Eamon McErlean and Joe Devon interview Stephen Cluskey, Co-Founder & CEO of Mobility Mojo. They discuss Stephen's transition from a life-altering spinal cord injury to becoming a leader in the global accessibility movement. As the CEO of Mobility Mojo, he explains how his company uses digital tools to help organizations evaluate and improve the physical accessibility of their buildings at scale. The conversation emphasizes that accessibility is not just a moral obligation but a significant business opportunity affecting a massive global market. Through personal stories of travel and advocacy, he demonstrates how assistive technology and a positive mindset can transform barriers into adventures.
OUTLINE:
00:00 Opening Teaser
00:46 Introduction
02:50 What Caused Your Spinal Cord Injury and How Did You Overcome The Challenges That Came With It?
09:05 What Role Has Sports Played In Your Life?
16:45 How Did You Become Involved With Accessibility?
22:57 Tell Us About Mobility Mojo
25:11 What's Your Experience Using Assistive Devices For Work and Travel?
34:33 What Are Your Thoughts On Using AI For Business?
36:45 Benefits of Using AI For Personal Health & Medical Needs
41:16 How Did You Get Involved With Public Speaking?
44:36 Accessibility's Positive Impact On Business
47:14 Wrap Up
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EPISODE LINKS:
Mobility Mojo
https://mobilitymojo.com
Lottery winners and accident victims: is happiness relative?
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/690806/
Alex Zanardi - Racing driver and para-cyclist
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_Zanardi
Alex Zanardi On the Crash That Changed His Life Forever | David Letterman
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QyoY7hVwLU0
James Cluskey (Stephen's brother)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Cluskey
The Official London Black Cab
https://www.londonblackcab.co.uk
A11y + Gen AI - Ep 5 - Ed Summers - Head of Accessibility, GitHub
https://youtu.be/YBQdpJfWBCA
Jen Hamilton & Ed Summers Viral TikTok Video
https://www.tiktok.com/@_jen_hamilton_/video/7617247595085270285
HeadMouse Nano
https://www.orin.com/access/headmouse/
MouthPad
https://www.augmental.tech
Claude Fable
https://www.anthropic.com/claude/fable
Stephen Cluskey on LinkedIn
https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephencluskey/
Stephen Cluskey's Website
https://stephencluskey.com
- I must share with you the personal impacts. Two, three times a year I'd end up in hospital maybe for a week, and the last time I was in was March of this year. I got admitted on Thursday. On the Saturday, I still wasn't feeling any better or any different. And I put all my medical records into Claude and asked it to act as a top 1% spinal injury consultant. And it analyzed everything and it said, "I'm on the right IV antibiotics, but think about adding steroids into the mix to help." And my consultant came in a few minutes later and I said, "You know what? What about steroids?" He said, "Geez, that's a really good idea." So put me on the steroids, within two hours, I was feeling so much better.
- Welcome to "Accessibility + Gen AI," the podcast where we talk to the people shaping the world of accessibility and artificial intelligence. I'm Joe Devon, joined by my co-host, Eamon McErlean. And today we're speaking with Stephen Cluskey, who is the co-founder and CEO of Mobility Mojo. As we'll soon learn, Stephen has had a fascinating, impactful life. His team has a running bet on how many minutes before he brings up AI, so I'm sure we'll have a fascinating session today. Stephen, welcome to the pod.
- Great to be on, Joe. Thanks for having me.
- Stephen, welcome. I think you and I met initially, was it like three, three and a half years ago, roughly?
- We were both a good bit younger, Eamon, I think. It was that long ago now.
- Yeah, well, we at least looked a good bit younger. And we had the pleasure to meet in person for the first time, was it last week, at Disability:IN, which was pretty cool. But for those listeners that either haven't met you in person or watched any of your videos, would you just like to give them an overview of where you're from and your background?
- Yeah, sure, Eamon, so Stephen Cluskey, I'm Co-Founder and CEO of Mobility Mojo, as Joe mentioned, I'm an internationally-certified accessibility consultant. So I would have advised the Irish government and our Irish prime minister on accessibility in the country over a number of years. My personal connection to this area, which we'll get into, I had a spinal cord injury 23 years ago at the age of 18, so very quickly I went from having one view on the world at 18 to seeing things in quite a different way in an instant, and seeing a lot of the friction that faces people with disabilities, particularly around accessibility on a daily basis.
- That could be a long story. Like, that could be a multiple podcast story, your journey after your fall. You know, you told me some inspirational stories about meeting Bono and U2, and swinging by the hospital, but being very honest from a personal perspective, I've always wondered how individuals like yourself overcome such tragedies like that, or such falls, or such difficult, hard circumstances, and challenges like that. I'm sure that was a progression over years, but can you walk us through that, as much as you can, as much as you're willing to share of that journey?
- Yeah, sure. So to take you back to the accident itself. So yeah, I was 18 years old, I was going into my final year in school, and it was a really nice, unusually summer day in Ireland, it was warm, the sun was out. And I got in from being at a football match during the day and I got a phone call from a friend to see if I wanted to go camping with a group of them that night. And when the weather is like that in Ireland, you say yes to things like that. So I remember arriving at this field that I'd known well. It was only about 15 minutes away from the house, and we set the tents up, and I still don't know why, to this day, I did it all that time ago, but for some reason I decided to jump on top of a round hay bale, which was not far from where the tents were. And as I was sitting on the bale of hay, I felt it begin to move. So I tried to keep my balance, tried to turn over, and it didn't work out right. Whatever way I fell from the bale of hay, it wasn't the fall that did the damage. It was, if you can imagine, I went over the top, I was lying flat on the ground as this rolling bale was rolling behind me. And when I lifted my head, Eamon, it caught the back of my head, the bale, and pushed it forward, and I heard a crack in my neck. I remember it so distinctly. And in an instance, everything in my body just went dead, like a bolt of lightning had gone through me. Then I heard some commotion. So I heard the guys panicking a bit or shouting a bit. I can't really remember. And I do remember asking one of the guys to lift my arm, and I remember seeing this hand appear in front of my face. A hand that I should have recognized as my own, but it was limp and lifeless, and I didn't realize, and when he let go, my arm dropped to the ground with a thud and I knew something serious had happened. So that was the beginning of this new journey. I spent 14 months in the rehabilitation hospital in Ireland, like you said, trying to come to terms with this new unrecognizable body that was deteriorating in front of my eyes on a daily basis. I broke my neck at the top level, so for anyone knows, that your cervical spine, which is in your neck, it was the fourth and fifth vertebrae in my cervical spine that I did the damage to, which ultimately meant that I was paralyzed from the neck down. So to go through that, there's an analogy that you often hear around... There was a study done years ago, Eamon, on people who won the lottery, and people who have become paralyzed. I don't know if, have you heard this before, Joe?
- No, no I haven't.
- Yes.
- So what it conveys is that there's a baseline of happiness that people have. And I've always been a really positive and optimistic person, which I was in my first 18 years on earth. Yes, I was down and depressed and whatever else when the accident happened, but I soon came out of that. And what the study did was they followed people who had won the lottery and people who became paralyzed when it happened, and for the six months after it happened. And what they found was, initially when someone won the lotto, they were really happy, over the moon. And when someone was paralyzed, they were a bit down and not very happy about that. But when they went back six months later, the lottery winners, their level of happiness had returned to what it was before.
- Returned to your baseline, wow.
- And the paralyzed people, their level of happiness had returned to the way it was before the injury. So I can very much relate to that, you know? That I've been fortunate to have an amazing family and friends around me that just made that so much easier. But my level of happiness has always been what it was before the accident.
- Well, no, I've never heard that before. But I just don't want to overlook you sharing such a traumatic event, so thank you. Thanks for sharing that with the listeners. I'm not sure how easy or hard it is to look back on, but I'm sure we do appreciate it.
- It's interesting, I'd read that study, read about that many years ago. And it always reminded me of, are you familiar with Alex Zanardi?
- No.
- So he was a Formula 1 driver and I was following him when he was a driver. And he got, during a race, his car was split in half and his legs went with it. And then I don't remember if it was six months, but not that long after he appeared on David Letterman, and he was extremely happy, and really showed people that if you have the right mental attitude, you can do anything, and he became a Paralympian. And I know that your family is a sports family. I'm a tennis nut, I know that you have a tennis family. You were playing tennis yourself and your brother was a pro. What are your thoughts in terms of the Paralympics, and how it sort of touches on people's mentality if you approach it a certain way?
- Yeah, I think that's a really great question, Joe. And sports has always been a driver in my life and our family's life. And I think something that tennis in particular did was to give that focus and professionalism in a more singular way than a team sport does. There's pros and cons to each, and I do wish that I was involved more in team sports growing up. But what tennis did do was help to create that professionalism in terms of focus and singularity in what we did, or in the journey after, and sport is such a... I was fortunate enough to meet Harry, Prince Harry and Megan a few years back as well. And the Invictus Games that Harry had set up around disabilities and sports, you can see how empowering it is, not just for the people taking part, but for the audience and for the engagement around things like that. I think it's an incredible thing, the sport piece. And like you said, it's your view on it. Your attitude really determines the outlook. I look back on that day 24 years ago, Eamon, and I think how fortunate I was because I should be dead firstly. And if I wasn't dead, the severity of the level of injury I had for whatever reason, I kept my breathing, which should have been gone, and that was a massive difference in quality of life. So I feel really fortunate to be in the position that I'm in to have the quality of life that I do, and to be able to have some of the influence that I've been able to have over the last few years as well.
- Yeah, a friend of mine, a good friend of mine who worked at Apple. He took sepsis a couple of years ago and he lost both legs and both arms. And what you just said, he feels fortunate to be living. He feels fortunate to be breathing. He feels fortunate to have a certain lifestyle. That's exactly what he says every time I speak to him.
- That's so great, Eamon, attitude is...
- Great mindset to have.
- Yeah, attitude is the difference between an ordeal and an adventure.
- Yeah, Can I steal that one? It's not bad, not bad.
- Yeah.
- Joe mentioned that your brother is a professional tennis player. I didn't realize that.
- He was, yeah. So he was the highest-ranked Irish doubles player of all time. Doubles was his focus. He was on the ATP tour, the ITF tour as well. And that's opened some incredible doors even to this day for James. Yeah, I have a really good story actually, if we have a few minutes on one of the adventures. So again, this is to your question, Joe, on sport, and the opportunity that sport creates. James is a really friendly, warm, outgoing guy, and he got the opportunity through tennis, through meeting a guy randomly to spend some time on Necker Island with Richard Branson.
- Richard Branson, yeah.
- For the Necker Cup, and when he was there, he got talking to Josh, who's Richard's personal tennis coach, an English guy. And when James was there, he mentioned that if Josh ever needed a break, he'd be happy to fill in. So sure enough, he got the opportunity to spend about a month on Necker Island with Richard Branson as his private coach. And the story goes, the first day that James arrived he met with Josh who took him through the routine. He goes down in the morning, leave the newspaper for Richard, and then go out on court. 6:00 AM you play for half an hour to 45 minutes. The same in the evening, 6:00 PM, twice a day. Richard likes to play tennis and fanatical about it, and at his age as well, it's really impressive how much dedication he gives to it. So James went down the first day, the day after. So he left the newspaper for Richard. Josh said you need to make him a cup of tea as well. He likes a cup of tea, have a chat for a few minutes. Now James was the youngest of three in our family, and he was well looked after being the youngest. So making a cup of tea would be even foreign to him. So we went down, first day meeting Richard, "Hey Richard, great to see you," whatever else. He said, "Here's the paper." He said, "I know you like a cup of tea. I could make you a cup of tea, but to be honest, it wouldn't be great. And you'd probably be better making the tea yourself." So he didn't think anything of that, right? He didn't think anything of it, and went about. And it was about two weeks later on the island. James had his 30th birthday there. And he didn't tell anyone, very modest and whatever else, but they take your passport when you get on Necker Island. So they knew that it was his birthday. And Richard invited him up to the grand house, the main house on the island. So he went up, he was sitting there and he was chatting to whoever was beside him. And the other side was Richard's sister, chatting to her, and she said, "James, do you mind me asking you a question?" And he said, "Okay." She said, "The first day you were here, did you tell Richard to make his own cup of tea?" And he said his heart sank. You know, as an Irish person as well, we're all very personable, Eamon, but he said his heart sank, and he was like, "Oh my God." He said, "Was that really bad?" And his sister said, "He absolutely loved that." People come on the island and pamper to his every need. For someone to come and tell him to make his own cup of tea was so refreshing. Yeah, so that was one of the opportunities that tennis has opened. And every year he's back on Necker Island for the Necker Cup, and he'd be quite friendly with Richard as well, so...
- That is so cool.
- That is so cool. Wow.
- Actually, funny story following on from that. If we have another minute.
- Yes, absolutely.
- Because it was James's birthday, Richard had, he said, "Why don't we take the boats out and have a race around the island," as an activity, as you do, Eamon. And so they took the two boats out. James was on one boat with some people. Richard on the other with his family and they had a captain, and they were racing around the island. And James said the most surreal moment of his life happened in the last 30 seconds of that race. So he said his boat was in the lead and they were coming up to the finish line and he looked to his left and it was Natalie Imbruglia beside him, looked to his right, it was Roger, the drummer from Queen. And he said as he went over the finish line, Roger put his arms in the air and started singing "We Are the Champions." Oh my God, wow. Huge Queen fan as well. That's when you know you're doing okay for yourself.
- Yeah.
- I want to talk to you... We want to talk to you about so many things. We will get to AI. I would like to talk about definitely public speaking because you're well versed there. I'd love to understand your journey there. And obviously Mobility Mojo. But before we get into that, would you like to walk us through how you initially got engaged with accessibility, with the Irish government? And what that connection, and then what kind of spurred you on to create Mobility Mojo?
- Yeah, it was quite random, Eamon. So just back from Dallas, and Dallas was really, really tricky with getting a wheelchair-accessible taxi.
- We talked about that, right, yeah.
- Yeah, and we had the same issue in Ireland for a long time. And generally you have to give 24 hours notice. So this was 2012, I think maybe 10. And I booked a wheelchair-accessible taxi for someone's birthday the following night. Came out at 12 PM at night and no sign of the taxi. And it was one of those nights that, it's like the end of the world with the rain pouring down. So spent the next six hours at the side of the road trying to get a service that should have been there with no luck. Eventually had to bite the bullet and bring my parents to travel in 45 minutes to pick me up in our van just to get home. So I thought this wasn't good enough. I was in bed for three days after, sick. Wheelchair was not in the best condition. So I just got thinking about it, Eamon, and I was like, this is not good enough. We need to do something or change something. That led to a conversation with a minister in Ireland, a senator type of thing that you'd see in the US. That then led to me being appointed to a government body, the taxi advisory committee, to advise the government on the taxi industry. And through that, we've now put the foundations in place to move to 100% wheelchair-accessible fleet by 2035. Secured about $7 million in grants for wheelchair taxi drivers as well, and changed a few regulations. It's much harder or easier, should I say, to have those conversations and decide on legislation when there are those people that are going to be affected by that in the room, so that really helped. So that's where it accidentally came from. And then that sent me on a... I got an appetite for change and impact led to the first company that I founded was wheelchairtaxi.ie. It was a directory of all the accessible taxi drivers in Ireland with their direct contact details, photos of the vehicles, whatever else. It was more of a personal project than a real business, I would say. But applying for a Social Entrepreneurs Ireland event which I wasn't successful with. And Noelle, who is our co-founder of Mobility Mojo, wasn't successful with either, we met at that event and Mobility Mojo was formed as a result.
- Wow, did you say 100% accessible by 2035?
- That's the ambition, that's where the legislation is leading us, yeah.
- That's impressive.
- So anyone entering the industry now, you can only get a wheelchair-accessible taxi. You can't become the taxi driver unless you have an accessible vehicle.
- That's amazing, Stephen. It is.
- Yeah, I was very proud and I see when we're traveling into work every day, when we see the accessible vehicles that were illegal before we changed some of the legislation on the road, knowing the difference that a certain perspective can bring on things was, yeah, really empowering.
- The one thing when you and I spoke last week in Dallas that it kind of annoyed me when you mentioned obviously the lack of volume of accessible taxis even here, but also the cost, and how the cost is three, four times a regular taxi cost, which is just, it's wrong, you know?
- Yeah, it felt like a disability tax, all right. And it doesn't look like it's getting much better, Eamon, to be honest, in the US. New York is an outlier that was really impressive from three years ago to where they are now. San Francisco is really good, but outside of there, we've really struggled. And even the driverless cars, the new ones that are getting licenses in cities, none of them are accessible. The ideal scenario for a public vehicle like that is the London black cab, the taxi, that's universally accessible. So someone with visual impairment, a hearing impairment, mobility impairment. It's not wheelchair accessible, it's a vehicle that takes everyone. You know, it's not specifically the wheelchair accessible thing, because I think that gets pigeonholed. It's broader than that, and accessibility is something that affects all of us.
- That black taxi was our family car for about eight years. My father was a black taxi driver. Yeah, yeah, yup.
- And so tying now the two together, Virgin was one of the first clients, is that correct, that you had for Mobility Mojo? Was that sort of a connection to the tennis that your brother was having Sir Richard make his own tea, and then from there that led to a connection with Mobility Mojo, is that correct?
- Yeah, that's right, Joe. So we supported Virgin Hotels across the world, and some Hilton, some Marion, Dalata Group, which are the largest in Ireland as well. The original mission that we set out to solve with Mobility Mojo is to empower that 1.3 billion people with disabilities to travel more. There was a big gap in accessibility in hotels, and that user experience, so that's where that started. And then COVID saw to stopping that for a while, but to be honest, it was a really positive thing for us, even though we were in hospitality because it helped us broaden our focus particularly around office spaces and workspaces. And we found a real product market fit with what we're doing.
- And for those listeners that are not familiar of Mobility Mojo and what it does, would you like just to give an overview?
- Yeah, sure, Eamon, so we've developed a whole... Well, if you think about a company, a company manages HR in a system, in a platform. They manage their fire safety elements in a system across their buildings. What we've built is the accessibility version of that for your built environment. So the management platform where your visibility on how accessible and inclusive your buildings are across the world in real time. We can do it at scale as well. If we look at the current solution to understanding how accessible your building is, it's a consultant on the ground who comes in, spends three or four days, gives you a 1,000 plus page report, which is really detailed, difficult for anyone to understand, even a professional in the industry. And then it tends to sit in a drawer and gather dust. We've built a whole digital version of that, that can scale, that can grow, that updates in real time. And to give you an example of the impact of something like that, we work with Bayer Pharmaceuticals across the world on all their buildings, manufacturing buildings, office buildings, we captured the accessibility of their 200 buildings in the space of two weeks.
- Two weeks, 200 buildings. Wow.
- 200 buildings in two weeks to do that. In the traditional way, we'd be looking at a couple of years at least.
- So travel, when traveling with a disability can often be very challenging from seeing lots of influencers including a friend of mine who recently, we were at a conference together, Eamon met him as well. Actually Ed Summers, who who has been a guest here. He went with his seeing eye dog on a plane and the passenger next to him really made a terrible ruckus about it. And he was next to an influencer, and then this wound up reaching, I think, millions of people. So there's lots of stories of this nature. But I think it would be helpful for you to explain both your relationship to technology, because I know HeadMouse has made a big change in your life. And also to describe what it's like to travel with assistive devices, be that a wheelchair or something digital, so that people can understand what the experience is like.
- Yeah. Again, really great question, Joe. So people often ask me about the HeadMouse. When I was injured in 2002, there was an IT center in the hospital, our assistive technology center in the hospital that I got to try out a few things. And the technology hasn't really changed in terms of that in the 24 years. I have a little sticker on my forehead and there's a sensor on top of the screen that tracks the sticker on my forehead, where I move my head, the mouse moves with me. And I have an on-screen keyboard for typing and whatnot. I've been using a voice dictation system, so drag and dictate for 20 years. But in the last 12 months, moved to an AI version of that, where I select a mode. So if I select email, for example, I will talk like I'm talking here, and it will format and type the email in the way that you would normally see a structured email with my sign off, with "hello" at the beginning, whatever else, that has been a real game changer. And then if I change the mode to WhatsApp or to Slack, it will format it in a different way and put emojis in, and the things you might see in a WhatsApp that you wouldn't see in an email, so that's been so helpful. I'm really excited about something that only came to light in the last couple of weeks. And it's a college in the US that some professor there has developed a mouth sensor for people, for quadriplegics. I don't know, have you seen this?
- The mouth pad?
- Yeah, if you know...
- Something like that, yeah.
- A retainer brace, the pallet that you would put at the top of your mouth in a retainer brace, but it has sensors in it. So you're using your tongue along that mouthpiece to move a mouse or to move a cursor on your phone or that. So I'm really interested to try that, and I think that would be even more empowering. I struggle to use my phone when I'm in public, if my wife's not there, or someone's not there that can help me with it. I'm really basic in terms of assistive technology when traveling, Joe, so I use a manual wheelchair rather than a powered wheelchair, and that's purposely done because it gives me a lot more flexibility in where I can go and what I can do. I don't mind being pushed around. I mean, I'm the ideal husband, the wife can push me around wherever she wants. But yeah, so I rely on people helping to push me around when I'm at the show in disability and last weekend, Eamon, where John and myself were talking to yourself and others. And there was always someone helping to move me around. But I felt like if I was in a power wheelchair, that it would be a lot more restrictive in not being able to get out and see things and whatever else. You know, we've done a lot of mileage in this chair and done the likes of Amsterdam where you get down 20 steps into the basement of a place, of a bar or whatever, and it's all doable in the manual wheelchair and a few strong people.
- Do you see legislation, like last year's legislation like EAA helping things overall from an accessibility perspective?
- Yeah, I think more in the digital sense, which is great to see, and accessibility, as you're both aware, it's so much broader than a ramp and a big bathroom. We've seen neurodiversity is a really prevalent thing now and going to be even more so. We know by 2040 that 40% of the population will be neurodiverse, of the working population. And what we're seeing from organizations and companies we're talking to is that 100% of us are going to need the supports that are designed for neurodiverse people with the influence of AI. How overwhelmed are we all with... I think I've reviewed seven or eight legal contracts today with the support of AI, but I mean, I'm exhausted from content switching, from the amount of work you can now do with the support of AI. So brain breaks and quiet rooms, and all those other things that come along with that are going to benefit everyone in time.
- Are you playing with Claude or ChatGPT, or what's your favorite AI platform and what do you use it for?
- Yeah, so I've been annoying a lot of people for the last two or three years around how great ChatGPT was originally, and then Claude. I think the big change for us, Joe, is the ethical side of things, would have some concerns around OpenAI and there was the issue with the US government, and Anthropic, and how they pushed back on monitoring people and nuclear weapon surveillance and that. And when OpenAI then swooped in and said, "We'll do it," that didn't leave the best taste in our mouth as a company. So Anthropic, we're all in on Anthropic and it's been an absolute game changer. We've developed the skills across Claude for our brand guidelines, our legal reviews, our sales process, and every other aspect you can think of with the business. And so everyone in our company is invested in Claude, and it's a coworker for us all. To put some of the impact in perspective as well. I think we were telling you this, Eamon, we released a version three of our platform late last year. And that took us 12 to 14 months to develop with senior developers, really experienced people coding and building that out. V4 was a step up again and it's been a massive change in how the capabilities of our platform from V3 to V4. That was done in eight to 12 weeks using a lot of Claude code. So 95% of our code now is written in Claude Code, with the checks and balances, and all the security aspects that we were doing before, just in a much more streamlined way because of the advances in how far AI has come. Fable has been extraordinary in terms of capability as well.
- When you say Fable has been extraordinary in regards to, explain that to me.
- So yeah, Fable is the newest model from Claude. And so I built a website about a month ago, a new website for Mobility Mojo, which will be going live in the next two or three weeks, I'd say. And using Fable to do that, Eamon, and it is honestly like having a professional design agency do it in real time in front of you with everything working and just blown away. We did 35 pages on the new website and it looks so, so good compared to the website that we currently have there that we spent a fortune on, and it doesn't look as great as what Fable was able to do.
- And apart, Stephen, from utilizing AI to create Mobility Mojo, do you have future plans to embed AI within the application?
- So it's already there, Eamon. Yeah. Our clients can use AI to engage with the content in the platform, to surface grants. So we know what the platform does is companies assess their buildings around 500 different criteria that we've developed, the highest accessibility standards in the built environment in the world. And we surface then all the improvements that can be made to the building as a result of that. What AI has helped us do, we work in India, in Australia, in South America, and across the entire world where the cost to improve things vary so drastically, plus the grants vary so drastically. So we can surface local grants that are available to you in India to automate your door, for example, that wouldn't be available in other countries and highlight that within the platform in real time. So there's just a really simple example of how it's adding huge value to our end users.
- What are your thoughts on jobs and AI? Like, I have some friends who feel that AI is going to allow new careers, particularly for people with disabilities, to build websites as you described you've done. And when we think about the website that you recently built, instead of paying somebody else to do that, you did it. And it's sort of like, there's always these pros and cons with every new technology. So where do you think it's going, and are you excited, nervous, or both?
- Yeah, a bit of both. I do think it's an incredible opportunity, Joe, to do a lot of the things that we haven't been able to do to date because of the limited resources that we've had. With the website build, I mean, I got it to a certain place with it's all coded and whatever else, but we're still paying an agency who are HubSpot experts to get that hosted, and to add it into the HubSpot environment before it goes live. So it's not like it's not going to cost us anything. We're still having to engage professionals and an agency to do the last 20% of it. But it's got us there so much faster. I think it's, we see it as a coworker, and the level of the quality of output that we're able to produce as well, and the speed we're able to go at has been much, much faster than what we've done before. Yes, there will be an impact on jobs, but like you said, there's opportunities that you're only limited by your imagination, and the opportunities for people to create new industries, new companies in a much shorter space of time. It took us six years before we could employ our first person in Mobility Mojo and actually take a salary between Noelle and myself. Whereas with the capability of AI and building a company, you could get to market much quicker, which means that that will create job opportunities to go along with that new company. So yeah, lots of pros and cons. I think on a personal level, I must share with you the personal impacts it's had on me and as someone with a disability, I'm prone to urinary tract infections. Two, three times a year I'd end up in hospital maybe for a week with IV antibiotics because the oral have stopped working on me. And the last time I was in was March of this year. And I got admitted on the Thursday. IV was going into me and I had a load of meetings lined up for the following week. So I was really, I was eager to get out and get back to work. And got admitted on Thursday, on the Saturday, I still wasn't feeling any better or any different. And I put all my medical records into Claude and asked it to act as a top 1% spinal injury consultant. And it analyzed everything and it said, "I'm on the right IV antibiotics, but think about adding steroids into the mix to help." And my consultant came in a few minutes later and I said, "You know what, what about steroids?" He said, "Geez, that's a really good idea." So put me on the steroids, within two hours, I was feeling so much better, so much better. So it assisted in helping to guide... To find a really, really strong spinal injury specialist is so difficult, and the best specialist I've ever had was Christina Sadowski who was in Baltimore in the Kennedy Krieger Institute that I got to spend a bit of time in. And I honestly felt when I'd trained Claude on all my medical records, that I was speaking with Christina who was giving me advice on a daily basis on what to do and why I was feeling a certain way about certain things.
- Yeah, I went through a very similar experience where I got really sick and almost went into anaphylactic shock. And I was using ChatGPT and it was the first one that actually found out that it was an allergy. And maybe, my best friend is an allergist, but once I ran it by him, he was like, "Yeah, that was definitely it." But without the Chat, God knows what would have happened. So it can really be a huge lifesaver really.
- I mean, I trained it up on all my medical records for the last 20 years, And the 1% consultant, the prompt is really helpful for people. "Act as a top 1% X," in this case it was a spinal injury consultant, and then the prompt followed that. And I probably shouldn't share this with you, but I asked it to analyze all my medication. And it did, it said 95% of what I was on, I take about 10 tablets a day, mostly vitamins and whatever else. And it said, "Yeah, all looks good with one gap," And it was very reassuring. Claude was like, "Stephen, now you can ignore the branding on this probiotic that I'm going to recommend, it's just it was done in a test case, and don't pay any notice to it. It was only because of this and that." And like really reassuring and empathetic to me. And it said, "Do you want to know what the probiotic is that you're missing?" It said my urine tested for this bacteria and this NA42CL and N47, whatever is the only probiotic that has this bacteria in it. Like, what consultant could tell you that? And it said, "So the probiotic I need to take is Optibac for women, for your vaginal health." So my vagina has never looked better.
- That's an amazing way of trying to soften the blow for you, I like that.
- Yeah, yeah, yeah but it was because the test case was done in women who are more prone to UTIs and that, and that was the group that they'd done it on. But I've been on it, and thank God, haven't had a UTI since, so...
- No, really the way it's nuts. But then that simple prompt, the top 1%, very simple prompt, but can make a huge difference.
- Yeah, I cross everything, Eamon, so for yourself as a consultant, top 1% consultant in this or that, it's really made a difference.
- I want to ensure we get in public speaking. So not long after we met, online, and I did listen and watched a couple of your keynotes. In particular it was around accessibility in the travel industry and the challenges it may have. How did you get involved? Because, you know yourself it's many individuals first fear and phobia is public speaking. How did you get involved with it? And how did you end up being as affluent as you are?
- Do you know, I didn't allow a photo to be taken for the first two years after the accident because I just didn't feel like it was me, myself. And gradually built up confidence. I would never have asked a question in a room at an event. But it was a gradual process, Eamon, it was throwing myself into that edge of the comfort zone, where there's a lot of butterflies where you push through and go for it. Where the bigger opportunities came from then, I put myself forward for a, there was a TEDx event in Dublin that I was like, "Okay, I wouldn't mind seeing how I can do this, and I put myself forward for that. Spinal Injuries Ireland had asked me to speak on a few things that I didn't realize, I'd be speaking to an audience of a few hundred people, but I said yes, and then when I showed up, I was absolutely shitting it because it was a lot bigger than I thought, but I pushed through on it. And it gradually, it grew from there. And then it's that mixed with the chance opportunities. So the Skift events, that was probably the one that you saw. I was the only speaker in Skift's history to do two of their international events in the same year because the talk had the impact that we were hoping for from it. I mean, it was a really interesting subject, but a real different take on it with the business case and accessibility, which hadn't really been heard before. And that came about from just going to a local Skift event in Dublin, listening to the people talk, and then just getting talking to Rafat, who's the CEO there. And that then led to, I spoke at a football stadium in Sweden last year, the year before, where Ibrahimovic, for anyone listening who knows of football, he scored the overhead bicycle kick against England from outside the box in that stadium. And then last year, really proud to have done INBOUND in San Francisco. A couple of thousand people. Dario the CEO from Anthropic was one of the keynotes there as well. So yeah, just amazing. And it's noble, but I don't put myself out there. I mean, I don't actively seek it. When an opportunity does come that has the potential to impact and to be heard with the message that we want then yeah, I'd certainly put myself forward for it. Still the butterflies to this day. Like, I was so nervous last October for INBOUND in San Francisco.
- But you're good at it, Stephen. I think the one thing that comes across, which makes a difference for any speaker, or any leader for that matter is authenticity. I think authenticity goes a long way. You mentioned one point there I don't want to overlook. The business impact, the business value, not just doing the right thing. And it's one that Joe and I double down on when we speak about accessibility and how businesses, yes, they can look at it from a doing the right thing perspective. Yes, they can look at it from a legislation in the WCAG and EAA perspective, but it has a significant revenue potential as well. Do you want to talk about that a little bit from a physical accessibility and travel perspective?
- Yeah, and the right thing to do, I mean, we meet a lot of champions and heroes throughout our conversations who want to do the right thing. The reality of business and organizations that we're talking with across the world is that it needs to make not only sense, but cents, as in C-E-N-T-S. And the business case is there. It's undeniable now. We're at a stage where Accenture have done a global report on this disability and have released global reports on it as well. What Accenture found was organizations that are more inclusive to people with disabilities see 28% greater annual revenue as a result of the different perspectives. You know, imagine having someone with a disability around the table when you're making decisions around travel, around taxis, around business-related things, you get that different perspective that helps reach an audience of 1.3 billion. More than a billion people globally with a disability. This is not a niche market, it's 15% of any population. It's also the knock-on effect, Eamon. So I told the story years ago that we were traveling to Hamburg for a friend's stag party. And I phoned the hotel to see, there was no information online to see if they had an accessible bedroom. And they said, "Yeah, we've one." So I asked them, "Have you got this in the bedroom? Have you got that?" They went off to check, came back, said, "Yeah, we do." So I said, "Great, I'll book that bedroom." One accessible bedroom in the hotel of 200 bedrooms. But because they had that one accessible bedroom, they got my business, they got 22 other people who were traveling in the group. So often the person with the accessibility need is the determining factor for where the whole group goes, where a wedding takes place, or where a conference for 3,000 people took place last week in Dallas. Accessibility can be a driver in that decision making, and the business case is undeniable now.
- Wow, this has really been fascinating. We could go on, I'm sure, for another two hours, but I know that you have an appointment on the other end of this, so with that, I'd like to ask you, where can people find you and Mobility Mojo, and connect anything you want to share with us, how to reach you online?
- Yeah, sure, Joe. Feel free to connect on LinkedIn. Stephen Cluskey should show up near the top, I think. And mobilitymojo.com is the company website. Website doesn't look great at the moment, but in a couple of weeks time it will look much better.
- I saw it. It looks great to me. Thank you so much, Stephen.
- Stephen, thanks so much for your time. Honestly, I feel lucky to have met you three years ago. I'm delighted to have spent some time with you in person. Look forward to the continued relationship, and I would highly recommend anyone checking out Mobility Mojo or your story, because well worthwhile, so thanks for your time.
- Thanks, Eamon. Thanks, Joe.