future, I really feel like that perhaps we need to introduce another dimension, which is, you know, what I call the return on innovation. Because innovation is something, it's, you know, in my view, it's almost like a research, you know, usually innovation is tied to research, and sometimes that's a longer horizon, more than a quarter, right? And yet this is crucial because innovation that would impact all of us, business or society, is worth spending the time, is worth to have that patience to think about. Because, you know, simply, you know, example is that, for example, we have seen the social media come about very, very quickly, you know, just within the past 10 years, you know, Facebook is so pervasive, everybody uses, and we really didn't think about, think ahead, you know, no fault of, you know, the Facebook founder or anything, they, you know, basically operated in a real time, and it was a great opportunity for this new technology to introduce to society. But now we're beginning to see some of the impact, for example, cyber bullying and all that. So for every action, there is a reaction. When we talk about how the technologies impact humanity or human, then we may want to stop and think about a little bit longer term, and really have a little bit of patience, and really have a more of a holistic stakeholder, you know, entirety or kind of approach to thinking than just, you know, more or kind of a single measurement or metrics of profit or dollar cents. So this actually leads to the cross of my thinking, and also what my book is about, is that I also feel that, you know, inclusion, right now, in many cases, they talked about as a program, right? Like we have an inclusion or diversity inclusion program. But in my way of thinking, if we're authentically, I mean the key word authentically, when I say authentically, meaning we really put our money where our mouth is, and that day in and day out, inclusion becomes a real reality of operational reality, right? Not an aspirational reality, but an operational reality. Then we have to do it differently. So, you know, on this chart, I laid out, you know, their action needs to be taken, for example, at the very top in the boardroom with the C-suite, the CEOs, and the board members, just like in your company or your institution's vision, and your strategic imperatives, is something like inclusion and diversity is included as part of your, you know, overarching, you know, important thing to do. My career was with IBM, and I can tell you that, you know, if you look back at history, you know, TJ Watson, in this case, would, you know, kind of declare that diversity is the key kind of a theme of IBM as a company. And today, you look at a Microsoft, you know, the CEO, he personally, you know, wrote a book about, you know, about his own personal journey and the recognition of how diversity it is, how important it is. And so, this is kind of an example about the highest level leaders really going out and declaring that this is a strategic imperative, and then the rest of the company actually build their product and services around it. And again, if you look at, you know, just recently, Microsoft has come out with, for example, gaming devices for Xbox that is optimized for children with disabilities. What a great example of an operationalized, you know, kind of inclusion from the very top. And then research and innovation. This is an area that, you know, we all have to be very conscious about inclusion. I mean, they are definitely a lot of talk, for example, about artificial intelligence, AI fairness, unconscious bias. My hope is that, you know, there are a lot, a lot of conferences and seminars in this kind of topic. The best way to do that is making sure that when you think about research and innovation, when you talk about gender biases, you actually have people that potentially will have, you know, be impacted, you know, negatively of this kind of a topic, be part of your, you know, research and innovation team. So, again, in this case, what do I mean? I mean, if you're going to research AI for gender, you better make sure that, you know, a woman is part of your design thinking, right? Same thing with this technology. If you really want to have inclusion, then make sure you, for example, have, you know, people who are blind or deaf, you know, or cognitive challenge with autism as part of your research and innovation team. Don't involve them only as a user, for example, as a testing, but you really engage them at the very front end. Same thing with the product design and development. Again, this is when you really operationalize your inclusion, right? I mean, there are steps that could be taken, especially on the design side, that could be very easily implemented. But if it's not thought ahead of time, could create real downstream problem. Some of you probably noticed my chart is very simple, basically, you know, text and with no picture. Why am I doing that? Because if there is a blind person on this webinar, and it makes it very easy to switch from text to speech, for him or her to follow along. But if I use a lot of pictures, you know, for those of you who can see the pictures, you will get the context. But then for people who are low vision or who are blind, you know, they were lost out. So, and also you can see that the text font size is quite large. And it's not necessarily for blind. It's for myself. I don't know, Ira, whether you agree or not. But the font size, as you get older, you know, matters. Oh, I appreciate it. Thank you. Not to call you out about your aging challenge. But this is a great example of how when you design for, for example, with accessibility, might actually benefit everything. I always say mobile device like iPhone, and, you know, has really helped us to understand digital accessibility, because the font size, the color contrast, for example, you're walking out in the sunlight, if the color contrast of your apps is not designed correctly, you can't see, right? So there are many, many nuances that for that human experience that could be brought in, and that if you're going to do a design workshop or do a customer journey, you know, make sure that you have people with the constituents that you really, really want to serve is included in that process. And marketing and sales, again, there is a tremendous brand kind of equity, and the differentiation can be had going back to the example of a Microsoft. If you go back to watch their 2019 Super Bowl ad, you know, it's all about, you know, children using this Xbox. And I can tell you, I think they were ranked one of the top ads, you know, Super Bowl, because they're very expensive. So people always, you know, want to see whether they get their return on their investment. But in this case, I think it's a great example of how the branding is definitely there. And then you also, we also, in my book, I also talked about Tommy Hilfiger, which is the fashion house. And they have designed a runway of dreams, a basic series of adaptive closing. So for example, instead of having buttons using velcros, right? So it's easy for people with some mobility challenge to put on their clothing. And but that works again for aging population as well. So there is marketing, differentiation, and then there is direct sales benefits. And I think McKinsey had done a report that the company that really, you know, operationalized, you know, kind of diversity, on average, you have like a 30% higher profit margin than companies who are not. So we definitely can see the direct correlation between inclusion and profit. And then information technology, you know, the IT or the CIO office. I mean, to me, this is actually one of the foundational play that in today's world a lot, when you talk about inclusion, I actually did a research when I first, you know, I just typed in the Google the word inclusion and CIO. Unfortunately, there aren't that many hits. Like when you type in inclusion, you hit HR, you know, human resources and a lot. But CIO, CTO, not so much. But to me, again, if you're going to be authentically a company that want to hire people with different abilities, then you better make sure your workplace infrastructure is accessible. And that you have the right technology accommodation to do that. Again, today's webinar, I hope that, you know, we'll have a chance to have a caption, right? Because this is again, it asks for the value that people of different language capabilities, or just in general, you know, wanting to hear what I have to say versus, you know, watching me. Those are kind of little things that technologists like the CIO and CTO can put into their organization and to make the differentiation and also make it truly inclusive. Last but not the least, the HR organization or legal, you know, I mean, legal in the sense that, and they are, like I mentioned earlier, there are laws on the books. And you actually don't want to be sued, for example, for creating digital barriers. The famous case of a target back in, I think, 2006 was that a Berkeley student who was blind would like to do online shopping to target as the school year was about to begin. And the target website was not accessible. So in the end, they settled the case, whether that became like a landmark case, because the debate was that with ADAs or American Disability Act declaration is internet a marketplace, right? So the debate between the defense and the plaintiff is that, okay, ADAs declaration only apply to physical building. And here we are talking about a, you know, virtual access, so therefore should not apply. But in this case, the judge in California Health Health, the lawsuit in the state, no, you know, internet is a marketplace. And therefore, the, you know, the same kind of thinking should apply. So again, working with HR and the corporate functions, but the key point on this is that we really, in order to be authentically inclusive, it has to be a holistic 360 degree operation to make a play, to make it real. Now, the, you know, so the inclusion topic, again, in many cases, is about, you know, one one constituency, whether it's in this case, it could be women's group or, or a different religious background group, or in my most kind of place where I spend most of the time and people with disability talk about inclusion, but fundamentally, we each individual had the responsibility and has the opportunity to be, you know, inclusive, right? I mean, in other words, individual have to take action to reach out, in my case, as a first generation, non-English speaking, female in technology. In my early 20s, I was actually working in Michigan, in the middle of state of Michigan. And, you know, frankly, at that time it was completely all white male, right? And it was upon me to really, you know, do my due diligence and do my work to really reach out to connect with my customer base. And in return, we created, you know, kind of a very, you know, prosperous, you know, win-win relationship. So I think the responsibility of inclusion actually start with the individual. But then in an organization context, which is what I'm talking about, authentic inclusion, you know, as line managers, you actually have very important roles because your hiring decision can create diversity or not, right? And I always jokingly said that, you know, because, you know, LinkedIn, for example, sent you all kinds of job posting or examples and all that. Every time when I hear the word cultural fit, I just shudder a little bit because cultural fit means that you're looking for people that, you know, fits your culture. But by definition, potentially you're excluding people with a different point of view. So I think the line manager actually holds a lot of key to making sure that the organization is truly diverse or not. And then the executives, right? You actually own the resources, you own the money, frankly, and people. So again, going back to my earlier chart, is this part of your organization imperative or strategic imperative? It is very important. Again, there was a research done that in today's world, talked about changing kind of a social expectation. Deloitte did a research and they actually found that 39%, close to 40% of kind of a millennial or younger generation say that they will leave an organization if they feel that they are not really truly inclusive in their value, in their leadership. So that's 40%. So the retention of talent could be a big issue if you're at the executive level is not, you know, talk to talk, you can talk to talk but you got to walk the talk. And finally, last but not the least is organization. There has to be governance and policies and also measurement metrics put in place. Because like I mentioned, I really believe inclusion should be viewed as a business imperative. And every business imperative, you know, cannot succeed or cannot sustain and cannot scale unless you have metrics. So organization, policies and governance is just as important because that creates a framework for sustainability. So my bottom line kind of a thinking and also the message to to customers that I advise is that you really if you want sustained profitability, you know, then you really have to in this world, especially going forward, today's you have to think about the principle and purpose alignment in addition to this profit. But if you do principle, meaning that your your decree and your Etho of your company is truly, you know, authentic, and then you can clearly articulate your purpose, then the profit will come along. Again, Steve Jobs gave a very good speech at MIT's graduation in 2017. He talked about he actually was kind of a bit of a wandering soul until he he, you know, ended up being in Apple, not Steve Jobs, and said Tim Cook, I'm sorry, Tim Cook, Tim Cook until he until he went into Apple, and then you found purpose, you know, in the sense that, you know, in this case, you know, Apple's kind of whole goal is to make the technology simple and easy to use by everybody, and that how that really motivated him to continue to transform the company and drive himself, you know, to to the next height. So I think that this kind of a value alignment, especially in today's world is more than ever being important. And then if we do all these, if we truly not just believe, but we actually operationalize inclusion, then talent acquisition, business differentiation, and especially market expansion. I earlier I mentioned, you know, there is 1.3 billion people in this world. I mean, associate, you know, disposable income is $8 trillion, right? So there is everybody in business talk about the green field or the white space. There is a huge space could be had if we if we begin to design in, you know, inclusion, then your product and service can reach all the market. And again, I will give you one last example, like country of China, is actually taking, for example, the digital inclusion very seriously. Now they don't have American Disability Act, right? But they realize that one of their financial company and financial, which is a mobile payment system, when they came out of the mobile app was not accessible to blind consumers. So a couple of consumer complaints, they immediately decided to hire blind people to join their design team, because they realized there's opportunity to be had. So they were actually invited to speak at UN just this earlier this year about their journey accessibility or, you know, disability inclusion. So this phenomenon is not a theoretical or feel good kind of a charity philanthropy kind of a topic, which by the way, a lot of times when you talk about accessibility or disability, people immediately like, Oh, yes, I will donate. No, this is not a charity play. This is a business imperative play. Why now? Our future work, future society, and frankly, the humanity depends on that we now really authentically introduce not just the thinking, but operational principle into our day to day execution of our business plan. And it's only, in my view, way of thinking is that if we have that kind of alignment of putting human back as a human first, that we can truly affect the society at large, and that making sure the next generation of technology, whether it's internet or things, especially artificial intelligence or VR, AR, all have a people as the as the center of the purpose of the technology. So my last chart is that people say, Well, why do you feel so strongly about this topic? And like I mentioned, you know, I hope that people realize that in my case, I had a very good career in IBM. But my last job as the Chief Justice of the officer was most fulfilling job, and I decided to major on this. So I put the money where my mouth is basically, I bet my own career on it. And they all come back to, I think going back to way back when I was growing up in Taiwan, as a Chinese student, we were taught this Confucius idea of the Great Way. The Great Way means that it's a society where there's actually a place for everyone. So in a way, it is a inclusion of all kind of thinking that kind of is part of my my being, because I'm talking about human first topic. And that and it is my hope that through my years of working and now have an opportunity to, you know, provide, you know, speaking and also engagement opportunity like this, that the digital promise can be delivered to to all people around the world. So with that, I think we have about 15 minutes left. I'm going to turn the podium back to Ira. Thank you, Francis. And great conversation. I want to remind people before we get into the questions that if you do have a question, you want to submit it right now, use the Q&A feature or the chat box, which everyone is more comfortable. And we will start with a question from another Francis who wants to know, and I guess your question is, we know that serving poor people is always expensive for businesses, which most times forces many to creating niche or focus on markets with capacity to pay. How can this be addressed when building develop or developing an inclusive innovation? Well, I think the the cost of if you cost of serving can come down. Again, if you look at the common needs and wants of the of the people, right? So the niche product became niche because there is not an awareness that some of the application can be broad can be broad based. And this is an example, you know, in the accessibility world, a lot of times we heard about the curb cut, right? The curb cut through the American Disability Act, people view that as very expensive that when you when you build a street, you have to build a curb cut, you know, extra. But then what they realize is once you have the curb cut built, you know, most people who use that are not people in wheelchair is a bicyclist, right? Or people with a stroller or business people lugging their luggage, you know, New York City, right? So again, I think part of the is really having the foresight to recognize that every time when you say, Well, this is this expensive. Are you looking at the are you looking at the solution broadly enough? Are you bringing other people to actually help you think the application of that product services and how it can be universally applied? So I think I think that broadening the on the business side, broadening the perspective of the use that use case is actually very important. That's why one of the things I'm really pushing for is that we need to have the diversity of inclusion in the front end design phase of any company's endeavor. Because otherwise, you pitch and hold yourself into a thinking very narrowly. And therefore, by definition, the cost of cost of goods going to be high. And actually, I have a follow up question to that, Francis. In this case back to where do you start? You know, what are the, you know, the practical ways to implement the principles that we're talking about here in a workplace. And you mentioned that it needs to be a top down. It needs to have board buy-in. But how does, you know, how do managers ensure that their efforts aren't, you know, authentic? And where do they start? Is it at the design process? Well, I think the design certainly, but I think the, again, it's really, I believe that you kind of have to, you have to lead by example, right? We talked about brand equities and all that. But you really cannot be authentic unless you, for example, hire employee with diversity, first and foremost. So a logical space to really operationalize, frankly, is your technology infrastructure, your workplace technology. So that definition actually, I mean, that responsibility actually usually is associated with the CIO or the CTO. So I guess I can share that in my work, when I took over the accessibility organization, actually where I spend most of my time is with the CIO office and trying to see how we can make sure that, you know, the all employees around the world will have the kind of equal access. But the key though is that the discussion with the CIO cannot, again, be theoretical, right? I mean, in this case, we actually involved all our employees with different disabilities to be almost like our advisors and help prioritize, which is another thing. You're absolutely right. I mean, where do you start? I mean, you don't have unlimited resources. So you have to be able to prioritize. But the prioritization itself, it's, it can be a very good, again, process to help to bring people together and help to make the decision. I get the decision buy-in. And good, because I think that's a follow up question. And sort of how do you get the buy-in for human first approach to business? And it sounds like that is the way to achieve that sort of buy-in in the organization. Yeah, the buy-in, that's why I am doing a lot of speaking and engagement is that fundamentally has that addition and desire has to come from the very top. I mean, the process actually is, I won't say it's not that hard. I mean, there are many examples. You got, like I said, I mentioned a company like Microsoft and you, in financial services, you have Barclay Banks or JP Morgan Chase. Many companies are beginning to be on this journey. So this is not a new topic. But if you don't have the very top, understand really organically that this is not a, it's not just a kind of a diversity officer's job, but it's his job to lead. And then his job to declare that we want to hire diversity or making diversity talent as part of our number one. And also our marketing campaign, for example, to our customers as our number one priority, then it will be more challenging. Just to shift gears a little bit, Frances, you mentioned some companies that you cited as good examples of addressing authentic inclusion as a fundamental business strategy and plan and not a HR checklist. And Microsoft, I think IBM, I'm just wondering if you have other companies that you would cite also, and you mentioned, of course, what China is doing. But I think for the audience, if they could relate and touch, you know, I think it's easier if you could cite some other examples of companies or products and services, where do you see that happening in the marketplace? Well, I think, again, I mean, I mentioned IBM and Microsoft, these are like a super large companies, right? But then they are actually emerging companies, small startups, right? I mean, Aira, A-I-R-A, check them out, A-I-R-A.io, they have gotten, you know, more recognition in the past year or two than anybody else. I mean, the startup company, Basin, San Diego, I'm very actually honored to be an advisor to that company, but they created a wearable device, kind of a Google Glass equivalent, to help people navigate the world, a low vision and blind people to navigate the world using wireless technology, using what they call the agent-based system. So basically, a person will be in foreign places through the video feed, an agent will come on and will speak, you know, through the Bluetooth to the person and navigate around. And it's a great way of using, you know, cloud technology, artificial intelligence, wearable, you name it. And they are getting all kinds of recognition. So this is an example of how innovation that matters, right? And then you have other companies, like, you know, like for example, in New York City, you have a studio analogous is a branding company. And now it's beginning to really focus on inclusive branding, right? Because the CEO, they recognize that this is an area that, you know, is not going to go away. So I think for large companies, even for startup companies, this kind of a human centered thinking and design is beginning to, you know, bubble up, you know, all around. So I think, I think for the audience, if you just begin to Google, Google or just to check on this topic, you will see that there's a lot of best practices and there's conferences coming up this year's South by Southwest. Check out South by Southwest 2019. There's a whole accessibility and inclusion track. And you will see, you know, all the way from a accessible city to, you know, a blind chef, you know, how she does cooking. There's many, many variety of companies are beginning to, you know, come into this space. Good. And I think we have time for one more question. And I'm going to go back to what you said about your first job with IBM. And I guess it was a system 370 mainframe back in the day and you were working in Michigan. And you had to connect with the classic white male environment in IT at the time. Thankfully things have changed. But I'm curious for the audience, how did you connect with what I assume would be so different, such different backgrounds? Right. So yeah, it was in, so my office was in Grand Rapids, Michigan, but all my accounts were in Mosquiton, Michigan, and a town near the Great Lakes region. And all my accounts were hardcore manufacturing accounts. Like Teledon Continental, they built tank engines. So I will walk down the shop floor. I mean, back then, you know, IBMers, at least women, you wear dresses, you know, you wear skirts, you never wear pants. There's no pants to nation, you know, even 25 degree below zero in the winter of Michigan, you wear skirts and you walk through the shop floor. And I remember, you know, and I was, you know, in my 20s, you know, how do you even engage? So I did some study and realized that a lot of my customers in Michigan in the wintertime, what do you do? You, there's nothing much you can do except ice fishing, right? So I ran out a little bit of ice fishing. By the way, I grew up in Taipei, in Hong Kong, you know, which is like a metropolitan area like New York City. I've never, never came, never fished in my life. But I always start my conversation asking my customer, you know, how's ice fishing going? You know, how do you do that? And you know, I mean, and of course always bring a big spy on their face, and they will spend, you know, half the time telling me about their fishing experience. And that's how I connected as a, you know, we connected as a human base. And then I start to tell them that they need to upgrade their, you know, system 370 145 computer from five, you know, you know, 500 megabytes to one, you know, whatever, you know, the main frame storage. So I think connecting at the human first level is really the key for me, at least to break down a lot of those barriers. But I would still say that those, those experience back in Michigan days really taught me a lot about personally how to operationalize the inclusion. That's great. So you never went ice fishing, I take it? No, no. Oh, but they, I do get the benefit of that. I mean, toward the end, every season I will get smoked steelheads or, you know, different kind of fish from my customer. That's great. And friends, I want to thank you for a great session and actually sharing your experience. And I think our attendees have learned a lot. I want to hold a copy of your book and tell people that if they're interested, it's available online and through your website and also obviously through Amazon. And I recommend it heartily. Again, thank you for your time. And I think helping our audience to understand this topic and I think find ways to include a much broader audience in the development of their work. Thank you for inviting me. And thank you everyone for attending. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.