Empowerment Through Employment with Joyce Bender

In this episode of HearSay, Joyce Bender, CEO, President, and founder of Bender Consulting Services as well as the Bender Leadership Academy, shares her journey of advocating for employment for people with disabilities and her personal experience as an Advisor for AudioEye.

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HearSay is produced by Sojin Rank, Mike Barton, and Sean Bradley. Edited by Grant Lemons.

HearSay is a podcast focusing on the advocates, heroes, and leaders making the web more accessible. We’re interviewing these change makers to hear what they have to say, to set the record straight, and offer their perspectives on how we can all work to make the web accessible to all.

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction
• 8:18 What Joyce Loves About AudioEye
• 13:44 Connection with Tony Coelho
• 23:11 Memorable Quotes
• 39:32 AI in Accessibility

Transcript

0:00

And you know I have to say it. I’m gonna say it. Hire someone with a disability. We want paychecks, not pity. Hey there, welcome to the HearSay podcast. I'm your host, Ty D’Amore. I'm a white male with brown hair, wearing a gray t-shirt with the AudioEye logo on it. And today I'm chatting with Joyce Bender, CEO, President, and the Founder of Bender Consulting Services, as well as the Bender Leadership Academy. Joyce has been a good friend of mine and AudioEye advisor since as long as I've been here. Joyce is an international leader in disability employment, is a vocal advocate for digital accessibility, and has helped tens of thousands of qualified people with disabilities find employment over the years. We are so pleased to have her here with us. Joyce, so glad that you can join us and so glad to have you on the podcast. I am so excited to be here with you. I love AudioEye, and Ty, you're one of my favorite people. I'm here in my office in Pittsburgh. I have light brown hair. I am wearing purple glasses with a dark blue blazer and a blue and white blouse. And I have my beautiful purple wall behind me. I was going to say that, Joyce. I was looking at the beautiful purple wall, and I was saying, did AudioEye take that purple from Joyce or did she copy us? But I think it's– I think it's the latter on that. You took it from me, there's no question about it. The reason– purple has been my favorite color since I was a child. As a matter of fact, my college ring right here is Amethyst. I've always loved purple. Who knew that about 20 years ago, a young girl living with epilepsy in Canada came up with this idea to make purple the color of epilepsy. Now there's even a purple day. March 26th is Purple Day celebrating, you know, people living with epilepsy. And here I am, a woman living with epilepsy. So it's just an amazing thing. Absolutely, Joyce. And again, I'm just so excited to talk to you. It's been way too long and so excited about the partnership that we have. But for our listeners out there, Joyce, it'd be great to hear a little bit about your background. How did you get started with all the work that you do with people with disabilities? And a little bit about the connection to the Epilepsy Foundation. You know, would be great to hear that. Okay, yes. When I grew up Ty, I would occasionally have faints, and as I got older, I had them more frequently. And my family thought that it was just some type of virus or something to do with low blood pressure. But when I got older, like in my late twenties, it started to become much more pronounced. You know, I would get this feeling in my head and I would say, oh no, that thing's going to happen. And I knew there would be no stopping it. And that thing is that I would be unconscious. I would fall down to the ground, be unconscious. And yeah, it was terrible. One night, my husband found me unconscious. He thought I was having a heart attack. And then in a couple of minutes, I'd be fine. So off we go to the doctor, and what a diagnosis he made. He said it was just some female hormonal problem, and he also told me to cut back on coffee. But I’ve never cut back on coffee. It obviously wasn't a female hormonal problem. Although I will tell anyone listening right now, if you ever have a health problem or your child, especially when it is along these lines of epilepsy, go to a neurologist. Don't listen to just a family doctor. But, I was– one evening my husband and I went to see a movie, and at the intermission I went to get a soda, and I had a seizure. And I hit the floor so hard I fractured my skull, had an intracranial brain hemorrhage. I broke the bones in my right inner ear, which is why I have a 70% hearing loss on that side. And I was rushed to the hospital and had life saving brain surgery. And against all odds, I had this miraculous recovery. And the neurosurgeon came and told me that I have epilepsy, and that what I thought were faints in the past were really seizures. Because everyone thinks if you have a seizure, you have a convulsion. But more people have absence seizures or complex partial seizures or a seizure such as mine were. Yes, I did quote, faint, but I was really having a seizure. So I started taking medication and thank God it works. I still take it, you know, to this day. And it was– what I did for a living was executive search. And it wasn't long after that that I found out that Americans with disabilities have such an abysmal employment rate. Over 70% of people with disabilities, 70% are not counted in the workforce. Just today, I talked to a CEO early this morning, and I said I can barely believe it's possible that the ADA was signed 34 years ago, and we still have double the unemployment rate. So Ty, it was that whole thing that happened to me and finding out not long after that, that people with disabilities were not getting jobs no matter how talented they were. That I ended up in 1995, founding Bender Consulting Services as a for profit company that would focus on the competitive employment of Americans with disabilities. Joyce that is, you know, that is a great story to how you've really led your career to helping so many people with disabilities. Unfortunate that the doctors didn’t, you know, find this earlier and find that out before you had to have surgery. But then the work that you guys have done at Bender Consulting, is just incredible. I was very early on in my career when I had the opportunity to meet yourself and Mary, one of the greatest human beings I've ever met in my life. And, you know, just all the work that you were doing and learning about 70% of people with disabilities don't have a job and are unemployed. That just made no sense to me. And some, you know, people with disabilities are some of the most brilliant, amazing people that I've ever worked with. We have a ton of people with disabilities here at AudioEye that are just incredible. And there was something that you said at a conference, I think it was the

Disability: 7:11

IN Conference, and you said, “Paychecks not pity.” And that stuck with me the entire time throughout my career. And it's just been something that I've always followed, and it really helped us in our entire journey here at AudioEye, bringing people with disabilities in to test and bringing people with disabilities in to really help our guidance of our product and what we do. So thank you for all the work that you've done and the amazing career that you have and continue to have with Bender Consulting. And you've also just assembled a world class team. Every time working with Bender Consulting is just incredible. We still work on tons of projects. I think at the end of the quarter, your team always is yelling at me, “Ty, not so many projects!” But we love working together in our partnership here with AudioEye. Yes, our Chief Technology Officer, Paula Ballog, PJ. She's PJ, Ty. She leads the way. She loves working with the team at AudioEye. Absolutely. I’m gonna just say, if I may say, what I love about AudioEye. You know, someone that is listening right now they've listened to or seen podcasts, and you know, they'll hear people say things, but they'll wonder, what are they really like? I can say that since I first met you and the team at AudioEye, that you are the real deal. You really care about people with disabilities, and you're just all good people. And that's why I'm so happy to be here with you today. Same here, Joyce, same here. And you mentioned earlier the ADA and really, you know, from the signing of that. I see that there's an ADA button or something behind you, framed up. What is that there, Joyce? Is that some memorabilia or is that a signing? What is that there? Well behind me is a shadow box. It actually is a print of the Americans with Disabilities Act that when the president signs a bill or a law, he gives the people up on the platform with him a pen and a copy of the act. And Evan Kemp was the EEOC Commissioner. He was in a wheelchair. He has since passed away. And his wife put together this shadow box that includes the ADA, a pen, the buttons, you know, the words that he was going to say to introduce the president. And it's like a joy to me. As a matter of fact, you were talking about Mary Brougher, who as you know we lost in a tragic accident, and I drove her crazy. I said, “We are not going to fly back. If we want that we're going to have to get a van or something.” And we did rent something to drive all the way back here with it. But as you also know, Tony Coelho is the author of The Americans with Disabilities Act. Which it’s so amazing, even that I am such close friends with him, when you think, he's so prominent, and I know you know him well, Ty. Yeah, absolutely. Tony's one of our board members and, you know, that's really the connection, Joyce, on how we were able to meet and some of our history. Just everything that Tony's done and continues to do, right? I think that was something that you just saw how important the ADA was for Tony. It wasn't just something that he said, hey, I'm going to push this as part of my political agenda. Tony continues to push the envelope for people with disabilities, you know, and continues to help guide us at AudioEye. I know a lot of the work that he does with Bender Consulting, and we're just so grateful to have Tony and all his leadership. And also Mary, Joyce, you mentioned the driving and the conversations. I got to say, I remember multiple times being on the phone with Mary and you guys are driving together in the car, going to some conference or some meeting and just running through. And even the idea is, I think so many great ideas of what we've taken from are those conversations that we've implemented into AudioEye. One of them is, and I got to give credit to yourself, Joyce and to Mary, is our A11iance community. We were talking one time, and it was Mary, and she was telling, you know, just kept harping on, there is this young generation of people with disabilities that don't have jobs when they're coming out of high school or they're coming out of college. And how can we find an opportunity to create jobs testing websites for people with disabilities that is able to test AudioEye’s sites? That conversation is what really we implemented in with our A11iance community. And it all came from probably one of those conversations, driving to a conference and talking with Mary. Which was just awesome to see that now implemented and in creating so many opportunities for people with disabilities and job opportunities across the board. Well, it all came back around because we, with our–have a partnership with AudioEye, I also have a not for profit called the Bender Leadership Academy where we train high school students with disabilities about the world of work, how to deal with bullying, and, you know, believing in themselves. But of course the goal is employment. So it is so awesome what AudioEye did. They went into– you went into a partnership with us, and we have this product and Mary was behind it. It's so funny we're saying all this, called Digital Access at Work. Yep. So that you could train people to do user testing and, but we needed a partner, and AudioEye has become our partner which is allowing those students to actually get that professional experience. And you know what that leads to? Employment. Yep. Paychecks! And so I did want to thank you. Paychecks not pity. That's right.[Laughing] There we go, Joyce. There we go. And I heard about a new initiative, the Bender/Coelho Technology Initiative. What is that, Joyce? Well, what that is... you know, you said about Tony, how he never stops. I mean, here he is today, early eighties. He never stopped. From when he left Congress, he is the only congressmen that never retired. I mean, you know, I’m watching the ADA month last year, Disability Pride month, when the ADA was signed. There he is at the White House with the president. I mean, he's always, you know, doing something with the president or the vice president and bipartisan. He's very close friends with the Bush family. But even the person, the young person he meets with epilepsy, he never stops. So we're saying to each other, what the heck are we going to do? This is terrible, this unemployment. So the Bender/Coelho Consortium, this initiative, is going to be that we connect with CIOs or technology companies across America to try to get them to hire ten people by the end of the year. That’s awesome. And if they can’t hire all ten, refer us to another place to hire the rest of them. But why I did that, my career started in executive search in IT, and I have always had the most success with technology people, always. Yep. And so you know, more than, human resources procurement, any of those. The CIO and the whole team with that CIO, they get it about accessibility. Yep. Now that you can be blind and do the job or you can be deaf and do the job. So we're going across America, and Ty, this year. Last year, the Tony Coelho award, which we present to an individual that has excelled in that area, was given to Valerie Jarrett. And Valerie just this week was on my radio show with Tony that is on every Tuesday. This is my 21st year on the air, Disability Matters with Joyce Bender on VoiceAmerica.com. Valerie was on with Tony and you know, if you haven't heard it you must hear that show. But this year Judy Woodruff will be receiving the award. So what Tony and I are doing is we're just trying to also get the news media involved. You know, I want them to see companies that are saying we are inclusive of all people. Yep. And I think Joyce, I had Mike Paciello on the podcast last week. Yes. And Mike is now our Chief Accessibility Officer here at AudioEye. And one of the things that he brought up in our discussion was that the Department of Defense often employs people with disabilities during their testing because what they see is that if people with disabilities, oftentimes soldiers in the battlefield or, you know, there'll be situations where understanding your senses and understanding what is out there is what they need for the most high quality product. And then when you take that and you look at technology. Often when we start to think about universal access, universal design for everyone and for all people, that's when we build the best products. And that is across the board. It's why it's so important to us at AudioEye that individuals with disabilities are built into our testing process. And it's not just because we're an accessibility technology company. It's because that's going to give us the best product. If we know that our tab sequencing functionality is there so that a screen reader can follow along, then we know that know someone that maybe it has a temporary or situational disability, they can tab through and utilize a technology platform that's going to help them. So I couldn't agree more. And, you know, watching the process with my own eyes here at AudioEye has just been incredible. And it's awesome to see you and Tony doing that. I hope one day Tony does just slow down a little bit and enjoy himself, because he's always out there doing something. You know, I tell him he was 80 miles–he's 80 years old going 80 miles an hour.[Laughing] That was Tony. And I don't think you're ever going to slow him down. He's probably going to be topping out at 85 here pretty soon. Oh, he'll, I said, “Tony, okay, you’ve got to go to your 100 because I'm not ready yet. I still need my mentor.”[Laughing] I still need him. He's been my mentor since the late nineties. And when you guys have been doing so much work together with Bender Consulting, is there any company that stands out to you Joyce, that's–they're doing it right? They're doing DEI right. They're implementing people with disabilities into the process right. Who out there is maybe someone that we can shine the spotlight on for really hitting it in the right stride? Highmark. Got it. First, that’s who stood behind me to start the company when I went to the CEO at that time, Bill Lowry, and said,“I want to start a company, but I need someone that would bring aboard six people with disabilities and keep them on contract three years.” And it only took him one day to say yes. So now, a national company, you know, we place thousands of people. We have eye disability in these different products. But why I say that. It's not that you call them and say will you hire a person with a disability? It's across the board. All the leaders, all the EVPs are all bought into this. I just wish there were more CEOs like David Holmberg because he said to me one day, “Hey, why don't I see more wheelchairs in the lobby?[Laughing] Where are the service dogs?” I don't know, Ty. Do you ever notice if you go to a building accessible parking is Yep. never packed. Yep. That is very true, Joyce That is very true. Not that you have to run inside and say, “Hey, all this access– and I need a place too, now.” But, you know, one step at a time, one company at a time. Yep. And people like you and your voice. And I don't know, Ty. But someone asked me this question the other day, what is your main product? When people talk to you, what do you say? What is your main product? You know, from a technology perspective, it's the monitoring of web accessibility issues. So our technology will plug in to a website and it's going to be able to utilize automation to detect issues of accessibility. And then fix some of those issues of accessibility and prioritize for developers issues that they can go fix on their behalf. That's one side of the technology. But then the other side of AudioEye is our services department, right? Where we're using people with disabilities for user testing. And we're testing, you know, let's say that Highmark or, you know, another client out there says, “Hey, we have ten people that are blind individuals with the company and we want to make sure that they can do their job with the portal that they have to do every day.” We'll have people with disabilities on our side that will test the platform, make sure that it's accessible. If there are issues, we'll report those back in a way that devs and engineers can identify it and then be able to apply that remediation. So we handle it, you know, from a technology perspective and we also handle it from a services perspective. And one thing Joyce, for me is, you know, major organizations, a lot of them are starting to think of DEI, right? And if they're not, you better get on the horse because you need to. It's very important. But there's also this long tail of midsize businesses and small businesses out there. And that's also what part of our mission is. We want to make sure your local bakery website's accessible. We want to make sure that your local school website is accessible so that individuals with disabilities that our students are able to access the same online portal. Or maybe I'm a parent that has a child, and I have a disability. I want to be able to go see my kid's grades online. So not only are we focused with major enterprises, but we want to make sure with our technology that it's accessible for all businesses of all sizes. And the only way that we think that can really scale is by technology. And Joyce, you say 70% of people with disabilities are unemployed. You know, we see that 95%, more than 95% of the digital ecosystem is inaccessible, and that's not acceptable to me. And that really is what keeps me up and keeps me driving. You know I'm going on 12 years here at AudioEye, and every single day when I don't see that start to come down, it really irks me. You know, technology is an independence tool, and we have to make sure that it's accessible for everybody. That and that is horrifying. And I know Eve Hill, who is now the chair of the Bazelon Center on Mental Health Law. She's a mental health advocate. You know, she lives with a mental health disability, but she's very well known. And she was during the Obama administration in the Department of Justice. She's an attorney. And I remember when I heard her speak at the White House and she said,“You're saying you want to hire people with disabilities, but if your website is not accessible, Yep. I can't get in the door.” I Yep. never forgot that. And it's, you know, and I also have not forgot the words of Jenny Lay-Flurrie, the Chief Accessibility Officer at Microsoft, who said, and I frequently put this out there on social media. But she said, “If you ask someone if their website is accessible and they say, ‘well, I'm pretty sure.’” she said, “then I can tell you they're not.” [Laughing] Yep, I agree.[Laughing] I agree with that 100%, Joyce. And I also think, I'm a big advocate for our team of when you have a person with a disability that joins your organization, you have to make sure everything is accessible. Your HR portal, your daily tools, your communication platform. One of the things at AudioEye that we've implemented with our HR department is that every single piece of technology that we buy has to be accessible. You know, that is ground one. We're not even going to have a conversation with you, unless we can put our testers on it and make sure it's accessible. Because what am I going to say to the employees that we have that utilize screen reading technology and have disabilities when they can’t go on to their online portal to check their pay stub? Just not acceptable, right? Like that's the first thing that you got to be able to do. So that is, you know, for any organization that you're like, hey, what's a step that we can take? It's making sure all the procurement technology that you take into your organization is accessible, is meeting the standards and that people with disabilities can utilize it. Because then when you start to bring individuals with disabilities into the workforce, they're going to be able to actually execute their job. And what you're going to notice, is they're going to execute it at a higher rate and always be a top performer for you. I agree. I agree 100%. And I’ll also tell you. I’ll bet anyone listening is shocked with that statistic. That 95%, that you said are not accessible. I’ll bet listeners are shocked hearing that. Oh, 100%. Yep, 100%. So looking, Joyce, at like–let's say I'm an enterprise organization and I want to start this. I've realized that DEI is something that we do, but we're not implementing people with disabilities into our workforce. We're not really having individuals with disabilities getting scored into our DEI scoring. What are one or two things that I can do to take the first steps in that process? Well, you know, the rubber meets the road with employment. I heard a friend of mine when she spoke at the White House say,“Don't ask me about the training you need, the strategy you need. All you need to do is hire a person with a disability in order to get it going.” But I would say accessibility, obviously, we're not going to get anywhere if the company is not accessible. If you're, you know, and I'm not meaning now just their physical, because really accommodations today are like $500 average. So Yep. I'm not talking–I'm talking about the software. You know, if it isn't accessible, and you have that first person you hire, can't, you know, see their paycheck information, then you know we're nowhere. So I always tell people you need, first of all, commitment from the top. You got Yep. to start with commitment from the top. This can't just be one little area at the company. This has to be commitment at the top. And then you have to have your leadership team know they're going to implement this vision that leads to equity for people with disabilities. So that means training. So accessibility training, meaning, you know, how to work with people with disabilities at employment. But you do right from the beginning have to be accessible. So I would say the commitment from the top, putting a leadership team together to form a strategy to make this happen. You've got to have a team of leaders at the beginning. So that it's not just fragmented into one group only. Yep, absolutely. And you know, the other thing that I see with that is when the commitment comes from the top and they start to do it, it fuels that fire, right? And then the momentum starts. And when the momentum trains going, it keeps going. And that's where we see great organizations. Great organizations, like you said, at Highmark or you know what Microsoft does with Jenny, what Tom does down at Comcast, right? I talk to Tom, he's a good buddy of mine. He got buy in from the top, and he's done amazing things at Comcast because of that. I actually was introduced to Tom from Mary. So, you know, through the relationship is how I got to become such good friends with him. But, you know, that was one of the first things he said. That I got commitment from the top, and we've been able to execute our game plan flawlessly from them. I used to tell Mary, Pink must have written that song for you. You know, that begins with get the party started. Yep! That is Mary, get the party started. But that meant she was passionate about equity for people with disabilities. Absolutely. And she was a connector–just what you said. Yes she was. And Joyce, I'm curious, do you see, you know, if we take technology and digital accessibility away, on the employment side, how much have you seen an improvement or how much have we improved as a society and a workforce? In physical accessibility in brick and mortar accessibility in the workforce. Is that something you've seen an improvement on over the last 15 years? Oh, that part, yes. I have Yep. seen, you know, as you know, ramps have to be accessible, buildings you go into, transportation, busses, brail on the elevators, captioning. This is the problem. All of that is happening and continues to happen, but not hiring people. You know, I went to this one company that, oh my goodness, they had such an elaborate ramp. Like this ramp Yep. could have been for the Queen of England. It was so elaborate.[Laughing] That I say,“You have the most beautiful ramp here.” Yep. But here’s my question. Do you have anyone to use it? You need people to use the ramp. Yep. So, yes, I've seen great success on that end. I want to say with employment, things are improving a little. But this is like such a big ship. I mean, Yep. it is moving in the right direction. I give credit, a lot of the credit for this first to Tony, of course, but recent years to Ted Kennedy Jr. Because Ted Kennedy went to Tom DiNapoli, the comptroller in New York, who is over like $260 billion in pension funds. And Ted met with him. Would he do something? We need to put a stake in the ground when it comes to this employment. And he wrote a letter to all the CEOs or chairmen of the board of companies saying, we are going to look at your ESG and what you're doing. We're going to look at if you have a DEI or disability equity. And now this investment letter, oh my God, there's hundreds of CEOs now that are on board. But then he went to, Ted went to Accenture. Again, this is several years ago and said, “Would you do a study? I want to compare companies, champion companies that hire people with disabilities to companies that do not. Is there a difference?” And really he didn’t know what they would find out. They didn't know. And they were even shocked when they found out through data that companies, disability champions that hire people now have two times the revenue from performance earnings than their competitor That does not hire people with disabilities. So, you know, it's, how I think this is going to be. It's going to keep moving. And then all of a sudden, once this gets entrenched in the board of directors level where Yep. they’re saying,“Hey, what are we doing? You know, I don't want a problem.” I mean, what are we doing that you will see it take off in all areas, including what you do with digital accessibility. Yep. And that gives me hope, Joyce. That gives me hope that you saw that increase in accessibility from physical perspective, right, from an infrastructure perspective. Because if we look, you know, 20, 30 years back, that's why the ADA was really passed, right? Brick and mortar, you know, I can show up to a restaurant and have a wheelchair, and they could say, “Hey, we don't have a ramp here. You can't come eat my delicious food.” And then we’re seeing improvement. We saw improvement. Technology, we should be able to do this. This is a solvable problem. Because with more technology creates a faster opportunity to fix it and a more affordable way to fix it. It's a lot more affordable to make your site accessible than it is to re–you know, take down a building and redesign the building to be accessible. And so that gives me hope that we can do this from a technology perspective. And also gives me hope from a hiring perspective as well because of the statistics like you just shared. You know, two times more profitable when hiring people with disabilities. That data is going to get out there, and people are going to open their eyes and they're going to realize that this is an extremely important thing. And this is not only going to help their culture. It's not only going to help their design and their usability, but it's going to help the bottom line. And that is what's, you know, for a lot of businesses, what's most important, and that's what's going to make it to the boardrooms. So I have hope, Joyce, that we're pushing the wheel in the right direction and that we're going to get there, Me too. that is for sure. And, Joyce, when you look at, when you look at just all the amazing work that you've done, is there anything that just stands out that's like– this one project. And I'm sure it's really hard to label one out. But is there any project that you just look at and you're like, wow, this is one that we did, and every single time I think about it, it makes me smile. Well, the first thing to be honest with you is the company. Yep. Creating a company that when I first started, people would say to me,“You think people are going to pay you to hire people with disabilities? You've got to be kidding.” And just to see all these wonderful people that, you know, have found employment and my wonderful staff and, you know, just that company. But the other thing is the Bender Leadership Academy. Yep. I mean, they always say here, that's my baby. But that's because I love, love high school students with disabilities. I'm going to tell you something that just happened. I didn't even get to tell this to Tony yet. I spoke at the–virtually–at the AAPD Gala, and I didn't know who all was watching because this is virtual. But yesterday, Maria Town, the CEO of the American Association of People with Disabilities, sent me a note. Joyce, can you zoom right now? Oh no, what happened? That's what I'm thinking. What happened?[Laughing] Why would she–so I get back in touch, and she has a young woman on that also works at AAPD, Rachita. She said, “Rachita, show Joyce your tattoo.” And she had a tattoo across her wrist that said, fire power. She said, “Tell Joyce why you have that.” She said, “Well, I live with epilepsy, and I heard you speak somewhere, and you said, ‘When you have a seizure and epilepsy, you've just got more fire power with all those neurons firing off.’” She said, “And I never heard anyone say anything positive before about epilepsy. And you have no idea what a hard time I've had. And so I have the tattoo, fire power.” Oh my God, I was so overwhelmed. And it's those things, Ty, with young people. It's those things that stand out to me. Those young people with disabilities, these high school students that we help, and that you're helping with this partnership. That's what stands out to me the most, Bender Leadership Academy. Joyce that is awesome. I remember when this idea was coming, and we were having conversations. I was talking to Mary a lot about it, and I was so excited to see it come to fruition. But hearing that story right there, that's what makes it worth it, right? And I had Sean Bradley on the podcast as well and, you know, Co-Founder of AudioEye. And Sean and I used to have this thing, Joyce, when we started AudioEye, it was just believe, right? Like row the boat. Keep rowing. What we're doing is right. And every single day we would sign our signatures and we'd say, believe. Just keep going. You're making a difference. And it just made those long nights so much easier to deal with. But to see that, you know, just one of your conversations that you had, one of your talks that you had was able to resonate with someone like that, and they're able to take that positivity of their disability and use it as momentum is just awesome. I love hearing those stories. Yeah, I–you cannot put a price tag on that. I mean, I was, still am and will be overwhelmed when she showed me what she did. But that's it. Those, the idea of Bender Leadership Academy, I was doing that for 20 years on a volunteer basis. Then in 2018 we made it a not for profit. And Mary said to me,“Yes, we need to do that because you're making such an impact. That's going to be your legacy. We have to do that for these young people.” And here we are. That's awesome. And technology creates so much independence. I mean, the high school students that are coming into the workforce with disabilities know how to use technology better than anybody today. And they're some of our best testers at AudioEye, doing things that we as experts didn’t even know were possible. So you learn more, you know, and just being able to work with them, and then watch them go succeed and really take on the world. That's awesome. That's really, really cool. Well you know, it's young people, oh my God. They, yes, they know technology inside and out. Yep. That is true. And speaking of technology, Joyce, I've been asking everyone on the podcast about this AI revolution. Right? It's coming. We've seen it all over the Web. You know, some of us have used ChatGPT. But is there anything, you know in your line of work with kind of this AI revolution that's keeping you up at night? And how do we make sure with AI coming that we're not leaving people with disabilities behind? Well, you know, of course, AI. There’s so many– is doing and will be doing so many wonderful things. And some of our customers are, you know, saying, yeah, we want to hire people from you and work in that area. But it does worry me. It does because... and once again, I had a conversation with Tony, AAPD, Ted Kennedy Jr. You have these AI systems for employment for screening. Yep. Yep. And, you know, people with disabilities, say like me. When I was out of work, you know, because of my accident. Well, there are people maybe they had a heart attack, something, and they're going to have that gap on their resume. And Yep. we are concerned that AI is actually going to be eliminating a lot of people, especially people that are marginalized, that will not have everything on their resume precise. You know, Yep. I know, you know, a person can be qualified to do the job and just not have that master's degree or whatever it is. But I am concerned about that. I'm also concerned as it eliminates jobs that people consider, I don't know, like service type jobs or those type of industries. Whether it's in retail or wherever it is, is jobs go away. Here is an example, you know, when you are on the turnpike now, you almost never see someone working in the booth. Yep. And my concern is that as many many of these jobs go away, if we not at the same time looking at parity from a career standpoint that those people will be left out. So, yes, it does make me... I have a group of people. We have our eye on it. Yes. Yeah and I, you know I've had a lot of conversations on it, and the human element and the human testing is so important for us. And when we talk about AudioEye, we invest, Joyce, and I'll be the first to say we invest so much money into AI, right? Because we want to solve the problem at scale, right? We want to solve this for medium sized businesses, small businesses. And to do that, we need to be costs efficient. And we need to be able to come to a business and say, “Hey, you can pay us, you know, a thousand dollars a month, and we can make your website accessible.” So we invest in AI. But there still is just so much that we learn from the human element. And our technology can't even get anywhere close to solving the entire problem without that human element in. And I still think that we're so far away from that, right? We're so far away from being able to say, “Hey, automation can solve everything for digital accessibility.” That human element is something that we have to remind ourselves at AudioEye constantly about of, you know, we got to build that in. And I do worry to the same effect in other industries of, you know, we see the cost savings, right? We see the cost savings or how much more can we scale this with just automation that we remove that human element. And with with that human element removed, there's going to be a lot of problems that we're not thinking through. So definitely something that here at, AudioEye we remind ourselves every single day, you know, of that. And then we also remind ourselves, can we take the AI and can we blend the human intervention and can we make it the most powerful and efficient? And I think that's where success comes is when you can really blend the two together. And that's how we're going to be able to scale and create more opportunity. But one doesn't come without the other, and that's for sure. Yeah, well, from a national standpoint, disability leaders are looking at the ramifications including positions that go away, as you said Yeah. for cost reasons. But also what can happen with AI eliminating opportunities. Absolutely. Absolutely, so we'll keep doing our best. We'll keep consulting with everyone around us, and the leaders, and Tony, and yourself as we move in that way. But again, the human element just cannot be replaced. And it's so important, especially for individuals with disabilities. But Joyce, one other question I did want to ask is what's it like owning a business? Right? We had Mike Paciello again on, and he was talking about the time when he started the TPG, the Paciello Group, and just some insights and takes of what it's like owning a business, and things that our listeners can take away to do if they ever have that. But what was, what's it like owning a business, and what's maybe some advice you could give to a business owner out there that has a business or wants to start a business? Well, it is absolutely exciting. You know, when you own your own business, you're creating. It's almost like being an artist. You're creating something. Like I've created something with Bender Consulting Services. So it is exciting and you control what happens. You know, that's a big thing with me that I know we don't have some other company above us, you know what I mean? Yep. Making decisions for us–we can. You're in control when you're an entrepreneur, and it's life changing. Think about it. When you can provide opportunities and employ Yep. people with disabilities that, a, there's no price tag you can put on that and on really building the culture. Yep. That you think every company should have. I mean at Bender, I always say it's not a company, it's a family. We're like a family. And I know you know that, Ty, from Yes. knowing you know, Mary, and Paula, and Gerald, and different employees of mine. But, you know, you can create that culture. You can create a company that really makes life enjoyable for other people. So there are so many great reasons I would tell people how wonderful this is. Now, I also have to give advice. You know, I'll hear people say to people with disabilities, for example,“You should become an entrepreneur. That's what you should do. You should become an entrepreneur.” And I'll say, “Now wait a minute, I hope you do.” Because I obviously believe in entrepreneurship. But are you understanding that 24 by 7 you'll be living this job. Yep. That you all of a sudden will have to work with attorneys, finance, know all of these groups? You know, you'll be doing things you haven't done before, but numero uno, you have to bring in all the revenue. Yep. You. Yeah. Because there's this Yeah. one young woman said,“I want to be an entrepreneur. I am.” And I was trying to explain this, and I saw her just a year ago and she said,“I got to say this, props to you. I respect you. I know what you meant now, because it's you.” Yep. you know, you are the one that's responsible for bringing in, you know, revenue. So I would say from an advice standpoint, don't do this without already having a customer. Yep. Don’t launch out and do it. You always need that one big customer to get started. Yep. And you know that seems so simple to understand, but a lot of people make that mistake. You've got to have that first customer, and you've got to have mentors, you know, around you. Yep. But you've got to hire great people. Even if it's like me starting with just two, right from the beginning that are bought into this. Whatever your passion is that they're bought into it. You've got to have it. You've got to be willing to hire people better than you. Yep. You can’t be controlling. But you've got to start with having the customer already, of course, a business plan as to what you're going to be doing. But you have to have a plan because you have to have revenues in order to do this. Yep. Sales cures all. Mark Cuban, right? Sales cures all. Yep, yep, that's right. Well, Joyce, first, thank you for the friendship and, you know, for really just bringing AudioEye and myself into the Bender family. This partnership means so much to us beyond just all the work and services that we deliver together. You know, thank you for the leadership and for everything you do for people with disabilities, and joining us today on the HearSay podcast. It was awesome to hear from you to be able to chat, and I hope that we can get together soon, Joyce. It’s been, again, it's been way too long. Yes it has been. I hope we get to too, and I wish you, AudioEye, the best of luck in continuing doing the great work that you do. And you know I have to say it. I’m going to say it. Hire someone with a disability. We want paychecks not pity. I love it Joyce. Thank you so much. You’re welcome. And we'll see you shortly. All righty, buh-bye! HearSay is produced by Sojin Rank, Mike Barton, and Sean Bradley, and edited by Grant Lemons. And if you enjoyed this podcast and don't want to miss future episodes, please subscribe to our YouTube channel.