Ep 178: Future of Work: Making Our Cities Smarter & More Accessible

Episode 178: Future of Work:
Making Our Cities Smarter & More
Accessible
Episode Link:
http://traffic.libsyn.com/workology/ep-178-smart_cities_workology_podcast.mp3
Introduction: [00:00:00] Welcome to the workology podcast a podcast for the disruptive
workplace leader. Join host Jessica Miller Merrill founder of workology dot com as she
sits down and gets to the bottom of trends tools and case studies for the business
leader H.R. and recruiting professional who is tired of the status quo. Now here's
Jessica with this episode of workology
Jessica: [00:00:26] Accessibility isn't just limited to our workplaces. It's about our
communities and places ourselves our friends and our families call home especially in
urban areas. These urban areas are commonly referred to as smart cities but it's more
than that. This podcast is sponsored by clearcompany and is created in partnership with
our friends at the Partnership on Employment and Accessible Technology or PEAT.
This podcast is part of their future of work series. A smart city is an urban area that uses
different types of electronic data collection sensors to supply information which is used
to manage assets and resources efficiently. This includes data collected from citizens
devices and assets that is processed and analyzed to monitor and manage traffic in
transportation systems power plants water supply networks waste management law
enforcement information systems schools libraries hospitals and other community
services. A 2016 survey from G3 I CTE found that 60 percent of accessibility experts
believed that today's smart cities are failing persons with disabilities. So for today's
podcast we're going to talk about challenges facing Smart Cities success stories and
how H.R. can help us leaders and business professionals. Today I'm joined by Megan
Lawrence and Laura Ruby Megan is an accessibility technology evangelist at Microsoft.
Megan builds trusted relationships with customers and geos and assisted technology
Workology Podcast | www.workologypodcast.com | @workology

partners to further Microsoft's mission of empowering every person and organization to
achieve more. Through the lens of inclusion also on the podcast is Laura Ruby. She is
the director of worldwide accessibility public policy and standards also with Microsoft.
Prior to her role at Microsoft she worked at AT&T as a member of the global corporate
accessibility team. Megan and Laura welcome to the workology podcast.
Megan: [00:02:31] It's lovely to be here. Thank you for having us.
Jessica: [00:02:33] Let's start with Megan first. Tell us a little bit about your
background.
Megan: [00:02:37] Yes. So I have a PhD in geography where I studied blind and low
vision navigation geospatial tool development and really helping bring the voice of
people with disabilities to the table during the development of products and services. I
joined Microsoft about three years ago and I am the senior accessibility evangelist now
working for our chief accessibility officer Jenny Lee Flurry. And I have really the
amazing job of being able to work deeply with our customers and the disability
community to help begin to understand how we can partner to build cultures of inclusion
that really help make the world a more inclusive place.
Megan: [00:03:15] Awesome well thanks for taking the time to join us here. I'm going to
flip it over to Laura.
Laura: [00:03:21] Tell us about your background. Hi I'm Laura Ruby and I'm the director
of worldwide accessibility policy and standards at Microsoft and I've been with Microsoft
for 19 years. All of those years working on accessibility and technology center and
mostly in the in the policy space. And before that I was with AT&T Wireless also working
on accessible technology and policy. So I had a really long rich career working in this
space and I'm just really pleased to be here today with you.
Jessica: [00:03:59] Awesome well thank you so much both of you for for joining us.
Let's talk a little bit about the work that you guys are doing with smart cities. How did it
start.

Laura: [00:04:07] Well we think Microsoft has worked with cities for a long time very
closely and we have in fact a program that's called City Next. And the goal of that
program is to help cities all around the world become more competitive sustainable
prosperous and we work with our our Microsoft partners and the cities to help make
sure that they can engage their citizens that they can empower their their city
employees that they can use technology to optimize their operations and their structure.
And we really want to help them use technology to transform so that cities are healthier
educated safer. And all these things. So as we've been doing that work people like
Megan and I we've been talking with our our city customers about accessibility and in
these discussions we were finding that a lot of them had smart city plans and they were
working on you know how how are we going to leave paper behind and become more
digital with these plans and programs and then they also had disability services
agencies or groups. But we notice that the two are not connected and we were talking
with our one of our our longtime partners G3 I C T which is the Global Initiative for
Inclusive information and communication technologies. It's a long name but it's an
organization that was launched out of the UN back in 2006 with a mission to help
governments and citizens all over the world do a better job of leveraging technology to
increase the rights of people with disabilities so they've been traveling all over the world.
Also talking to cities and they said hey we're finding the same thing. These cities are
working on becoming digital and accessibility in serving people with disabilities is
missing in these plans. This is a big problem. And we said Yeah. That is a big problem.
Citizens are going to get left behind. So I c t joined with another NGO World enabled
and they came up with this plan and they came to Microsoft they said hey we want to
help solve this problem. Are you interested in supporting us in solving this problem. And
we said yes we are we're on board. So they created this initiative called Smart Cities for
all and the focus is to eliminate the digital divide for persons with disabilities in smart
cities around the world. And that's that's how we got involved.
Jessica: [00:06:57] Tell me about G 3 i c T's toolkit and resources they provide urban
planners in cities who are interested in making their cities more inclusive and
accessible. I know that Microsoft was involved in developing this.

Laura: [00:07:10] Sure. So one of the things that when when we were working with G3
ICT. On the approach for cities. We realized that we collectively had a lot of information
and awareness and experience working on accessibility and with people disabilities and
technology but that most people don't. So the initiative came up with this idea of
creating a toolkit that would support cities and cities including government managers the
policymakers the ice t professionals disability advocates in the community that we're
also trying to support these efforts. The procurement officials that buy the technology
the technology suppliers like us and even the developers who work for the cities and
create applications we decided we needed to do something to help all of these people
become more knowledgeable about what it would mean to create an accessible city. So
the tools were created to identify and help solve for some priority challenges. And the
initiative did a survey and they reached out to experts and they asked these experts you
know what do you see as being the challenges and where are the biggest gaps. So the
tools were created to address these challenges and there is a guide to implementing
standards accessibility standards because one of the things that these can do is adopt
an accessibility standard and say to their developers and their suppliers Hey when we
buy technology from you or you develop technology for us or when we develop
technology for ourselves we're going to make sure that we do our best to meet these
technology standards for accessibility so that the technology is accessible. And then
there's a guide to help a city put a policy in place around buying and procuring
information technology so that it's accessible so policymaker How can you create a
policy for everyone in your city that buys technology that that tells them whenever you
buy technology you need to ask yourself these things to make sure that what you're
buying can be used by all citizens. And then there are some other tools some guides to
help a city. How do you make the business case to your city that all of these things need
to happen. How would you if you decided you wanted to be a leader for your city
convince others in your cities that this isn't a problem that needs to be solved and that
technology can help.
Jessica: [00:09:59] One of the first smart cities right now is Chicago. Can you talk to
me about that project where you guys are and maybe what you've learned from it.

Megan: [00:10:07] Yeah absolutely. This is Megan. You want to start off by just giving a
deep thank you to the city leaders in Chicago for being the pilot and going through the
inclusive smart city maturity model with us. I think it really was a great example of deep
partnership when we have city leaders NGOs and large companies coming together to
really understand what it means to provide great guidance on creating inclusive cities
and especially this thing called an inclusive smart city right. So we got to spend two
days on the ground with a variety of city employees that ranged from the mayor's office
the mayor's office some people with disabilities libraries their legal staff and IP. And in
my mind there were a couple of really big takeaways for me. One it was an incredible
opportunity for a variety of city employees to come together and have a really rich
conversation about accessibility and inclusion. I think we realized that everybody has
best practices and we have a lot to learn from each other. So simply creating a face in
which people could come together and begin to have this conversation I think was a real
win for the city.
Megan: [00:11:19] Second of all it's incredible to see the strong partnership that the
mayor's office on disability has with the CIO of the city of Chicago. I think that that is
really one of those you know what I would call part of the secret sauce to creating a
great include great inclusion within a city and that has paved the path for prioritizing
accessibility across the digital environment on in Chicago. And third have organization
whether you're a city whether you're a company whether you're a non-profit. We have
those moments of brilliance. We have those programs those processes that really help
further accessibility and inclusion and places to mature. And I think that that's part of
what we really want to shine a light on which is how do we begin to make that data
driven investment strategy by understanding what we do really well and those places
that we have to grow. So one of the things that again that I really like about the the
inclusive smart city maturity model is being able to bring up that conversation and start
to shed light on how to move forward.
Jessica: [00:12:29] You guys launched this for Smart City in Chicago during the polar
vortex. How did the frigid weather conditions impact accessibility and then the data that
you guys collected.

Megan: [00:12:41] Well I'm incredibly proud to say that I was in negative 21 degrees but
definitely the cold weather I have personally ever experience. So I feel like that some
sort of badge of honor for me. But you know what. It was incredible. The city of Chicago
really lived up to its reputation as being the city that always work because everybody
came to the meetings across those two days. They were dedicated. They were engaged
just absolutely huge kudos to show how dedicated the city of Chicago is to keeping not
only the city running but beginning to think about how they push the envelope and make
it even better.
Jessica: [00:13:21] I love that they were still doing it. Still taking part hunkered down
attending meetings and participating because the city doesn't stop when it's negative 21
degrees.
Megan: [00:13:33] It really doesn't. And they were all laughing and saying oh this is
nothing it's not that bad. Which certainly gave us a chuckle.
Jessica: [00:13:40] Talk to me about some of the barriers to smart city accessibility if
you will.
Laura: [00:13:46] This is Laura I've mentioned before that G3 ICT did a survey to try
and collect information about what needed to be done and the survey came back you
know confirming that there is a lot of work to be done to eliminate barriers and improve
access so there are so many things when cities don't you know incorporate accessible
technology. There are consequences across the board for people with disabilities.
When you think about it being able to access community services being able to access
transportation being able to secure employment being able to participate in civic
activities to vote to receive services and then even public safety emergency services
and the courts and justice system so there can be barriers in all of those places where
technology can help them. And then there's a different kind of barrier. There's there's
also a lack of awareness and a lack of you know policies and trained professionals in
the area of accessible technology so we need to address the barriers in terms of you
know the city and the services but also cities need help learning more about

accessibility and about accessible technology so that they can bring their A game and
help their citizens talk to me about some of the.
Jessica: [00:15:29] The work with smart cities that is happening outside of the U.S.
because this isn't just a U.S. specific program. What other cities or countries are leading
the way.
Laura: [00:15:38] There are a lot of great things happening that a lot of places. And you
know a lot of cities have some great practices and are doing really innovative things.
But there's definitely room for improvement when it comes to digital inclusion. So you
know as we mentioned Chicago in the US is doing some cool things with their city wide
3 1 1 system for citizen engagement and New York City has has been integrating
accessibility into their four months of technology but you're asking me outside the US.
So like for instance Rio de Janeiro they've taken some steps to make sure that all of the
content they're generating for the public that that's accessible so making documents
accessible making sure that information that they send out to people via email but that's
accessible and even creating a guide for city employees about how to be inclusive in
social media. So sometimes we think about you know big technology solutions and we
forget that there are small things that cities can do. London has a huge transportation
agency and they have an open data policy which requires developers to get some
accessibility training so then their data is made available which is really valuable to
developers who want to create new apps and products. So there are things like this
happening all over the world and you know as cities become more aware that this is an
area that they need to focus on. Well you know we're going to see great stuff yeah.
Megan: [00:17:15] Laura I want to chime in with that because you couldn't be more
correct that we need to continue to drive awareness and education about what it really
means to build accessibility solutions. And so I just want to give some information about
the University of Illinois which now has an online program in which people can take a
course to help them begin to understand exactly what how to build accessibility
programs and applications. It's called The Information Accessibility design and policy
certificate. Little bit of a long name but a great resource. If you're thinking about learning
more about accessibility and technology.

Jessica: [00:17:57] Awesome. I love that. And let's link to this program too so if you
want to check it out and learn more you can just click directly through.
Jessica: [00:18:06] Let's take a reset. This is Jessica Miller Merrill. And you were
listening to the work all G podcast today we were talking with Laura Ruby and Megan
Lawrence about smart cities and accessibility. This podcast is sponsored by clear
company and is part of the future of work series in partnership with the partnership on
employment and accessible technology. Or PEAT.
Break: [00:18:28] This episode has been sponsored by clear company a complete
talent management software provider clear company software solutions include award
winning Applicant Tracking onboarding and performance management solutions. Prior
retain and engage more top talent with clear company.
Jessica: [00:18:43] I think that maybe people have thought about smart cities or
hopefully they've read about it in the news or listened to a show or this podcast like oh
this sounds really really great but this is a podcast for workplace leaders right. So I want
to ask how do smart cities impact employers and employees.
Megan: [00:19:01] Yeah this is Megan. You know cities are where people with
disabilities live work and play right. And we know that employment does not start when
you walk into the door of your workplace. So we really begin to see cities and employers
as part of a larger ecosystem. And so we need cities to be accessible to support that
whole employee right from getting the education that they need and want having
accessible transportation so people can move freely in their environment being able to
socialize with friends and family at restaurants and parks and you know all of the kinds
of places where people come together in cities and then hopefully the goal is being able
to provide that pathway for people to get that dream job that they always wanted. And
so again it's really important that we begin to see that larger scope of what it means for
a person with a disability to be living and being employed within any location. But again
cities are often the largest employers the inclusive accessibility maturity model for smart
cities really takes a look at how that city is creating an inclusive work environment for

people with disabilities and really support and promote inclusive hiring because you
know the bottom line is since the passing of the ACA we haven't seen unemployment
significantly increase. And in fact some statistics are showing that unemployment has
increased just ever so slightly. So if we're really going to change the unemployment rate
for people with disabilities it's going to take all of us coming together to provide that
support system. So you know oftentimes people will say well you know what. What
would be your one piece of advice which is always really challenging but similar to what
Laura said a little bit earlier about procurement and the importance of being able to buy
accessible products. So we want to help cities along with everybody who's listening
here think about what does it mean for your organization to truly buy accessible
technology. So I encourage everybody to ask their vendors to start providing information
about the accessibility of their products and ask for documentation about how their
products meet global accessibility standards such as Section 5 a week here in the
United States which at two point one double A which are international web standards.
And certainly if you have a global business thinking about EN standards so even 3 0 1 5
4 9 and were a you know you and I have recently seen a number of other countries in
fact coming out with really great accessibility policies which support this kind of
procurement. So there's new policies in Mexico in France and in fact in Japan as well.
So I think in order to truly drive that unemployment rate down to make sure that we're
bringing accessibility talent into our companies we need to buy and deploy accessible
technology.
Laura: [00:21:57] Yes definitely. Megan and I wanted to jump in right here because G3
ICT created this awesome discussion guide that cities and any other government can
use when they're talking to a technology vendor and it gives the government entity a
whole set of questions to ask so that they can be sure that they're buying technology
that meets global standards. It gives them advice on what kinds of questions to ask
about you know who the technology works for and how and it's just a super I think it's a
super helpful tool for for anyone who makes that decision that they're going to buy
accessible technology we can we can maybe share that link.
Jessica: [00:22:50] Absolutely. Well I also wanted to ask what are some ways that
employers can encourage or collaborate with these cities maybe you know I live in

Austin maybe I'd love Austin to become a Smart City like how do I as a business owner
and an employer of people get involved.
Megan: [00:23:07] Yeah this is Megan. So you know if we really look at modern day
statistics which show one in five people have a disability today these really hurt our
communities that we live in. And again harking back to what I mentioned earlier it is a
symbiotic relationship for any business owner small or large to support the inclusion of
people with disabilities in their local communities. You don't law and I were talking just
briefly before we got on this podcast with you and saying you know that large
companies like Microsoft like AT&T like MasterCard don't all have best practices for
hiring people with disabilities. So it's similar to bringing the city together to have rich
conversations among themselves. We also have the opportunity to share best practices
between our city and our state and local government communities and the businesses
that are operating there. So you know my one word of advice is get the conversation
started. We have a lot to learn from each other.
Jessica: [00:24:05] You guys have been a long term corporate partner with the Smart
Cities program. Why are accessible cities a priority from the Microsoft perspective.
Laura: [00:24:15] You know kind of as we mentioned before it's Microsoft's mission to
empower people and organizations to do more. And you know the world is made up of
cities and cities are organizations that serve people then. And so you're saying cities
employ people they engage citizens they impact people's health education safety. So
cities can't serve citizens or employ people unless they're inclusive. And technology can
help and it's it's pretty much that simple.
Jessica: [00:24:44] One of the things about smart cities is the use of technology and
data to help make the city more accessible but also the city and its infrastructure more
innovative. Can you talk to me about how data and information help drive this.
Megan: [00:24:58] Absolutely. This is Megan you know data is the lifeblood of any
smart city right. When we think about this term smart city we really mean using
technology to begin to optimize services or provide better ways of engaging with

citizens. One of my favorite examples of what a smart city is is looking at a smart trash
can. You may have seen these on your city streets. What does that mean. They actually
have little sensors that go in these trash cans that tell when they're full. So the trash
collectors can go ahead and pick up the garbage cans that are full and leave the rest of
them until they are full which reduces the amount of impact that those very very large
garbage trucks have on city infrastructure. Right. So we're optimizing from the trash
collection perspective of how often they're out collecting and we're reducing the amount
of impact that it has on the city infrastructure reducing the cost of having to improve
roads over time. So if we think about that idea of how data is incredibly important for
any city it begs the question which is how are you proactively including data from the
disability community and about the accessibility of the city itself. Because what we want
to try to do is make sure that we are empowering cities to build again that data driven
investment strategy. So I've got one example of a partner called Move it. It's the number
one app transportation app in the world today. They have proactively gone out and
made sure that that application is fully accessible for the blind and low vision community
by bringing on engineers that are blind and low vision to help make sure that the design
and the development not only meet global accessibility standards but truly is a good
usable experience. They have wheelchair routing through 86 countries globally. So
beginning to think about how people with mobility disabilities or people who might have
a baby stroller or just don't want to have to walk uphill can think about routing through a
city and it's localized to 40 or languages. Right. So again they brought the disability
voice in to the way that they their application and now I think most importantly it's they
are providing their API on Azure maps. So anybody who's an ATM company and wants
to create a navigation system in their application can use all of that data and create an
accessible experience for citizens in any city globally.
Jessica: [00:27:34] I love it. I hadn't even thought about the trashcans thing but that is
and the examples that you provided it just makes the city operationally more sound and
staffing decisions and deployment decisions like it all fits together.
Megan: [00:27:49] Yeah I mean I really I couldn't agree more. And I think if we kind of
turn to this question of like how is accessibility about the physical environment you are
talking about data from people with disabilities now let's turn to physical environment.

You know we need to again begin to think about how we are truly creating inclusive
artificial intelligence. And when I say inclusive artificial intelligence I really mean making
sure that we've got great data from the physical environment and people with disabilities
that help make sure that those solutions are are reducing bias. So another really great
example that I have is a company called cyclo media. They work to the city of New York
using light hour data and high resolution imagery to map the entire city and look at all of
their curb cuts. And so now what they've done is be able to provide again that data
driven investment strategy to figure out how they are going to improve the physical
infrastructure over time to be more accessible.
Jessica: [00:28:54] Thank you so much for all the resources and insights that you guys
have shared. Where can people go to learn more about inclusive and accessible smart
cities. And then also connect with you each individually.
Laura: [00:29:06] To learn more about the smart cities for all initiative. People can go to
smart cities for and that's the number for all dot org. And if people want to learn more
generally about accessible technology and Microsoft's success accessible technology
they can go to Microsoft dot com slash accessibility.
Jessica: [00:29:28] Awesome. And I'm typing down the links as you're sharing we'll put
these in the transcript of the podcast so you can go directly to work all G dot com and
be able to get the reports that we've cited all the links that both Megan and Laura have
shared today. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you. Thank you.
Closing: [00:29:48] The workology podcast future of work series is supported by PEAT
the partnership on employment and accessible technology PEAT's initiative is to foster
collaboration and action around accessible technology in the workplace. PEAT is
funded by the U.S. Department of Labor's Office of Disability Employment Policy.
ODEP. Learn more about PEAT and peatworks dot org. That's PEAT t w o r k s dot org.
Closing: [00:30:17] Smart cities are an important part of making not just cities but the
lives of those who live and work within our cities. A more inclusive and accessible place
as a data nerd. I am really interested in how technologies and tools can help to improve

city operation support offerings and infrastructure. I love Microsoft's involvement and the
work that G3 I see t is also doing. I find the use of technology and data extremely
interesting and not unlike what we're seeing in H.R. pulling data from all different places
and information from various technologies and systems into a single unified format or
home. Maybe the smart cities model might be the model for our own workplace and
data analytics. The future of workplace series is in partnership with Pete and is one of
my favorites. Thank you to Pete as well as our podcast sponsor clear Company
Exit: [00:31:08] Production Services for the workology podcast with Jessica Miller
Merrill provided by total picture dot.com.
Episode Link:
http://traffic.libsyn.com/workology/ep-178-smart_cities_workology_podcast.mp3


Ep 178: Future of Work: Making Our Cities Smarter & More Accessible

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Ep 178: Future of Work: Making Our Cities Smarter & More Accessible