Hosts Eamon McErlean and Joe Devon interview Fred Moltz, Chief Accessibility Officer at Verizon, and Stephen Ewell, Executive Director at Consumer Technology Association (CTA) Foundation, about their historic collaboration at CES 2026. The discussion centers on the launch of the convention's first-ever accessibility stage. Fred Moltz shares his professional journey at Verizon, emphasizing that integrating accessibility into products is a smart business strategy that expands market reach. Stephen Ewell details his non-traditional career path and the importance of fostering industry-wide awareness to ensure innovation is inclusive from the start.
OUTLINE:
00:00 Opening Teaser
00:46 Introduction
01:48 Fred's Journey To Being Chief Accessibility Officer at Verizon
03:07 About CES & Commitment to Accessibility
05:56 Developing The Accessibility Stage at CES
15:48 Idea Behind The Accessibility Stage at CES
21:56 How Verizon Embraced Accessibility
27:29 Steve's Path To His Role At CTA Foundation
34:23 How To Integrate Accessibility At A Corporation
39:11 How Accessibility Can Benefit Everyone
40:21 Importance of Creating Awareness About Accessibility
43:17 Who's Impacted By Accessibility
45:38 Favorite Use of AI and Accessibility Working Together
56:36 Proudest Career Moment vs What You Would Do Differently
01:02:39 Future of the Accessibility Stage at CES
01:08:45 Wrap Up
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EPISODE LINKS:
Verizon - Accessibility Resource Center
https://www.verizon.com/accessibility
CTA Foundation
https://www.ctafoundation.tech
Stephen Ewell on LinkedIn
https://www.linkedin.com/in/steveewell/
Fred Moltz on LinkedIn
https://www.linkedin.com/in/fred-moltz-b730b713/
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- We talk about if you build it right, it's good for everybody. And I'm always joking with people because I go, I always look at my three kids, right? They're always using closed captioning. And I always sit there, I go, they are not deaf or hard of hearing unless they're talking to me. Okay, let's be very clear about that, right? But they're always utilizing closed captioning. And again, that wasn't built for that use case of, you know, a teenager who's, you know, trying to listen to a podcast or a movie inside school when they're not supposed to be, right. I mean, that's really what's going on, right? This has been for the deaf, hard of hearing community, but again, it's a great example of innovation that's benefiting everybody, so.
- Welcome to "Accessibility and Gen AI," the podcast where we talk to the people shaping the world of accessibility and artificial intelligence. I'm Joe Devon and I'm joined by my co-host, Eamon McErlean. And today we have two guests who just made accessibility history at CES 2026. Steve Ewell is the executive director of the CTA foundation and a Vice President at the Consumer Technology Association, which puts on CES. And Fred Moltz is the Chief Accessibility Officer at Verizon, where he spent the last decade building their accessibility program. Together, they launched the first ever accessibility stage at CES right in the heart of Venetian. Steve and Fred, welcome to the pod.
- Thanks Joe.
- Yeah, thanks so much for having us.
- Yeah, we're excited, we usually just have one guest, now we have two who have just done something so important for our industry, so we're really excited. But before we jump in and talk about CES, we'd love to start with you, Fred. Tell us a little bit about your history, your journey when it came to accessibility and Verizon.
- Great, thanks Joe and Eamon, great to see you. Yeah, I've been with Verizon now 26 years, and the last 10 plus years has been the accessibility world. We start off as a very small accessibility program, just looking at the homepage and RMI Verizon app. And then over the course of the last 10 years, we really have grown to be an enterprise program where now we're looking at all of our accessibility features and products and services, whether it be for customer facing or employee facing. It's been a journey for the last 10 years. Again, we've made incremental progress as we've gone along, but really thrilled to be here and talk more about this because it's something that's for Verizon, we are committed and invested in.
- Fred, Steve, delighted to meet you both, have not met you in person, but it's great to have you on the show. As Joe mentioned, we're kinda, this whole show is about, this time is about shining the light in accessibility and trying to do the right thing. You have both been huge advocates in that arena for many, many years. As Joe mentioned in the intro, CES. Steve, can you talk a little bit about the importance of CES and having like a platform for accessibility to share that specific area and what we're doing?
- So, CES probably the best thing to do is kind of take a step back and say, what is CES? So it's a trade show. It's an opportunity to bring together the entire technology world and look at what are some of the major trends that are happening in the industry, what are the new products that are coming to market? And really it's a chance for the industry to talk to each other, to talk to retailers, to talk to media, and really highlight what is happening in the industry and build the types of deals that will lead the industry forward. Why it's so important for us to have accessibility there is because, you know, CES is so broad and you know, we have everything from the car manufacturers to the TV manufacturers, to the telecoms and so on. So being able to build that conversation and get in front of people who would never go to a accessibility conference necessarily. But this is our chance to get in front of them and highlight how much opportunity there is around this space to build on this conversation and just create the greater awareness. So this has been something that, you know, we've been working on for a number of years. I feel like it's been kind of that slow push and ebb that continues to build. And really this year I feel like we broke through a bit.
- It's awesome, it really is. Were you happy overall with how went?
- Oh, I was thrilled. You know, it's always one of those things when you, you know, have an idea and you know, sit around talking to Fred about what could we do? And you know, when you come up with this and say, what if we created a stage? What if we created this additional content? What if we did this? You know, would anyone show up? You know, it's one of those kind of hold your breath and say, okay, well we'll build it, we'll make it happen. And then a ton of people show up. So now it's like, oh, okay. The big challenge is how do we get better? How do we continue to build from here? So I'm excited, I can't wait to see where we go from here.
- That's awesome, congrats.
- So for people who were not there, can you paint the picture like where the accessibility stage was physically and what it was like in practice and in action? And particularly because for accessibility, the audience needs to have some additional, you know, things like captioning, live captioning. Can you just just paint the picture for people so they can visualize this?
- Yeah, and CES really does take over Las Vegas. So we have multiple venues throughout the city. We take over the Las Vegas Convention Center, we take over the Venetian Expo. We also have things at Fontainebleau and Aria and other locations throughout the city. But a lot of the technology that's related to health tech related to kind of lifestyle technology exists within the Venetian Expo. So we really thought it was important for us to have the accessibility stage be at the Venetian and be kind of in a location that is close to where many of the exhibitors are and where many of the pieces of content are gonna be related to accessibility. Because in addition to this stage, we actually had the entire, you know, main track of accessibility, which Joe I know you participated in and really appreciate that. And then we also have all the startups at the Venetian as well. So this stage was built out in the hallway basically outside of one of the main halls, but it was in a major thoroughfare. So it is a location that people would be going past just in the course of going to the exhibits, in the course of going to other parts of the Venetian. And that was done very much on purpose. 'cause what we wanted is, you know, you hear someone talking on a stage, you're likely to just at least pause and say, okay, what are they talking about? Am I interested in this, do I wanna learn a little bit more? And it kind of draws people in. So that was done very much on purpose. You know, certainly in addition to Verizon being our presenting sponsor of this, we did go out and we lined up, Microsoft provided accessibility services for the stage. So we had ASL interpretation, we had captioning throughout for the stage. We also had Bluetooth SIG as one of our sponsors of the stage. And they brought Auracast there as well. So people were able to try out, in fact, they had headphones that you could borrow if you didn't have hearing aids that had Auracast built into it to try that. And you know, because we are in a big hallway, you know, I was worried about background noise and everything along those lines. And actually it was interesting, we heard from some of the interpreters that they actually really enjoyed the Auracast because it gave them a chance to really just hear what the speakers are saying and focus in on their sign language or on their captioning. So, you know, that was something that I thought was really important as well. But it was really just finding something that was central and could really draw people in to the stage.
- How, I'm assuming you have so many different companies and organizations that want to participate in different sessions. How do you select them? Like how do you go through and prioritize them? I'm sure it's not an easy job.
- Yeah, well luckily mean this being the first year. Yeah, I wasn't sure who would be interested. You know, I managed to talk Fred into it and you know, was like, okay, you know, Fred take as many sessions as you want. And then I was like, oh wait, wait, don't take too many sessions. It turns out there's a bunch of people interested in this. So, you know, there was a mix. So we did have, we did have some sponsored sessions. So all those companies that, you know, sponsored the stage had a chance to build out content and participate there. But we also were looking at, you know, what are some of the major trends, you know, with the CTA Foundation, we do work with a lot of nonprofit organizations all over the country that are using our industry's technology. So we built out panels that included, you know, some of those organizations. It was very important for me to make sure we had people with disabilities on the stage. I did not want to be one of those organizations that suddenly was like, hey, we have an accessibility stage and oh by the way, we don't have anyone with disabilities participating in it. So that was something that was very important. And then just looking at some of the major trends. So, you know, we had a session on, you know, investing in accessibility. 'cause that's something at CES you say investing and all of a sudden you're gonna get a big crowd 'cause everyone's looking for that next round of investment. You know, we had an accelerator panel, we had, you know, a number of other kind of trending topics that were on there. And Fred, I don't know if you want to talk a little bit about some of the sessions that you had on there.
- Yeah, no, that sounds really good. I mean, I wanna pause for a second though and go back to your original question about the stage. And I really want to give Steve and his team a lot of credit here. This stage, to try to kind of paint that picture for people who were not there. Not only was it in the most ideal spot that Steve talked about right outside the main hall, people walking by. And that really was the magic of it was all the people, whether it was the presenters or the people coming for the first time going, what's going on? I wanna learn more, and maybe they stayed for five minutes, maybe they stayed for the whole session. But in any case, they were stopping by, they were hearing the word accessibility. And the goal is hopefully they went back to their colleagues, their family, their friends, and said, hey, there was this really cool stage at CES. Never saw it before, they were talking about this thing called accessibility. That to me was the magic. Now when we talk about the physical footprint of the stage, you gotta give Steve and his team a lot of credit. So for those who weren't there, you had a stage, and I'm sure anybody's seen a stage before, you've seen pictures from CES where, you know, you had it set up with the screen behind the presenters, whether it was set for a one-on-one type of fireside chat, whether it was a panel discussion, but behind there was built into a stage, a wheelchair ramp. And I think this is really important because I don't think I've ever really seen a stage that's kind of built for a trade show that was built in mind of people with disabilities to the point of a wheelchair ramp built in as part of the stage, which I thought was amazing. And that got a lot of use 'cause we had a number of presenters or panelists that were part of the stage that were wheelchair users. So it's one of those things to try to more visualize for people. Every aspect of the stage was looked at from an accessibility perspective and really where it could be enhanced to be even bigger and better. Steve and the team did that, so that's number one. Really want to call that out, really impressed with that. In terms of the content, you know, when Steve and I were talking about different content who was speaking, you know, I kind of tell you it was like, oh, this is really cool, we have all these different voices. But when you're there for the whole three days of all these sessions and you're looking every morning at the big board outside of the stage with who's presenting or you're looking on the CES app, I mean, I'm making this number up. I think we're pretty close. And Steve, you can tell me if I'm completely off base here, but what the stage did was provide 24 different sessions of content related to accessibility. Okay, which means roughly you had between 75 and a hundred additional voices being heard at CES on the topic of accessibility, which never would've happened if the stage was not there. CES has a great job with the talk track for accessibility, and that was still going on, which thankfully it was going on, but this stage enabled about 75 to a hundred different voices to be heard from all different industries working on accessibility. And I just think that is just absolutely amazing. I was so overwhelmed by it. I, you know, I knew what we were planning for, I knew what me and Steve were talking about. But to see it and to see all those presenters actually go up there and talk about their stories of their companies or their lived experiences, that was just incredible.
- Love it.
- And we did, we actually had 25 sessions. So one more that you predicted there, Fred. And we had over 800 people, so we had badge scanners. So if you went and sat down at the stage, we had 800 unique people get scanned. And that doesn't just, that doesn't include all the other people who walked by and didn't actually sit down. And many of those people came back, you know, time and time again throughout the week. So it really did have an incredible reach throughout the week.
- Fred, I'm so glad that you brought up the wheelchairs because I had been, it happened to me before where I had a wheelchair user on a panel and they were just completely unprepared for it. They moved us to a different venue and then we had to basically take all of the speakers and put them below the stage. And it was really embarrassing and it's a common problem. I had a discussion with another friend who's a wheelchair user who had gone to a conference where they messed him up, then he came back. But it was like, okay, do you have everything all set up? And once again, they did not have the preparation for it. And then they told him, oh, why don't we lift up your wheelchair and lift you up into the stage? And he was like, are you kidding me? There's no way that you're gonna do that. It was just really, he felt it was a humiliating experience. So I'm really glad.
- Well, it is, and he's right that it is, it is.
- Yeah, so you really did it right. And I wanna mention that because if anybody wants to create some kind of conference and, you know, you should be prepared for this kind of situation and make sure that you have some accommodation to make sure that it's wheelchair friendly. So just a side call out. Now, I'd love to hear from both of you about the story of how this came together because it is not an easy one to sell.
- I'll let Steve take that. It's his story, it was his brainchild.
- Yeah, well no, this was absolutely a team effort. This is something I've wanted to do at CES for years. In fact, we were starting to make plans for this around 2020, which then we ran into COVID and everything going on there and it just kind of got sidelined. And what we had been thinking there was so much kind of smaller scale than where we ended up with now. So this was something that, you know, like I said, I had had some thoughts about doing this previous, Fred had been involved with some of our activities at CES. So we do a big accessibility round table, we do, you know, other events there and you know, so we started talking there, we kept talking at CSUN and finally he just basically told me what would it take to make this happen. I was like, more money than I have to be able to do this. And he said, well what would that number be? And so it was a chance to kind of work with our operations team. I really have to give, you know, the CES operations team is incredible. I mean they spend all year building out all these different venues, all these different events. You know, I think running one stage almost did me in, I can only imagine all the things that they're involved in, but they put together a plan, you know, yes, it was going back and forth and you would think being in a city like Las Vegas saying like, we need a ramp on a stage would be easy. Turns out not as easy as you would think. But I said, we could not do an accessibility stage that is not accessible. That would be, I mean, the worst possible outcome that we could possibly do. So it was a lot of back and forth and you know, to Fred's credit, he was able to come in as the initial sponsor that helped us then go out and open up doors that got, you know, the Microsofts and the Bluetooths and you know, Meta came in and a few other companies as well. You know, they were able to come in and support. So that enabled us to say, okay, we're gonna be able to do this, we're gonna be able to make this happen. And that it was just kind of the, you know, see what we can do, see what the reception is and build it from there. And yeah, you know, it only cost me a, maybe a couple drinks and a part of my liver, but you know, it was a great opportunity to build those connections and make something real out of it.
- You know, this is a good example of where people say, hey, with technology, do we really need to be in person having meetings? Is there still something there? This is a testament of that because to Steve's downfall of hanging out with me at night, you know, we were hanging out and we were, you know, like we always do. I admire a lot of what CES has done. This is one of the reasons why Steve and I have been really good partners. All joking aside, I really think CES is one of those organizations that really tries and goes above and beyond where other trade shows do not when it comes for people with disabilities. But, you know, we have, I'm fortunate to work on a number of different working groups with Steve or different panels with Steve and Steve's also a member of our disability advisory board here at Verizon. And so sitting there with Steve, you know, after a long day of, you know, different panel sessions and you know, lots of walking around Las Vegas, you know, we actually just sat down, this is where we were really brainstorming. And when he says, hey, you know, I was like, what could we do more? What would you like? And he was bring up the stage and truly when I said, what can I do? He was like, I need some funding. And I was like, all right, let's see what we can do. And there were a number of conversations from that night through CSUN and through other venues that we were at, we were collectively at. And I was able to kind of go back internally here at Verizon and kind of sell it. And I said, listen, this is the right thing to do. This is something that needs to evolve. We are committed and invested in accessibility as it is. This stage is going to really open up the doors for many more people to learn about accessibility, adopt accessibility, and most importantly care for upfront. And that's where, you know, again, it just started with a conversation between two friends saying, this is the right thing to do, how do we make it work? And listen, I think Steve could tell you, I kept telling him, I'm working on it. I think we're there, I think we're gonna have it. And then when I finally saw that final email go across to Steve, I was like, oh God, we're in, this is perfect, this is great. And then the rest of it is really kind of history. It's just now one of those things where it goes, wow, that really paid off staying out a little later that night to talk about accessibility and how we can do something really phenomenal. And rest assured we did that again this year after one of the nights at the stage. And, you know, I kind of got Steve to say, yeah, we're gonna do a bigger and better next year. And I'm really excited about that, so.
- Awesome, it's nice to hear occasionally it is worthwhile staying out a little bit later, just occasionally. Mostly it's not, but it's nice to hear that. Kudos to both of you, honestly. It's a significant step forward to have that level of recognition to increase awareness at that scale. It's a beautiful thing to see. Fred, for those listeners that are not aware of your background, as Joel mentioned at the intro, you've been at Verizon for some time now. I do appreciate how loaded this question is, but can you share with our listeners, you know, a little bit about your background, but more importantly how you were able to scale, embed accessibility and ultimately drive Verizon to be a leader in the area?
- Yeah, so my background, you know, I really didn't have an accessibility background when I started with accessibility, quite honestly, I think what so many people, and I love to share the story is somebody said accessibility. And I said, what is that? When I was first I mean, it's really what it was. The funny thing is though, I've had growing up a number of family members that do have disabilities and understand that disability and accessibility is really one and the same. And accessibility really is a means to the end to provide innovation, independence. So it wasn't that I didn't know what accessibility was, I just didn't know the word accessibility related to that. And a little bit over 10 years ago, I was asked, Hey listen, we have this brand new team for accessibility. And it was really a small team. It was really like one individual and a couple contractors. And they said, you know, listen, we're gonna add this to your responsibilities 'cause a person was leading, it was again, was about four months old, took another job. And so I came in and I will tell you immediately within the first couple weeks, I saw the power of it. I saw the power of it to provide people with disabilities independence. But at the same time I was also starting to look at it saying, this is just the right thing. This fits our values here at Verizon. How do we take that and show people that this is smart business? You know, it's not, do you do it 'cause it's a good reason? Do you do 'cause it's a legal reason? Do 'cause it, it's all those scenarios. And I think that's just like everything else in the world. You do it for a number of different reasons. And that's why we started off really small. But in terms of how did we get from 10 years ago to today? I will tell you the number one reason is my team, I am very fortunate. I have a very dedicated and passionate team of individuals. This is their job that they chose to take and they love the work they do. They love to see their results. They love meeting the people, that people that we're working with, whether those are advocacy groups, people who do have disabilities, family members of people with disabilities. One of the things that we talk a lot about is caregivers and how we bring that into our accessibility world here at Verizon. We do focus groups. So it's all of these people together on my team that really have made this program very successful. And I'm very fortunate to have each and every one of them on the team. In terms of how do we continue to grow. It just became organic. You know, we start off with just a homepage and an app and as you start diving in, it's like, oh wait a minute, I need to worry about this training that somebody's taking because they're working on this project with us. Or hey, we just brought in, you know, we made sure that our careers website was accessible so people can apply for the job. But now we have those people in house, well, we wanna make sure they can grow in their career. You know, it's not just one job to get them in the door. How do we enable them to go succeed like everybody else? That means making sure PDF trainings for example, were accessible, right? Making sure that they can apply for a job internally for their next path on their career. So it's all these things that I think a lot of us take for granted, but it's, that's how you really move on your career path. That's how you move with a ideation. That's how you move with your overall, hey, we're launching a new product, is it accessible? Does it make sense? And it all comes back down to the same thing is if you build it accessible, you're building a remarkable experience for everybody. And that does take time. And I will tell you, there was no playbook, there was no magic wand. And it was just, like I said, working with my team, working with people like Joe over the years or Steve, you kind of build this community, this village and everybody helps each other. Nobody's in the competition for who's the best accessibility out there. I mean, we are, but you know what I'm saying, like everybody's doing it for the right reasons and it's just, you know, it's amazing. And, you know, I think that the stage really in that sense really showcased that because of all the different voices that were on the stage as well as those who were just stopping by to learn something new.
- Yep, no, completely agree, and thank you for sharing that. I absolutely have always aligned with it's the right thing to do. It's the number one reason, but ultimately, and it's something that we push apart from legislation, it can, and it has created a competitive advantage. So there's nothing wrong with creating a competitive advantage based on doing the right thing. 100% I think all day long do that. But I think companies are starting to become a little bit more aware, not just you enhancing the experience for everyone truly enhancing it. That if you do it right, you do it really well. It does create that competitive advantage in sales and revenue, so yeah, absolutely.
- And the competition is good and it's still also great that this industry is really trying to raise all boats, which is really cool. And now Steve, I would love to learn a little bit more about your history because it's fascinating. You started out in politics, if I got it right, from politics you went to national security, from there you went to dairy farming and the cidery, and then you went into consumer electronics where you have a dual role heading up the foundation and a VP at the main consumer tech association. So that's quite a journey. I would just love to hear any kind of fun stories you have about how you managed to switch from one to the other and just such an interesting path.
- Yeah, well yeah, I feel like a lot of people in this space do kind of, there's not necessarily a direct path into the accessibility space. A lot of people do find their way here by hitting a number of different areas. And yeah, I was a political science major, so I moved to DC, you know, did one campaign and said, okay, I had enough of that. So, you know, I always had, when I find the next good candidate, I'll go back into politics. And now it's been 26 years or so since. So, I moved into the nonprofit world and I actually had had an old boss I had interned for who was at a national security related nonprofit organization where it was interesting, we worked with all the different military services, different intelligence communities, others like that. But it was all around like business aspects. So how do you do supply chain management if you are the Navy, how do you do, you know, HR and you know, keeping employee retention if you're the secret service and work along those lines, which I always found really kind of fascinating work. And that kind of moved me into the opportunity to take over an organization that was doing critical infrastructure protection. And it was a partnership with the FBI and you know, the whole goal was to get the public sector and the private sector to talk to each other. And you would think that might not be hard. That was an interesting couple years that I had in that role. But it was an opportunity to kind of step into an organization that was working in the technology space. I've been a geek my whole life. I love playing with technology. I kind of, you know, even when I had studied political science, I was always kind of messing around with computers and playing around with different technologies. So, you know, the fact that I had had a chance to work in that space. And then actually from there, I did have a recruiter reach out when CTA and at the time it was the Consumer Electronics Association was standing up a charitable foundation and asked if it was something I'd be interested in, you know, went through that whole interview process and CTA has a reputation. They put you through a whole interview process to get in. And in that very last interview, they said, oh, by the way, the initial board of trustees for this foundation met and they decided that the foundation's gonna focus on aging issues and disability issues. And I said, that's great. I don't have experience in either of those areas, but I can learn and walked out of there saying, all right, I'm out. Like there's no way and somehow wound up in this position. And, you know, similar to kind of what Fred had described, we really did, you know, when we were launching this foundation, because I didn't have the expertise in this area, and let's be honest, our industry may have a little bit of a reputation of sometimes showing up and being like, we've got all the answers. We know exactly how this is all gonna go. I kind of wanted to take it the other way around of say, okay, who can tell me? Like what do I need to know? Help me kind of what's going on in this space, what has been tried, what hasn't been tried? You know, where can we do it? I was also a little worried 'cause people see CES, they see like we take over Las Vegas and all the incredible companies that are there, and I was worried they were gonna be like, oh, you have, you know, a fortune to spend. And you know, we're a very small foundation, so it was kind of how do we, you know, build from there and really get our feet under us before we grow from there. The cidery and the farm, that was actually a side gig. So yeah, we live out in Loudoun County, Virginia, kind of more farm country and you know, my wife had always been interested in weddings. So we bought an old dairy farm and turned it into a wedding venue and planted a bunch of apple trees and made some hard cider and, you know, it was kind of a nice side gig to have. We actually sold the farm about a year ago. But I do miss playing in the dirt a little bit. I get to spend all the week working on technology and sitting at a desk. So it was always kind of nice to do something a little bit different on the weekends. But yeah, you know, I think it just shows that there is so much opportunity to pull together and even there like, you know, we work with one of the local wineries where actually one of the owners actually had her tractor tip over and lost the use of her legs. And so looking at kind of what type of technology she could use to continue to, you know, manage her vineyard and do that type of work. So it all comes together between, you know, accessibility, whether you're talking agriculture or whether you're talking, you know, the latest AI like you all focus on, you know, it all comes together. So I really believe in kind of having different aspects of your life and engaging in a different number of different topics 'cause it all adds to a greater tapestry and enables you to do that much more.
- That's a very eclectic engagement model you have across the board. And you said your own property at home used to be able to host weddings.
- So yeah, we had a farm that used to host weddings and activities, actually it's still hosting weddings. The new owners have taken that on and continue to do that, continue to make cider and, you know, seem to be doing great work. So we cheer 'em on now.
- Love it, love it, love it, thank you. We'll get into accessibility and AI in a couple of minutes, but one question, Fred that I get asked quite a bit and love to hear your opinion on it is, what's the most important thing to scale and grow accessibility in a large organization? Is it, you know, that empathy switch, is it support from the executive down? Is it engagement with individuals with different disabilities? I know a hundred percent it's kinda a little bit of all the above, but in your career, what have you found that really can help gain that traction?
- You know, it's a great question and I'm asked that question a lot. You know, I'm very fortunate, you know, working at Verizon, we have really built a leadership position in the accessibility world. And so we have a lot of, you know, large companies, startup companies that come to us and say, hey, how do we do this, what should we do? And the first thing I usually tell people is don't boil the ocean. Don't try to do it all. It's just, you're gonna fail. In terms of is there a magic wand, you know, some type of key that you can kind of plug it and turn, no, there's not, because every organization is different. So you have to understand what's going to drive success at the company you're at to go build and scale your program. You know, in some cases, you know, it's unfortunate, but you have some companies that will start because maybe they have a lawsuit, right? Not the ideal reason why you wanna start, but hey, I'm not gonna knock on anybody for starting. You have a, you know, so maybe it's a grassroots type of approach. You know, there were some individuals at a company, either they have disabilities, they have family members and they're, you know, they're doing some lunch and learn and that's how they start building it out. Maybe it's just because you have a leader that says this is the right thing to do, it's good business. How do we build it, so each organization's going to attack it a little bit differently. And I always share people, if somebody tells you differently, don't listen to them. Because everybody's gonna be different just like, you know, anything else in life, you know, you have to figure out your path and how you wanna do it. And I really believe that when it comes to accessibility, but to your point, in some cases, you know, the empathy switch, it might be the great way of doing it. Right, I'm a big believer of what I have seen a lot, whether it's been internally at Verizon over the years or it's really more the external side of the house. It's not that people don't care about accessibility. They don't know about accessibility. And I really encourage anybody who's listening to this, you know, podcast today, if you're listening to it, take the challenge. It's your responsibility. Go share with your colleagues, your family and friends, what accessibility is, why it's so important. I know there's that cliche of saying, hey, anybody can join the club at any time. Which is very true, I mean, I am one of those people. Five years ago I was, you know, halfway through my journey on the accessibility journey here and I had a, I was in a nasty car accident and I actually had a spinal cord injury. So I actually have no feeling in all 10 on my fingers. And my left leg from my knee down goes numb throughout the day. So I did become part of the, you know, disability club. But then you have a, from an aging perspective, which is where, you know, me and Steve have a lot of great conversations all the time about those intersections between accessibility and age tech or aging in place. And then if you take in med tech, it all comes together. So the reason why I'm bringing that all up is because there is no simple answer of how do you do it? It's a matter of kind of go with your gut, you're gonna know. And if you've got that drive and that passion, go with it. And just, I think the biggest thing to remember is you're not in it alone. Reach out, reach out to me, reach out to anybody else. And trust me, there's a lot more smarter people out there than Fred Moltz out there. But reach out to people because people want to help. People wanna see you succeed.
- That's a great answer. It truly is because it's real. As in every company is different, and that's the truth. They really are in a different approach, I think if I always had one wish, it would be for everyone, designers, engineers, product managers, if they could spend 30 minutes or an hour with an individual with disability, to your point, it's not that they don't want to help, they don't know, they don't understand the impact it really has. And I would hazard a guess, 99.9% of the people, once they actually see that practical impact, they're like, oh, okay. And when you parlay that on to what you just mentioned, we all go through it at some stage of our lives. We all use accessibility features on a daily basis. It just, it can help, it can significantly help.
- Well, and talk, that's a really good segue about features and innovation. I always bring this one up all the time. Like think about hearing aids, think, you know, keeping up. Now we have, you know, AirPods right, that are being built, that are hearing aids compatible and ready to go out the gate or closed captioning, which is one of my favorites because you know, we know why closed captioning was built. Right, great use case there. But again, we talk about if you build it right, it's good for everybody. And I'm always joking with people because I go, I always look at my three kids, right? They're always using closed captioning and I always sit there, I go, they are not deaf or hard of hearing unless they're talking to me. Okay, let's be very clear about that, right? But they're always utilizing closed captioning. And again, that wasn't built for that use case of, you know, a teenager who's, you know, trying to listen to a podcast or a movie inside school when they're not supposed to be. Right, I mean, that's really what's going on, right? This has been for the deaf, hard of hearing community. But again, it's a great example of innovation that's benefiting everybody.
- Well, and that's also where that creating that awareness 'cause I completely agree. Most, a lot of our industry just doesn't know. And a lot of the people who are designing the newest products, they're kind of right outta grad school. They're thrown in and they're saying like, build something that works for all people. And that's not what they've learned in school. That's not, you know, they don't have the lived experience. They don't have that yet. So, but when you create that awareness, all of a sudden it's incredible how we've been able to see, one of the other programs we have every year at CES is we bring a number of disability advocates to the show. And we don't tell them like, you have to go to this booth, you have to go to that booth. And we set up a few meetings like that, but mostly we just say explore 'cause I want to hear what you find that's interesting. Especially in the startup area. So, you know, we had over 1200 startups from all over the world there. And you know, usually the person who's sitting at that booth is the founder of the company, the main engineer. And when someone comes up and is like, you know, if you just made this tweak, all of a sudden there's an entire market that you're not serving that you could serve. And usually they're like, oh, I can do that, that's simple, like, you know, I just didn't know. Or actually, like I'm sure you guys know Mike May who used to be on my board and is a big advocate in the blind low vision space. You know, he loves to go up and be like, show me your app and let me see if you've tagged everything in the app. And he's always pleasantly surprised when sometimes they're shocked that their app is actually accessible. So, you know, I wish that wasn't a surprise to people, you know, that's where we need to continue to build this awareness. But it is, it's those interactions that really lead to people understanding that yeah, there's, yes, it's the nice thing to do, it's the right thing to do, but there's also a whole other opportunity out there. And that's how we can help, you know, make that business case that just makes it that much easier for someone to go back. And especially when you deal with some of the bigger companies where they have to go back and justify like, why am I adding this expense? Well, turns out when I'm building an extra customer base, it's a whole lot easier to say, okay, we can add this additional feature or, you know, make that change. And creating that awareness really is kind of the whole opportunity that I see out there.
- And it's always doing it right the first time is a fraction of the price than going back to do it, to redo it. It's always a fraction of the cost.
- It is. And so to that point, you know, if you get to remediate, that's gonna cost a lot more money. And we all know if you don't build it from the get go, you remediate, it's still not perfect. But I think talk to Steve your point about customer segments. You know, one of the things I have shared with people is, okay, you have a new idea, this great concept, whatever it's gonna be. It could be this cup of coffee, right? As the person who's innovating or the marketeer or the one who's running the business case, is your goal to attract the segment of customers to get just 75% or do you want to go and try to get a hundred percent of that market base? And it usually gets people going, what are you talking about, Fred? And it opens up the dialogue 'cause I say if one in four people in the United States has disability and we're not gonna care for, as you're building out your product or your marketing materials or whatever it may be, by default you could be letting go of 25% of market share. And I don't think anybody out there who's looking to go build some new product or service is going, you know, I'm gonna build this thing, but you know what, I only want 75% of the market. That's it, I'm good with 75%. Everybody wants a hundred plus. And so when you start laying it into real terms that are kind of easy to digest it, which is, hey, you want a hundred percent or you want 75%? Everybody's gonna say they want a hundred percent 'cause that's what you should be shooting for. And that brings in everybody together to help go make that product or service accessible.
- Yeah, good callout.
- Here's another stat for you. How many people are in China, how big is that market?
- I'm gonna go to Steve, he's the world
- 1.4 billion. How many people with disabilities?
- About two, right?
- 1.3. But if you talk about who's impacted by accessibility, it's actually higher than that 25% figure. Because even if you're looking at the millennial, the age range is something like 30 to 45 and as soon as you hit 40, you start to need things like high, you know, better color contrast and larger fonts and things like that. The hearing also starts to degrade at 40. And so the median age in America, I think now is 39 and it's growing to be 50 and up, which is why age tech is so important and it all feeds into accessibility. But all of this leads to another question since we're talking about innovation and CES is all about it and our show is about not only accessibility, but AI. What was the most interesting panel or startup or AI technology that relates to accessibility that both of you have seen? And also where do you think the industry is going, the accessibility industry, how is it going to be impacted by AI in the future?
- I'm gonna take my little geek time here and I'm gonna plug the Meta glasses. On anything like from that perspective. I just think it's cool. I just think it's really cool. I think it's exciting and I think the number of use cases outside of what was being built for, what was being shared for is just tremendous. And that's where I look at AI and technology and innovation going with the accessibility industry, to your point, Joe. I don't think some of these companies realize already what they're gonna be doing for the disability communities. I also don't think some of the disability communities understand what some of these products are gonna do for them as well. And I think there is a true gap in terms of understanding. And I would love to see more of the innovators and the people in the advocacy groups or disability type of focus groups coming together to talk more. Because A, you can build a much better product, but number two, everybody's tied in together. Everybody's really understanding then what is that roadmap for X, Y, and Z product? What is the benefits for this disability community versus that disability community? And how do we kind of bring it all together? That to me is where, to me the real excitement is because we're just seeing things that are being built now that it's moving so fast and we're not having enough conversation about it. But when we do have the conversation, it's like the light bulb goes off for everybody. It's like, oh wait a minute, that that's gonna help you too. And oh, if I tweak this, it's gonna gimme all, I just think we have to be able to stay on pace with the fast moving innovation, but also understand we have to really build it with everybody in mind. And most importantly, we have to talk, we have to have those conversations. And CES was a good opportunity, but we can't do it once a year. Do you know what I'm saying? I know Steve, if you wanna add to that.
- Yeah, no, you said it well and yeah, at CES, AI was everywhere. And it's interesting, you know, industry goes through these transitions. I mean, I feel like a few years ago, especially talking to startups, everyone was blockchain, whether they actually had blockchain in their product or not, they said they had blockchain in their product. Now we're kind of at that point with AI, but there is so much incredible AI being built into this. You know, this is where I'm a little bit at a disadvantage 'cause actually I don't get to see as nearly as much of the show as I would love. But you know, there was like, we had the entire foundry area that was just focused on AI and quantum technology and had sessions throughout and really looking at those emerging technologies. You know, Joe, you led an incredible session that was talking about AI and accessibility as part of the main track of the accessibility sessions at CES. But there was so many other pieces throughout that, you know, whether it was an AI session or not, they were talking about AI. AI and robotics was really the other piece of that, of looking at how that AI kind of moves into the physical realm. And that's where I really see a lot of this going is everyone wants the Rosey the Robot that's just going to like, do everything for them, solve all problems. I don't think we're there at this point. I think we're really, we see a lot, I mean the Roombas and robot vacuums have been around for a long time. We're seeing more of those single purpose robotics that are emerging. But ultimately what I'm looking at is how can this AI make it so your technology adapts to you versus you having to learn how to adapt to the technology 'cause that's always been one of the challenges even, you know, especially in the work that we do in the age tech space, people love voice first. Like it's incredible. You, you know, especially as the natural language processing has just gotten better and better and you can just talk to your device, whatever ecosystem you're in and have it do that for you. But the challenge was always, oh, but you have to remember the right wake word or you have to remember exactly how to phrase these things. That's starting to shift. And this is really becoming now where all of these devices in this whole ecosystem can adapt to you. It can know, okay, I like it when, you know, the thermostat goes to a certain degree and the blinds, you know, go up at a certain hour and it could do that for you and be able to, I'm still big in having the human in control. I really don't think, you know, we want, you know, to take the human out of the loop on a lot of this. But you can also have so many things happen based on what you're looking for, based on kind of how you want to kind of live your life. And that impacts certainly the disability community, certainly the aging community, but honestly it impacts all of us. And that's where I'm kind of excited to see this continue to build and grow.
- So it's funny, you know, you brought up the Roomba and I don't know if any of you heard about this, but last night before going to bed, this fellow mentioned that he wanted to have direct access since you're talking about humans in the loop. He wanted direct access to his Roomba and he read the technical specs and found a way to control it so that he could literally see what his Roomba was seeing. But he didn't realize that this accidentally gave him access to 7,000 different Roombas and their video cameras. And after he posted this on social media, he went to bed and woke and it went totally viral overnight. And he wakes up to like a gazillion mentions. And there's always like that other side until we kind of figure it out. And there's always seems to be some infosec issues. And when it comes to disability, depending what you have, if you have some kind of implants, those are the scary parts of it, right? Like there were some people that had I think some kind of eye implant and the organization went bankrupt and their devices that were implanted in their bodies didn't work anymore. So you also have the downside and curious if you have any thoughts to add to that.
- I think that's just every aspect if you look all the different revolutions over the years, right? It's kind of similar. I mean, I remember, I'll give you a great non-AI non-technology scenario, right? Where I had purchased new windows for my home and I had that, you know, 50 year guarantee, right? We're not gonna get the gas, you know, we're gonna get the cloudiness in the windows. That company went away, somebody else isn't gonna step up. I think when you see the path and journey of cars being built and those manufacturers, right? You go from what was one of the best in the 60s with some of the cars that are out there, right? To now you have a Tesla, right? You're talking day and night, and the ebbs and flows and some of those companies are still around, some of them have gone, those manufacturer parts they may have been purchased by another company, they may have gone out of business. A whole slew of things. So I think that's just human nature of evolution in terms of the industry. But not to discount, are things scary? Absolutely. But I also remember, I remember when AOL came out with their dial up service, you know, how many years ago, right? I'm really dating myself here, right? And I remember my mother at time going, somebody's gonna see what you're posting or writing and blah, blah 'cause now that's all connected. It's the same fear factor, just present day and let's you know, again, if we're all around here in 30, 40, 50 years, the next AI-ish thing will be that scenario then. So that's not to discount the scariness of people's, you know, concerns, but it's how do we adopt it and how do we safeguard it. And quite honestly, if a Roomba can get access to 7,000 things, maybe we just gotta be a little bit careful, so.
- Well, and that goes to the whole infosec. I mean this is kind of taking me a little ways back, but you know, that's where having people who are those InfoSec leaders and being able to test these products, find these flaws, there's bugs in all kinds of products. There's bugs, I mean, but it's finding and responsibly disclosing so that those can be patched. So those can be secured. Is everything gonna be perfect? Probably not, but the more we catch those and then once again, being able to give people some control of, okay, if I want to share this information, like if I want to share, you know, whether my front door locked or unlocked in the middle of the night with, you know, a caregiver or a loved one, give me the option to say whether I wanna share that or not. Versus just, you know, okay, I'm gonna put it out into the world that, you know, at 2:00 AM my front door opened. You know, not everyone needs to know that or not, but you know, if you are looking after someone who has dementia, you might want to know that, you might want to get that alert. So giving people that control and being able to provide that level of granularity in it is really, I think where there's so much power in this technology as well.
- We're finding that at the enterprise level as well, literally at the enterprise level from a platform perspective, where customers want it, they know they wanna use it, but that has to be responsible AI. They have to be able to govern it themselves. They have to have the control tower to understand what's happening where, and be able to adjust accordingly. So yeah, responsibility overlaid with the ability to really customize it as needed is kind of the key, you know. Quick curve ball and we can cut this if need be, but Joe, I was thinking this morning about having one question that we asked all guests moving forward. Just one consistent question, please, Steve and Fred love your opinion on if there was one thing in your career that stands out that you say you'd be most proud of, and one thing that you would say, I would do that differently, what would they be?
- Either I'm really excited I met Steve, or it's really the worst thing for my career that I met Steve.
- You're not getting off that easy, Fred.
- Ah, you stole mine.
- All right, I don't know about the worst thing.
- Not worst thing, but something that you would change. The best thing, whatever happened in your career thing that you're really proud of. And then on the flip side, something that you would do differently.
- You win or you learn, so like. What's the learning?
- Well then I'm gonna say my whole journey on accessibility has been learning because I've made a lot of mistakes along the way. So lemme say this. I would say the best thing for my career has been being introduced to accessibility. Being given the opportunity to really create a program from the ground up, work with some really amazing people internally and externally, hearing different people's insights of their lived experiences has really shaped me as not only a leader for my team, but just somebody in the marketplace, in the accessibility world. I really feel like everybody I have met has helped to shape me sometimes in, you know, good ways. And sometimes, you know, maybe like, yeah, I don't wanna be that type of person to be honest with you. But I will say it's the stories, it's the people that really have helped shape me, which is why I think if you talk to most people, they'll tell you if somebody reaches out to me, I'm always gonna reach out back and try to understand who you are and have a 30 minute meeting at the offset just because I wanna learn more about who you are and if there's something I can do to help you, great. But a lot of people don't realize when I meet with them, they're usually helping me more than I'm helping them because I'm learning something new from them. I'm learning about maybe some piece of technology or some type of use case that I did not think about because we don't have all the answers. And so you have to learn from people. But in terms of where I would do something differently, the last 10 years, every so often I feel that way. I always joke around, tell people you have to make mistakes to learn from the mistakes. When we started doing the accessibility program, you know, 10 years ago I used to run the digital PMO team here at Verizon before that. And so for me it was make everything from a PMO perspective. You know, how do people do agile projects, right? They have user stories and user stories have success criteria. And I was like, oh, I've solved this. We're gonna create a user story for every project for accessibility. It was the stupidest idea possible. And I should have known it, I should have known it 'cause you know what happened? I created a accessibility user story and it kept getting backlogged 'cause they're like, ah, I learned from that mistake. And that we don't do that. We add success criteria to all the user stories, if there's an accessibility impact, that's how you get around it. But if you don't make those mistakes, how are you gonna learn from them? And I do think for a lot of people out there, especially in the competitive world we're in, people are afraid to make mistakes. And if they do make one, acknowledge it and take ownership. I think it goes back to some of the conversation we were having earlier about just responsible AI, it's responsible in, you name it, AI, technology, processes. Everybody needs to be a little more accountable and it's okay to make mistakes 'cause at the end of the day, even with all this AI out there, we are still human and it's okay to make mistakes.
- Great answer Fred. It's a very smart and humble answer, love it, love it, Steve.
- Yeah, and actually building off that, I've really, you know, it's interesting 'cause I get to work with people across the entire technology industry and often, especially as we're talking about accessibility, I'll get people, luckily less so now than it used to be, but they'll say, I'm worried I'm gonna use the wrong term. I'm gonna say the wrong thing. And I have to say, I have stepped on every landmine out there. I have said the wrong thing to the wrong organization at exactly the wrong time. And I'm still here, like if you do it from the right, the viewpoint of you are trying to make things better, when someone corrects you, listen, like if you get.
- You're coming from the right place, with good intent.
- Yeah, but yeah, really, you know, just having the opportunity to kind of build something within the industry, work with so many innovators, like all of you, but also work with the advocacy community. You know, it was one of those things I always say when I got offered this position, I'm like, I get to work with the industry I love, but really make a difference in so many people's lives. Like that is the dream to me. And it's also the responsibility of how do I continue to make this better? How do I, you know, not step on that next land mine and blow this all up and yeah, made tons of mistakes along the way, but I think really what I've learned is listen to other people. Because often when I'm like, oh, I know, I know exactly how to do this, don't worry, I'm just gonna run ahead and do it. That's when I learned from the community, wait, hold up, that's been tried. There's a reason it's going this way. And just because something's been tried before doesn't mean you don't necessarily want to try it again. But it also means you have to take into account, you know, what other people's experiences are and I'm just a big believer of throw a bunch of smart people in a room with some challenges and it's incredible what can come out of that. So yeah, I'm excited and I see so much opportunity to continue to build from here.
- Before we wrap up, I have one question. Are we going to see an accessibility stage next year? And then also please let us know how folks can reach out to you, get involved with the accessibility stage with CES, with Verizon's accessibility program. Please give us your information.
- Steve, is there gonna be a stage?
- There better be a stage, yes. No, we are already in plans to build out the stage. We've already been collecting a whole lot of feedback on, you know, what worked well, what didn't work well. In fact, we actually have an organization we're working with that has been collecting feedback specifically from people with disabilities to give us further insights on what are we doing well, both with the stage, but honestly across CES of how do we continue to build and improve. So yes, we will have the stage back next year. We are gonna continue to do all the other activities we do. Who knows, maybe there's gonna be something new next year. We're still kind of workshopping it. But yes, I saw this as such a major step forward and the good news is we saw the engagement from, you know, so many people across the industry that are interested in being involved now, if anything, my worry is okay, we had 25 sessions, there's only so many we can do. How do I get all that now when all of a sudden I have a bunch of other people who want to be involved. As far as how to get involved or get in touch with us, ctafoundation.tech is the, and it's dot T-E-C-H is the website for our foundation. ces.tech and once again, it's dot T-E-C-H is everything CES, including actually you can go on there and see all the videos both from the accessibility stage but also from, you know, the main track of accessibility, all the keynotes, all these other sessions. So definitely encourage people to do that. And then, you know, reach out to me either email or, you know, LinkedIn's actually honestly one of the best places to find me on of the social media, that tends to be where I am. So reach out to me on there and always happy to connect. Much like Fred said, I'm a big believer in building those connections. Even the introverted one here is willing to, you know, do that connection initially and just see where we can build from there.
- And I will tell you, I joke around Steve, Steve will tell you, since CES has ended, I think we probably have had about eight different instances of either a text message, an email or a phone call going, can't wait for next year or what can we do, what can we do differently? It's really, you know, again, it's a CTA show. I am just happy to be a part of giving my feedback into the content and working back with Steve and brainstorming some things. But I think to Steve's point, you know, it really takes all of us. So keep getting those ideas over to Steve because we need different voices and different ideas because this was such a great success. I will tell you, the night before I got out to CES, Steve had sent me a picture of the stage being built and I was just floored. I mean, I saw pictures beforehand of the sketches and knowing the idea, but to see it come to life and then to walk into the Venetian and see it for the first time, I was overwhelmed with such pride of, wow, this is gonna make a difference. This was history in the making. And when we were having this conversation over a year ago, we weren't thinking about history in the making. We weren't thinking about, oh, how much good media is gonna come from this and how many people are gonna come up to us. It was just a simple concept of we wanted more voices, we wanted more attention for the communities. And it was there. And I would say thank you to all the people who were there, who came up to either see for myself and just thanked us. Didn't need a thanks, the fact that you were there and you were bringing people in, that was all the thanks we needed because it really did put a spotlight on the fact of accessibility is here, it's not going anywhere and it really needs to be part of everybody's lives.
- And it is, the fact that people showed up is what made the, because we could do this once and if no one came, we wouldn't be talking about this. We wouldn't be continuing to get this out there. It's the fact that people showed up. It's the fact that people engaged. It's the fact that people are continuing to have this conversation. So that's where I want to thank the two of you for continuing to highlight this issue and especially highlight how much is changing and happening within the AI space right now in technology and accessibility. So thank you for creating that greater awareness 'cause that really is gonna make a massive difference moving forward.
- Well thank you Steve, to both of you for joining, but I also want to give Fred the opportunity to share how we can follow your work.
- Oh, I can be found on LinkedIn as well. I'm on LinkedIn a lot. A lot of people, if you aren't aware, we have our accessibility lab here at Verizon in New Jersey where we welcome people all the time to come in. We can showcase a lot of different assistive technologies that we're leveraging to do testing with. We can really showcase our products and our services. We bring in advocacy groups, we bring in customers, we bring in employees all the time. Again, it's a two way street. We'd love to share more about accessibility, get people excited, but at the same time we'd love bringing people in to kind of show us what's working well, what's not working so well. Because again, we're going based on what we know and there's always that ability to learn something new from somebody else and we encourage that. So LinkedIn's a great way to get in touch with me and really hope to see people either physically in our lab in New Jersey or listen, we can also do a virtual session, the more the merrier.
- Thank you both so much for your time. Honestly, it was truly, truly beneficial and enjoyable. I hope to see you both in person, if not at CSUN at least at CES next year. And maybe we can have one of them late nights together and come up with more ideas going forward.
- I love it, I love it.
- All right, thank you.
- Thank you both so much.