Inclusively Telecom

Frances West has a vast experience in making technology more inclusive, that started when she was at IBM. She believes that technology can be a great enabler of inclusion if we put humans—all of them, with all their differences—first from design to market. An inclusive approach will drive demand, user satisfaction and profitability.

She also shared her advice for startups and established companies on how to drive an internal inclusivity strategy, and her views on the future of DEI.

Find out more about Inclusively Telecom and live Inclusively events here

How should we make the workplace more inclusive for mentally ill and neurodiverse people? How will AI help in diagnosing, treating and helping mental illness? Will AI help disabled people to socialize or cause isolation? We explored these issues and more with Rupert Baines, Chair of the UKTIN Semiconductor Expert Working Group, who has been dealing with mentally ill and neurodiverse people working in his teams and trying to understand their needs and make the needed accommodations so that they could flourish in their job.

You can find out more about Inclusively Telecom and the live Inclusively events at

https://senzafili.com/inclusively_in_telecom/

Send us feedback, questions, and suggestions for guests and topics at [email protected] 

You can subscribe to the podcast on the platform of your choice, including Apple and Spotify.

We were joined on Inclusively by Mansoor Hanif, recently of Neom, previously with BT/EE and Ofcom. Mansoor is currently enjoying himself as an angel investor (for instance in Darabase) and strategic advisor after his recent stint in the desert. He brings vast experience to the discussion about how we build more inclusive cities in the future. His ideas will make you think differently about how we live our urban lives going forward.

You can find out more about Inclusively Telecom and the live Inclusively events at

https://senzafili.com/inclusively_in_telecom/

Send us feedback, questions, and suggestions for guests and topics at [email protected] 

You can subscribe to the podcast on the platform of your choice, including Apple and Spotify.

Current Classic Audio Bluetooth connectivity to assistive hearing devices does not deliver a good quality of experience and requires too much power. Bluetooth Low Energy Audio (LE Audio) is a new technology for audio streaming over Bluetooth that allows audio devices to run longer on a charge, with increased audio quality and reduced latency.

We talked to Giovanni Severini, Principal Group Program Manager at Microsoft, about how LE Audio can help people with hearing impairment and how Microsoft supports the technology and has partnered with the hearing device ecosystem to ensure the new technology is rapidly adopted by vendors and users.

Watch Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger's demo on the solution mentioned by Giovanni:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iuU2YJohuZE&t=3440s

For more information:

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/accessibility/accessible-technology-products#areaheading-uid4a20

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/using-hearing-devices-with-your-windows-11-pc-fcb566e7-13c3-491a-ad5b-8219b098d647

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PrN4TOkVL0M

https://www.engadget.com/ai/microsoft-recruits-accessibility-app-to-make-its-ai-more-useful-to-blind-and-low-vision-users-130006439.html?soc_src=social-sh&soc_trk=linkedin

You can find out more about Inclusively Telecom and the live Inclusively events at

https://senzafili.com/inclusively_in_telecom/

Send us feedback, questions, and suggestions for guests and topics at [email protected] 

You can subscribe to the podcast on the platform of your choice, including Apple and Spotify.

Salesforce has built accessibility and inclusive design into its processes, products and services and established an accessibility group at the heart of the business. Its multi-pronged approach benefits from executive buy-in and builds up from the bottom with a specialist accessibility team spreading the word throughout the organization.

In this Inclusively conversation, Jacqui Tolisano  Senior Director, Product Accessibility and Adam Rodenbeck, Senior Digital Accessibility Engineer at Salesforce, joined Chris Lewis and Monica Paolini to explore how this inclusive approach works within the Salesforce model and how their lessons learned can be applied to the telecoms industry.

You can find out more about Inclusively Telecom and the live Inclusively events at

https://senzafili.com/inclusively_in_telecom/

Send us feedback, questions, and suggestions for guests and topics at [email protected] 

You can subscribe to the podcast on the platform of your choice, including Apple and Spotify

Be My Eyes is a fantastic example of how human volunteers and, now, AI, leveraging the power of smart phones, can help blind people interact with the world around them. From a simple start using the phone camera to help guide someone around their home, it has now evolved into a global business helping blind people, as well as businesses serving their blind and vision impaired customers.  

Chris and Monica talked to Hans Jørgen Wiberg, Founder, and Jesper Hvirring Henriksen, CTO at Be My Eyes.

Read Chris' summary of the podcast at 

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/my-eyes-creating-more-accessible-world-ai-chris-lewis-otmpe

You can find out more about Inclusively Telecom and the live Inclusively events at

https://senzafili.com/inclusively_in_telecom/

Send us feedback, questions, and suggestions for guests and topics at [email protected] 

You can subscribe to the podcast on the platform of your choice, including Apple and Spotify

Chris Lewis and Lewis Insight, and Monica Paolini at Senza Fili, the hosts of Inclusively Telecom introduce the new podcast. They talk about the format, goals, topic and approach.

You can find out more about Inclusively Telecom and the live Inclusively events at

https://senzafili.com/inclusively_in_telecom/

Send us feedback, questions, and suggestions for guests and topics at [email protected] 

You can subscribe to the podcast on the platform of your choice, including Apple and Spotify

Diversity benefits everyone—people, businesses and customers. How can we improve gender diversity in the workplace, in our daily work practices and in our environment to benefit both women and men? In this Inclusively conversation, in collaboration with UKTIN, women and men compare their perspectives on how gender diversity plays out and how to create a work environment and career opportunities that fit everybody.

Chris Lewis and Monica Paolini hosted this conversation with Lesley Holt at UKTIN, Marc Gilmour at ConnectiviTree, and Vicky Messer at Picocom, starting with three questions:

• What is the impact of imbalanced workplaces?

Inclusivity starts at home. Being able to live independently at home is, for many of us, fundamental to our quality of life. How can technology help us live on our own more safely and give our caretakers better tools to assist us?

Wi-Fi sensing uses the Wi-Fi radio signal to detect motion within the Wi-Fi network coverage area. Unlike location-based services, sensing detects the motion of people, pets or objects that have no connected device or sensor, making it very inobtrusive to deploy and operate. In a home environment, it is more respectful of privacy boundaries and does not require a smart home separate infrastructure.

By tracking human motion in a residential environment, Wi-Fi sensing can detect anomalies (e.g., your mother did not get up this morning, or your father keeps going out of the house for hours at unusual hours) or other patterns that may alert caretakers or trigger an emergency response. We talked about what the technology can do, how it can be deployed and operated, how can Wi-Fi sensing services be deployed, and what are the use cases for elderly and disabled people who want to live on their own.

Rachel Collins, Head of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion at Colt joined us in this Inclusively event. Rachel brings a wealth of experience and will describe how accessibility, inclusion and diversity form a key part of building the business and culture of which Colt is rightly very proud. This comes from the very top of Colt and the CEO’s very open ESG agenda.