John F Walsh III/Andrew Houghton: A New Era for iDisability®: Growth Insights

Welcome to Disability Matters with your host Joyce Bender. All comments, views, and opinions expressed on the show are solely those of the host, guest, and callers. Now the host of Disability Matters, here's Joyce Bender.

Hi everyone, welcome to the show. Thank you to all of our listeners in the Americas. I have— and around the world, which I'll talk about in a moment. But I especially have to thank Canada, who is in the top 5 countries with listeners, because guess what? I am in Prince Edward Island, PEI, at my friend Chris Griffin's in a cottage she has here. That's why it's so beautiful. Behind me and why you're not seeing purple. I love it here. I love the people. I love everything. It's so beautiful. And I, so I just wanted to give you a shout out because it's just spectacular here. Also, I wanted to mention Singapore again. Actually, on their social media venue, they got a message from me. So to all of you there, hello, greetings, keep listening. Oh my goodness, as I said, on the social media, you have number 2 of all 143 countries. You are the second largest listeners and it's getting bigger every week. Thank you. Thank you. Singapore rocks. That's what I have to say. Thank you so much. Um, Yoshiko, special shout out to you. You know how I love you. And thank you, Highmark, for continuing to be the sponsor of this great show. I must tell you, I was very excited about the show today because, uh, well, first of all, I love the two people on. I work with the two people that are on, uh, but Ask Joyce. Ask Joyce Bender, do I love them? I do. We'll talk more about that a little bit. So Andy Houghton and John Walsh. Andy, thank you so much for being with us. And John. So Andy is the co-founder of iDisability. And I'm going to start with you, Andy. I wanted to ask you, when did this whole Bender Eye training idea come together with you and with Mary, you know, that we would work together? When did that happen?

Well, hi Joyce, John, it's great to be here. Well, first of all, let me ask you, you've got on one of those shirts today, Joyce. Is it, you know, it's one of those things where you say, well, is it blue or is it purple? And it could be the huge controversy. Good. Well, if you look at it this way, it's a little purple. No, just kidding. But, well, you know, we've known each other for a long time, well over, well over 25 years. And, you know, I'm kind of born from an entrepreneurial spirit. And I had found, you know, in somewhere around 2015, there was a gap in learning and I was traveling around like you doing presentations, educational sessions, awareness sessions at businesses. And I said, there's got to be a better way to optimize this and have a greater impact that's more scalable and that attracts a more diverse range of audience. And so, I started working on these products, e-learning platform, developing these modules, but I found myself really in need of a partner. And that's when I think we were at a Disability:IN conference and I came to breakfast with you and Mary and said, "What do you think of this concept? I think you'd be a good front person." And that's how the whole idea was born. But really it was out of, I think everything that I've done is really out of identifying the need in the community and coming up with a solution. And, and then once we come up with a solution, what's the best way to implement this, uh, globally? And that best way was partnering with Joyce Bender and Bender Consulting.

What a great decision that was. Um, and you know, I had a hard day yesterday, but I really did, because Mary passed away 5 years yesterday. Mary Brocker, but Mary will always be with me. But I know how much Mary would love Ask Joyce. I know it. I know how much she would love it. So she is not here, but she is still with us. And you know, Andy, you're so right though. About the training because, you know, what is the problem? Why do we have this high unemployment? Stigma and lack of understanding. That is why. And that just leads to one thing, unemployment. So I'm all in. You know, at Bender Consulting, this is year 31. And through my life, I have been fighting the fight for people with disabilities to gain competitive employment. And, you know, we still, as Senator Harkin says, have not moved that needle. But I believe training can move the needle. So that's why I am so excited about iDisability. And John, you were at CSC, which I never knew that CSC was one of the first software companies on the stock exchange. I was reading about CSC yesterday for my book. And I never knew that, but that's where I met John, Computer Sciences Corporation. And he was an executive, all different positions, president, you know, everything, and worked with, in case he's listening, someone I love so much, Russ Owen. And John knew me because guess what? He hired people. So you all know, when people say to me, "Oh, Joyce, you're so wonderful. You are really. What you're doing..." I say, "Stop. Don't tell me that. Hire someone. Hire someone." You know, it's not about me. It's about hire someone. It's not about accolades for me. It's about paychecks for people with disabilities. Hire someone. And you know what? John did. He continued to no matter what company that he was at. But he knew me very well when he was at Computer Science Corporation. And John, I know you remember how I would go to Newark, Delaware, and I would— you and other people would set up meetings for me to talk to the managers, you know, and I would do like a 1-hour presentation or something with opening for questions, etc. When I did that, well, first of all, you can introduce yourself, but you are our CEO. When I did that, what difference did you see when people had received training?

No, thanks, Joyce. And great to see you both. And Andy, of course, today. Well, yeah, that to me was the magic that working with you and your company brought. Which was filling a gap. And really, it's not— there's stigmas, and certainly people misunderstand the disability community just because they're not part of it. I'll say yet, because the chances are at some point you may have a temporary or permanent disability. It's something any of us can join at any time. But when you came in and explained your background and how you became disabled later in life and how that really impacted your life's journey and just the real, you know, education. You know, it's kind of the fear of unknown, right? If you're, you know, you're off hiring people every day and CSC would, you know, have thousands of openings every day at our company. We were a very large company. But if you didn't have a structured way to make sure that you made everything accessible and available and had the accommodations set up in the right way and all the nuances of making sure that you're a fully accessible and inclusive company, you're not going to get there. So education was always a gap, and you're only one person, so you can only spend an hour at one place at one time teaching us how to do that. And that's one of the things I'm so excited about iDisability is it allows everybody to learn at their own pace in a safe place to really take the time and understand all the legal compliance, you know, how to engage, how to retain, and really how to be more productive working with people across the company, but certainly making sure the accommodations are right for people with disabilities. And then with Ask Joyce, which you've alluded to so many times now, which is really your digital mind twin we've created. So literally, and it sounds just like you, you can talk to you 24/7, 365, and ask any questions you need to about the training and other aspects of the disability space. And it's just, again, a way to, you know, get people aware of and engaged with and thinking about making sure that they take the time to make sure that the disability community inside their company has the accommodations they need, and certainly your customers. When you look at the economics of the disability community, they're, you know, it's a trillion-plus-dollar global industry when you think about 1 out of 4 people globally have a disability. Just super excited, and you made a big difference. I mean, personally, and I know that because we've created a digital twin of you, it won't be the same as you in person, I'll say, but it's the best we can do. And it really expands our ability to have people consume the training in a different way. Really, it's, you know, if you just have a question, just open up Ask Joyce, click a button, it's like having a phone call with you. You answer and you start talking and asking the questions you need answers to. And I'm just so excited to— we've been able to— technology has allowed us to be able to do that today. And so looking forward to seeing it take really the breaking down the stigmas and misunderstandings about people with disabilities down to where we can see more employment, which at the end of the day, I agree, you know, it's paycheck's not pity. Let's get out and get people some jobs, have financial independence. And with that independence, comes freedom.

That is right. Um, because you're never ever free in this country until you have employment. Can't buy a car, can't rent an apartment, can't live that American dream until you have competitive employment. And before we go to break, what I'll say is, you know, I would go down there and to CSC, I would go to CSC and many companies. I would, you know, provide training. And at the end of that time period, many people would come up to me and say, okay, now I understand this. Oh, now I get this. So that was great. Except guess what? That was for that one group, right? Out of your 50,000 employees, that was that one group.

Right.

You know what I mean? That is why iDisability is innovative and changes everything. And we're going to talk so much more about that after we go to break. If you just joined us, we are talking to John Walsh, CEO of iDisability, and the co-founder of iDisability, Andy Houghton. This is Joyce Bender, America's Voice, where disability matters at Voice America. America.com. We'll be right back.

At Highmark Health, we believe what makes us unique makes us better. Our differences broaden our perspectives and foster a variety of skills to complement each other, creating a stronger and more vibrant workforce. It's this belief that earned us recognition as the Best Place to Work for the 10th year for individuals with disabilities in a survey by the American Association of People with Disabilities and Disability:IN. We'll continue to celebrate and benefit from the inclusion of all people. To find out more, visit HighmarkHealth.org.

Since 1985, Bender Consulting Services has served as a national leader in advancing employment of people with disabilities, including veterans with disabilities, with private sector companies and federal government agencies. Vendor assists customers with achieving their diversity and workforce inclusion initiatives by tapping into a talent pool of individuals seeking professional positions, including those in the STEM fields. In addition, Vendor services include disability employment consulting, training, and technology accessibility through their high-tech line of service. For more information, please visit www.VendorConsult.com. Streaming live, the leader in internet talk radio, VoiceAmerica.com.

You're listening to Disability Matters. Now please welcome back the host of Disability Matters. Here's Joyce Bender.

Hi everyone, greetings from Prince Edward Island in beautiful Canada with all my Canadian friends. It's so nice to be with you. Today, especially with John Walsh, Andy Houghton, two of my close friends. John is the CEO of iDisability, and Andy Houghton is the co-founder of iDisability and someone I've known, I think, since you and Jill were dating in high school. That's how long I think it's been. It's been long. Jo Halton, CEO, president, chair, everything of Disability:IN. I've known her and Andy for so long and she is spectacular. That's why people say, "Oh, here's Andy, husband of Jo." And I could certainly accept that with high honors. Well, Andy, I know even more than John, you are going to know so much about what I'm going to talk about. Do you remember, Andy, the Ten Commandments, the video, the Ten Commandments of Communicating with People with Disabilities? Do you remember that?

Of course. You know, I think that, that was one of the legacy historical training videos. Remember the old VHS? I still have a machine in my— a VHS to DVD machine in my little closet here, just in case I come across any old tapes that I want to digitize. But even DVDs, it did evolve to a DVD at some point. But yeah, you know, we used to pay 5 cents for a candy bar. Well, I didn't, but somebody did way back, predecessors, my parents. You know, over time, the need to move from analog to digital to where we are today with, with AI in our training. Was so critical because there's just no scalability when you look back at training such as those, you know, very limited in what you could do to educate or create opportunities for educating your entire workforce. You know, some companies today have 50,000, 60,000, 70,000, 200,000, you know, employees. So kind of capitalizing or leveraging off of the strengths of our forefathers and those trainings, this is really the current generation. iDisAbility is the current generation of the Ten Commandments, if you will, but offering not just a single training, but over 50 I think we have like 55 different modules now. So you can select from a menu or a learning path menu and train your entire workforce, or you can go on to our learning management system portal and just take one class. So it's really a great leap from where we were to where we are today. And we've kind of looked at how this platform that we've created will be able to be scalable and impactful on a level never seen before.

Yes. Well, first of all, was it Tim Harrington? Was that his name? The star?

I don't remember.

I think I will tell you the Ten Commandments. I know, John, you remember it also, but that video, the Ten Commandments of Communicating with People with Disabilities, so good. I mean, so good. Humorous. Just really well made. And the problem is everyone loved it, but you obviously could not buy it for 50,000 employees or 40,000 or 30,000. Let alone $500,000, because each one was— it was sold separate, you know, $400 to a group of— I forget how many, but I know because I would have companies say, I told so-and-so to send me that video. I mean, within the same company, because I want to give it to the marketing department. And then someone from the marketing department would give it to you know, the IT department. Well, now, and once again, I want to say it is phenomenal, and I really respect everyone that did that because it was the first of its kind. But now think about it. Instead of spending 400— I mean, buying this one thing for 40,000 people, It's one investment, one investment for like 500,000 people, if that's how many you have. One investment. So I mean, that is amazing when you think about it in comparison to what it was before. So, John, is that correct? I'm sorry, Andy, what were you going to say?

No, go ahead.

I said I'd always hate when they'd get it back and it was never rewound.

In the beginning, I got a little rewinding machine at my house back in the day just for that reason, because it was one of those, you know, you go to Blockbuster when it existed, and of course it wasn't rewound either. So that was the whole thing. But, uh, sorry. No, you're right on, Joyce Bender. No, it's, it's, for me, it's exciting because, um, you know, everybody learns in a different way, right? In a different pace, in a different, uh, uh, just, you know, way of consuming information. And what I love about iDisability now with the investments that have made, yes, you can go take one of the 55+ classes we have. We know there are 100 in development. They're bite-sized, so they're 11 minutes long on average and 11 hours of content in total. But you can do that and you can take classes in there and you get tested as you go through it. And at the end you get a little certificate or you can do Ask Joyce and ask a question. And anything from that training, along with the laws and a few other things that are available— and again, we've structured iDisability and Joyce Bender's mind to be secure, safe, accessible, uh, so, uh, that way, you know, it doesn't answer anything that we haven't trained it to do. It's not going out to the internet and finding unusual things that are true. So know that it's well structured, well made. And now that we also have the learning management system ourselves available— so companies, before we would have to load our content onto their learning management systems, but now anyone literally on Earth can buy one class, a learning path around how to hire people with disabilities and all the steps through that to make sure you onboard them successfully and give them the accommodations they need from the beginning of their experience to working full-time. And then on top of that, multilingual capability, which is something new for us as well. So now if people need it, we can certainly work with companies to develop in any language on Earth, again, that module or modules they need to have translated for their staff. And a lot of more international content as well. And you also think about disabilities. A lot of people, you think about it, You think about a disability as a normal human walking down the street when you can see it. But so much of the disability community has invisible disabilities. And we talk about that in detail and all the nuances of several of them, including my daughter actually has a disability with migraine headaches, which as somebody who's been in the disability community for years, didn't even know that migraine headaches was a disability. So we have two modules on it. It's amazing. I love it. And I'm so excited to be part of it and both what you and Andy put together and just helping take it to the next level. I'm honored to be part of it and excited to see how it changes the world.

Well, we too are honored to have you, John. I wanted to ask you, you know, when you were an executive— well, you still are, but in corporate America, I know you know Time is money. So see the difference between someone having to go to walk to wherever, watch an hour-long video, ask questions and go back. Think how much time that takes versus your ability to go in, you know, and watch however many you want to watch at a time. Do you agree with that?

At scale, it's millions of dollars. I've done that analysis because we've done work with our customers on training myself. And I'm in the tech world. And when you can take something and make it available 24/7, we heard stories of people going to a conference. They're going to be interviewing people with disabilities. They're sitting on the metro taking a class on their iPhone before they get there. Just-in-time training. There's also leave-behind, so you can print out a PDF, kind of a cheat sheet if you happen to be interviewing somebody over Zoom who's blind. Make sure you give them the accommodations you need. All these things that you— it's really a comprehensive set of artifacts that allows somebody to just jump in and learn quickly, be effective, and make a difference in making sure that your customers and your teammates all have the accommodations. And if you think about it statistically, 1 out of 4 people have disabilities. That means probably someone you know probably several people you know have a disability, whether you know it or not. And I think just having that awareness and knowledge and consuming it in a way that works for you. So, and many of our modules now have video embedded. They're very interactive. We've upgraded every module in the last year. Last year, we literally upgraded every module in the in the curriculum. So everything's new, current, updated, multilingual. Now anybody can buy it, not just big companies, and they can talk to Joyce Bender and have Joyce Bender on staff year-round talking to everybody in the— everybody at the same time in your company if it needs to be. So it's a great way to really make, I think, an impact on educating and helping people who don't have access to the knowledge they need to, you know, really make sure they take care of their friends, teammates, family members, and employees.

Yes, that's right. Andy, what did you think when you first heard about Ask Joyce Bender?

Well, you know, we were, we had talked about it for some time coming up with an AI component that would enhance the experience. And, you know, when we decided to do Ask Joyce Bender, you know, it was just a great opportunity because you do have such a reputation and experience and awareness. And you do have such a, a body of work, you know, such as these shows, um, that provide, uh, an extensive library of content, um, that it would be a shame not to be able to share that, uh, with, um, you know, with anybody who, who wanted to access it. So the whole notion of it, you know, would be great to see, um, you know, and hearing your voice. So that familiarity, you know, it's really just an incredible opportunity to capture your history and your knowledge and your experience and be able to have it in a single platform where, uh, anybody could just pop in a question and get a real thoughtful, I want to say, not choreographed, but answer that is directly related to disability and that is directly related, if interested, to the subject matter in our e-learning content as well. So It's just a great, fun thing in addition to being an incredible tool that aligns our product with where technology is today and where it's going into the future.

Well, I know I'm excited, and John, I'd like to talk about this more. But first, we have to go to Mathis on the mic and just think. Now you can go to Ask Joyce on iDisability and ask any question you want from Jennifer Mathis, and I will tell you what she had to say. Jennifer, you thought you were famous. Now you'll be famous in corporations to hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people. I knew I made the right decision with you. And Jennifer, Ask Joyce The AI component for iDisability is my voice.

Yes, I have heard. I'm excited to try it.

Yeah, well, you can try it today. You can try it when you hang up. You go to iDisability.com and get in there and ask them who Toni Coelho is or something like that. iDisability.com, and it's on the front page there. Ask Joyce Bender. So I am going to instead ask Jennifer Bender, what is the news today, Jennifer?

So, um, today I want to talk about something that happened in a lawsuit involving, um, one of the most significant housing programs that houses people with disabilities who are otherwise homeless, unhoused. So this is the Continuum of Care program that it's a creature of federal law. It was created by the McKinney-Vento Act, which is targeted at homeless people. And it is administered by HUD. And in the current administration, because of this administration's policy on homelessness, which are quite different than policies from prior administrations, HUD has taken some steps to pretty dramatically change this program. This is a very big program. It's a $4 billion program, and it is one of the most significant funding sources for housing subsidies and services that would support people with disabilities in the community. So it funds a lot of what we call permanent supported housing right now for people with disabilities, which is, you know, a rental subsidy plus supportive services. And so what HUD did, they did a number of things, um, and they did them in a way— they were pretty dramatic changes, and they, they made them in such a way that allowed very, very little time for projects to adjust to very, very big changes in the rules for this program. So what they did, among many other things, they shifted most of the money from permanent housing to temporary housing, transitional housing. And that I think in itself is an enormous change because what it meant was many people who are currently housed under this program were going to lose their housing because they could no longer finance all this permanent housing. Money would have to go in large part to temporary housing. So that was a very big deal. And then another big change they made was really taking away, abandoning the approach that had been used for many years with bipartisan support called Housing First. And that was an approach where you don't kick people out of housing if they have trouble complying with the treatment regimen or they can't comply with all the rules. And so after many, many years, many, many studies showing that this, approach of Housing First had tremendous success, that it kept people housed for much longer, and, and many more people were retaining housing using this approach than older approaches. Something like 85% housing retention as compared to 30-something percent housing retention with older approaches. Administration after administration had supported this approach, and Congress had supported this approach. And so now you You had HUD turning around saying, we're not gonna do that anymore, and we're gonna ensure that this money goes to housing that kicks people out if they are not complying with treatment. And so you had a bunch of states that sued, and you had nonprofits like housing providers and also counties that filed their own lawsuit, and all of them were challenging these big changes. Started happening last year, and there was a lawsuit about programs, uh, changes that happened last year, November, December of 2025. Um, those were stopped by the court, but then HUD turned around and did something very similar, um, in 2026. And so there was a new lawsuit about that to try to stop those changes from happening. And so just Friday, federal court said, HUD, you acted unlawfully. You did not file the right process. You're supposed to— given what you did, you had to go through a public process of notice and comment. Where you solicit public input. And they had to do that specifically because they were moving away from permanent housing and the approaches that Congress had said in the law it supported. And Congress had said in the law, if you're not gonna do those approaches and you're gonna do something else, then you have to do a rulemaking where you have public input. It was called notice and comment. We give notice to the public and we give them an opportunity to comment, and then we take those comments into account. They didn't do that. They just sort of did a new process and new rules. And so this court on Friday said that they can't do that. They violated the law, and she is vacating what's called the NOFO, or the Notice of Funding Opportunity. So that means that they have to start again. Now HUD has created a lot of instability in this program because it kept doing these new notices of funding opportunity, and it, you know, there's not now an operative one. As I understand it, there was one that was done for 2024 and 2025, and it was a 2-year. Notice, and because they made all these changes and new notices in the interim, it has just left people really discombobulated. And so I think that the next step is they need to do another notice, and it has to comply with what the court said. I think in the meantime, Congress has enabled the existing programs to keep going for a period of time. I think it's for 12 months. So there is some opportunity to— they bought some time to let a new process happen. But it's a very significant ruling. I don't know what the next step in the litigation will be, but it impacts lots of people. There have been many, many people with disabilities living in the community with housing that funded under that program because it's so big, people across the country who have been— who faced a lot of uncertainty about what's going to happen with their housing. So I think it was a very positive step. It was an important victory, and we will see what happens next.

Wait, that's great. I mean, thank God it wasn't just taken away. So that's good. But everyone, what do I always say? Tell these stories. Stories have an impact. Tell these stories and keep on this. So, uh, Jennifer, you need to let our listeners know if they need to do anything. Do they need to do anything right now?

No.

Okay, just follow this. I will update when there's an update.

Okay, well, Jennifer Mathis, Mathis on the mic now on Ask Joyce Bender. You have a great day.

I'm gonna go ask Joyce. All right, take care.

Yeah, yeah, go ask Joyce. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. So awesome she is. Well, I want to talk about Ask Joyce Bender and the company Delphi that we worked with. John, Ask Joyce Bender, explain to our listeners how it works and what happens. Sure.

So technically what we did is we took all of the lessons in iDisability and uploaded them into the Digital Mind platform that we're using. It takes a process of neural network learning and it learns all of the content. And then we can literally add any time, any day, more content. So we've added laws, we've added more international laws, we've added a lot of the content from your radio shows. We have, you know, very specific instructions to make sure, you know, what the answers are given are accurate. And, but of course, you're not a lawyer, you're not, you're not giving financial advice, you're not giving employment advice, but you're there for training. And so we make it very clear that this is a tool that anybody can use to really ask questions and get, you know, quick answers to their questions. We are watching all of the content and we can constantly help with humans in the loop it learn. So if it, if you for whatever reason, and you may be on Ask Joyce one day and Joyce will say, well, I actually don't know the answer to that at the moment, but here's some other things that that are adjacent to it. We'll see that, it'll get flagged to us, and we can make sure that if your question was unable to be answered, it will train it to be able to answer it in the future. So just like the AI world, and I advise several artificial intelligence companies around the world in my board advising company, it's an evolving space. AI is here. It's here to stay. And I'm just excited, you know, like any new technology, it can be used for good or you can be used for bad. Here, I'd say it's— we're doubling down on the good side. And I'm so excited to have the opportunity to have, you know, your voice, uh, your, your, your humor, just everything, you know, as much as we could put into the digital mind and replicate the human brain, which is technically still impossible. And we, you know, we're far from even understanding our own brains, let alone being able to model them in a computer. But it does a really good job of, you know, people who have known you since they were children, uh, get hair on their neck standing up when they talk to you, uh, in your, in your digital form. So I'm excited that it's that accurate and that it's just another way to to interact with. And really, you know, if you think about what companies struggle with, and going back to the cost side, right, this is something anybody can just— it's like adding a staff member to your company, right? So literally, you could have a digital mind sitting at your company with Joyce Bender that anybody can ask questions 24/7, and then have formal training behind that. Okay, well, we want you for compliance reasons, or, you know, we have customer for engagement curriculum as well. We have, you know, how do you make sure that your evacuation plans take care of people with disabilities? So we have a variety of modules very, very thought out that you can have people take and really dig into the content in a structured way, in a learning way, and have knowledge checks throughout and a certificate of completion available for companies that want to do that as well. So it's a really flexible way to consume it, but super excited about having, you know, in the work we've done, an ADA-compliant version of Joyce Bender's Digital Mind available today.

Yes, it is so exciting. And I want to also thank Sherri Lapaya, who did an incredible amount of work and continues to Paula Balogh, who worked hand in hand with Sherri on the accessibility, reviewing it and making it right. That's what I call it, because it is 100% accessible and 100% designed by people with disabilities. Gerald Homi for being an all the time technical support for us, you know, as we're moving forward and working closely with Paula on all accessibility. And let's see. Oh, and we can't forget Kelly, who handles, you know, all the finances and puts everything together for us. And Lee Ann Thomas. What would I do without Lee Ann Thomas? Who helps us with all these millions of meetings and scheduling that we've had. I just want to shout out, you know, a thanks to all of them and for everything that they've done to help us move forward with this great product.

Good.

And John—

Yes.

Yeah, yeah. John, the AI part of this, it will continue evolving and changing as it goes along. But it would do something like, someone says, well, you know what, no, that's not right. Don't say a migraine's a migraine. There are different types of migraines. So I want a shortcut. I don't want to go see the whole module. But I want to know that one thing. So I go to Joyce and say, "Are there different types of migraines or just one?" And you're going to go right to that new module, but you won't have to watch the whole module and you'll get the answer. So it can also be after you've learned all of that or watched this, it can also be a shortcut. And Andy, don't you think that is really beneficial to employees to have that shortcut?

There's, I mean, no question about it. To have, you know, at the recent Disability:IN conference, all of the talk was around AI and how AI is assisting organizations in optimizing their processes and mitigating the time spent on otherwise tasks that can be handled through AI. So absolutely having a quick reference guide. I mean, who doesn't like it? You know, like my Meta AI glasses, right? I can just ask Meta a question And to be able to do that with Ask Joyce Bender and have it specifically related to disability and detailed, you know, you can ask about, you know, regulations, laws. And if you don't know the answer, we'll make sure that we flag that and we train it. So the next time the question is asked, it will be addressed through Ask Joyce Bender. So absolutely, having that quick reference is just an easy way for organizations and employees to get the quick answer they're looking for.

And I'll just say on that journey, you know, we currently— Joyce is trained on 4.8 million words and growing.

So that's a lot. You can see I talk a lot. 4.8 million words worth.

Yes, you do.

So when they go to iDisability, they can go directly to Ask Joyce Bender to see what it's like if right now they want to go look.

That's right. It's free right now. So anybody who's hearing it today, log in quick, take a look at it, and then of course, once it's not free, we'll take you right to a page where you can acquire it for your organization, your personally. Uh, so it'll be available literally to anybody on Earth. Uh, so excited about that way of being able to consume it. And again, it's on any device— your phone, your iPad, your computer— and it's so easy. You just literally click a button, it rings Joyce, and you start talking to her.

So what if, uh, a company is listening right now, a not-for-profit, let's say they have 10 employees but they wish they could get access to some of this, but they can't afford it. Do we have an option for them, John?

We do.

We have nonprofit pricing as well. So absolutely, just reach out and contact us and we'll work with you to give you the best price we can to give you the accessibility. For us, you know, as you know, all of us are wired to making a difference in the world. So, you know, we're going to be wanting to make sure that everybody who possibly can on Earth have access to this information to really impact employment for all of us.

And what about externally? If someone says, well, I want to just take one class, how do you do that?

Sure. You can just go to, again, iDisability, and you can click on the training, and it'll take you to a home page where you You can literally look at all a catalog of all of our 57 modules we have up today and growing, and you can select one. You can sit— we'll— there's discounts for multiple classes. One class is $29.99 at the moment, and if most of our learning paths are between $129 and $199, so those would be 4 or 5, 6 classes. Depending on what you're looking for, you should be able to architect and put together the training that you need. And again, through that same platform, you can get a subscription to Ask Joyce as well on a monthly basis starting soon. So you'll be able to just— and that will access all the content. So just another way to interact with it and get the answers you need when you need them.

Yes, as John was saying—

And by the way, I should mention too, I haven't really hit home on— I keep talking about talking to Joyce. Joyce Bender. But you can also text. It's fully ADA compliant, so there's many ways to interact with the AI as well. So just know that if you can't speak for whatever reason, you can text, you can interact with it just as through— it's completely WCAG compliant, ADA compliant. So anybody on Earth should be able to access it. And if you can't for some reason, let us know, because we're always wanting to make sure that our products are where they need to be.

So, John, what message would you like to leave with our listeners today?

I think it's an exciting time on Earth for everybody with artificial intelligence. I'll just say, because, you know, a lot of people worry about it. Of course, just like anything, you know, when cars, electricity, all the things that You know, innovation that's happened in recent human history has happened. There's, you know, bad things can happen, good things can happen. This is just another round of that, although moving very quickly and at moment not without much regulation. So this is the scary part, you know, that Anthropic and others talk about is we just need to make sure that we put the guardrails in place to make sure that AI does what it should. And from us, you know, we did— that's what we decide first, safety. Make sure it has the guardrails it needs, and the platform we're using allows us to do that. So you're not getting hallucinations or fake news from our platform. Joyce won't be saying anything that's not fact-based or what she knows. But again, she's learning. She's like baby Joyce, you know, she doesn't have Joyce's years of experience, but she learns quick. So please help us get her smarter.

Yes, because I met someone at the fantastic Disability:In conference that I did not know. This person walking up to me and she said, "Hey, I'll be talking to you tonight." I'm thinking, is this one of those meetings I double booked or I forgot about? And she just looked at me and all of a sudden And it hit me and I said, okay, let me know what I said back. Of course, she was meaning she would talk to ask Joyce Bender. So it is my voice. You're going to hear me and hear me talking to you. Andy, how about you? What message do you have for our listeners?

I just want to say, since we're close on time, you know, as an entrepreneur, constantly thinking about, as we are constantly thinking about what's next, how do we improve it. The version 1 of Ask Joyce is an incredible opportunity to enhance our current offerings and really create a shortcut to, in some sense, our training. Just really excited about where the next iteration of Ask Joyce is going to be. And if you're on board, With us, you're generally, if you're a customer, you're generally a recipient of the iterations of the improvements of our products without additional cost, at least for the remainder of your agreement. So it's a great opportunity to get on and get in early on some of the technology that we're developing.

Well, I couldn't agree more, and I just want to say that our goal is to help change the way people think about people with disabilities and recognize their great skills. Uh, and I do look forward to talking to all of you. So go buy iDisAbility right away, and if you haven't seen this, go to iDisAbility disability.com and go to Ask Joyce and you will see how I talk to you. And in the meantime, today's quote is in honor of Mary Brooker. And that quote is how I end every show when I say, "Choose joy." And Mary will be with us As always, this is Joyce Bender, America's Voice, where disability matters, at voiceamerica.com. Talk to you all next week.

Voice America would like to thank you for tuning in. Please join us next Tuesday at 11 AM Pacific 2 PM Eastern time for another installment of Disability Matters, right here on the Voice America Variety Channel. We are the leader in live internet talk radio. VoiceAmerica.com.