UN Autism Advantage Luncheon

At the invitation of Specialisterne, an IBM colleague James and I attended the Autism Advantage Luncheon at the UN today. The luncheon was attended by SAP, IBM, Microsoft, Cognoa, and various nonprofits and academics who support hiring autistic people. A stated purpose of the luncheon is to get people to network. James and I were purposely not seated at the same table, as were colleagues from other companies. This way we could meet people at various stages of implementing autism hiring from various lines of work.

The keynote speaker was C​aroline Casey the leader #Valuable, a global campaign to employ the estimated one billion people world wide with disabilities. She gave a rousing speech and implored businesses to act on this - not out of charity, but to their own advantage. "Ignore the inclusion revolution at your peril," she said, and implored the crowd to take the lead, asking for someone to do for this movement what Sheryl Sandberg did for women in tech.

Thorkil Sonne, CEO of Specialisterne, spoke as well, saying goodbye to the US as he returns to his native Denmark after four and a half years of living in Delaware. Specialisterne was the non-profit that we contracted with in Lansing along with Autism Alliance of Michigan when we did our hiring pilot last year.

At the close, the UN's Jeff Brez - Chief of NGO relations in the Department of Public Information - asked the crowd three questions: 1)are you convinced of the autism advantage; 2)can you influence employers to be convinced; 3)what will you do next? Many people spoke up, including me - I mentioned our pilot in Lansing, remarked that we are considering more, and urged everyone there to network and learn from one another. That is how I got inspired to create this community and help my colleagues set up a hiring pilot. One person admitted he was still incredulous and wanted more proof of the success of hiring autisic people, to which one person responded he should talk to people like Jose Velasco at SAP, whose five-year old program is the most mature and successful one I can name in our industry.

Many of the attendees will also be at the Autism at Work Summit in Redmond, WA starting on April 24th. James and I both made a few new friends, and I think it is safe to say James was as inspired as I was when I first went to the UN three years ago.

A few more photos - top right, Thorkil Sonne of Specialisterne; bottom left, Caroline Casey of #Valuable. The other photos are of me meeting a young autistic woman from the Hague who runs a language translation startup, and a woman from Poland who works with autistic people (her first time in the US, ever!).