Mainstreaming Disability Inclusion Across Ecosystems of Technological Innovation and Social Protection

Date & time: 11:30AM – 12:45PM ET September 22nd

Like many previous crises and rapid systems changes, COVID-19 is disproportionately harming already marginalized communities, including people living with disabilities. Join us for a conversation on mainstreaming disability inclusion amid crisis, rapid digitization, and adaptation of social programs and technology products. Topics will include algorithmic fairness, engineering of inclusive built and digital environments, and multi-level policy advocacy.

BRAC will convene experts from the Center for Democracy & Technology, Google, and Humanity & Inclusion to share recent learning and best practices in disability inclusive innovation. Together, they represent an ecosystem of civil society actors, research scholars, and technological innovators with a common mandate to strengthen systems for people living with disabilities.

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Masrura Oishi, moderator of the discussion, is Manager at BRAC Social Innovation Lab, where her work focuses on behavior change and technology adaptation in Bangladesh. She is currently on study leave to pursue her Masters in Business for Social Impact at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, as a Citicorp-Wriston Scholar. Oishi launched and led BRAC’s first in-house social enterprise incubator to fund employee-led solutions. She also launched BRAC’s inaugural Social Innovation Fellowship and organized BRAC’s flagship international conference, the Frugal Innovation Forum. Oishi is an Advisor at Alokito Hridoy Foundation, an award-winning social enterprise aiming to transform the classroom experience in underprivileged primary schools in Bangladesh. She is currently researching problem-framing and social entrepreneurship in India and Kenya for MIT’s D Lab.

Lydia X. Z. Brown is Policy Counsel at the Center for Democracy and Technology and focuses on disability rights and algorithmic fairness and justice. Lydia lectures at Georgetown University and is the founding director of the Fund for Community Reparations for Autistic People of Color’s Interdependence, Survival, and Empowerment. They serve on the American Bar Association’s Commission on Disability Rights, and co-chair the Section on Civil Rights and Social Justice’s Disability Rights and Elder Affairs Committee. Lydia has received honors from the Obama White House, the Society for Disability Studies, the American Association of People with Disabilities, the National Disability Mentoring Coalition, and the Disability Policy Consortium.

Vint Cerf is Vice President and Chief Internet Evangelist at Google and sits on Google’s Disability Alliance. Widely known as one of the “Fathers of the Internet,” Cerf is the co-designer of the TCP/IP protocols and the architecture of the Internet. Vint is a recipient of numerous awards and commendations in connection with his work on the Internet, including the US Presidential Medal of Freedom, US National Medal of Technology, the Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering, the Prince of Asturias Award, the Japan Prize, the Charles Stark Draper award, the ACM Turing Award, the Legion d’Honneur and 29 honorary degrees.

Erika Trabucco is the Accessibility Specialist at Humanity & Inclusion. Erika is a trained architect and drives programs in raising awareness and developing capacities for inclusive design of products and programs. For over 10 years she worked on design, procurement, construction, and assessments for UN agencies, international NGOs, and the EU in Chad, South Sudan, Central African Republic, Madagascar, and Burkina Faso.