 Thank you so much. It's so great to be here. I just want to say thank you on behalf of enable ventures, which is the first impact venture fund dedicated to closing the disability wealth gap and You know, it seems and it is actually rather improbable that I'm here at all I mean when you think about it less than two percent of venture capital is invested in female founders and entrepreneurs about About 11 percent of fund managers or women in a field where about 40 percent of VCs went to two schools and live in three cities You know, it's so improbable that I'm here You can't even imagine Because I'm working on issues that involve a group of people that we very rarely ever discuss at Convenience like this what an amazing thing it is that we're here today discussing the disability wealth gap But the improbability runs deep of my presentation today because you know In a situation where the field is so limited in diversity it really takes It really takes the support of a platform like the Sorenson impact platform To back a fund like ours enable ventures, which is one of the first Sorenson impact funds The improbability runs deep because I had a different life than my mother and my grandmothers I had access to an education that was different than theirs and You know growing up. I was often accused of being able to tuck the doors off a barn The bark off a tree So naturally I became a trial attorney and When I was a trial attorney, I represented the interests of people with disabilities across the United States I worked at the US Justice Department. I Filed the nation's first cases on behalf of workers who in the 21st century earned Subminimum wages on the basis of their disability. I I I've worked across the United States evaluating and learning and Understanding and meeting with people with a range of disabilities in a range of employment settings And what I can tell you over the course of that career my early career Was that people with disabilities are so disproportionately? Participants in an economy that involves rote manual work at the precise time that we are in an era of technological change digital revolution and different remote and flexible ways of working I Met people who had disabilities related to communication Who desired to work but lacked appropriate technology to communicate with their employers? I met people who had master's degrees Who were cutting pieces of rubber and sorting pieces of wood? Because they lacked access to skills training they lacked access to technological Technological tools that would help them compete in the global economy Today across the world There are 1.5 billion people with disabilities and rising and Nearly two-thirds of working-age people with disabilities are not in the labor market not employed You might ask yourself how a specialist In a particular category of labor and employment ended up on the stage Let me tell you something This is not a specialty topic this involves you and It involves you because what is disability? Disability is the human condition If you don't have a disability today, you are likely in your lifetime to age into one disability not only spans the gamut of age and human experience But it spans the gamut of our society People with intellectual emotional developmental disabilities mental and When we look at the age that we're living in we're living in an age In which we are all becoming more socialized to the need for flexibility and work The need for accommodation. We just lived through a mass disability event There are more people with chronic conditions with long COVID with the opportunity to request work in a different format education in a different way and What that all means to me is that there is an opportunity That doesn't come along very often for this group here today There's a multi-billion person demand for Inclusive products and services in our economy There's a rising generation of people in the United States and across the world That have experienced two things at the same time over the past 30 plus years And that is they've come of age in a world where they have acquired civil rights The ADA is 32 years old In that age they've acquired civil rights at the precise moment that there was a digital revolution At the precise moment the digital technology became So ubiquitous that 97% of people carry around a supercomputer in their pocket How is it that we live in a world in which we have a group of people that comprises a multi-billion person population That is over represented in manual skills labor and employment But I've got good news today I've got tremendous news that this rising generation is demanding more of themselves and society To include but not just to be included to lead When we look at what technology does for us Technology has the ability Has the ability to widen inequality or to advance radical inclusion And who are going to be the leaders in deciding which direction it goes? Well, what we're seeing is that there are people who are advancing the concept of human-centered design of Universal design inclusive design what it means that there are founders and entrepreneurs with disabilities here and across the world that are planning Pieces of technology that will reduce inequality that will drive changes in the global economy to include people in new career paths in new ways of working in new ways of Economically participating and they will do it because we'll reach a wider consumer market. They're stress testing products and services to include more people and Exclude fewer people their thinking of products and services is as the opportunity to build on ramps for people that have been historically left out overlooked Denied the opportunity to participate What that does is it reaches deep into the heart of the consumer market? It includes not just people with disabilities, but other consumers When you think about the last half century of innovation even a hundred years of innovation disability has its fingerprints on the things that we hold dear as Items of rapid innovation You know the typewriter who was an individual an Italian inventor who was blind Trying to write his friend and loved one a letter You know Alexander Graham Bell. He was obsessed with sound and acoustics because his parents were deaf His family members were deaf When we talk about SS SMS texting it came from a deaf gentleman trying to order a pizza When we're talking about the internet the backbone of the internet Was a disability innovation? Many of the things that you hold dear your electric toothbrush your audio books Sliding doors cruise control disability innovations. Why were those innovations so successful? Because the idea from their conception was to make the user experience more friendly To design in a way that has everyone in mind From the beginning to put our humanity and our personhood at the center of why we create Why we innovate for whom we innovate? The interesting thing about that is that so often until now inequality has been widened Because there have been so few people who invest in so few people who make in so few consumers who are served This is all about to change There's a multi-billion person demand for that to change There is a demand for assistive technology around the world One in nine people who have a technological need To help remove barriers to their daily lives and have a disability don't have the tech they need and Yet there's this rising group of founders with disabilities around the world who are tired of waiting for Godot They're not going to wait for somebody else to create a technology inaccessibly and sell it to them only to be remediated on the back end These founders are making their own way to build Inclusively not only to solve for their own impediments to economic participation But to drive economic participation in your life To improve civil society To improve the experience in the marketplace What we know to be true about disability today is That not only are nearly two-thirds of people with disabilities not employed Who are of working age? But that lack of employment has driven a two trillion dollar hole in the global economy in GDP That's a white space in our market That two trillion dollar hole is accompanied by a poverty dashboard that should make you sit up straight in your chair Nearly half of people in the United States who have disabilities Nearly half of people in long-term poverty in the United States have disabilities less than 1% of micro finance is accounted for in Accessing the disability population What we are dealing with is 40% unbanked underbanked individuals with disabilities with lack of access to commercial credit even fewer people with access to small business loans and Yet we know We know and understand that disability has always had a front-row seat It's been on the front lines of innovation in this country. The only thing that has been lacking Conspicuously is access to capital access to capital where talent lives throughout this country and throughout the world And what we're going to see today is a real game-changer on this stage later today You're going to meet five entrepreneurs who are working in the disability market. They represent many many people who aren't here today and It asks it makes us ask a question Why are they here now and why weren't they at Socap in the previous? previous 15 years The answer is that we need to have the intentionality to build on ramps to the economy We need to Intention our capital and our commitment into innovations that are lying in plain sight They're here today because we have built on ramps to Socap This venue was inaccessible until this year This stage was inaccessible until this year Our founders are demonstrably moved by our invitation to be here But that's just the beginning they will be moved by the opportunity to tell you about their companies and The solutions that they're advancing in the world They can make it here for the first time not in the audience but on the stage Why do you care? Why should you care? Here's why you should care When we talk about disability We're talking about DEI When we talk about disability we're talking about the front door to the economy People with disabilities are women people with disabilities are people of color. It's the one Social identity group that you can join at any time and that is so deeply intersectional with all other groups When you want to put human potential and human capital at the center of your investment portfolio You need to look at the whole human You need to look at the whole human experience Our founders are putting the human experience at the center of tech the center of innovation The center of the future of the economy who participates and who doesn't This is a real opportunity For the capital markets a real opportunity to see people who haven't been Seen before to the degree that they will in the future as innovators as makers as creators And we're very excited. We're very excited to welcome you to our panel this afternoon with our founders Thank you