This is a short transcript of a Salesforce YouTube video featuring Mike Hess and other speakers describing his life as a legally blind person, his founding of the Blind Institute of Technology (BIT), and how technology—especially Salesforce and AI—enables training, certification, employment, and greater accessibility for people who are blind or visually impaired. The speakers emphasize the large employment gap for the blind community, BIT’s mission to place candidates into jobs, and a cited business benefit (organizations committed to this talent pool show 28% higher revenue).
Chapters
Back in the 70s, I'm first grade, small town, northeast Ohio. Ended up at the Cleveland clinic. The eye doctor comes up, says, your son's got the earliest onset of macular degeneration that we've ever had and he's going to be blind by the time he turns 18. I look up at my mom because I had never heard the word blind before and I said, mom, what's blind? She goes, it just means you're going to be special. When I was first interviewing for gigs, I never wanted to let people know that I was legally blind or blind. I used to be able to fake it. As my eyesight in my early 20s started to just plummet, I actually was contemplating taking my own life because I did not want to be blind because again, my entire life was told that blindness was bad. Okay, go give that to grandma. My wife told me, she's like, she goes, your girls love you no matter what. Like no matter what. And so I. So my girls literally like saved my life.
It's pretty special reply. After spending almost 20 years in the private sector, it was very evident to me, very obvious that I was always the token blind person. And so with the support of my best friend and better half, I left my 6 figure income almost 11 years ago. Now to start bit blind institute of Technology.
My goal is to help all these companies realize that we are the greatest untapped human resource on the planet.
The unemployment and underemployment rate amongst the blind and visually impaired community is staggering. But technology levels the playing field. Through bit, we offer a number of different Salesforce courses. Our end goal is always employment.
So as a blind person, I use a screen reader. So what you see on a screen. I hear Salesforce has created this amazing platform that allows somebody like me to be able to come into their platform. From training to certification to employment. For the first time ever, from the.
Very beginning, Salesforce has made accessibility embedded into their technology.
How can we solve for the hardest to serve? Less than 10% of websites on the planet are accessible digitally to an individual like me who uses a screen reader. If you leverage AI effectively like now, I could get a very clear description of what that visual picture looks like. Salesforce and AI have the ability to really allow individuals like me be able to take their career to the next level. Sometimes you just have to close your eyes and sometimes your eyes.
When we hired our bit person, full time, night and day changed to our whole operation on how we use Salesforce and how the organization thinks about Salesforce. Like a lot of marginalized groups. Everybody's just looking for a chance.
Organizations that are committed to this talent pool have 28% higher revenue against their peers. Like, it sounds to me like a solid investment.
When I can call somebody and say, hey, guess what? You got the job. I cry every time. It is life changing.
I feel honored that I am. I'm their servant. Like, I serve that community and the amazing platform that is Salesforce, that gives not only myself, but truly thousands of people with disabilities, for the first time ever, that chance to take care of ourselves and our families. I questioned multiple times, like, why am I blind? And I realized, like, I found the reason I was born blind to truly create equity, true equity for professionals with disabilities.
