# Transcript: User Centric Design & Funding of Accessible Tech **Date:** March 14, 2026 · 10:30 PM **Session:** [User Centric Design & Funding of Accessible Tech](/sessions/2026-03-14/pp1162518-user-centric-design-funding-of-accessible-tech) ## Summary This SXSW session explored user-centered design and funding strategies for accessible technology, emphasizing the significant market opportunity within the global disability community. Panelists, many with lived experiences of disability, shared how their companies develop inclusive products through extensive co-design and beta testing. The discussion also covered evolving business models and creative funding approaches beyond traditional venture capital, highlighting the potential of AI as an equalizer for accessibility. ## Topics `accessibility` · `user-centered design` · `disability entrepreneurship` · `assistive technology` · `inclusive design` · `market opportunity` · `funding strategies` · `product market fit` · `artificial intelligence` · `community saas` ## Key Takeaways 1. Designing for people on the "edges" (e.g., those with disabilities) often results in better products for everyone, a concept known as the curb cut effect, making it crucial to prioritize inclusive design from the outset. 2. Entrepreneurs with disabilities bring unique and valuable skills like resilience, problem-solving, and adaptability, which are crucial for startup success and should be recognized as a competitive advantage. 3. Extensive user testing and co-design with the target disability community are essential for developing truly accessible and user-friendly products, often revealing unexpected but highly valued features that improve the overall user experience. 4. Accessible tech companies may need to explore alternative business models, such as community SaaS or B2B, rather than direct-to-consumer, due to the economic realities and specific needs of the disability community. 5. Creative funding strategies, including non-dilutive grants, pitch competitions, and leveraging existing disability support programs, can be vital for early-stage startups before considering venture capital, which often comes with high growth expectations. ## Full Transcript My name is Chris Marr. I'll be your moderator and host today. Welcome to our afternoon session about user-centered design and funding accessibility or assistive technology. We're a pretty big crowd here, which is awesome, and also thank you to South by Southwest for including a session like this within their programming around accessibility and disability inclusion. What we're going to talk about today is actually relevant to any company in any startup that wants to design products that are good for all their customers. I'm going to quickly introduce our panel, and then we'll go through and we'll all give a little bit of our background. My name is Chris Marr, I'm the founder of General Partners in Urban Partners. To my left, to your right, right next to me is Brandon Biggs, who is the founder and CEO of XR Navigation. Down the line next is Diego Mariscal, who is the founder and CEO of Together International. And then all the way down on the other side is Rebecca Rosenberg, who was the founder and CEO of Reboka. Before we get into our more detailed bios, I wanted to just set the table and throw out some statistics for all of it. My guess is some of you are familiar with these statistics, but many of you may not be very familiar with these statistics, so let's just talk about the size of the disability market and community. Here are a few numbers: 1.5 billion, that is the size of the global disability community. To put that into context, that is larger than the population of China. That is one in six people globally, that is one in four adults in the United States. That population is going to more than double in the next 25 years. A big part of that doubling is going to be driven by us all getting older, living longer, and getting older. Now, let's talk about the market opportunities. The spending power of that community is in the neighborhood of six to seven trillion dollars. When you include family members and friends and caregivers, that number more than doubles. That's a gigantic market. The last thing I'll say about disability is it's part of the human condition. It touches all of us. If you don't have a disability yourself, you certainly know someone who does. If you don't have a disability today, there's a good chance that at some point during your life you will have an accident or illness that will bring you into the community, either permanently or temporarily. We are all going to age into the community eventually. Disability has no bias or prejudice; it cuts across everything: age, gender, socioeconomic status, religion, ethnicity, geography, etc. If I had said all of that without putting disability in front of it to begin with, you would have probably said, that's a gigantic market, I'd love to invest in that. Well, that's the market we're talking about, and we're going to give some details about that in terms of developing products and services for that market. Absolutely. My name is Rebecca Rosenberg. I am the founder and CEO of Reboka. I started Reboka about seven years ago out of my dorm room, developing technology specifically for individuals with low vision. What I mean when I say that is that about 90% of blind and low vision individuals actually have some amount of visual sight, but when we think about accessibility for that population, it's normally audio-only options or tactile-only options. The fact of the matter is that when you have a good amount of functional sight, you're really looking for accessibility through that lens; you're looking to still have a visual experience. We built an augmented reality tool that works on your smartphone that allows people with vision impairment to make the most of the functional sight that they have. I have had low vision my entire life as a result of albinism, and I built something that I wanted for me, and it very quickly turned out that other people liked it. What we actually do now is work with organizations in the cultural sector, so museums, zoos, aquariums. We also work with airports and in professional sports, making this technology available in their space as an accessibility tool for people with vision impairments to use when they are in those spaces. Thank you, Rebecca. My name is Diego Mariscal. I am the founder and CEO of Together International, which is the largest accelerator for founders with disabilities. When we use the term accelerator, most people think of Tech Stars, Y Combinator, and other similar organizations, and certainly supporting startups and supporting founders is at the core of what we do. But we also look at particularly the disability space, looking at access to capital, best practices, policy recommendations, etc. I like to think of us as much more than just an accelerator, even though that's what most people know us for. We have an apprenticeship program that we'll get into. Much like Rebecca, I started because of my own experience. I was actually raised in Monterrey, Mexico, but I was born in the States by accident. My parents were shopping, and I was born six and a half months into my mom's pregnancy, so a pretty tiny baby. My mom jokes and says that I've always been really stubborn, even before I was born, I wanted to get out quickly, and as a result of that, I have CP, which mostly affects my motor skills. When I came to the States and I realized that there weren't a lot of people talking about disability and entrepreneurship, I really thought this is a missed opportunity, where we can really showcase how disability and entrepreneurship are two sides of the same coin, meaning that as disabled people, we have to figure out how we address, how we drive, how we communicate, and that's inherently an entrepreneurship skill. With that model, we've been able to support more than 1,000 entrepreneurs from all over the world, helping them raise more than $84 million in various forms of capital. We ourselves have given approximately about half a million dollars in non-dilutive capital. So super proud of the work we've done. My name is Brandon Biggs, and I am the CEO and co-founder of XR Navigation. I want you to close your eyes and imagine you smell the smoke and pull up the wildfire evacuation map, and it's completely blank because you're blind. Open your eyes. That's my experience when accessing 99.99% of the maps on the internet today. And that's why we created XR Navigation. It is a tool that we're working with state and local governments and other locations that have any kind of map to make their maps fully accessible. People who can read maps typically read around 300 maps a year, and contrast that with blind people who do less than one. So that's the gap we're trying to close here. There's a lot we need to do, and it's not just blind people who have access issues with barriers to geographic maps. It's also people who aren't able to use a mouse due to mobility impairments, people who are not able to read for one reason or another, due to either dyslexia or illiteracy or something like that. It's people who are low vision and need to be able to zoom in, colorblind users; the list just goes on and on for different people who aren't able to use maps today. So that's why we created our technology, and we also participated in the Together International accelerator and received some of that non-dilutive funding. Just a little more about my background. I'm Chris Marr, founder, General Partner at Smart Partners. We are a social impact venture fund, and we only invest in the disability sector. So companies early stage for-profit companies like some of the stage here, they're either building products, services, assistive technology for the community and/or creating employment opportunities. My background, I'm actually new to venture investing. I previously spent 25 years as an operator, a multi-time CEO in a variety of venture-backed companies. My relationship with disability: my wife and I raised two beautiful daughters, both of whom live with disabilities. A little bit more setup before we get into our first topic about user-centered design. That's one term, some variations of that you may have heard: human-centered design, inclusive design, universal design. Let's kind of set the table with some defining of those terms. They're not separate from each other, and they're more overlapping, and we'll probably flow in and out of those terms today as we have this conversation. I'm going to kick it back to Diego, who's going to provide a little bit of context. Thanks, Chris. I think that, especially as we're working with entrepreneurs, these terms get thrown around a lot, and I think that they're used interchangeably, but there's distinction in each one. Thinking about that can be really useful. The concept of universal-centered design is really thinking about it from a philosophy standpoint, and how do we make sure that humans, especially as we think of AI, are at the center of the design. Then we have user-centered design that is much more focused on the user experience, obviously, and much more focused on product. As we will discuss product in different applications, that's what we mean when we talk about user-centered design. Then we have co-design, which is this idea of collaborative design, and many of these terms are interconnected. Inclusive design is really looking at how we are designing with different perspectives in mind. And then universal design, which is how do we design making sure that accessibility is at the core of the focus or the conversation, so that the product or service can be accessible for everybody. I will say I came to a fuller understanding of user-centered design a little bit into my journey as an entrepreneur. As you're building, as you're doing things, you learn, and you kind of go back and apply those things to how you move forward. We actually built the very first version of Reboka based on my experience and the experience of our wider advisory board that has done a lot of work with people with disabilities. There were people with disabilities on that advisory board, and we spent about a year creating the first version of Reboka. From there, we spent a second year doing beta testing with about 150 people across the entire low vision care pathway: individuals with low vision, ophthalmologists, optometrists, low vision technology specialists, orientation and mobility specialists, you name it. We had them in our beta testing cohort. Over the course of that year, we really optimized for that population, and we were able to adjust many different features, add new things. To this day, there are features and capabilities of Reboka that came out of that beta test that you would never really think of, but are the most loved features of our technology. For example, you're used to zooming in on your phone with a two-finger pinch-to-zoom motion. We had people, that was what we originally built, and people came back to us and they said, 'Hey, that means I have to hold my phone with two hands.' We actually rather not have to do that. We'd like to do it one-handed. So now if you open up Reboka, you'll notice that it's actually a one-finger slide up to zoom in and down to zoom out. And that is to this day one of the things people love most about what we do is that they can use it with one hand, and that would never have come up if we hadn't worked with this population. The other thing that I think was really important for us is that we are the only company that we know of specifically focused on the low vision community. Part of the reason that that's important is because in many cases, we think about blind and low vision as the same thing, but low vision users need different accessibility features than blind users. In some cases, filling in a lot of the capabilities that are really useful to a blind user makes a technology less accessible to somebody who is low vision because it adds additional features and capabilities and things are talking to you in a way that somebody with low vision specifically does not want. By working with the population that we were trying to serve, we were able to learn some of that and make sure that we didn't fall into those same mistakes, and we actually made the most user-friendly, usable version of the technology possible. As a result of all of that work, we very quickly were in 40, 90, and now 115 countries globally. Just to emphasize what Rebecca was saying, I am totally blind, and I do not use Reboka. I can't use it. Blind and low vision are two separate, very, very separate, and they get lumped together, but they should never really be lumped together, because they're very different. My background is, I got a master's in inclusive design, and my PhD is in human-centered computing. So it's kind of what we do all the time. We have to start with a problem that we individually face. The problem that we were aiming to solve was that blind people can't use maps. I'm blind and I can't use a map. So the type of design this is, is user-led design, where the user is building something for themselves. I built a tool that I could use on my own, and that was kind of the initial version of our tool way back nine years ago. Then we brought in very early on a sighted person to be the developer to build out the visual experience of our tool, and they felt very odd being the only sighted developer on a totally blind development team. They actually did an inclusive design conference talk being the only token sighted developer on a totally blind team. So it really took the idea of accessibility and kind of flipped it on its head. We needed to make our tool accessible to sighted people. Now it's a critical part of all our workflow, quality assurance testing. We've done a lot of co-designs with sighted people and low vision folks and people with different types of disabilities. We've done a lot of work to make sure that what we're building is actually usable by these folks. Thankfully, there's a lot of patterns out there for building maps for sighted people, and so it wasn't as hard as trying to build a map that blind people could use. We've definitely done a lot of co-designs. That's basically where you take 10 people, between five to 10 people, and you sit them down and you walk them through your product, or you ask them about their experiences and what they currently do. You may show them a version of your product, have them give their feedback, what they like, what they think needs improvement, what they don't like about that product. That's kind of how we broadly structure our co-designs. Then we get a lot of qualitative data and analyze that data and bring that into feature requests. That's kind of in a broad nutshell the different types of inclusive design. We do user-led design, inclusive design, keep going to different groups and figuring how to make our product better. And we do co-design to figure out how we can open all the products for that population. One of our core components of our work is really around being the largest accelerator and organization that supports entrepreneurs and founders with disabilities. What that does is it allows people to have a unique space that's specifically designed by disabled people by default, because you have those perspectives at the core of the conversation. For example, when we do applications for any of our programs, we ask anybody, 'Is there any accommodation or anything that we can do to make this process more inclusive for you?' We received several pieces of feedback that that has been a transformational experience, because oftentimes people will have to mask their disability or accommodate their disability, and the fact that we're asking it upfront, our whole philosophy is how we think about disability as a competitive advantage. For example, I have CP. As a result, I have fallen thousands of times in my life, and so that has given me a level of resiliency and tenacity, literally falling thousands of times and getting back up. How do you translate that into the workforce? How do you translate that into entrepreneurship? Thinking about that from a cultural standpoint allows it to be naturally embedded into the products and systems that you create from the get-go. I think that when you design for people, communities, groups on the edges, it tends to be really good for the people in the middle. That's the curb cut effect. It's captioning, it's Velcro, it's electric toothbrushes. There is that sort of design, disability-driven design all around us every day, and a lot of which you don't even realize. That's where starting, when you design for the middle, it's rarely good for the people on the edges and the groups on the edges. So that's why it's so important to start with this sort of design, not bolted on later. Part of the reason I love investing in this space, it's the entrepreneurs that have disabilities or have a very personal connection to the problem we're solving around disability, inherently, are very good at several things. They're great problem solvers, and this is by default and inherently, because they have to be. They're super resilient, they're adaptable, and they're creative. Those are fantastic and necessary traits to be a good entrepreneur, and by the way, they're great traits for the game of life as well. So it's a special group of entrepreneurs in this category to bring a very special set of skills and traits to the table which are essential for being a successful entrepreneur. We have an interesting situation where our users are not necessarily our customers. So we have a really odd tension there between those two. As I mentioned, we do a lot of co-designs with different user groups where we ask them, 'Please give me your thoughts on this interface, and how can we improve it for you?' There are a lot of different companies that can connect you with people with disabilities. I think one really famous one is called Fable, and they do a lot of testing and user testing stuff like that. We don't use them. I actually am connected to a lot of disabled people on LinkedIn, so that's how I reach out. Once we've developed that feature, we evaluate that feature and actually quantitatively determine the efficacy and how much it actually impacts the experience. So we'll run a user study and ask, 'Can you answer these questions, these spatial questions based off the interface?' That kind of thing. How accurate are they? That gives us a metric that we can use to measure how usable our product is. To make sure that we keep all that usability and amazingness in our product, we create automated tests and also have disabled testers as well, who will just go through and create quality assurance experience that is an end-to-end full end-to-end testing. We've got thousands of these tests for each different type of user workflow and make sure that whenever a developer pushes something, it doesn't break something. And that also helps with AI-driven development as well. I love talking on the same stage as Brandon, because we just use so many credentials, so much knowledge of how to do this in an organized, structured, research-oriented, data-oriented way. Whereas when I started, I was like, 'I wonder what's on that?' I just, to this day, I actually personally am the moderator of the R/lowvision subreddit, because I realized that there was only an R/blind subreddit, and that's great, but we kind of needed our own space specifically, so I made it. In order to get people in, let me back up for just a moment. I am not somebody who you would probably immediately, if you met me on the street, know that I have a disability. It is not immediately obvious. It probably would be considered on the invisible disability side. As a result of that, growing up, I knew that I had a vision impairment, but I didn't, I went to, quote unquote, regular school, and my parents just really didn't focus on it. They didn't teach me anything about my disability. God bless, they were doing the best that they could. But as a result of that, I grew up not knowing anybody else who was living the same experience as me. I actually didn't start out in a place of knowing other people with disabilities from regular life, but I didn't know anyone who specifically also had a vision impairment. So I had to kind of start from zero, and in starting from zero, I went to Facebook, and I got into all of the Facebook groups around low vision. I got into the Reddit groups around low vision. I also discovered an organization called NOAH that is specifically an organization for people with albinism, which is what I personally have, which I also did not know until I was 21. I just remember going to one of their events for the first time and being like, 'Oh, wow. There are other people who get my lived experience. There are other people who also use their Apple Watch with their nose because it's already this close to their face, they might as well.' As a result of that, I was starting from zero, and I went into all of those different groups, and I said, 'Hey, we're trying to move this thing. We need beta testers. Who's interested in being a beta tester?' I didn't know anything about, 'Hey, we should pay people with disabilities for their expertise. We should pay people with disabilities for giving us testing feedback.' I just knew that I wanted people to try this out, and that was how we built our 150 in-person list of people. I was allowed into optometrist groups, I was allowed into ophthalmologist groups, and just asked for help. Sometimes you don't need a million LinkedIn connections with people to get it done, but it is doable to start from zero and to just figure it out as you go along and connect with new people and see what they say. Sometimes, I think bringing it outside of the people that you know, and making sure that you are working with different organizations to bring new people in is a really good way to get a wide array of feedback. One of the benefits that we have is that, because we are specifically focusing on supporting disabled entrepreneurs and founders with disabilities, many of them are working, not all of them, but many of them, about 90%, are working in the disability space. So they are coming at the problems that they're solving from a lived experience perspective. And so it allows for that user experience-centric experience to be at the core of their work. One important thing to note on this sort of user experience concept is one of the things that we're working on that we actually were very successful at was creating the first ever apprenticeship program for startup leaders with disabilities. What was interesting about this program, we placed 100 apprentices across different startup environments. These weren't necessarily founders. They were people that were interested in going into the workforce and learning about entrepreneurship and being an entrepreneur in whatever employment they were going into. What was interesting about the apprenticeship model, and specifically the startup apprenticeship focus, is that it's built around the idea of capabilities. For anyone who's familiar with the apprenticeship piece, it's basically learning on the job and getting credentials on the job and getting paid as you do it. When you think about user design, and when you think about creating products and services for people with disabilities, it can also be done from a services perspective, where you are focusing on the strengths of that individual. And by the way, that approach of using strength-based learning and strength-based training can be used for the disability community, but also for the non-disabled population as well. So we can take the learnings to the point that you were saying earlier and apply them to the broader workforce. I originally raised $100,000 in non-dilutive funding through student startup pitch competitions. That was really in like $5,000 here, $20,000 there, $10,000 here. That was a ton of work, but it taught me how to pitch. It taught me how to talk about what we were doing and how to properly educate a population that people with low vision exist, and people with low vision are different from people who are totally blind and have different needs. That was how we got our initial capital to start to get off the ground. Our original plan for Reboka, which is an augmented reality app-based tool, was to basically be a freemium model, so there was a basic free version, and then you could upgrade as an individual for enhanced features, mostly direct-to-consumer. What we found very quickly when we did actually launch that was that we needed millions and millions and millions of dollars for marketing if we were ever going to make a dent in the population going the direct-to-consumer route. It's that no one has ever done anything specifically for people in low vision before, and as a result of that, we're not globalized anywhere, even the organizations. Most of them still primarily focused on people who are blind. Without doing a spray and pray marketing system, we were never going to get there. It was going to be incredibly difficult. About a year into that, we pivoted to our current business model, which is essentially community SaaS, where we are working with these partner sites to sponsor the availability of the full version of Reboka in their space. Anybody here can download Reboka. You can use it for free. There are a couple of basic free features, but when you go to one of our partner sites, for example, the Miami International Airport, you enter into the Miami International Airport, you'll get a notification. It will say that you're at one of our partner sites, and it will automatically unlock for you the full version of the technology. Not only are we enabling these organizations to learn about accessibility, to provide accessibility tools that actually work for the population that they think that they're serving, but we also have incorporated a bit of a training, programmatic aspect to it, so that we're not just dropping in our technology and then leaving. We are teaching and training the staff and spreading the message about low vision and teaching them how to use the technology so that they are actually comfortable when somebody comes in and needs an accessibility accommodation. Not only are we doing that and enabling that with these organizations, but it's also a way for us to find people with low vision. Because as they go to these spaces and they're downloading their Reboka, oftentimes they're using it again, whether it's at another one of our partner sites, or when they get home, they're going back to the free version. That has actually enabled us to solve all of the problems by just adjusting the business model. And now we're actually, I would say, the largest community aggregate of people, specifically with low vision. We knew pretty early on that we were not going to be direct-to-consumer, mainly because the combined population is one of the most poorest populations that exist, and so they aren't going to be buying a lot of technology. So that's one. We really quickly decided that we were going to be free for our end users, and then the businesses or government institutions are going to be the ones paying for our technology. Now trying to figure out which government institution or business is going to pay is a way more difficult problem. We came up with about 40 different potential customer segments, and we kind of rated them on how likely, what a bunch of different variables, like how long was it to take for them to close on a contract, the size of the market, that kind of thing. So we have all these big spreadsheets of all these different variables, and we kind of bring them up at the top. We found fairly early on, we kind of pivoted a little bit through that list. Universities were at the very top. They had like four pieces of legislation they need to require to provide accessible materials for, and none of them had accessible, or very few have accessible maps on their website with campuses. So that was our first kind of segment, and we ended up doing a lot of customer discovery calls. So calling them and asking them, 'Tell me about your problems that you have around this.' And they were saying, 'You're the first blind person to ever ask about the accessible map, so it must not be a big problem.' That was kind of a knock, knock, good solution, and it was really hard to get a BANT. So the budget, the authority, the timeline, and the need, all designated there, like they kind of understood the need, but I was the only one asking for it. They didn't really have a timeline, because they keep getting hit with all these new regulations. So they were kind of apathetic a little bit. They weren't the ones talking to people in the budget. It didn't really work out. We spent about a year and a half, two years working that. We switched over to state and local governments, and it's a very different experience. Now they're like, 'Holy cow, there's the new ADA Channel 2 regulation coming up in April that we have to comply with. We've never even heard of accessibility.' So what do we do? That's a completely different conversation that we've been starting to have. If you work in state local government, let me know. But yeah, that is our current customer segment, been a much more welcoming environment because they are really interested in this, maybe because the regulation is starting the conversation and they do. They really want to serve everyone in their community, because the people that aren't able to access their maps on civic engagement projects are the ones they need to hear from the most. Because if they completely redesigned the bus routes, it's the people like me who are completely dependent on public transit that need to have access to that. So that's some of the justification that we've had after we've identified that customer segment, but it's some of the feedback we've been hearing. I'll share from my own experience, just to give you kind of a lay of the line of what, when we talk about resiliency, what that really means. When I was first starting out, I was raised in Mexico, so my Spanish is pretty good, but I figured, why not teach people Spanish and math? Those were my best subjects in school. So I started tutoring people. I would tutor people, and so I would get paid like $20 an hour under the table. That was my seed capital for starting. Then we graduated to using Uber pools. So I would get an Uber and get a ride with random strangers. And I would pitch them on the idea of what we were trying to do, and that's how I raised our first $7,000. The latest was I lived in an apartment that was bigger than I anticipated. So I figured, why not do Airbnb? But rather than renting it to one person, I thought it would be a good idea to rent it to seven people, one-bedroom apartment, so everybody had to schedule for the bathroom, etc. There are ways to get creative. Thankfully, I don't do that anymore. No housing violations. But the point being is that there are ways to get creative around funding, before taking VC funding, and testing these ideas. We couldn't take VC money because we're a non-profit. So we had to always, by doing all these things, I was doing meetup groups and I was going to meetings and doing interviews. So that was the user discovery experience. All went for free. The way in which we actually got our first big break was a woman from Google actually came to one of our meetups that we were doing, and she cared about what we were doing, and in her 20% Google has this 20% rule where you can spend 20% of your time on things that are unrelated to your job. Because she was really interested in disability and entrepreneurship, she recognized that nobody was doing this, was supporting people at scale, and so that was our big break. Point being, there are creative ways to get funding. The other point that I think is unique to the disability community is that we have specific programs that can actually make it easier for people to be entrepreneurs. What I mean by that is many of us rely on Medicaid, Social Security, supplementary income to make a living, and that is in some ways a benefit that non-disabled people don't have. If you're starting a business and you're not disabled, and you don't necessarily qualify for Medicaid or Medicare, you have to buy insurance elsewhere, whereas we have that covered. The fact that vocation rehabilitation services can pay for your education, and in some cases, in some states, for housing, that can give you additional funding to begin your startup. There's also the flip side, which is, if you have more than $2,000 in your bank account, you're at risk of losing those benefits, and so we need to create policies that take that away, but at least in the beginning stages, there are ways and resources that you can use as a person with a disability to begin your startup. That's why accelerators and organizations like the one that we're building are so important because we know how to navigate these systems in a way that your average ecosystem organization might not know. How can people connect with me? My email is Rebecca@reboka.com, where you can check us out online at reboka.com. That is likely the best way to connect with me. I'm also happy to share a business card if you come up to me afterwards. What am I optimistic about? I'm optimistic about the way that AI is enabling us to think about accessibility and all of the ways that we can use AI as a thought partner to make sure that we are considering accessibility. I think there are so many emerging technologies that begin as accessibility tools. We found for us that our technology is not only useful for people with low vision, but also anybody over 45 who's experiencing regular age-related vision deterioration. So I'm excited for the ways that AI is coming to improve the way we think about accessibility, and then that improves the way that the world works. You can find me, Diego, online everywhere. The thing that I'm optimistic about, I feel like you stole my answer, but yes, AI, because I do think it's a great equalizer. When you think about not just accessibility, but also education opportunities, the fact that you have on ChatGPT or whatever version of AI you use, somebody who has ideas, I think it can be very beneficial. The other point too, is the opportunity. When I first started, we were really the only accelerator and entrepreneurship support organization for people with disabilities. Now, last night, we talked about the fact that there are a handful of organizations now, a handful of investors that are looking to invest specifically in the disability space. So I'm optimistic about having the stage, about having presence at South by Southwest, and really thinking about how do we amplify that, because the population is only going to become bigger and better. So there's a lot of opportunity to keep innovating. You can find me on LinkedIn, and please come up and get my business card as well. My company's website is xrnavigation.io. Please go and try out some, listen to some of our maps. We've got a gallery page with a bunch of different demos and videos and all that kind of stuff. I like to look at things half full. To be honest, I spent a lot of time thinking about this. I'm encouraged that we are, there's been this attack on DEI, especially for government, because now we're switching from DEI to usability. We're trying to change the language a little bit. For example, we filled out a grant application, we received some SBIR funding, and for one of the grants we received, we couldn't use the word inclusion at all. We used to say we are the world's most inclusive map viewer. We can't say that anymore. So now we say we are the first digital map tool everyone can use. It's kind of shifting the conversation a little bit. We've had to replace every single phrase to usable instead of accessible. Because, in reality, you're making an application usable. For example, last night or two days ago, I wanted to DoorDash something to my room, so I went on there, and I could not, for the life of me, figure out how to add something to my cart, because the stupid thing was not accessible. That's because DoorDash fired their head of accessibility a few years ago, and the app has just gone downhill. So I switched over to Uber Eats, and it worked perfectly, because I can email the head of accessibility of Uber Eats anytime I want. They've got one. I'm encouraged about this conversation of switching from into usability. I agree with all those comments. You said something that I think is spot on. I think technology and AI specifically can become a great equalizer for the community, for sure. If you want to connect with me, Chris Marr on LinkedIn, pretty active there. Chris@Samaritanpartners.com is my email. Samaritanpartners.com is my website. I have a little podcast called 'Investing in Accessibility.' I have a wonderful co-host whose name is Kellan Crosby, who is a deafblind entrepreneur, which is a fun listen. Why I'm optimistic about the future is I believe that this is a moment in history where we have the best opportunity ever if we work together, because we're always better together. These technologies we're talking about, if we're not careful, they could also be used against us. But I do think we have an opportunity right now where we can create a world that is more inclusive and accessible, not just for some of us, but for all of us. And that's really, really exciting. --- *Source: stt · Language: en · Model: google-vertex/gemini-2.5-flash* [← Back to session](/sessions/2026-03-14/pp1162518-user-centric-design-funding-of-accessible-tech)