 I'm a born and bred New Yorker. I've lived in the city my entire life. And I've been at Google now for 12, going on 13 years. Summer of 2009, July 29th, I was taking my usual morning walk through Central Park. But that day, I never got to work. As I was walking through the park, a dead limb fell at the exact moment that I was walking underneath that tree onto my head. After being more or less in a coma for a month and having a number of surgeries and many things to bring me back from the brink, nobody knows what they're going to get. Nobody can see what's inside. But I knew I was in there, that I felt the same. The body certainly felt awfully different. But what I came to see, what I came to learn about was that there's a whole hidden world out there in this very city that I grew up in that's very excluding and endangering to people with disabilities. And I came to realize, oh snap, this place that I was already working and slowly was able to get back to, Google Maps, Google Maps that a lot of people use to get around doesn't work for people like me. Sure, I could look up directions, I could look up a restaurant to go to, but it didn't say, is a wheelchair accessible? Can I get in the door? Can I go to the bathroom? So we started to assemble what I lovingly still refer to as my Ragtag team of 20%ers. We were able along that way with that Ragtag committed group to put together things that weren't just barely a demo but were really features that could go on Maps. And I'm proud to have been part of that. The idea that I always try to raise when I'm in a position to talk to people and get it in their consciousness is the curb cut effect. Curb cuts are the technical name for those little ramps at the edge of curbs and cities on sidewalks. Those little things that you use when you're rolling your luggage or your stroller or your wheelchair or your delivery cart. When you build things to protect and enable the most vulnerable people it helps a lot more. Putting wheelchair accessibility on Maps is a curb cut. The concept is also known more as universal design. Build in the way that enables the maximum number of people to benefit and build thoughtfully. Plenty more work to do. No doubt about that. We're still after it. We're at the barricades. We're out there and we're making our voices heard and it makes all the difference to know that you're not in alone and to form those groups and find those allies at Google around New York, in the world, in the legal world and to know that is indescribably enormously empowering and whether we get there tomorrow, the next day, the next year to know you're making progress and that you have allies and people who've got your back makes all the difference and makes you want to keep after it.