Want AI that works the first time instead of the tenth? We sit down with Andreas Schachl, co-founder of Responsible Annotation Services, to unpack the quiet truth behind reliable models: ethical, high-quality training data produced by people who take clarity and precision seriously. Andreas shares how a single internship sparked a company built around neurodivergent talent, turning data labeling from a churn task into a strategic advantage.

We walk through why annotation isn’t going anywhere, even with foundation models and smarter tools. When you’re training on private, business-owned data across text, images, audio, video, and LiDAR, you need a human in the loop and documentation you can defend. Andreas explains how his team co-authors rigorous annotation handbooks with clients, translating fuzzy goals into exact rules, edge cases, and review procedures. The payoff is real: higher consistency, fewer iterations, and a clear compliance trail for regulators and auditors.

Bias mitigation becomes a practice, not a promise. A neurodivergent lens exposes hidden assumptions and pushes for instructions that are unambiguous and testable. We explore practical systems—daily stand-ups, structured chat, and even “coffee calls” with agendas—that help people do their best focused work. We also confront the ethics of the global annotation supply chain and outline a different path: EU contracts, fair wages, social worker support, and leadership that values diligence over hype. From 2D images to complex 3D point clouds, we show how modern tooling plus human judgment builds AI you can trust.

If you care about responsible AI, data quality, and making models perform sooner with less guesswork, this conversation is your blueprint. Subscribe, share with a colleague wrestling with training data, and leave a review with your biggest annotation challenge—we’ll tackle it in a future episode.

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What does it take to make inclusion real for 420,000 people across 55 countries? We sit down with Karine Vasselin, Group Head of Inclusive Futures at Capgemini, to unpack a pragmatic playbook that turns diversity into business value and culture into daily practice. Karine shares how a simple shift in language—“inclusive futures for all”—opened the door for everyone to see themselves in the work, from parents and caregivers to neurodivergent colleagues and people with disabilities.

Across the conversation, we dig into the tools and choices that matter most. Inclusion Circles give managers semi-guided, scenario-based conversations that build psychological safety and shared norms without adding corporate fluff. Employee networks—Women@Capgemini, OutFront, Capability, and NeuroAbility—move beyond awareness to shape policies like safer travel guidance and inclusive benefits that recognize all families. We also examine hard-won lessons from neurodiversity pilots: why early enthusiasm ran into real-world friction, how smaller cohorts and expert partners like Auticon and Ambitious about Autism changed outcomes, and what it takes to scale responsibly.

AI runs as a hopeful throughline. For many neurodivergent and disabled employees, generative AI behaves like assistive tech—organizing ideas, clarifying communication, summarizing meetings, and removing friction through captions and text-to-speech. But tools alone can’t fix culture. We talk hiring pipelines, role design, advancement, and the manager skills needed to spot bias and coach diverse teams. Karine also offers career advice for future inclusion leaders: build credibility through business and talent experience, and learn to influence without authority.

If you care about practical inclusion, leadership training that sticks, and using AI to expand access rather than entrench bias, this conversation delivers a clear blueprint you can adapt tomorrow. Subscribe, share with a colleague who leads teams, and leave a review with one policy you’d change to make work truly work for everyone.

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What if accessibility wasn’t a checkpoint but a capability baked into every release? We sit down with Shlomit Shteyer, a technical program leader at Salesforce, to explore how large organizations make accessibility real, measurable, and scalable without slowing product velocity. Her journey from shipping features at Twitter to building accessibility programs offers a candid look at turning strategy into operations and aligning teams around customer impact.

We unpack the practical models that work at scale: start with a centralized core to set standards, then grow embedded expertise through a Champion Program that upskills engineers, designers, and PMs. Shlomit explains why this blend beats false either-or choices and how it creates durable habits across design, development, testing, and release. Executive commitment proves decisive. At Salesforce, accessibility targets sit in the annual planning framework, right alongside feature delivery and security, so teams have time, tools, and a clear definition of success.

AI enters the story as a helpful colleague, not a shortcut. Think agentic assistance that flags issues early, suggests accessible patterns, and speeds remediation while leaving accountability with humans. We also look at a shifting market reality: customers now demand accessibility at contract time, moving organizations from reactive bug-fixing to proactive, compliant design. Collaboration across companies is a surprising superpower too, with leaders openly sharing training methods, metrics, and automation approaches to raise the bar industry-wide.

From global, inclusive training formats to positioning accessibility within the broader trust layer—security, availability, sustainability—this conversation offers a roadmap for leaders who want impact, not slogans. Shlomit’s advice is grounded and human: cultivate curiosity, connect your strengths to work that matters, and build systems that make good choices the default. If you’re scaling accessibility or looking for a place to start, this episode will give you frameworks, language, and momentum.

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A single UX critique and one candid email from a blind traveler set off a chain reaction inside Skyscanner: a grassroots movement, a formal program, and a culture that treats accessibility as core product quality. We sit down with Heather Hepburn—Head of Accessibility at Skyscanner and co-founder of the Champions of Accessibility Network—to unpack how real user stories, practical structure, and community energy turn good intentions into measurable change.

Heather walks us through the early days: a quiet Slack channel, a room of curious allies, and leadership’s turning point when they saw how exclusion blocks customers from booking. From there, she shows how to make momentum stick—creating a champions pathway with training and one-to-ones, appointing a lead accessibility engineer to anchor the technical depth, and sharing hard-won patterns with partners and peers. We also explore the CAN community on LinkedIn, a sales-free space where thousands swap tactics, tools, and encouragement.

Education is the other engine. Heather explains how Teach Access Europe connects industry and universities to weave accessibility into computer science and UX curricula, supporting lecturers with resources and realistic assessment. We spotlight hands-on university collaborations: student projects centered on accessibility, live sessions with a disabled testing panel, and the Skyscanner Accessibility and Inclusion Award that elevates practical solutions, like tools for dyslexic learners. The message is clear: when students graduate with inclusive habits, teams ship better products faster.

We close by taking accessibility beyond the usual echo chambers—onto travel industry stages and into business schools—meeting leaders where they are with clear demos, data, and language that resonates with strategy, risk, and growth. Want to help build the next wave of inclusive tech? Join the Champions of Accessibility Network on LinkedIn, explore teachaccess.org/europe, and share this conversation with a colleague who signs off on roadmaps or curriculums. If this episode moved you, subscribe, leave a review, and tell us where you’ll start change today.

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AI can empower without overstepping, but only if we design with people, not for them. We sit down with Christopher Patnoe, Head of Disability Innovation for Google EMEA, to unpack what’s working inside Google’s Accessibility Discovery Centers and why cross-company collaboration is speeding up inclusive tech. From hands-on demos that reframe complex info for neurodivergent thinkers to camera features that help blind users take better photos, the focus is on targeted AI that removes friction without trying to replace human judgment.

We dive into the messy middle where innovation meets real life: captions that must be accurate yet respectful, humor that shouldn’t punch down but should still allow agency, and wearables that balance safety, comfort, and utility. Christopher shares why augmented reality has more day-to-day value than VR, how competition among Google, Meta, Apple, Microsoft, and others drives better features, and where open platforms create more room for customization. We also zoom out to the global picture—building for Nairobi and the Appalachians alike—where bandwidth, cost, and reliability demand offline modes and graceful fallbacks.

Privacy and trust anchor the conversation. Useful by default even if the system knows nothing about you; deeper personalization only with consent. We talk data ownership, the risks of account sharing, and how corporate longevity and infrastructure investment affect AI’s future. Is the real value in the models, or in what people build on top? Christopher explains why durable ecosystems may outlast hype cycles, and why the most inclusive solutions come from communities who repurpose tools in unexpected, brilliant ways.

If you care about accessibility, XR, AI ethics, and inclusive design that actually lands in the real world, this one’s for you. Subscribe to stay close to the evolving story, share this with a colleague who builds products, and leave a review with the one feature you wish your favorite device had.

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Maps shouldn’t say “graphic, clickable, blank” when what we really need is orientation. We sit down with Brandon Biggs, CEO of XR Navigation, to unpack why traditional map interfaces exclude blind, low-vision, and neurodiverse users—and how cross-sensory design transforms static visuals into reliable spatial understanding. Brandon makes a clear case that maps are not just about mobility; they’re about building mental models of names, distances, directions, shapes, and relationships. Without accessible orientation tools, people lose access to critical public data and even entire careers that rely on geographic information.

We dive into the promises and pitfalls of AI for mapping. Street imagery descriptions are improving, but 70% accuracy is not enough when a misread road or building can derail someone’s route and safety. Audium offers an alternative grounded in authoritative data: a visual mode with readable contrast and scalable interfaces, and a nonvisual mode that feels like a game, using spatial audio and sound textures to convey features without adding cognitive overload. Every element remains text-exposed for screen readers and Braille, ensuring WCAG compliance and human verification. It’s not AI versus accessibility—it’s AI partnered with verifiable, inclusive design.

Policy and practice are shifting. ADA Title II rules in the US begin to mandate accessible geographic maps for state and local agencies, while Europe and the UK still exclude many maps unless used for navigation, unintentionally limiting access to fields like epidemiology, planning, and environmental science. Brandon explains how Audium’s Esri partnership enables agencies to convert entire map libraries in Experience Builder, drawing on ArcGIS Living Atlas, OpenStreetMap, and local datasets. From wildfire layers to zoning overlays and event wayfinding, this is a blueprint for making public spatial data usable by everyone.

If accessible orientation resonates with you, join us: subscribe, share this conversation with a colleague in government or GIS, and leave a review with one change you want to see in public maps. Your feedback helps push inclusive mapping from a nice-to-have to a new standard.

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What if the label you avoided for decades is the one that finally makes your life make sense? We sit down with researcher and entrepreneur Regina Casteleijn-Osorno to unpack why so many women learn they’re neurodivergent only in adulthood, how misdiagnosis during adolescence and menopause delays care, and what happens when that long-overdue clarity meets the realities of work and caregiving.

Regina shares findings from a participatory study of late-diagnosed neurodivergent women entrepreneurs, spotlighting why autonomy, sensory control, and values alignment pull so many toward self-employment. We talk about ADHD traits like hyperfocus, rapid ideation, and an intense sense of justice—how they can power product-building and client impact, and why they can clash with rigid corporate cultures that punish candor and overlook inequity. Rather than romanticize neurodiversity, we explore lived experience through photo voice and interpretive phenomenological analysis to surface nuance: joy in flexible schedules, stress from inaccessible assessments, and the choice to disclose or not in rooms where stigma still lingers.

Beyond the office, we tackle hidden disability barriers that show up in the wild. From the sunflower lanyard to airline pre-boarding, we illustrate how policy without staff education becomes obstruction. The fix is practical: train front-line teams, diversify examples, and create predictable, quieter paths for anxious or sensory-sensitive travelers. We also press on language—why “everyone is a bit ADHD” erases real conditions—and show how leaders who speak openly about disabled family members help younger women find confidence, community, and earlier support.

If you care about neurodiversity, women’s health, inclusive entrepreneurship, and turning research into everyday access, this conversation is for you. Subscribe, share with a friend who needs it, and leave a review telling us the one change that would make your workplace or travel experience truly accessible.

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What happens when AI accelerates faster than our ability to question it—and our workplaces grow more diverse just as support for inclusion wavers? We sat down with Professor of Practice Gisele Marcus from Olin Business School to unpack the crossroads of AI ethics, DEI, and the core human skill that ties them together: critical thinking.

Gisele takes us inside her course, Leading Across Differences, where students learn to work with people unlike themselves while grappling with tools that can both scale fairness and automate bias. We tackle the most practical question leaders can ask about AI—where does the data come from?—and build from there into model oversight, representation gaps, and the human judgment still required to deploy automation responsibly. Along the way, we examine real-world shifts: how customer service is being streamlined by voice systems, why high-touch account management remains human, and how students are pivoting from vulnerable roles to hybrid careers that pair technical fluency with communication and analysis.

The conversation widens to the social layer: the rise of bubbles, the decline of civil disagreement, and the quiet retreat from public dialogue. Giselle offers tactics students and professionals can use today—moving beyond one-off outreach, asking for referrals and follow-ups, and practicing the mechanics of disagreement through programs like Dialogue Across Differences. We also explore the evolving value of degrees versus micro-credentials and AI-focused certificates, and why universities that teach how to think—not just what to know—will best prepare graduates for jobs that don’t yet exist.

We close on a hopeful note. Inclusion done right drives performance because people do their best work when they’re respected and seen. From highlighting companies that walk the talk to taking small, personal actions that lower barriers, momentum is still possible. If you care about building ethical AI, resilient careers, and teams that can disagree without dividing, this conversation is for you.

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