Have You Tried Not Being You? How tech fails neurodivergent and disabled people

Technology promises us a huge amount. Better accessibility, greater participation, and fewer disabling barriers. Yet, many products fail to live up to this. Uninformed by lived experience, they fail to understand the real problem. At best, they are a distraction, and at worst they can be actively harmful. When you get to the root of it, the solution being offered is “stop being you”.

In this roundtable talk, Marc Goblot and Matthew Bellringer will be discussing:

• How Self Determination can help us understand where technology can best support neurodivergent and disabled people, where it fails, and how we can address that.

• How it’s vital that the tools we create support autonomy, competence, and connectedness.

• What design approaches are they using to support Self Determination in their own work.

If you’re interested in accessibility, adaptive design, and building technology that makes the world a better place, then please join us.

Marc Goblot MBCS FRSA has been a digital technology leader in the creative industries and at Accenture. As a father and advocate for his autistic, learning disabled, and ADHD daughter - and following his own late diagnosis as autistic and ADHD - Marc brings lived and professional expertise to inclusive innovation. He founded Tech For Disability to support disability tech startups and build a thriving ecosystem. He is actively involved with the Royal Society of Arts, British Computing Society, We and AI, and NHS SE London ICB. Marc advises the Cabinet Office Disability Unit and Minister for Disabled People, to represent the views of disabled Londoners, and on the risks and benefits of AI and tech for disabled and neurodivergent people. His latest social venture, the Digital Diversity Living Lab, brings together people with lived experience, researchers, and digital expertise for collaborative R&D using inclusive user research and systems mapping to co-design accessible digital solutions in joint ventures.

He can be reached on LinkedIn via https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcgoblot/

Tech For Disability is at https://techfordisability.org

Matthew Bellringer MBCS MBPsS is a neurodiversity and innovation specialist. They work with neurodivergent entrepreneurs, organisations which want to support neurodiverse innovation, and organisations delivering innovative services to a neurodiverse audience. Matthew specialises in supporting work that addresses problems from a unique perspective, co-production, and regenerative working practices. Alongside their private practice, Matthew is Chair and Co-founder of NeurodiverseIT, a group for neurodivergent IT professionals within BCS, the Chartered Institute of IT and the organiser and founder of the Curious Being community. You can find out more about them and their work at https://www.matthewbellringer.com