00:00 Music. 00:09 Welcome to podcasts by Dr Kirk Adams, where we bring you powerful conversations with leading voices in disability rights, employment and inclusion. Our guests share their expertise, experiences and strategies to inspire action and create a more inclusive world. If you're passionate about social justice or want to make a difference, you're in the right place. Let's dive in with your host, Dr Kirk Adams, 00:37 hello everybody. This is Dr Kirk Adams, welcome to my monthly live streamed webinar. Supercharge your bottom line through disability inclusion and today we we have a very unique opportunity to learn about a new AI driven solution for blind people such as myself to have an easier time of it. In E commerce, we're going to talk to Patrick long, co founder of inno search, in a few minutes. But Patrick, if you could say hi and give people just the sound of your voice and your title and where are you calling from 01:20 everybody? My name is Patrick. I'm the CEO and co founder of inno search. Ai, a company building accessible solutions for the blind and visually impaired. We're based in San Francisco, and very happy to be on the show today with Dr Kirk, and happy to share about what we're working on Great and Patrick is not we're not those of us who can see not seeing Patrick today. You may have been watching the news this week and about the bomb cyclone and all the storms here on the West Coast. We had our chair of it here in Seattle two nights ago, Patrick's on the San Francisco Bay area, so they're having some weather disruptions. So he's on his phone. Thank you for making it happen, Patrick, 02:12 just briefly before I before I turn, turn, turn it over to you, Patrick, to get your story. For those of you listening viewing who don't know me again. I'm Dr Kirk Adams. I am a blind person. Have been since I was five years old when both of my retinas detached and I became a blind child. 02:36 Basically overnight, I went to the Oregon State School for the Blind, first, second and third grade and learn to read and write Braille very, very fluently, travel with confidence with a white cane and type on a typewriter, so that when my skills were sufficiently strong, I could 02:59 join my brothers and sisters and neighbors in public school. So in fourth grade, I started public school in Silverton, Oregon. 03:08 I was always the only blind student of all of my schooling, from fourth grade through my PhD, 03:16 I 03:18 grew up in small towns in the Pacific Northwest. I was given some gifts as a 678, year old attending the school for the blind, I was given the blindest skills 03:32 that have allowed me to operate efficiently in the world of working and scholarship and life. I was given high expectations from my family and the school. A lot of kids, a lot of young kids with disabilities, 03:49 aren't given that gift of high expectations. And sometimes if we have low expectations, they can become internalized. And I was also given just a strong internal locus of control, which means I really felt in my bones that I could make my way in the world. I could solve problems, I could figure out how to get things done, and 04:12 that's such an important part of being able to thrive as a person with a disability in our society. So I'm grateful for those gifts that were given to me. 04:26 Progressing through the elementary, middle school, high school and small towns, I experienced a lot of social isolation, especially in the middle school and high school years where I grew up, when kids turned 16, they got a driver's license and they got a job of some kind, and that was not happening for me. 04:50 Then college was was a very, very different story. I was fortunate enough to be given a full scholarship to a small. 05:00 All liberal arts school, Whitman College and Walla. Walla through a foundation called the Jesse Ridley foundation that support supports blind students in college. 05:11 And again, a gift was given to me, which I appreciate immensely. Graduated 05:19 cum laude, phi, beta, kappa, four point my major, which was economics, and then face the barriers to employment that so many of us with significant disabilities face, as only 35% of us are in the workforce. So many, many twists and twists and turns later, after 10 years in banking and finance, I entered the nonprofit sector as a fundraising professional development officer. My first nonprofit job was a development officer for the Seattle Public Library Foundation raising money for the state talking book and Braille library. And then from there, moved into the nonprofit sector, 06:05 became the president CEO of the Lighthouse for the Blind here in Seattle, was recruited to join the board of trustees of the American Foundation for the Blind, which is Helen Keller's station, and was given, given an opportunity to step into that leadership, President, CEO role of ...
