Creating a more inclusive tech industry

UX Designer at NextBillion.org

Problem: The technology industry is criticized for lacking diversity and inclusion. People with disabilities face unique challenges in finding employment and combating social stigma.

Solution: Create a platform that helps disabilities talent get hired in tech, by reducing the barriers to employment for people with disabilities, who are data scientists, designers, engineers, and product managers.

Problem Space

1 in 5 people have a disability. Over 1.27 billion people live with disabilities, the world’s largest minority, who face social stigma and barriers to equal opportunities everyday. They face inequality in the form of social stigma, inaccessibility, isolation, and a 50% higher rate of unemployment.

Benefits of inclusion

Inclusion is not just an ideal or aspiration, but a real competitive benefit that allows for companies to develop more well-designed products and services. A powerful statistic is the retention savings and revenue boost related to hiring people with disabilities.

Researching the problem space

Using research and facilitation to discover insights

As a startup, we worked on a lot of hustle and limited financial resources. But our intellectual firepower and lived experiences were an untapped resource. To tap into this resource, I began by conducting stakeholder interviews with our team, including one of our teammates who was a blind engineer studying at Stanford. He served a key role in helping me understand the context of the problem before conducting further research. We utilized lean research that focused on gather primary and secondary data points through our immediate networks and online resources. This included in-depth review of the existing products and services in the space. As a facilitator, I helped create workshops that helped our teams gather ideas, synthesis data points, and align on product and design strategy.

Mapping the job readiness journey

Leveraging our primary research, early user insights, many interviews and conversations later, we synthesized the data into a series of milestones and key points in helping improve the job readiness of our users. The flow helped anchor our efforts around a user journey. Envisioning a series of milestones a student and jobseeker could complete, while aiding mentors to anchor discussions and expertise across different points of the journey.

Connecting with early users to gather data and insights 

Starting with a strong problem statement, we prototyped early to gauge interest and interview early users before knowing what our solution would be.

Through customer research, surveys, interviews and design tools, we worked our way to launch our first mentorship program. Given the stigma and barriers that people with disabilities face in seeking employment, we identified through research that mentorship would be a key component of achieving our goals.

We created a simple website that allowed both mentees and mentors to sign up on the platform, and be hand-matched by our team during our early product iteration.

Global Launch

32 countries reached - 200 applicants - 30 community partners

Leveraging our social networks, forums, and community partners - within 30 days of launch, we received an amazing global response that was overwhelmingly positive. With over 200 mentor and mentee applications for the first cohort, we kicked off the mentorship program on December 3 - ‘World Disability Day.

Launching our first mentorship program.

We launched our first cohort to support and connect people with disabilities to leaders in the technology industry.

From designers, data scientists, product managers, to engineers, our goal was focused on matching students with professionals to gain real-world mentorship.

What’s next? From Mentorship to a Job Platform.

The platform has transitioned from a mentorship-centric program to a job platform that not only empowers people with disabilities, but helps them find placement with inclusive employers. It has since won over 30-awards recognized worldwide for its much needed work in the disabilities talent space.