FINISHED FILE

2017 USBLN20th ANNUAL NATIONAL CONFERENCE

ORLANDO, FLORIDAAUGUST 23, 2017

RISING LEADERS LUNCH PLENARY 11:30 A.M. ET

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>> Welcome and please find a seat. We're about to begin our program. Thank you.

>> Please welcome to the stage Keri Gray, Director of USBLN's Rising Leaders Initiatives.

(Applause) >> KERI GRAY: Welcome. Welcome, everybody, to the Rising

Leaders luncheon plenary. I'm so excited because this entire setup is about to be our Rising Leaders. Can we give it up for our Rising Leaders real quick? We have over 100 here in the audience and they are absolutely amazing.

So first I want to start with a welcome. Thank you for attending. Please feel free to go ahead and start eating and we'll get started with your program. The first thing that we want to do is that we want to start with an accessibility check, right? So, if anyone has been having concerns or questions around the accessibility while you're staying here, if you could just raise your hand or make some type of noise or indication and we have some team members that can check you out. Anyone need some assistance? I see a person on my right towards the middle. My right, your left. And I see someone in my far left. Towards the back that table. My left, your right.

All right. So I know folks are heading over there to address that.

So again, I want to say welcome to everyone attending the Rising Leaders plenary. I'm really excited because today I want

to talk to you just a little bit about our programs. So here at the USBLN in collaboration with our corporate partners we have two main programs.

One we have the Rising Leaders mentoring program. And this year we were able to work with 125 students. And we were able to get mentors for each of them and they represent from 61 different corporate partners. So first, I want to just say thank you to y'all for being mentors to our students because it was made a significant difference.

And then I also want to say we have the Rising Leaders academy which this year we worked with over 100 students to bring them here and they've been working really hard, participating in sessions, meeting with companies. And then showing each of you how talented and amazing they are. One thing I want to express about our Rising Leaders really quickly is that something you'll hear me talk about a lot is I believe in a concept called intersectionality. And that basically talks about me personally I identify being a black disabled woman. And one thing that I watched last night was a show called "black girls rock" on BET. It's amazing!

one of the things that was said by a woman I admire a lot, Esa Ray, she said when I stopped focusing on what I'm not and started focusing on what I am, I started to be very successful. That's exactly what our Rising Leaders have been doing up to this point. I know it's not the most professional thing in the world but I like to disclose my reality so people learn from that. I want to say I'm a 26-year-old black woman and I'm working as the director of the Rising Leaders with the USBLN.

(Applause).>> Thank you. And I'm able to do that -- I'm just sharing

that with you to say that it's because of organizations like the USBLN, it's because of companies that we work with that we're able to identify talent at a very early stage and produce results. And in this position we have been able to double the number of mentees in our program. We have been able to double the companies and mentors that we have. And we've been able to double the number of students participating in our Rising Leadership Academy. That's because our students, my story is their story. They're talented just as our team is talented and if you meet with them and work with them, I know you can find great ways to produce great products. I want to give a couple quick shoutouts and we'll continue the program. I want to acknowledge really quickly Northrop Grumman Corporation.

(Applause).Thank you. This is an example of a company that shows up.

They interview. They identify talent, and they bring that in to their company. So it's not just about ensuring can I meet with

someone. It's about how can we ensure that an opportunity is available. Same with PNC. Thank you, PNC, y'all have done the exact same thing by meeting with students and companies have come up to me and said how can we bring this talent in? They're amazing and available and please contact me. I also want to point out our executive vice president, Liz Taub. She's here in the very front. If you're interested in figuring out how can we -- we have over 100 students. We have over 100 students in our academy and mentor program. We can do more. We can bring more talent. So, if you're interested in investing in our students and showing them how exactly we can ensure that they have the support they need, please contact Liz and I know that she will connect you into our investment opportunities.

(Applause).So are y'all ready for the rest of the program? All right.

I want to hear you. So now I'm very excited to introduce our track chair, our sponsor for the Rising Leadership Academy this year is Boston Scientific. And I am very happy to announce to you that we will be speaking with Camille Chang Gilmore who is the vice president of human resources and interventional cardiology global Chief Diversity Officer of Boston Scientific and she's going to be joining us today. So welcome Camille.

(Applause).>> CAMILLE CHANG GILMORE: Good afternoon, everyone. Oh,

good afternoon, everyone! All right, thank you Keri for being your authentic self and thank you so much for the wonderful introduction. More importantly, thank you for allowing me to be this year's Rising Leadership Academy chair.

I bring you greetings on behalf of our CEO and chairman of the board, Mike Mahone and I'm also so proud to be accompanied by 17 colleagues from Boston Scientific.

(Cheers and applause.)Including our executive vice president of global operations

ed McKee who happens to be our global executive response or for the L EAD Employee Resource Group which stands for leadership, education and allies. Being part of USBLN and one of the original 6 of Going for the Gold companies was critical to Boston Scientific's progress that we made today. I'm so proud to share that for the second consecutive year we've been recognized as a top scorer for Disability Equality Index achieving a perfect 100% score for the past two years!

(Applause).But you know, here's the thing: It does not end there.And there's so much work to be done.That's one of the reasons that we committed to bring such a

strong team to this conference. My observation of the strong community has not just been from a perspective of a business

person. But as a black Jamaican Chinese woman, a wife, a mother of two teenage boyed diagnosed on the autism spectrum. And I'm so proud to tell you that I dropped off my eldest son at the University of Alabama last week. Roll tide!

(Applause).You know, Boston Scientific, if you don't know who we are,

I'd just like to take a minute to tell and share with you who we are.

Our brand declaration is advancing science for life.We serve 22 million patients each year. We do business in

more than 100 countries and have 13,000 life changing noninvasive therapies and products. This only happens through innovation. New ideas that make a meaningful difference in the lives and unyielding commitment to tackle some of the most important health industry challenges.

You know, we believe in three things when it comes to diversity, inclusion, and the disability work.

You have to create an environment, have a level of engagement, and create memorable lifetime experiences.

USBLN, this conference creates a safe environment to learn, an amazing opportunity to engage with top talent and creates a lifetime of experiences of what is possible for talent at Boston Scientific.

So I am going to give you something in full disclosure. My team knows that -- and my colleagues that when I'm in a room or when I come to a conference like this, I want to create an experience and I want to have some fun.

So guess what? You have all been recruited. We are going to have some fun.

So raise your hand if you've heard of the Mannequin Challenge. All right. Raise your hand.

Okay.At this point in the program, I'd like you to either stand

or sit, whatever you're most comfortable -- it would be great if you could stand. Come on. Step away from the food. It will be there.

Step away from the food. It will be there. So raise your hand one more time. Who has heard of the Mannequin Challenge? Awesome. So, if you don't know what it is, the Mannequin Challenge is a pop culturally vent where people remain frozen in action like mannequins while a moving camera films with a song playing in the background.

So because I sprung this on you, I got to give you at least one practice move. Okay? So at the count of three, I want you to practice. This is not live yet, not filming. But think of your pose that you want to go viral on YouTube once we post this. Okay? So we're going to do a practice. This is the practice.

I'm going to do it on 3. Ready? 1-2-3! All right. I see you.I see you. Okay. We got to get a little bit more

descriptive than that. Come on. Come on. Because this is the real thing now.

Okay?At the count of 3, everyone needs to be still and silent and

then there's going to be music playing in the background and you are about to be filmed. Okay?

Ready? 1-2-3! The heart is a bloomShoots up through the stony groundThere's no roomNo space to rent in the townYou're out of luckAnd the reason that you had to careThe traffic is stuckAnd you're not moving anywhereYou thought you found a friendTo take you out of this placeSomeone you could lend a handIn return for graceIt's a beautiful day!Sky falls, you feel likeIt's a beautiful day! Don't let it get awayYou're on the road but you've got no destination>> CAMILLE CHANG GILMORE: Yay! Thank you so much for

indulging me. Give yourselves a hand. What a beautiful day, right? It is a beautiful day.

-- indulging me.I have the pleasure of introducing the Innovation Lab as

well. I want to just take a moment to share with you how it works.

The USBLN technology Innovation Lab aims to demonstrate that people with disabilities are catalysts for innovation and that students and recent graduates are valuable innovators for USBLN partner companies to hire. These students have something incredibly valuable to offer. Their daily life experiences as consumers. As students with disabilities, along with having a variety of other diverse backgrounds, they understand and look at those problems from a unique vantage point that really elevates their ability to create innovative solutions

This year the students were challenged to design a new or enhanced interface software as their projects for the ilab. This means that students designed a way to address that every day problem through a technological platform.

How can consumers gain easier access to projects or social

encounters through technology. Over 100 students split into 10 teams, participated in the iLab and pitched their ideas throughout the Biz2Biz expo. The two top teams who will now pitch their ideas in front of this esteemed judging panel and in front of you, the entire audience are about to be introduced.

Are you excited? All right.Before I introduce the two finalists, I'd like to introduce

to you our esteemed judges. First we have Nikki Alphonse, director of EEO Compliance and Workplace Accommodations Northrop Grumman.

We have Josh Goldschmid Program Manager Systems Engineer, SEAT Integration Team Boeing Commercial Airplanes

And then we have Kevin Webb, Senior Director, Mitsubishi Electric America Foundation.

(Applause).All right. We have two finalists. The top two finalists

were team 5 and team 9. (Cheers and applause.) All right.So what we're going to do is at this point, we're going to

call the representative from team 5 and that will be Jesse Trinity who will come to talk about the project.

>> Good afternoon, is it. I'm Jesse Trinity we created an app caught connectability. It connects people to others who have abilities they might need out and about town doing day-to-day tasks or anomalous situations. So you're out in a new area or new campus or you're in a place where something comes up like construction that blocks the ramp you need. This app would allow you to put out a notice that you have something you need assistance with and tag that with the abilities that you need and others would be able to see that, respond to that request and navigate to you to help out with that issue.

Now, we had our app out in front of people and we originally had the concept of things like navigation, assistance with stairs. But we got some really great feedback. We got somebody who proposed ice cream. They just wanted to meet up with people to get ice cream and didn't know where the ice cream shop was. One gentleman said he was in a hospital and the elevator didn't work and he had to call and get somebody to come help him. How great would it have been if that app had been on the phones of all the staff at the hospital so they could have responded to that. Our inspiration came from mentoring programs like this one. One of the tasks we had in the mentoring program alt my school was to show students around campus, incoming freshman in the disability resource center. So we want to put that app onto the phones of people at universities, staff, students, we've reached out to our universities and some of us have meetings with

our disability resource officers to put this app in our universities. I'd like to give a shoutout to Beth Rowland, the disability resource officer that put me in this program, connected me with USBLN and we have a meeting with her next week to put this on my campus at UF, also MSU, Michigan State University. We're very excited to be putting this product out there.

Can I open that up to questions?>> CAMILLE CHANG GILMORE: Yeah, open it up to questions

from the judges.>> NIKKI ALPHONSE: So the app is to match people up. Is

there a rating system like an Uber rating where you rate the helper or the individual can look back and the person has a 5 star helping rating.

>> Our core model is peer to peer and it's a free service. Not service to customer. It's customer to customer.

People helping each other out. So think of something more like a social network. We do want to offer a premium model where people can pay to connect to those who can offer extended services or professional services that require specialized training such as healthcare. Those people would definitely be rated and they would be vetted. Not a model that we'd offer on university campuses. I know they're going to do their own legal thing. For them there would be a separate system with students and specialized training.

>> KEVIN WEBB: How do you intend to market the app and get it in front of students and staff?

>> Again we have already reached out to universities and we're talking about doing branded versions of the app with them. We want to tap into that network of people who are cognizant of abilities. Once we get it there, we want to expand to student governments.

Now, I don't know off the top of my head how many universities are in this nation. But, you know, University of Florida, that's 50,000 people. If we can get that into student governments, get that on the phones of everyone involved in student governments and onto the phones of students, that will naturally grow up outside of campuses in the general population.

>> JOSH GOLDSCHMID: I think you've identified an excellent baseline of a problem that needs solving. Do you think you can identify potential opportunities to elevate that baseline in the future?

>> Jesse: Can you explain more about that? What you mean?>> JOSH GOLDSCHMID: Sure. I think the problem you've

identified here that you're addressing with this app would work for a certain sector of the community. And that's wonderful.

But what other greater opportunities do you see for

improving the baseline for this product? What is your 5-year plan for improving this app?

>> Jesse Trinity: So we started with a simple friendlies. We want to expand that into more advanced groups and match making. And connect these networks of people. We really want to draw on these networks to map out the spaces that people are navigating. And using tagging systems to identify businesses that have accessible services. In the future, we are imagining virtual tour guides that use the data that we collect from this app so that people can navigate spaces with augmented and virtual reality.

>> KEVIN WEBB: Do you intend to charge for the app or is it free or are there advertisements and opt out with a subscription.

>> It's a free use app because studies show the more clicks you have to go through to get somewhere, the less users you're going to get. We want it to be easy to use and offer premium services and expand into advertising and maybe licensing in the future with hospitals. Probably not universities but hospitals, care taking services, stuff like that

>> NIKKI ALPHONSE: And the cost to develop the app?>> We'd have to pay engineers. We haven't nailed down

exactly how many engineers we would need. I mean, I banged out the app simple express app but obviously, we're going to need a more robust back end to handle more users, navigation services. We're going to need several engineers. Depending on how many features we introduce, we'd have to figure out how many engineers we need to pay for that

I don't want to low ball anybody, but I think the average price for a software engineer is going to be 60,000 a year entry level. Entry level.

(Laughter) I see Jenny shaking her head. Not at Microsoft. Okay?So it will go from there.But we would probably need at least six months paying a team

of at least five people on this for what we're envisioning currently. And then in the future, depending on how much we grow, we'll need to expand our servers. We probably start off with something simple on universities hopefully using their IT services. I know from my lab that we have to go through them.

>> CAMILLE CHANG GILMORE: Any other questions for Jesse? All right, thank you so much, Jesse. All right.

(Applause).Next up we have the member from team 9. And the speaker

will be Ann Kwong. >> Thank you.>> ANN: First of all, I would like to thank Camille for the

introduction and your support of the Rising Leadership Academy

and the iLab. Second I would like to thank tremendously from the bottom of my heart all of you in the audience for supporting USBLN, Rising Leadership Academy and also those who supported team 9 and I'm sure we'll gain more people supporting team 9 including you all esteemed judges today.

(Laughter) (Applause) So once again, my name is Ann. I'm a third year doctoral

student in education and I'm so glad you have chosen to allow us team 9, the friends team, to present our product to you.

It is called knock knock. So please signify by making some type of noise if you feel like you know all your neighbors in your neighborhood well. So it's somewhat of a strong response but not as strong as you would like. I understand we're all busy. Right? We have text messages, work, school, everything that kind of impedes us sometimes from knowing our neighbors and building a community. Well, if you're interested in building a support system in your community, KNOCK, KNOCK is for you. Basically let me tell you about it. It's an application product that allows users to post little errands or tasks they would like help completing. For instance if you're busy and on the go and need help cooking a meal or someone delivered a package to your house and you may not be able to come get it in time and you certainly don't want it to disappear on your porch, right? Or something like someone with a disability or temporary injury might need help changing a light bulb or garbage. Post a task on KNOCK, KNOCK and a kind neighbor will raise their hand ukes rise up and say hey, I can help. And so basically, once the task has been completed, the user who posted the task can rate, we want quality control, right? We want to ensure that people who are helpers are providing wonderful satisfactory service.

So they can rate them and the users top 10% with the highest ratings will get a small gift card or reward and we will also feature communities with lots of activity that are active. They have lots of great bonding vibes. So that we also have advertisement and publicity out there. So, if you're interested in being kind to one another, building a community because, face it, we have lots of disheartening things in the world already, then KNOCK, KNOCK is for you. We also have right now a Facebook presence. If you go to KNOCK, KNOCK community, you can "like" us, join us, and build a community with us together. Thank you so much for your time.

>> CAMILLE CHANG GILMORE: Thank you, so much, Ann. All right, judges, questions?

>> NIKKI ALPHONSE: I was curious how much it costs to develop the KNOCK, KNOCK! app.

So currently, we're still in the phase of planning how many

engineers and staff we would need. But we are really interested in partnering with existing collaborators that have or software companies that have platforms such as -- hint hint Facebook, Microsoft, Google, come on, you all have existing platforms we could use. And also we'd like to approach homeowner associations and different college campuses that have communities, right? Already. They have people living together but perhaps they're underutilized because we don't go knock on each other's doors.

This app would be the icebreaker to to encourage people to be kind to one another.

>> JOSH GOLDSCHMID: I have a question. Could you please clarify for us the need. What exactly is the problem that your app is intending to solve?

>> ANN: So allow me to share a little story of how my team and I were inspired to create this app. So our app uses a Universal Design principle. Which means everybody can benefit. Everybody is going to need a little bit of help sometimes in their life. Recently my supervisor broke her ankle and her shoulder and she was like oh, no what am I going to do? How many, many I going to get groceries? She had wonderful supportive neighbors that were willing to assist her in that time period of need. And she was able to have a smooth recovery. And after her recovery, she told me oh, Ann, in this world, it is so much easier to be kind than it is to be evil. So why don't we just all be kind to one another and also one of the feedback we got from all the people who visited team 9 was that this is not just only true for my supervisor but this story holds true for others as well. The Facebook Cheryl Sanders wrote a book called plan B and in there she mentioned that when she was facing the difficult time when her husband's passing, at the hospital it was somebody who brought a hamburger to the lobby and said I'm close by, here's how I can help you.

So that relationship in person is just as important as relationships online and through text messages.

We also feel like this app could help with bridging community divides of generations. Sometimes in the community you have more seasoned folks, right? And folks from the millenial generation and sometimes we have -- you know, sometimes we have inherent misunderstandings of each other. And if you're helping each other with a task like maybe somebody who is great at cooking, somebody who is more seasoned can cook a meal for a young family and in return they can volunteer or help with putting on a light bulb. That way they would spark conversation and you could discover each other's hidden talents.

>> JOSH GOLDSCHMID: Thank you.(Applause).>> KEVIN WEBB: One more question we asked earlier the other

group is safety. How do you ensure safety when you're knocking on other neighbor's doors?

>> ANN: Sure, this app you post your task online and it's not like I'm going to post my address online so everybody can come knock on my door. Your address is not open to the public and you already live in a similar community. If anything happens you already know your neighbors, right? You hope. And hopefully this would help facilitate a process. That's why we have that quality assurance rating system. If there's a neighbor who you told them to come clean the counter and they left the counter more messy than you told them to. You would rate them lower and they would not be laud to come back into the app, right? -- not allowed to come back. We don't want each other to destroy each other's houses!

(Laughter)Any other comments? Questions?>> CAMILLE CHANG GILMORE: Judges, any other questions?

Thank you so much, Ann.>> Thank you!>> CAMILLE CHANG GILMORE: All right.Let's give a round of applause for our two teams, team 5 and

team 9.I think they did a phenomenal job. Now, we have to do the

hard work and deliberate and we will be back with a winner. All right. That was great, right? Pitches from our teams. So that was just one example from two of our teams of the talent that exists in this room. And I'm really excited that y'all get to see that.

So now we're going to be doing a drawing. So I'm going to invite Apoorva Gandhi who is vice president of multicultural affairs at Marriott International and Margie McMillan who is manager of people department and career transitions at Southwest Airlines to do the drawing.

>> APOORVA GANDHI: Hello, everyone. Is everyone having fun? Isn't that awesome what we just saw on stage? Amazing, right?

Well, hey, I'm so glad you guys are having a great time. It's so much fun to be up here. I want to introduce my good friend Margie from Southwest Airlines. Round of applause.

(Applause).>> Good day, everybody. Thanks for being here. I just love

those presentations.May the best team win. I bring you greetings from Julie

Weber, the VP of the people department at Southwest airlines as well as Ellen Tolbert, VP of D&I. We're very happy with our partnership with USBLN and look forward to many more years partnering with them. Have a great rest of the conference,

everyone.>> APOORVA GANDHI: Thank you. I love Southwest Airlines,

they have great peanuts, right? Bags fly free. Right? And the funniest and best flight attendants you'll ever see. They're fantastic. I love the jokes. I love the whole thing. So who wants to go to New Orleans? Really? That's it? Who wants to go to New Orleans. Thanks to our friends at southwest, we have two free tickets, airline tickets to New Orleans and a 2-night stay at the beautiful New Orleans Marriott which is a great hotel. I've been there many times. Some of the times I actually -- I've forgotten because it's right next to bourbon street.

That's for another time. But we have our winner. How fitting that it's a Rising Leaders.

And her name is Kayla Landon. Are you here? Come on up? Here she is. Come on up.

She's going to have a great time in New Orleans, let me tell you.

Congratulations.We have one more prize? Who likes Amazon products? Who

likes the echo, the dot, the tab, it's awesome, right? I can't live without it. So we have a great Amazon dot to give away. And the winner can pick it up from us back stage. But this is a guy that I know well. His name is Ron Pettit from Royal Caribbean Cruises. Are you here? Where are you, Ron? You here, Ron? I think he's on a cruise somewhere.

I see you brother, come on back stage and we'll give you your Amazon Dot. Have a great rest of your day, thank you.

>> KERI GRAY: All right. We have the winners for the Innovation Lab. I'm proud to bring our sponsors for the prizes. We're going to have representatives from Qualcomm and ESPN join us on the stage.

Thank you. So Qualcomm has been able to provide prizes for first place. And the first place prizes will be tablets to all the team members. And then second place we have bags from ESPN that will go to second place. So thank you Qualcomm and ESPN for sponsoring us.

Results. It was very close. Very close.So in second place we have team 5. All right, give it up to

team 5! If team 5 could join us on the stage. Then we want to congratulate team 9 for first place! Team 9! We'll make sure that team 5 and team 9 have their prizes if you can meet us after the plenary and we'll get those to y'all. Thank you to all of our team for participating in the Innovation Lab and congratulations.

Team 1, we have Ann.With KNOCK, KNOCK!.All right, thank you y'all.

All right. So I'm really excited for the next portion of the Rising Leaders plenary. So right now we are about to have a conversation between Rising Leaders and USBLN partners.

And this conversation will be showcasing what does it mean for folks who are either currently still in school or newly transitioned to the workplace, what are their thoughts of the employment sector? What do they visualize about what's happening in the employment sector right now? And then the same thing from our partners. They're going to be talking about their experience. They're going to be talking about things that they've learned. And they'll essentially be having a conversation together. So with that, I'm excited to invite Bobbi Cordano, the president of Gallaudet University. Yves Veulliet, the global diversity and project manager for IBM, and John Bradford, the an list at National Life Group and member of the Rising Leaders advisory council. And also Ozgul Calicioglu who is a Ph.D. student at Penn State university and also a member of our Rising Leaders advisory council. Welcome to our folks who are participating in the conversation today. Thank you. We're going to start the conversation off with Ozgul and she'll be leading us.

>> OZGUL CALICIOGLU: All right. Thank you so much, Keri. I guess my first question is going to be to you, Yves, I just want to learn how -- Yves, I wanted to learn how your transition from school to work happened and how it happened to have global connections.

>> Interesting question. I come from the other side of the pond. Belgium in Europe. When I was studying at university to become a teacher in French literature and history, I had a motorcycle accident during my second year of study.

And the level of accessibility in society in general in Belgium was very bad. Still is, by the way

And so it had an impact on my ability to complete and graduate. So what I did is that I acquired some skills, some talents via other means that allowed me to be myself. So what really matters is not how you acquire the skills you need. Whether it's via traditional academic studies or via different means, what really matters is to acquire the skills that will help you being who you are and to contribute to society.Ozgul Calicioglu.

>> Now it's my turn to ask you a question, Ozgul. Tell us what you studied in school and how it connected to the global sector.

>> OZGUL CALICIOGLU: Sure, I acknowledge what you told. I have a similar story in the sense that -- so I -- first, a little disclosure maybe that I became a disabled individual in high school. I have low vision. It's not apparent. But it's slowly

progressed by time. And the first obstacle that I faced was during my college studies and my engineering at Middle East technical university in Turkey. I'm also from the opposite part of the world and facing this challenge was not easy at first. My first reaction is -- it was the first time first of all, that I realized I was an individual with a disability and my first reactions what was to give up. I gave up and moved with my parents. Back then they used to live in Russia. The only reason I wanted to go there was to learn Russian and play piano and I was an ambitious student and I didn't want to feel restrained. I wanted to succeed. So I started a management program in Russia. I regained my confidence and said okay, I wanted an engineering program, I'm going back there. I went there and then in the meantime, my grades were quite good in Russia so they allowed me to switch to distance education program so I could do my finals over there whenever I'm done with the finals in Turkey. So what happened eventually is that technology also emerged and I got a camera, a digital camera to follow the lectures simultaneously and then go back to my room and the dorm and revise everything. This made me a super power because I had to revise everything twice so I was taking all these ways and I was able to graduate from two schools with degrees and I said okay, nothing is going to stop me any more. So I said I will apply for a scholarship to do my Ph.D. studies in the states. I won a full bright scholarship and I'm right now at Penn State working for a degree in engineering in wastewater treatment and bio production. I also traveled to Switzerland this summer and I'm a Rising Leaders from last year I was a mentee and I learned a lot during the conference in terms of networking skills. And I was able to use them in Europe and Stockholm in a conference and I landed a short-term consultancy position in the food division of the United Nations. I'll be starting that soon. It's Rome based and I'm looking at all those things in the global context. What I realized is yeah, the perception of people, attitude of people really changed from one place to the other and one thing stays the same. It's always with you and it's about yourself. How you see yourself, how you perceive yourself and how you promote yourself. And when I realized that this all depended on me and I own my disability, I really opened the path for discussion. And there was always somebody who responded to me positively and led me to success.

(Applause).>> That was amazing, Bobbi can you tell us about your

transition from school to work?>> More than happy to. So I think just hearing the first

couple of stories that you both have shared and thinking about how similar our journeys have been, I think that the first

approach is really looking at the question. And what I'm hearing in your answers and what you've given here is looking at the process of this journey. It really starts when you're very young. And I realize that you know, I grew up with deaf parents, both parents who signed. And that was the language that we used in our home environment. So being deaf was never a barrier for me. From the time I was born, I grew up with high-achieving deaf individuals who were leaders, business leaders, working in the community. And my own mother was a pioneer in the medical field.

So for me, I never really saw there being any sort of a cap or a limitation to what deaf people could do. They told me I could do anything that I wanted. And just believing in responsibilities from the time I was young was very important for me. And third, I would say just because you told a story here as well, that I went to a college where there was not sign language being used there. Because at that time, there was really no law school that was accepting a graduate from Gallaudet University.

So my mother had actually forewarned me and said you better -- you're better off going to a hearing college or university if you're wanting to go to law school and that's the way you're really going to get in. I was the only deaf member in my family that did not go to Gallaudet University. My parents, aunts, sisters actually went. And the way I was able to get through my course work was I had two classmates that would give me both sets of their notes they took in class and I would sit down every week and synthesize my notes with the notes they took during class. That grit is really what gave me the determination to get through college and to get through that experience.

But that led to my ongoing learning and my ongoing sense of curiosity and learning from other people and their perspectives. It really for me it was important to have other individuals there that I could learn from.

And that really opened my eyes in being able to understand that there are a variety of perspectives that people bring and it's important to be able to gather other people's perspectives on the same situation that's in front of you. And I think that's really where change will happen. Listening and hearing from other people. Learning about their perspectives. I think that that what's one of the -- was one of the key successes for me as it was in the educational setting but also in the working world. Just being able to listen to others and to be creative with listening to what their perspectives are and thinking about what to do. So that self-confidence, learning about who you are as a person, and being accepting of what it is that you need in order to be successful and be willing to ask for it. To be assertive and ask for what you need, for me, the assertive part is really the most difficult when you have to go and ask, especially in a

professional setting working with people who may have different needs than what you might have. And so asking for -- thinking outside the box, thinking about how you can then work with people and being able to define what it is that you need and not allowing other people to define it for you. I think that's what led to my success in the different careers that I've held. And I think it's very important to think about the relationships that you've had. I've been very successful because I started as a young individual with a lot of deaf community leaders who supported my success and I had mentors at different points in my lifetime. I had caregivers and leaders who were investing in my success from working as an assistant Attorney General in the Attorney General's office and now working at the university at Gallaudet University. Everybody along the way has really supported my journey and my success in the various experiences that I've had. So what you're all doing here with the mentoring opportunities and being able to really recognize what's happening in your companies and what you can do for others is really going to lead ultimately to your success.

(Applause).so now John, I guess it's my turn to ask you a question.Can you tell us a little bit more about what was your keys

to success through your lifetime but especially as it relates to careers and really transitioning from school to work?

>> JOHN BRADFORD: Okay. So my transition from school to work. So like all of you, I saw a challenge and I had to figure out how to tackle it.

It started in December of 2015. I graduated from Binghamton University. Go Bear Cats. I graduated with a science degree and like most graduates I didn't have a job lined up. So I said what do I do? I know I had three problems. I don't have a job. I want to be an act wary but I haven't passed any exams yet and I'm about to lose all of my accommodations

So I went to my disability network in my school and I said what do I qualify for? What resources can I still take with me?

And they funneled me to the USBLN and I was put in the mentoring program where I met Larissa, a Brazilian woman working for EY and she lived in Brazil and our interactions were over Skype and the phone and what not. But she drilled me on interview skills, accommodations, how to ask for your accommodations, all the insecurities I might have. And prepared for this conference. It was a six month process of mentoring and then we came to the conference here and I said it out loud, I said it out loud to her and to the people in the room. I said I'm going to leave out of here with a job!

(Applause).Okay?

And so we went through the two-day program before the conference that Saturday and Sunday. And we did all the sessions, etiquette dinner and things like that.

And just speaking to people, getting practice talking about myself was different for me.

And unfortunately, I didn't leave here with a job.But I wasn't as disappointed as I thought I would be.

Because I felt I gained so much. And then coincidentally enough, I went to another conference one month later. And that's where I met an employer from National Life Insurance. And it was basically like a dry run here. And all the things I learned here, I implemented at the conference and I was luckily I got a job as an actuarial analyst there

(Applause).>> Fantastic>> JOHN BRADFORD: But then it wasn't over. We knocked off

two -- I had my exams. I had three at the time.I got the job. Now I have to ask for my accommodations.

And although it's still an anxiety-driven event, it was -- it didn't feel as hard as I thought it would. Because I went through the process of coming here. And Larissa was there the whole time and Mylene and Kathleen Lee and even Keri just pushing me and saying -- helping me with asking for these accommodations. Because I always spoke about my disability with people who were in the same space. Going from high school New York City public school to SUNY, the transition was easy. All my accommodations went.

So at the end of the day I had confidence and was able to ask for my accommodations.

Now that's what the experience I want to give to some of the people that are here in the Rising Leaders. Because, although I was able to speak up, some might not be able to or not feel as comfortable. I want to make sure that I can be that voice for them as well.

(Applause).Now, Yves, can you tell me about your first job coming out

of college and how mentorship helped your career?>> Sure, when I had the accident it happened in 1987. By

the way, don't waste your time calculating. I'm 51. (Laughter) So, when it happened to me, I didn't want to leave

completely the world of education, so I decided to find a job in the school as computer administrator.

And after that I joined IBM in 1992. At that time mentorship was not that popular as it is today. But I managed to establish a long lasting relationship with some executives and managers that really were open to all kind of questions, whether

it's about career, whether it's about myself as an employer, able to assess my performance with or without a disability. And regardless of your career, what matters is to believe who you are, to find a company that will allow you to express your full potential and to be who you are regardless of this or that factor.

And this was really the key driver for the rest of my life, my career. Not really about my title, my job, where I am, et cetera. It's more about who I meet with that can help me progressing. Because we're not an island. We are who we are thanks to our interaction with other people.

And that's really key, I believe for a long lasting career and success.

>> JOHN BRADFORD: I think that's interesting. Because we spoke about millenials and what do millenials need and what do they want and how do you retain them? Just being able to use their skills I think is real important. The standard processes and flexibilities is something that we strive for.

>> I'm very happy that you compare me to millenial. But you're absolutely right.

>> BOBBI CORDANO: I think we've talked a little bit about the Rising Leaders and those that are here. Young it would be a good time for us -- do you think it would be a good time to talk about that? Is this the right time to talk about the Rising Leaders or what was next that you wanted to talk about, Ozgul.

>> OZGUL CALICIOGLU: Sure. Definitely. So maybe I can -- before I start to that, maybe just because you brought the millenials, I think it will be very relevant to that so maybe I should just give the word to John so maybe you can elaborate on what you started first.

You know, because this generation of Rising Leaders are mostly millenials. So without having this insight about the millenials, it's hard to say, I'm not in the job market but John is working. So I think if you just make some comments about how the companies could attract and retain the millenial talent, maybe if you just talk about it and the qualities that would be good, maybe I could then after that add to that.

>> JOHN BRADFORD: Okay. So attracting and retaining. I think one difficult that some companies have with the millenial talent is that they're great. They're driven. But then they leave after two years.

And I think we should look at what's driving that, right?So, if you look at generations in the past, baby boomers and

such, how were they retained? They were retained through pension plans, right? They started early building a family and settling down. Less movement. But millenials grew up with change. Switching from working on notebooks to iPads quickly.

Even getting receiving a package in 7 days versus 1 day, that instant gratification.

And we're flexible about that. So I think that's something that the companies can practice in their -- will use in their practices, for example development programs or rotational programs before you're physically moving to different areas, mimicking that movement. Or maybe even just different tasks like for after one year, totally doing something different if you can't physically move someone to different areas.

Another portion is what are we looking for. We're looking for opinions to be heard. I think we're looking for some autonomy.

I think we're looking to be able to use our skills. And we also want to stay with society and flow with society and not against it.

And I think that's what millenials are looking for in my opinion.

(Applause).>> OZGUL CALICIOGLU: Fair point. There's one thing I can

add to the list for millenials from the companies is that I think we're also kind of more socially aware. So I have more vegetarian friends. I have more friends who refuse to use public transport -- to use driving but use public transport. So I think the companies that are more -- that have strategies to be more environmentally conscious or try to serve communities which are underprivileged, I think that would definitely attract millenials, too. I wouldn't work for a company that did that.

>> JOHN BRADFORD: Cause driven. We care about how our company is affecting somewhere that's miles and miles away. What are our impacts?

>> Bobbi Cordano. Very true.>> OZGUL CALICIOGLU: Also before I go and talk about the

Rising Leaders, I was thinking maybe you can give insight and highlights about your career and what led you to who you are and where you are today from where you have been before, Bobbi.

>> BOBBI CORDANO: I'm actually going to build upon what it was you were talking here about the millenials. On one hand, what's important is your passion nowadays as it relates to the environment, public transportation, caring about the work where it is that you're employed. And what it is that you value today in the world as it relates to the complexities that we're now seeing out in the world.

You know, the topics may be different but the passion that -- the core values of being a part of the world, of an ever-changing world has always been the same. That's been true for many generations.

And you know, when I think about the Rising Leaders who are

here and those who are looking towards the next-generation and your future leadership, it's really about the passion that's the most important.

Because we know from research that when someone is passionate about something, that is going to lead to a desire to want to learn even more. A desire for excellence, a desire to want to improve one's self. And I think that many employers and many companies are actually recognizing that passion and the passion is really the starting point.

And that really goes back to looking at people who have disabilities.

And often times our children are raised and children who have disabilities are raised and the parents and society really worry about how we're all going to succeed.

So instead of listening to our passion and instead of listening to our experiences, they're looking for pathways or certain pathways of certainty for all of us, you know, that we're then going to be able to be successful in the future.

And I'll just share a story that was really life changing for me.

I went to college and I knew that I wanted to go to law school eventually and I was actually a double major so I was majoring in economics and government.

So I felt that was a good pathway to the legal field. How many of you would agree that being a double major would take you into a field like law? Some of you would agree and say that was a good idea to do. But guess what happened? I took my first sociology course and I fell in love. I truly fell in love with sociology. I loved that class.

And so I called home. I actually used the TTY to call my parents back home and said, "You know what? I just love this field. I love the field of sociology. And I think I want to go into that as a major."

But I still wanted to eventually become an attorney.So my parents in having that conversation, they said, this

is great, Bobbi, this is great for you. If you want to be a sociology major, why not go talk to a prelaw professor within the law school and see if they would accept somebody who is majoring in sociology. That was a really good question. So I went back and he actually laughed at me when I talked to him and he said Bobbi, you can major in anything you really want to do. You just have to do well, you have to do well on the LSAT and eventually you will make it into law school. That's actually what happened. The law school I chose was the number one law school in the United States for sociology and for law. So that combination was a wonderful experience for me. And it made law school a great experience. I don't think that I ever suffered through law

school. Many people would say that was the opposite experience for them. So matching your passion with excellence and the opportunities for you, I think is something that's not to be missed. And a second point that I want to share with all of you is just really understanding that there are a lot of changes happening in the world that influence our choices. What I mean is when I was trying to go to law school going to Gallaudet was seen as not being the ultimate choice because law schools were not welcoming deaf students come from Gallaudet or really from a lot of different places. So I then chose the best college that was going to guarantee -- almost guarantee me into law school. And interesting enough, that when I went to law school, that was really when the Deaf President Now movement happened at Gallaudet and that was in my second year at law school. So I graduated in 1990 and I was probably the 17th deaf person to become an attorney.

(Applause).And then what happened in 1990 with the ADA passing, and the

Deaf President Now movement really woke up all these different law schools and the graduate programs showing that deaf individuals are civil rights minded, and DPN really was to the disability community what we saw happening within the African-American community with civil rights movement. So it was really our liberation as a people.

And so now when I became president of Gallaudet University which was about 18 months ago, as of that time when I started, we figured that there are about 350 deaf attorneys now in the United States and that happened in 27, 28 years. That is remarkable! Truly remarkable. And who provided the opportunity to all the attorneys is companies like yours and businesses like yours. Not just the government.

So we have a lot of work to do to really foster more opportunities for this to happen.

And when we look at the changing world and see how that impacts our choices we see that it doesn't impact our choices so we need to be mindful and aware and look to see what's happening in our environment. Not look just within but around us and see what's happening. I want to thank the millenials, I think they're probably the most social and globally aware people here on this planet. I think that's been true to see that over time. So we're so proud of the young individuals who are really coming up and taking on these different leadership opportunities.

Just know that learning never stops. When you look at the business world, when you look to government, when you're looking to nonprofits in the nonprofit sector, that is really where there's a thirst for improvement. And ongoing education and ongoing learning. That's really the key to success to having any

impact and impact cannot happen until we call out a need for improvement. So mistakes, as many of you know that mistakes is really not what's most important. It's your desire to improve and to continue to have a positive impact in the world

Last for Rising Leaders who are all here, just look around the room. Look at all of us. This conference has really doubled in its numbers.

That means -- somebody told me the other day when I came here -- somebody told me that we don't actually have to make the case any longer that people with disabilities have a value to contribute to the world. That case has already been made. Look around to see who's here. We have 1,200 individuals who are showing that's true. And I think the question that I brought up with Jill at USBLN is that really, the experience for us all here is to think about how can people with disabilities -- and for me I pay attention more so to how deaf individuals can really thrive in the world. And thriving is really what all of us want to do. We want to be able to thrive. Accommodations don't necessarily mean that you'll thrive in any one environment. Programs about mentoring, having conversations about language, having conversations about how we best learn and interact with one another and work successfully with one another, those conversations are what is going to lead to all of us being able to thrive. We need to begin the conversation about how we can best thrive in our environments. And that's really what's going to change the world for all of us and especially for all of our Rising Leaders. You are our future. All of the young individuals -- and even if you're here with USBLN or even the young individuals who are here joining us today, our future relies on the innovation of our next-generation, those that are coming up. We need you more now than ever. Thank you.

(Applause).>> JOHN BRADFORD: Thank you, Bobbi. That was very

interesting. You made a point about passion. I just want to take a note on that. For me personally, I see in other Rising Leaders, I don't speak up for myself. But when it's for someone else, I'll scream really loudly! I keep finding myself speaking in public places I'm like why am I here? You know? But for Ozgul or others that some things need to be said.

>> OZGUL CALICIOGLU: I definitely agree. Bobbi, there's a very important thing that you said that -- so we have to -- somebody has to begin the discussion. And somebody has to indicate that there's a room for improvement. And I, coming back to your question, I really believe that Rising Leaders actually are the ones who can really elaborate on this. And also maybe stealing points from you John. So helping evolved in a way we can redo and undo things very fast. That we really do not fear

from stretching our comfort zones.And when you combine the skill with being a Rising Leaders

we opened the dialogue to discuss the unconscious or conscious bias for example in the workplace that can happen. So we will be able to show the world that when we normalize and neutralize the issues that are perceived from the disability issues, it is going to be so easy to understand that right now what we're doing is almost forcing left-handed people to write with their right hands. And it is really going to be very simple when once we realize this and say that -- can I please switch the settings of the mouse from right to the left-handed person? Because I can do that easily. "Yeah sure" is going to be the answer that we'll force the workplace in the Rising Leaders so we'll normalize and neutralize.

>> JOHN BRADFORD: Nice.(Applause).>> YVES VEULLIET: I've got a question for you Ozgul.

Earlier we saw the Innovation Lab by college students. And I was wondering do you think people with disabilities have a unique approach to innovation?

>> OZGUL CALICIOGLU: Yeah, I love this question. I think yes. I'm not going to say we're equally capable of creating innovation. But rather I'm going to go one step further and say we're better at producing innovation because this is what we do every day. Because we just face challenges and they're all unique and we find unique solutions to all the challenges we see along the way every single day. Our brains are so tuned into this, that we don't even realize that we're critically thinking, analyzing the risk and taking mitigation measures and crisis management is the concept of our lives.

So what I believe is that --(Applause).>> Thank you.So yeah, disability inclusion is a challenge. But I think

when it comes to innovation, there's more we can bring to the table than the challenges because we also can bring more solutions. We don't only think outside the box. We do this outside the box. I can't really see the box. It's so narrow and should be expanded. I think that's the approach disability can really bring to the table. It's no wonder that USBLN this year as team Disability As a Catalyst for innovation. That is to true.

>> YVES VEULLIET: I hope you agree I share contact details with my manager when it's time to review my performance.

>> OZGUL CALICIOGLU: Of course. >> I'm curious, was an example of how your experience has

led to innovation and change in your world. I think it would be

interesting to see how each of you could answer this we as well.>> YVES VEULLIET: Are you asking me the question?>> Yeah.>> YVES VEULLIET: I prefer to ask the question actually --(Laughter)Working for an IT company such as IBM where the innovation

is really a core value of our business, basically what I really appreciate in this company because we all know that IBM is the best company in the world. There's no reason to brag about it, right?

What I really enjoy is that this company allows you to be who you are. Regardless of what you want to do, whether it's about innovation, whether it's about IT, communication, there are so many different sectors of activities you can always find some thing, some places where you will be able to express yourself.

That's why I really enjoy working with this company.>> JOHN BRADFORD: Can you restate the question, please.>> BOBBI CORDANO: What's an example of how your experience

has led you to being innovative and to be able to adapt to things that are really occurring on a daily basis. How does that drive your way of being in the world?

>> JOHN BRADFORD:Okay. So some experiences of how drive innovation and my

viewpoint of innovation.I think that subconsciously I've been an advocate in some

ways. And then trying to figure out how to articulate, demonstrate, and just carry myself in a way that will show others that those who need disabilities -- accommodations are those who strive for good. It's not hard. You know, for example when I was in the association for mixed students we did a lot of things called events. We did micro aggression project. That's a comment that is usually said in -- without ill intention, without trying to be negative at all.

And there's the connotation is negative.You know? People are hurt from these comments.And so through that we had a lot of organization, cultural

organizations had one representative who took a picture with their own micro aggression statement. Either "I'm pretty and a black girl" or another one was "dyslexic doesn't mean stupid" through those processes, I've changed my thinking of how do we talk about these things. Because these are hard topics, right?

>> YVES VEULLIET: I'd like to -- sorry, I'm going to be the bad guy here. We're almost at the end of our conversation. So I just wanted to -- if you have one thing to add.

>> BOBBI CORDANO: just one more thing I wanted to add here. I wanted to define what it is I saw happen here for the audience, I think this is important for us to recognize and maybe even for

yourself John, a lot of times people get frustrated because they say we should use these specific terms not these other terms and how should we really understand what's happening here and what words are we supposed to use? Rather than focusing on our awkwardness and uncomfortableness in choosing vocabulary and not wanting to cause harm to other individuals, I think it's important to see there are changes happening in vocabulary and word use that's showing us that's the process that's helping us redefine who we are in the community. So I think John when you were trying to find a different way -- when people were using specific terms and making those connections, that's an effort to be able to create new meaning for all of us.

So focusing on the actual new meanings that are then generated by people in this process is very unique to the diverse community

And I think that's really part of innovation and leading us towards change, looking at the power of lack and that can help us reframe the experience that people are having. Just focusing less on your own awkwardness and not knowing what language to use but focusing more so on the reframing that's happening by using different words and using different language to talk about it so that power is really in the shared understanding in that particular moment of the reframing and when that's happening. And that's what you're doing in your innovation and your advocacy that people are actually seeing that take place.

And I think that's something that people with disabilities have to do on a daily basis. We're constantly reframing it.

(Applause).Great, thank you. And now I'll turn it back over to YVES.>> YVES VEULLIET: I'd like to thank Bobbi, Ozgul and John

for their passion and I hope you enjoyed our conversation today. Thank you again and time to leave the stage.

>> Welcome to the stage Kevin Bradley, senior manager of

global Diversity and Inclusion at The Boeing Company.>> Thank you and good afternoon.I was supposed to say a few words about The Boeing Company,

but what I would like to do is actually go off script a little bit and since we're in the land of Disney is take you on a little time travel because I think we need to acknowledge the past as we look at the rising stars of the future and the Rising Leaders of the future. So how many of you in the room have actually ever heard of the President's Committee on Employment of People with disabilities? So this was a committee formed back in the '40s by I believe President Roosevelt. And it was made up of businesses who wanted to do a better job in terms of getting people with disabilities into the workforce. This all ties into Boeing

believe me. Trust me on this.My first kind of foray into the disability world came as a

result of a company I worked for, United Airlines, joining the president's committee on employment of people with disabilities. I want to take a moment to pay homage to a couple people and I'll try to do this without getting emotional. They're no longer with us. Ray Callahan was McDonnell Douglas, which is now The Boeing Company and serving as chairman of the employer subcommittee. And Kenneth was an HR person with General Motors. And he's actually the godfather of the USBLN. The USBLN was his concept.

So we have him to thank for the gathering.And lastly, before I talk about Boeing, which is what I'm

being paid to do,(Laughter)-- I have to acknowledge Jill Houghton. Jill was our Rising

Leaders back in the early days of the president's committee. I don't think we even envisioned what we see today with the Rising Leaders, with the Disability Equality Index, with suppliers. And Jill, I know you're out there somewhere. Again, I have to -- if I had a hat, I would tip it to you, Jill. I remember when we were both younger and you're still as vibrant as you were when we first named you to lead the charge on this. And you have taken it well beyond the vision that any of us could ever have imagined. So Jill, again

(Applause).Boeing has been involved with the USBLN since its inception

in some way, shape, or form. For those who think you know Boeing just a little about our company. We're now celebrating our second one hundred years and for over 100 years we've shaped the course of human history through aerospace innovations, because of our amazing people and things our products protect the globe and scientific freedom around the world. Many of you are familiar with the Boeing 737, 747, Air Force One. But many of our defense products. Are protecting us around the globe. Any of you use GPS on your phone? Thank Boeing. Probably one of our satellites and we're dipping our toe in the water literally with unmanned undersea exploration. So Boeing has been around for a long time. We hope to be around for another 100 years. We hope to continue the relationship with organizations like the USBLN. We have a strong and long history of hiring people with disabilities. Can we do better? I think there's not an employer in the room that cannot say that they can do better. I know we can do better. We strive to do better. One of the things I'm very proud of at The Boeing Company is we've recently formed a cross functional team bringing together different departments like HR, communications, government relations, my department, Diversity and Inclusion, to really start working together in a collaborative way so we can be

laser focused in terms of the employment and retention and engagement of our employees with disabilities. Lastly, I want to acknowledge the Boeing employees who are here in the room. About 21 strong.

They have worked diligently. They've worked long and hard to make Boeing's presence at this conference what it is. They are pushing me to make it even more.

And I will take that word back to corporate headquarters. But again, Angela Burrell and her team. Again, couldn't do it without you guys and I'd be remiss if I didn't acknowledge the Boeing team.

(Applause).So thank you very much for allowing me to be here, allowing

us to be here. Again, this is always an emotional conference for me to come to because of the history and the friends that I've made here. Some who are no longer with us. And again, Jill, you've made us proud. We hope to be with you for another 100 years. So thank you very much.

(Applause).>> Thank you, and now please welcome to the stage Jessica

Rafuse, NGO Program Manager at Microsoft.>> JESSICA RAFUSE: This is what 1200 people looks like.

Terrifying. But I think this is such a unique session, this is such a unique group because we're bringing together the people who are legends in disability inclusion. The people who paved the way for all of us. The people that we like to call disability royalty.

And we're pairing that with the people who are the future, the folks who are challenging the status quo. The people who are innovators, the people who I know are going to make this topic obsolete. You're seated side by side with the royalty. You're seated side by side with the Rising Leaders. And I think I fall somewhere in between.

So my name is Jessica Rafuse and I lead our strategic engagement with organizations that focus on people with disabilities. At Microsoft.

I am a mom. I am a wife. I am a dog lover. A lawyer. A former administrative judge. And a person with a disability.

I have muscular dystrophy, and I have used a wheelchair for the last I want to say 20 years.

But I don't do math because I'm a lawyer. So somewhere in there

(Laughter) So at Microsoft our mission is to empower every person and

every organization on the planet to achieve more.And this includes people with disabilities.The planet also includes some travel for me.

And traveling is a challenge for all of us. But traveling with a wheelchair requires an even higher level didn't even higher level of ingenuity, right? So earlier this year I was traveling to D.C. with our partners at V.R. and despite all the planning and preparation, the wheelchair accessible taxi did not show up. Not a shocker, right?

Two hours late, they told me. Two hours late for a meeting with Congress.

This is not an option.So I quickly dashed back into the hotel and researched Metro

and I found a nearby station and walked a mile in the rain and made it to Capitol Hill only an hour late. Only an hour late for a meeting with Congress.

So I walk into the room and it's like slow motion. Everyone's head turns to the person who is an hour late. And I am sopping wet. My pants are actually dripping water onto the beautiful marble floor. Makeup everywhere. Hair is glamorous.

Not to mention being totally frazzled by the experience because I was -- all I was thinking about is my chair going to die? Is my chair going to die?

So I thought about you know you've got this visual of this sloppy hot mess, right? But ask yourself what if this were a job interview? What if I had shown up late to an interview at one of your companies? Would you have hired me? I mean, the answer is no, right? I wouldn't have hired me.

Early in my career, I was told by an executive that he was reluctant to hire me because he didn't want to hire a bitter handy cap. Now, I know we haven't done disability etiquette training. But this one is a no no.

So later in my career, a different company, a different executive told me that he was reluctant to hire me because he was certain that the desks were too low and the doors were too heavy. So keep in mind the unemployment rate for people with disabilities in the U.S. is twice that of the national average.

A third organization, a third leader told me that I could not be promoted because he assumed that I could not travel independently.

Keep in mind people with disabilities are paid 63 cents for every dollar of their nondisabled peers.

So for millions of people with disabilities across the globe, an inaccessible world stands between us and competitive employment, including the Rising Leaders that are sitting beside you today.

As both the disability royalty in this room and the Rising Leaders know, this world was not designed for you. It was not designed for me.

But what if each one of us makes a conscious decision to

change the conversation? What if we go back to our organizations and we make a commitment to talk about disability as a strength?

After years of navigating this inaccessible world, I've developed some skill sets.

I act purposefully during the unexpected. I'm resourceful enough to find the Metro in an unfamiliar city. And I'm determined enough to show up despite having pools of water in my shoes.

So think about what is your story. What are the challenges that you have faced that make you the very best candidate? I mean, this is no longer about leveling the playing field. Removing barriers really isn't sufficient alone. How can you demonstrate that, as a person with a disability, that hiring manager across from you would be remiss not to hire you on the spot?

At Microsoft we view disability as a strength. People with disabilities make our products, services, our Web sites, our culture better. Because people with disabilities are a a catalyst for innovation.

People with disabilities have innovative products that a blind person can use to nail a job interview.

Gorgeous, professional slides. PowerPoint designer is actually good for people who also don't have a creative bone in their body.

My lawyer colleagues out there, I know you're out there, people with disabilities you can thank them for the immersive reader which will help you get through that dense -- I'm going to say it -- boring content more efficiently.

And if you've ever been a note taker in a meeting you can thank someone who is deaf for influence being the development of Microsoft translator.

Realtime captioning, transcript of the meeting, automated.Rising Leaders and everyone in the room, first take a moment

to explore how disability makes you the very most qualified candidate. Second, share your story and lastly contribute your subject matter expertise to making this planet more accessible for all of us. Thank you all for working so hard to amplify the strengths of people with disabilities and truly, you all in this room make me so proud to be your colleague in this journey. Thank you.

(Applause). >> KERI GRAY: All right. Was that amazing? Was that cool?

I'm so excited you were able to witness a few of our Rising Leaders and the ways in which we partner with each of you on the journey to be more inclusive in the workplace. I want you let y'all know and remind you that we have over 100 Rising Leaders

here. If you're a Rising Leaders with the Rising Leadership Academy can you raise your hand or wave or do some type of -- there we go. They are spread throughout the room. If they're at your tables, please meet them.

If you haven't talked to them and you saw that their hand was raised, make sure that you approach them because when I say they're not only amazing because of their stories, their stories are powerful, they're genuine, but they're also talented, right? They can produce skills and they can do meaningful work for your companies and collaboration. So I want to encourage you to meet with them. I want to encourage you to interview them. And we actually have a room that is available throughout the day specifically for interviews. So, if you haven't already, make sure you check them out.

So I also want to do just a reminder. That the Rising Leadership Academy and our mentoring program is possible by folks investing in us.

So everyone has had a platform to go from school to work by ensuring that there were folks who were willing to contribute to their success. So I just want to do a reminder, there's three main ways that I'd love for each of you to be part of it

The first way, I'm just going to have to be honest, financially, right?

So our programs take a lot of collaboration and work to get all of our Rising Leaders here.

And so I want to encourage you, if our thinking about being a sponsor or one of our founding partnered, again, I want to remind you to contact Liz, our executive vice president and I know she'll direct you to the right place. Secondly, I want to encourage you to meet with the students throughout your experience here. If you haven't already scheduled time with them, back stage I was literally texting and e-mailing Northrop Grumman, PNC, Boeing, TD Bank and collaborating ways in which we can get students to meet with them while they're here. If you haven't done that, you can contact me, reach out to students directly. But know they're here, they're talented and they're ready to work.

And then finally, we need your mentorship. So in our Rising Leaders mentoring program it runs from March through August of every year. And our applications for mentorship will open in mid September. But, if you know, if you have seen the talent that exists in this room, then you can inform me right here and right now today that I want to be a mentor. I can inform our students of ways in which my career has gone. Things that I've learned along the way. And I feel I can provide a platform for them.

So, if you're interested in mentorship as an individual, if you want to sign your company up and say hey, we have folks for

you that would love to be a mentor, we need that. Because because we have 125 students that participated but we can do more.

So again, I want to thank you for your participation in today. I want to provide a platform for our students because they are amazing. And I just want to say that this has been absolutely amazing because of your partnership and collaboration. So with that, that concludes the Rising Leaders plenary

>> JILL HOUGHTON: No, with that, let's hear it for Keri. Nothing happens with Rising Leaders without Keri and her leadership!

(Applause).thank you, Keri Gray.>> KERI GRAY: Thank you. I appreciate that. And thank you

to the team.Because this would not be possible without so many of us who

have helped. Lynn Symone, Jonathan Duvall, Liz, Jill, so many people. I can't start talking about folks or I'll get emotional. Thank you for your collaboration, with that, I want to encourage you to head to your next breakout sessions and we're excited to see everyone at the awards dinner tonight. Thank you again.

** >> JILL HOUGHTON: Good evening, good evening. We would

invite you all to find a seat, please.And we have an opportunity to help each other because the

good news is there's a lot of you here.So, if you have an empty seat at your table, if you could

raise your hand to help guide people to those spots. Are there empty seats? This is a great problem if you could just help us. Raise your hand if you have an empty spot at your seat, at your table.

We're bringing in more tables as we speak. Thank you for your patience.

For those of you seeking a seat, if you have around empty seat at your table, if you could raise your hand for us. Thank you so much for your patience. It's a wonderful problem to have that we have so many for such a special evening.

Just give us a moment and we'll get these tables set up because the Marriott is awesome and they're helping us. We just want to make sure that everyone has a seat.

Once again, good evening, everybody. I hope you all found a seat and you have a nice cold beverage, our program will begin in five minutes. Please go ahead and enjoy your salads. Okay, everybody, please give your attention to the stage and welcome back Jill Houghton.

Good evening and welcome to the USBLN. Tonight is a really special night. Because you know why? We get to celebrate you.

We get to celebrate the leadership that business is making to include people with disabilities because you know what? It's so awesome to be in a house where business is saying we cannot afford to not include people with disabilities. Let's give it up for you!

(Applause).We get to celebrate with our partner, the American

Association of People with Disabilities. We get to celebrate the top scoring companies on the Disability Equality Index. We salute you. We get to celebrate our leadership awards.

Now, before I introduce you to our emcee, I got breaking news.

And it's something to celebrate.Are you ready for this? Northrop Grumman has made 11 job

offers!(Cheers and applause.)And I've got my hand up with five because there's five more

in the pipeline for possible offers.Now, it's what it's all about. With my other hand, Boston

Scientific had made or is in the process of making two and potentially more job offers.

(Applause).None of this would be possible without the leadership of

Keri Gray and without such a rocking 2017 class of Rising Leaders. We have 110 of you. We're going to have 220 of you next year.

And you're going to be back to pay it forward. And all of these awesome companies in here, you better figure out the secret sauce from Northrop Grumman and Boston Scientific or else they're going to just keep getting all the talent.

Okay, without further ado, I get to introduce you to tonight's emcee. And wow, are you in for a treat. This man, Mr. Gerard Dehrmann is the Senior Vice President of public affairs and State and Local Government Affairs and he's a USBLN board member and he's with Walmart. And he is -- disability inclusion is in Gerard's DNA and it's also in the DNA of Walmart. So Mr. Gerard Dehrmann.

(Applause).>> GERARD DEHRMANN: Good evening, everyone.How's everyone doing? Fantastic. I feel like after that

introduction from Jill, I should juggle or have a lot of jokes to go into my set. I don't have a lot, but I will offer you this: Jill was going to try to get Ryan Seacrest to host tonight but she realized it would bow blow the entire budget for this conference so you get me instead of him. If I start quoting dim the lights and turn on the music and people in the booth don't listen to me at all, don't bother, I'm just trying to keep the

Ryan Seacrest going. I want to thank Jill and the entire USBLN team for their incredible leadership this week and putting this conference on. If the staff would stand up, raise their hands and let's all give them a round of applause

And I will say if there are any other companies who want to give out job offers like Oprah gives out cars on her show, we can call you up here today as well. Happy to keep that going through the night. Keep it going through dinner. We can make announcements here on the spot. Maybe we'll even have one from Walmart, who knows. I'm putting pressure on my team there. This is my team. They've been working hard. Hopefully you met them. Everybody wave and say hello. It takes a village and a small mom and pop retailer that is wall particularity to make the mighty wheel turn. These individuals do that. They're like little ducks below the water. Thank you all for your work. One of the deals I did make with Jill as a result of me not getting a fee or any concessions for being master of ceremonies tonight, she did offer me to offer up a Walmart commercial. Everybody can guffaw, right? There's a great story about it. It aired once this past Sunday and it's interesting in the context which I want to provide to everyone so when you hear the music covers the ad, you'll understand the visuals that goes with it. The title of the ad is many chairs, one r one table. As we watched the events of Charlottesville and the country grip the nation over the past week or so, we had a moment at Walmart where our marketing team and senior leadership got together and said we've got this great ad that has got nothing to do with selling diapers or nothing to do with selling paper towels or beer or wine or spirits, or whatever it might be. But it does talk about inclusion and community and about people coming together for the common good. So what you'll see in the ad is folks dragging chairs to a field from all walks of life, from urban suburban, rural, through fields, through cities, on trucks, on trains, with bikes, it's set to a wonderful piece of music that you can all enjoy and hum along to. The important piece about this ad to us is as a company we have to represent the communities where we operate. We have about 140 million guests that come shop with us every week. If we're not a reflection of their views, their values and what they hold dear, shame on us. Hopefully this ad brings it together. But also think about everyone having a seat at the table. Everyone here took the time out to sit at the table tonight to sit through the meetings and various committees and work that everyone did. So without further ado, we'll run the video.

(Music) if you hear the song I sing, you will understand.You hold the key to love and fear. All in your trembling

hand.

Come on, people now, smile on your brother, everybody get together and try to love one another right now.

Come on people now, everybody get together try to love one another right now.

(Applause).>> GERARD DEHRMANN: I think it's interesting, a lot of

businesses in this room compete against one another every day on the playing field that is all of the businesses that we operate.

But we all come together, USBLN, for a common cause and a common goal and I think putting all of those marketplace differences aside and rallying behind disability inclusion and fostering a new leadership and new voice for America where we've seen over the past few weeks especially businesses and NGOs are going to have to lead now more than ever. That's something that Walmart recognizes. We hope you all join with us when we ask you to join us at our table as we talk about issues that are topical and important to everyone in this room and across the country and around the world. So a little about what we're here to do this evening. It's exciting. We're here to present awards to those companies who received the top scores in the Disability Equality Index or Disability Equality Index. But let's take a moment to consider what that means

It means that the businesses represented here tonight understand the business imperative to maximize talent of people with disabilities and their workplace and marketplace.

That's one of the largest employers in the world, Walmart certainly knows how important it is to have folks from all walks of life working for us and with us, it makes us a better company internally and externally in how we work with everyone across the country. People with disabilities and those who love and care for them make up a significant portion of the population. That businesses should not and must not ignore.

To do that would be bad business and frankly, morally inexcusable.

Recently Walmart's CEO Doug McMillan said diverse perspectives often lead to the best ideas. At Walmart, we know diverse ideas and populations are the well spring of innovation that makes us better and for that it's one of the big reasons why we're engaged with USBLN and we're proud of what we've done over the years with our Disability Equality Index score. Because I'll tell you something, when we first started our journey with the Disability Equality Index, we didn't have a perfect score. And it wasn't something we were frankly, proud of. But one of the things we always say internally is if you judge the paper and if you grade the paper, you're going do better going forward. And I'm proud that this year we hit 100% on the index and we're going to celebrate a lot of the companies that did that as well.

(Applause).One of the important things that I would encourage everyone

to do is get engaged and be involved. When you have a seat at the table, have a voice and make sure your voice is heard. And one of the big of the ways to do that is to be involved and engaged. Two separate things.

So thanks again for allowing me to be your emcee tonight. We're going to get rolling in two pieces of the program. And for that I'm going to introduce Jon Froemel with Barnes and Thornburg as a special guest. Jon.

>> Thank you. For the last five years I've had the privilege and honor to provide pro bono legal services to the USBLN. It's been an honor and privilege. And they did invite me to give a presentation today.

The presentation was related to intellectual property, although little known fact, they invited me because I am the world's foremost expert on lazy rivers. So I had an opportunity to hit the lazy river. It has been an amazing week for me when it comes to issues related to diversity and inclusion.

Last week Barnes and Thornburg hosted it's 8th annual diversity award dinner in Chicago and I was sitting in a room where we honored the Reverend Jesse Jackson senior. It was motivational. Sitting in the meeting rooms in the last several days it's been equally inspirational, equally motivating. I appreciate the opportunity that all my partners and colleagues at Barnes & Thornburg appreciate the opportunity to work with USBLN and we absolutely appreciate everyone in this room who is focused and interested in issues related to diversity and inclusion. Thank you very much.

(Applause).>> GERARD DEHRMANN:Thank you, Jon. I appreciate all those

words. Now I'd like to ask Jarrod Sheets from Wells Fargo to join me on the stage. Jarrod, come on out. You need to clap a little -- he's got big checks, everybody. Come on. Big checks.

What are we going to do with those big checks? We're going to give them away. I want to talk about the Pitch Tank winners and what the competition was about. It brings out the best in entrepreneurs with disabilities as they made their pitch and present their capabilities to a judging panel comprised of top buyers and decision-makers from top corporations. Finalists were selected after a rigorous vetting process and made their pitches earlier today. Certainly high pressure, high stakes. It's exciting to announce who the winners are. This is the second year of the program and it was supported by Wells Fargo and several youth corporate partners. We're going to do this from third to first and ask the people to come on stage and join us, third place winner from Wells Fargo is Zinarow. Come on down.

Xinarow. Come on down.And our second place winners recipients of $2,500 from Wells

Fargo is Bender Consulting!>> GERARD DEHRMANN: All right, the moment we've all been

waiting for. First place winner. This has got $5,000 on the line, people.

And the winner I'm proud to announce is Tracked Mobility!(Music) you've got one kicker that I'm delighted to announce as

well. The small sheet giveth this time, doesn't taketh Merck is going to award a full scholarship for business school. Merck thank you so much for your support for doing that.

Now, because it's not quite the season of giving but we'll keep the giving mood going, earlier today team Walmart down there was wanting to do something special for some of our Rising Leaders. So we went around and started a raffle of our own for five $100 give cards to Walmart and when you have $100 gift card, the prices are so low it's like tripling your prices at the mart. It's a one win. We have winners. Asher Kirshbaum.

Congratulations.Kayla Landon, Devante Doheny, Monica Gomez and Brian

Stromer. Come on down.Please.* We'll ensure that we find the rightful winners of the other

gift cards as well. Congratulations, everyone.All right, so unless I hear anyone from the audience who

wants to give away something more, I can open up the mic for that. If not, I'm going to ask that everyone enjoy dinner and we'll be back with you shortly. Thank you.

(Applause). >> Everyone, may I have your attention, please, will you

please have a warm welcome, give it up to the stage for Gerard Dehrmann and Jill Houghton.

(Applause).>> GERARD DEHRMANN: Thank you, thank you, thank you.It is great to be back with you.Felt like it was just a minute. I barely had time to eat.

But I have enough sustenance to get through the second half of our program which is not even arguably the most important part which is all the awards we get to bestow on a lot of great companies, a lot of great chapters and a lot of great individuals. We're going to get into that in a minute. I do have a couple things just to mention. One of them, you can put down in the category of I was given some bad information on or to be more in tune with the time, I was given some fake news which

impacts one of the things that I actually stood up here and announced. I wanted to recognize that we made a little bit of a miss cue when we announced who was going to sponsor the TUC scholarships. The company actually sponsoring those scholarships is Bristol-Myers Squibb. So, if I can have that team stand up, receive our applause. Thank you. These things happen all the time in award shows, I'm told. So we're just going to get right through it.

Victims of our own success is another thing that we could probably put down as a hashtag tonight. We have over 800 people here, which is fantastic. Give yourselves a round of applause

As a result, it's our largest awards dinner ever which is probably because I'm here again. Thank you for coming out to see me.

The other piece that goes along with this, you take the good and take the bad -- we can start singing "facts of life" but I won't do that. We're still working through getting meals out to everyone because it was more of a crusher than we thought. With that being said, what I'd like to add and applaud are the fine people at J.W. Marriott, all the fine servers in the room and people who have taken care of us all week. So thank you.

Pleas bear with them because without them we'd have no food and no drink and we probably wouldn't know where we're going because it's so easy to get lost around here. Thanks again. That takes care of the housekeeping portions of the evening. And now it's time to get into the meat of the day here. Our first award, this is going to be for Afiliate of the Year. The way we're going to do this is I'll give everyone a sense of what the award is going to be for. We'll cue the video of who gets the award. We'll bring people up on stage and bestow upon them a wonderful globe on a stand. Now that globe is not attached to the pedestal. So this will be a real challenge for Jill and myself and everyone up here who receives these because we do not want to destroy them. They're one of kind, even though we've got 15 of them. Hearts and minds. We're going to get in to roll the first videotape of our winner for Afiliate of the Year.

(Video)to accept the award on behalf of DC Metro BLN is executive

director Katherine McCary.>> KATHERINE McCARY: Good evening. Thank you so much we're

so excited to be Afiliate of the Year. We submitted every year since we won in 2012.

It took us five more years to be back on stage. But hey DC BLN, we rock! I want to thank these two brilliant professional women up here on stage with me because Myra wilder, Marriott International has been our chair for two years, in are her leadership we accomplished all those things, Andrea hall, our new

board chair, you've got a lot of things on your plate we've got to step up and work and wait another three years to apply. But DC Metro BLN feels like we're center of the world and ready to pilot anything. If you have an idea and thought and don't have the funds to do it, we don't either but we'll work with you and try to give it a shot. We're all about youth, all about millenials, all about inclusion and partnerships and we're all about a strong board. We have 12 people in the DC Metro BLN here and we usually have 12-15. We had a full table. So thank you all you leaders sitting there at our table from the DC BLN. Yes yes absolutely. I have 20 seconds. I also want to shoutout as I'm a DOBE. So I really appreciate the whole work that you guys are doing Patricia Richards, you keep going and we've accepted that mandate. Thank you to my business partner, Martha ArtelisC5 who helps us work the DC BLN and Silicon Valley BLN and thank you all great affiliates and great partners we could not do this without your support and help. And these are just two amazing people on our Board of Directors. Keep in tune, keep in touch. Get our newsletter we want to partner with you and help you and we can be stronger together. We will be better together.

Thank you so much.(Applause).All right we'll roll through it here, our next award is

disability-owned business of the year, let's roll the video.(Video)>> GERARD DEHRMANN: Here to accept the award on behalf of

Tic Toc is none other than CEO Paul Gittemeier. Paul, come on down.

Paul Gittemeier well, I'm humbled to have been nominated and receive this award. Thank you all for that.

>> PAUL GITTEMEIER: You know, being here the last few days has reminded me what I love about the USBLN.

Everyone here has a story, I've had the opportunity to meet new friends this week. And hear their stories and they've all seemed to fall into categories that I would entitle resilience, triumph, collaboration, inspiration, and opportunity.

Interestingly those same five words I believe describe the essence of the USBLN. They described the spirit that pervades this group as well. I love that connection there. I have a favorite scripture passage from the book of Galatians and it's very short. And if is let us never grow weary of doing good.

Way to go for spearheading an organization that gives all of us a platform to do good. That's an awesome opportunity.

And, 2, way to go for attracting people the caliber of Patricia and Cami and Brian and Liz and the rest of your team. Those are people that never grow weary of doing good. But I think they might be a little tired on Friday morning. So, if

you'll bear with them. Anyway, listen, as we go forth from this place, let us all -- that that be our charge too, let us never grow weary of doing good. Thank you all.

>> GERARD DEHRMANN: Let's give out more awards. Who's ready? You guys excited. This is for supply chain Advocate of the Year. Once again roll the videotape for the big reveal.

(Video)>> GERARD DEHRMANN: Tim Ruddell, come on down.>> TIM RUDDELL: Good evening, everyone. I hope you're

enjoying the conference. It's an honor to receive the Advocate of the Year award from the youth. I'm privileged -- USBLN. I'm privileged and proud. I'm privileged because I'm white. I'm not 31% more likely to be pulled over when driving because of the color of my skin. I'm privileged because I'm a man. I don't face a marketplace where on average I earn 17% less for doing the same work because of my gender, I'm privileged because I'm heterosexual and sys gender and were I a citizen I'd be able to join the military and serve the country without facing prejudice from the commander in chief.

(Cheers and applause.)I don't currently have -- I don't currently have a

disability. Currently. But many of us who don't will some day. Which means I don't currently face a marketplace with double the average unemployment rate. I'm proud as well as privileged. I'm proud to be in a room with business leader and community advocates led by the USBLN who are building bridges not walls who are committed to in the supply chain. I'm proud for Emergency and I'm proud of the Emergency team here. Three rose down in the center in you want to go balk to them. KPMG scored 100% on the Disability Equality Index which is not down to the team but down to the team here. I'm proud of our values as a firm as chair and CEO Lynn said last week, the KPMG community rejects all expressions of bigotry and supremacy, all feelings are at odds.

Such feelings are at odds with the American ideal we're all created equal. I'm proud of the other business leaders in the room who made similar statements in recent weeks. It's very important to do so. I'm proud to have a career with purpose which connects me with people without the privileges I have and allows me to advocate for them. The serious stuff. Who tried to experience the eclipse on Monday? Anyone? If you were here you might have missed it because there were clouds coming over and I heard people describe it as a once in a lifetime experience. It's not. There's another one in seven years. So I hope you'll still be around in seven years and you'll have another chance to experience it. What there will never be is another Wednesday 23rd of August, 2017. So I'd like for you to make the most of the rest of your time at the conference, consider joining us for

the supply chain roundtable tomorrow morning. Make the most of the connections you've made here and enjoy the rest of your time. Thank you.

We're going to start exploratory political committee for Tim and pass the hat for contributions and we'll be sure that wherever he lives, we'll get him elected.

(Laughter)Great speech, nice shout out. Incredible message. Next

award is top corporation for disability owned businesses. Once again we'll go to the big board.

(Video)

>> GERARD DEHRMANN: To accept the award on behalf of Comcast NBC universal is Cecilia Isaacs-Blundin, senior director of Diversity and Inclusion. Cecilia, come on down.

>> CECILIA ISAACS-BLUNDIN: Good evening.I am humbled and honored to accept the top corporation for

disability-opened business on behalf of Comcast, NBC universal. Thank you, Jill. Thank you Patricia and Cami. Comcast NBC Universal has a strong record of inclusion among our employees, business partners and the communities that we serve.

Our comprehensive diversity and inclusion program spends corporate governance workforce, procurement, programming and community investment. We are proud to have earned 100 points on USBLN's Disability Equality Index for the third consecutive year in 2017.

(Applause).And we are so excited to have joined the current cohort of

going for the gold companies.As it relates to disability-owned businesses which is what

brings me here tonight, Comcast NBC universal's commitment is equally strong. We understand diversity is the foundation for innovation, and we promote disability-owned businesses within our supply chain throughout reach, mentoring and active participation in USBLN panels, webinars, conferences and other DOBE business opportunities, our supplier diversity professionals, many of whom are here tonight, are focused on ensuring that DOBEing are included on bid opportunities throughout Comcast NBC Universal's procurement pipeline. We're extremely proud that our spending withs increased 60% last year and we look forward to continuing our partnership with USBLN in new and exciting ways going forward. Thank you very much.

>> GERARD DEHRMANN: We're going to roll into our next award which is marketplace innovator of the year for campaign or advertisement. That sounds like an Oscar category right there. Let's see who won. (Video).

>> GERARD DEHRMANN: To accept the award on be half of ESPN

is John Vassallo, senior coordinating producer. >> So one of the albatrosses of working in sports TV is

Chris, I think I saw one or two things we messed up on that silent drive. We can talk about that later. It's an honor to be here really. I'm humbled not only to be here with you all but to represent ESPN and the Disney company for this moment to accept this honor. On be hall of everybody, I -- on behalf of everybody, I want to say thank you we appreciate the impact this incredible assignment had on all who participated and are proud to showcase it for our fans. The California School for the Deaf Fremont or CSD showed us, our audience, the true common denominator and that is the power of sports. Our colleague Martin first captured the magic of CSD when he directed the E60 special silent nightlights. With his insight, perspective and awareness we're able to approach this high school football game with the knowledge and respect gained from his beautiful work.

What was reinforced from this game is something that C SD students already knew, there is no limit to what one can imagine and achieve. Warren Keller, the head coach at CSD who is with us tonight, big game on Friday --

(Applause).Warren?Warren welcomed us to his campus and with open arms putting

us in the position to gain the kind of understanding we needed to help the audience witness how his team plays.

The innovation of this telecast would not have been possible without so many incredible people from the ESPN enable team, Employee Resource Group to USBLN National Association for the Deaf.

Because of them, along with the staff at CSD we're able to enhance our coverage with special camera placement, in the field analysis, translations, community reaction and what you saw there a little bit of the silent drive. Our interpreter deign Lenz who is also here tonight with Warren, flew in on the red-eye because they didn't want to miss practice yesterday, he and his colleague Rebecca Quigley were invaluable to us with their patience and amazing hard work over the few days that led up to the telecast.

Both Dane and Rebecca were incredibly helpful deliver post game interviews, sports center and highlights. Missy, producer from sports center who single-handedly put that project on her back is also with us tonight.

So thank you.I mean, I could probably filibuster up here but I know the

music is going to play me off.Thank you for the USBLN network for this recognition. But

far more importantly, thank you the California School for the Deaf for their record of achievement in reminding us that we're

all connected by our abilities. Thank you.(Applause).>> GERARD DEHRMANN: All right, move it on along here with

our next award.It's marketplace innovator of the year for a product.winner is ... (video)>> GERARD DEHRMANN: To accept the award is Microsoft

accessibility principal PM manager, Clint Covington.>> CLINT COVINGTON: Thank you. It's so humbling to receive

such an important award when there's so many people out here that are doing fantastic work for people with disabilities and building products and services.

I want to give a big shoutout to the USBLN and especially the new tech track. Jill, you and your team inspire us to do our best work.

(Applause).I'm humbled to accept this award on behalf of everybody at

Microsoft. The developers who worked late at night building accessibility features, the hackers, the people who were out trying to tell our story and let the world know about the work and progress we've made.

By show of hands, give a big inclusive applause, whatever your message is. Who uses Windows Office on a daily basis to work? Wow.

The impact blows me away.We feel that responsibility. This is my first year at the

USBLN. I'm really digging the vibe.(Laughter)You impact the policies, processes, and tools that people

with disabilities need to thrive in the workplace.Several years ago a profound accessibility movement started

at Microsoft really kicked into gear.This work directly impacts your efforts to recruit, retain,

and empower people with disabilities in your organization.Let me just share a few highlights from the teams across

Microsoft the work we've done. Eye control in Windows 10 lets you access the PC with movement of your eyes.

This blows me away. I'm not capable of really imagining all the solutions that you would build for your employees and your customers. But I anxiously look forward to seeing that. Windows has made great progress in their inbox applications, their out of the box screen reader, and it's an investment we man to continue to -- plan to continue to make as we move forward.

In Office we started off with two goals. The first one was that people with disabilities can communicate, consume and create content on any device.

Whether that's iOS, Android, Mac, web, took a pretty

significant effort from us. The second part was that it's easy to create accessible content for everyone. I think we recognized that we can do a great job of building screen readers and making it to where people can use our applications. But, if the content that people need to create to do their job is not accessible, we haven't achieved the mission that we're trying to accomplish.

You know this effort really started with a complete -- over the last two years, we've rewritten our accessibility implementation across nearly every one of our productivity applications from Word, Excel, PowerPoint, outlook, SharePoint, Skype, one drive, all the products you use on a regular Bailey basis. We looked at code exception and looked at accessibility. Programmatic issues, keyboard issues. Office 365 today is the most accessible version of Office that we've ever shipped

(Applause). I'm really excited about the direction technology is going

to take us with speech recognition. We're starting to see in its infancy of the progress we're making with features like Power Point designer and speech recognition that's reaching unparalleled levels of accuracy. It's going to fundamentally change how we interact with computers as we move forward. I want to especially thank Jenny Lay-Flurrie and her accessibility team for helping us.

(Applause).I met Jenny probably eight years ago. I had a new employee

who was working for me who was deaf. She wanted to help us onboard this person to the team to be successful. Back then she was Jenny Lay-Flurrie. Now I guess she's "jenny."

Her team fills a really important role about an enterprise disability answer desk that allows your employees, when they're struggling with some of the new work that we've done or old work we've done around disabilities to help them get over that hump. That's a free service that they can call with the enterprise disability answer desk

I really want to thank Satya and senior leadership team at Microsoft. They did a fantastic job of really connecting this to our mission as a company and our path to innovation. It truly has been a bottom up, top down approach. If you want to learn more about our products and services and how it can help people in your organization thrive, check out Microsoft.com/accessibility or follow us on Twitter at msftenable. Hit us up we'd love to share your feedback. I'm going to share a story about me that I've never shared before.

Because it's important.There's one last feature in Office that is deeply personal

to me. I've been at Microsoft for close to 20 years. It's been great for me and my family.

It's been fantastic career and I've lovered the impact that the work that I do has on people in the world.

I wasn't always on track to work at Microsoft.I wasn't on track to even have a professional successful

career.In 1st grade, I started to fall behind in school.I was put into a special education class. In the 7th grade,

I tested at a second grade reading level.I was excluded from traditional classroom experiences. And

you know, that came with a host of other things. Not to mention I group up on a pig, goat, mink farm. Kids can be mean when you're skinny, uncoordinated, "Stupid", and smell like a farm animal.

I worried about how I was going to support my family.Fortunately, I was blessed with a really good friend, a best

friend, a loving family, parents. It could have been much worse.They provided me the things that I needed at that time in my

life.In 7th grade, I had a teacher named Lee squires. And a

librarian Mrs. Coombs. They gave me the learning tools that I needed to be successful as a student and later in life.

I left the 8th grade with a 12th grade reading level!(Cheers and applause.)I wouldn't trade that experience for anything.That experience made me grit and to have a growth mindset.The new learning tools in Word, one note, Edge dramatically

help students and your colleagues with dyslexia to read more effectively. It selects a text, reads it out, it highlights it. It helps improve retention. But it's not just for dyslexic readers that we build it for.

I use learning tools today to read dense content, to -- what I'm tired. Or when I have to get that writing just perfect and it can't have any mistakes and it starts catching those words that I miss as my brain is putting words that weren't on the paper.

It's made -- I would have loved to have that back when I was a kid.

And that experience.People with disabilities have grit and a growth mindset.They're part of a diverse talent pool that can drive

innovation. The bell is going off. I think the music is going to start playing.

Let's work together to help people with disabilities thrive in the workplace.

Take on broader responsibilities and get promoted. Thank you.

(Applause).

>> GERARD DEHRMANN: A lot of really good speakers tonight. I feel like people are taking a run at my emcee duties all of a sudden. I've got a real big complex. We're going to power through and we've got one more award to announce before we bring up our keynote speaker.

So the next award is the ERG/BRG of the year and for that where are we going to go? (Video)

>> GERARD DEHRMANN: To accept the award on behalf of Northrop Grumman are Anita Wright, Phil Hickok, Joan knoll Nolan and Jay Neale, and Joan Nolan. Amy Ruth.

PP good.>> Patrick Geraghty: Good evening ladies and gentlemen, let

me thank Jill and the voting panel for this prestigious recognition, we're extremely honored to be accepting the 2017 ERG of the Year award on behalf of Northrop Grumman and the voice ERG. We're humbled and grateful for the recognition we're receiving tonight. Because I'm certain that every one of the other nominees were just as deserving of this recognition as we were.

I would especially like to thank the four other voice VOICE leaders who joined me on this stage to accept this honor. Without them and their team, the site leads in this corner, we would not be accepting this honor. Jay Neale from aerospace sector, Joan Nolan, Phil Hickok from technical services sector and most importantly the ERG's heart and soul and my co-chair Anita Wright.

(Applause).You all heard a little bit about it in the video, but I'm

going to reiterate it. What is VOICE about? It's an acronym. We're very good at acronyms in aerospace. We use them for everything. But first of all, it's victory over impairment and challenge enterprise.

It's a corporate-wide all-inclusive resource group committed to enhancing disability awareness. Personal and workplace development among all of its employees.

This is a volunteer group that has just over 1100 employees until tonight. Now we have 1100 and 11.

So --(Applause).And we cover the entire United States.We collaborate with 12 other ERGs across the enterprise to

reinforce diversity and inclusion for everyone.This is an exciting year not only just because we're

receiving this honor, but it's also our 10th year anniversary here in October.

The VOICE ERG strives to develop a sense of community with people with disabilities, advocates and employees and family

members who may have disabilities.The VOICE ERG is very grateful for the support we receive

from the executive management. You've seen in the years past we've had Wes Bush who was keynote speaker, president and CEO, just the other day as a matter of fact Tuesday morning our Chief Operating Officer had an opportunity to speak with you. Gloria Flach, that's the kind of corporate leadership that is making groups like ours successful so hopefully you all get the same leadership we have

We also have many other visitors with us tonight, distinguished executives and all of them are championing the disability inclusive workforce that we certainly would not be here if we didn't have their leadership.

So without the additional passion and commitment of a very, very important lady, she couldn't be with us this evening but our very own executive sponsor, Terry Marconi who happens to be vice president and general manager of Northrop Grumman mission systems we would not be here because of her undying tenacious spirit -- it was a word we used at one of our board meetings -- has made us successful because she does fight down all the barriers we may all encounter. With that once again I'd like to thank you and we're humbled with this award.

(Applause).>> GERARD DEHRMANN: I think Northrop might have the secret

sauce. I've been told by a little bird that there's 70 people here from Northrop. That's one way to represent and it manifested itself in 11 job offers which is pretty cool. I think from a Walmart perspective why we're not doing more and why we're behind and I think it's a good challenge for everyone in the room not for my team, my team is great. I love you all. But it's more of collectively we should be, could be and we will be doing more.

I am also just waiting on the script somewhere to see Walmart get an award but I keep flipping the pages and there's nothing. Weird. Jill. Typo. See? She walks off the stage. That's bad karma.

For me, not her, of course.So we've got a real special speaker to introduce you to him,

I'd like to have -- let's see Kevin Preston who is manager at Global Diversity and Inclusion at the Walt Disney Company introduce our keynote speaker tonight. Kevin.

>> KENNETH PRICE: Good evening all. I'm proud to be here representing the Disney company, it is built on the story telling, every story starts with people, each of 195,000 employees around the world has a unique story.

A story that contributes to our strength and our ability to create moments, memories and magic that last a lifetime. We're

committed to providing a safe, respectful, inclusive workplace where everyone can contribute and grow.

Throughout our company, we see how being inclusive helps us be more creative and innovative. That's one reason we're here to sponsor USBLN. This commitment to inclusion is not just a longstanding part of what we do, it is central to who we are.

Tonight I have the honor of introducing Nyle DiMarco, Nyle DiMarco is a model that first rose to prominence as winner of America's next top model's 21st season, the first deaf contestant and dancing with the stars, currently he appears in Hulu's difficult people. After graduating from Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C., with a degree in mathematics he was chosen by social media and pursued modeling and acting, now an ambassador for the deaf community he serve as honorary spokesperson for language equality and acquisition for deaf kids. In 2015 he launched the Nyle DiMarco Foundation which aims to empower and improve the lives of deaf children across the globe, inspiration within the deaf community and beyond now continues to prove his talent as a model, actor, and activist.

I'm pleased to welcome Nyle DiMarco!(Applause).>> NYLE DIMARCO: Perfect. Wow, thank you all for having

me. Hold on, let's get this working.There we go.Technical difficulties.Okay.Sorry about that. Technical issues. But whatever. We'll

get started. Thank you all for having me here. I have to say it's such an honor to be here and I also want to thank Kevin with Disney. Thank you so much for introducing me. And also I really am looking forward to being here and discussing about inclusion. This is a topic very dear to my heart.

"Bam when President Obama at the time had his proclamation that October was going to be national disability employment awareness month, he said, "America is strongest when we recognize people of their differences and recognize that in them."

And I couldn't agree with him more. I always say again and again that human diversity colors the world.

Currently at this time, we have 55 million people with disabilities in the United States alone.

Globally we have 1.1 billion people with disabilities.So imagine this. 1 billion people out of 7 billion people

on the planet. We're everywhere.And since we are everywhere, what's most important, what's

the next step to make sure that we have true inclusion, that we're including people with disabilities within the workforce and make sure that they are able to thrive, that they can earn an

income to support their families.You know, to accomplish how we do this and to accomplish

this is through education.And you might ask why education? True inclusion begins at

birth. When a person is born and they have a disability, you need to invest in their early education at the very onset. Statistics, UNESCO said that 98% of people with disabilities do not have access to formal education, 98%.

99% of girls with disabilities are not literate and cannot write. So this is a serious issue that we're facing here.

My success really has stemmed from my upbringing because I could define who I was because I had the privilege of education and access to bilingual education from birth.

I grew up in a deaf family. My parents were deaf. My grandparents were deaf. I have two brothers that are deaf. I have over 25 members in my family that are deaf.

So going back four generations. I also went to deaf schools.

I also went to Gallaudet University which is the only deaf university in the world.

(Applause).And with education, I was able to do what I wanted to

accomplish. I could go out and go skateboarding with my long flowing hair. I didn't care what people thought of me. I was able to play sports. I was a member of after school programs and activities.

I was able to identify and define who I was with pride and confidence.

Again, I was privileged. I came with privilege. My parents knew what to do with me. I was very fortunate that I was able to get an education.

So unfortunately, we have seven million -- 70 million people, deaf, worldwide and only two percent of them have access to education in sign language.

So imagine those people, that language deprivation. They don't have the same privilege that I was fortunate to have. I was very lucky.

So with my platform and my platform that has exploded, I want to take advantage of how to actually help people. So I established my own foundation. I work with other deaf organizations and partner with them to make sure that we can pass legislation on the state level to make sure that all deaf children from birth have access to language from day one

(Applause).Thank you.So now as a person with a disability, I believe and know

that businesses have the power and responsibility to invest in

this community and actually raise -- or bring people with disabilities into the workforce. And how you can do that is work with other organizations, different organizations, partner with them. Empower them.

Because they know what's best. They know how to change the world. And with them, with persons with disabilities, you can make that change.

And if a company chooses not to hire that person, you're going to be missing out on getting the best person possible for that position.

The reason being why are you missing out? Because often times as a person with a disability like myself, we bring a different perspective. We have different ideas that would benefit companies out there. Because we know people with disabilities see lives in a very different way. Through a different lens.

Often times you see different commercials that are so inspiring. Who are people behind that? Are people with disabilities. They bring a new fresh idea to the companies and help them thrive.

So today earlier at lunch I came and I enjoyed the panel discussion. And somebody asked a question can millenials, people with disabilities contribute to innovation?

And a panelist said yes, of course. Because this is something that we have -- people with disabilities have figured out how to accommodate the system that we see.

We constantly have to do that with the system and we're offering them solutions within the system to make it better. So basically innovation is in our blood.

You know, the deaf community for many years going back -- we have fought hard to make sure that closed captioning appears on TV. And now we finally have closed captioning on TV and a lot of times when you go to bars you see how loud it is or to the gym, the closed captioning is always on. Basically, I say on behalf of the deaf community, you are welcome. It's because of us deaf people that thought of that

(Applause).I would like to show another example. It's a video. If you

wouldn't mind playing the video for the audience.>> NYLE DIMARCO: Thank you for that. Yeah.That video -- you know, before I actually took that

opportunity on in dancing with the stars, a lot of people said this is impossible. Deaf people can't dance because you can't break that idea between music and sound being interrelated. They have to be connected and you can't take that away. I broke that idea. Because I knew -- I know there are ways. I know there are ways to get around that. You can fix that misconception.

And I knew that there are a lot of deaf people out there that are amazing dancers, probably even better than me. So I made it work. Because there are a lot of different cues that you don't see like tapping myself -- being tapped on the chowder to know it's time to dance or scratching the back to mean you're running late, speed it up or a head nod when I know I was supposed to approach Pita. There are ways to make it work. It takes two to tango as they always say. And also with this, you know, in the middle of that song when the sound goes out and comes back on, do you understand how deaf people live every day without being able to hear? And they still make it work.

So in that video, you know, it was the first in history in dancing with the stars. And maybe even in dancing history because it's a new way to tell a story, a new perspective. It went viral on the Internet because the person behind that was deaf. He knew the new lens that you needed to see. This applies to so many companies that are here needing to hire people with disabilities. Because we bring a fresh perspective, a new awareness.

So now we've been talking about inclusion all night. So I do want to teach you a couple signs. Are you guys ready out there? Okay. So the sign for inclusion, let's see everybody do it. Come on, join me. Inclusion.

Now do it on your own. Let's see it. I want to see it out there. Okay, you pass.

You've learned one sign, it's pretty easy, right? Before I show you another video, I wanted to talk about the Disability Equality Index. The Disability Equality Index. It's -- in-depth business tool that lets people measure the disability inclusivity efforts. This year was a record. We had 110 companies that actually entered the Disability Equality Index program and 96 of them earned top scores above 80%.

608 companies earned a top score of 100. That proves these are proven leaders in their industry. So now, we're going to show a video of the best places to work in regards to disability inclusion.

(Video)(Applause).>> NYLE DIMARCO: Perfect. So I hope that my speech helped

you to understand the importance of inclusion. Whether working with myself or other organizations, reach out, hire people with disabilities. I hope you enjoyed my presentation. And have a great night. Thank you.

(Applause).>> GERARD DEHRMANN: So what an amazing story, Nyle. That

was fantastic, another round of applause, please.>> NYLE DIMARCO: Thank you.

>> GERARD DEHRMANN: So I've been spreading a lot of Gospel tonight around people giving things away, scholarships, other fun stuff like that. I was so touched by your words and your cause particularly around what your foundation is doing that right here on the spot I'd like to say that Walmart foundation is going to donate $10,000 to the Nyle DiMarco foundation to help diversity color the world and make change. So thank you.

>> NYLE DIMARCO: Thank you so much.>> GERARD DEHRMANN: All right. So take that! Somehow, some

way, I was going to get Walmart into this. Now my team is wondering who is paying for all this with the foundation, which is great. Who knows? Who knows? It's a big foundation. $300 million a year, we X scrape out 10,000 for a great cause.

All right. Moving on now. We've got a few more big awards. This will be like as you get into the Oscars and best director, the program has gone over two hours how it was supposed to have gone on even though we're pretty much on time though my rambling is not helping right now. The next award without further ado is for Employer of the Year for a company with less than 100,000 employees. The winner is ...

(Applause).>> GERARD DEHRMANN: To accept the award on behalf of

Florida Blue is Amy Ruth, chief HR officer.Amy?>> Amy Ruth: Thank you so much. Never in my life did I

think I would take a podium following someone like Nyle DiMarco. So what an honor this is. I cried when I watched that episode of dancing with the stars and I'm not going to lie, I got a little teary eyed back stage just now too. This is quite a recognition for us at Florida Blue. This is a journey that we've been on, we were sharing stories at din about trying to ask the company for $25,000 years ago just to start this program because it had such a potential to give back to our organization.

Just last week our CEO pat Geraghty issued a memo to the organization to talk about the importance of respect in the world and in our company.

And in our community.And when we think about respect, we think about celebrating

diversity and all aspects of diversity as we try to live our mission of helping people and communities achieve better health.

So I'm so proud to represent the work that our team does, the intro talked about our growth and accommodations, Jen Wilburn is here and she's the one who leads that for us and she's extremely proud on behalf of all of us at Florida Blue to receive this recognition. Thank you very much Jill and team at USBLN. I would be remiss if I didn't put a challenge out to all of us. For me while the awards are wonderful and are a testament for

what this means for our organization and how dedicated we are to evening the playing field, for me, my best celebration for this would be when we don't need awards at all. And we just treat everyone the same. Thank you very much.

>> GERARD DEHRMANN: All right. Now we're going to the big one here, Employer of the Year for a company -- this is 100,000 employees or more. So I'm sure Walmart was nominated for this but did not win. Spoiler alert. Spoiler alert. Whew. Employer of the Year for a company with more than 100,000 employees. Here we go.

(Video)>> GERARD DEHRMANN: To accept the award on behalf of IBM,

is Lindsay-Rae McIntyre, chief diversity officer.

>> LINDSAY-RAE MCINTYRE: Good evening.Nyle did such an amazing job, I thought maybe we'd stay in

language. Is that okay with you. We're really excited to accept this award tonight. We've been thinking about this night and Jill and her amazing team started their journey with IBM before the USBLN really was a thing.

We started our journey before 1994 and we've just been so honored to work with them since then.

We've created and invented many, many programs like the Rising Leaders mentoring program and the program for diversity supplier programs.

In sharing knowledge, best practices and successes, we can strongly affect, collaborate and impact the changing landscape for people with disabilities and tap into this amazing community of diverse talent.

IBM will continue to advance the technologies that will benefit people of all abilities. For example, right now we're working with Local Motors, to create the world's most accessible self-driving vehicle. Named Olli.

Olli will transform the transportation experience for all, including those with limited mobility.

Catering to the personal needs and preferences of all its riders

Another example is IBM's research organization that's collaborating with different business partners to create a high precision navigation system.

This mobile app is being tested in Japan and guides people with various disabilities to their destination using the most accessible route.

From partnerships and using technology to creating a barrier-free society.

IBM will continue to do what we've done for over a century. And that is advocate for diversity and inclusion for people of all abilities.

Thank you so much. We're honored to accept this award(Applause).>> GERARD DEHRMANN: Now we've got a real special treat for

everyone. To announce this next I'm going to tap out for a minute and invite John Kemp, president and CEO of the Viscardi Center and vicar -- Viscardi center and first CEO of the USBLN to present this award. John?

>> John Kemp: There's serious talent in the house tonight. Isn't there? How about Gerard. Gerard, I think you're looking at an Emmy or something, outstanding performance. Don't you think? What a great guy.

I look out at this audience and all I can say is I'm so overwhelmed and stunned by the growth and development of the USBLN and its Affiliate Network and partners and young people who are involved and the DOBEs and all of you just thank you very much and who is responsible for this? It's Jill Houghton. Extraordinaire. Her incredible staff. Jenny Lay-Flurrie, the incredible board. Congratulations. I see so many friends and colleagues here, this is where I cut my teeth. I love employers side of issues and love educating and improving quality of opportunities for people with disabilities.

I also know that we have our earn employer assistance and resource network for disability inclusion group from the Viscardi Center and we're proud to partner with ODEP on that to deliver resources to employers. But my topic and opportunity is to talk about leadership.

Leadership something we really need now in our country.(Applause).Moral leadership is what we need now in our country.(Cheers and applause.) That's the overarching theme with this honor that I have

of having an award in my name. I am so proud that it's really focused on moral leadership.

I love and honor diversity and differences.Differences in disabilities, skin color, religion, national

origin, sexual and gender identity. I love the differences.I stand against any groups supremacy like my friend Tim

Ruddell. I stand against prejudice and fear. I stand with each of you in our battle for dignity for humanity.

(Applause).So which company has demonstrated the greatest leadership,

moral leadership and is deserving of the John D. Kemp Leadership Award? Please go to the screens..

>> Ladies and gentlemen, Steve Howe.

>> STEVE HOWE: Almost feel like I should accept this award for Walmart.

(Laughter)Feel like it's Gerard's last chance. Let me start with

thank you to Jill and John. I'm really honored and humbled to be here on this stage. And John, who I had the great pleasure to meet just earlier tonight, really humbled to hear those remarks. And the important work that's being done by Jill and this USBLN team is just so on display for all of us. My first visit to this conference. It's amazing just to walk down the hallways. I feel like I've learned a lot. And watched a lot that I will learn from. And the impact that all of you and USBLN are having on business, business is small and large is truly significant.

I feel really privileged to be among the many who are trying to lead the way for people with disabilities.

And I can tell you that I'm inspired to do even more leaving this conference. And we know as we study this at least 1 in 5 people in the U.S. has a disability.

So abilities inclusion is not just an important societal issue. It's really important for business.

It's important for all companies.And it's really our responsibility as business leaders to

continue on this journey.Let me share a little bit about EY and how our organization

approaches Diversity and Inclusion. As you saw on the video, I lead our business in the Americas I'm the chairman and CEO of our U.S. firm, so I'm responsible for about 70,000 people. About two-thirds of them are millenials and we also keep track of about 300,000 alumni in the Americas as well. We serve thousands of clients from entrepreneurs to the largest companies who are shaping the world for tomorrow. And we believe that creating a diverse and inclusive culture is actually our number one priority. At EY.

Not only do we know it's the right thing to do, we know it makes us better. We know that inclusion -- this is another thing Nyle, I learned, right? Did I get that right? Is an absolute business imperative. It truly does drive better performance, increases quality, enhances innovation, and improved the results of our teams in the field.

We have come to fundamentally believe that across all 70,000 people.

Mean diversity in all respects. Background, education, gender, ethnicity, generation, working styles, thinking styles, sexual orientation, physical, cognitive, emotional differences and abilities.

And while the business case is important, I thought I would share as well that I am personally passionate about diversity and

inclusiveness particularly abilities inclusion for some professional and personal reasons.

My father who is deceased had a disability. At 18 he was in a terrible car accident. Laughed three of his closest friends, and had his mobility impaired for the rest of his life with his legs shortened, stiffened, and required to wear a special boot to walk.

His experience made me acutely aware of the fact that our abilities can change at any moment.

My dad was determined to prove to his family and then to others that hard work should be able to lead to success, even for people with disabilities.

Upon joining EY, I learned that one of our founders, Arthur young, came to America from glass you go, Scotland. He had a hearing disability. He was a lawyer and found that it was difficult to practice law 100 years ago in the courtroom without being able to hear the oral arguments. So he looked for a new profession. And in 1890, moved to Chicago and pursued a career in the then emerging field of accounting. He was one of the first people in Illinois to be admitted as a certified public accountant. His deafness led him to be an innovator. And become one of the great entrepreneurs of the early 20th Century. His legacy inspires all of us at EY to maintain an environment where everybody should have a sense of belonging and should be able to bring the best of themselves to work every day. So today Arthur young's legacy also informs our belief that people can be disabled by at least two things: The environment and people's perceptions.

So at EY, we work hard to build an environment to enable all people, to be respectful and inclusive, and leave no person disabled.

We also believe that the most inclusive organizations reach beyond these labels of disabled and treat differences and abilities like any other difference.

No single dimension of a person's diverse abilities defines who they are.

And we know as I said earlier, that bringing all aspects of diverse talent to the table leveraging in an inclusive way those skills and experiences and differences makes us better helps us create better answers, helps us serve our clients. Helps us deliver innovation.

We're also committed to improving our physical spaces, our things, our tools and resources and believe in the stories you heard from Microsoft and IBM and others tonight and in this conference.

We want to make work accessible to everyone and to enhance our inclusive culture.

And I want to mention one program that I'm particularly proud of that we've really launched in just the last year, our neurodiversity program.

And this is really a ground breaking initiative. We're integrating the skill sets of individuals with autism into our organization and maximizing their abilities to support our people and serve our clients.

Some of these people never dreamed that they would come to work every day. Live in their own apartment. I've spoken even to their parents. We started with four people in Philadelphia, have just expanded to Dallas where we've hired 10 people on the spectrum and we intend to expand this program further.

(Applause).See, at EY, our purpose is to deliver the best quality to

our clients.But also to make a difference. To make a difference in all

of the communities we do work in, which are all the communities across the United States and the world.

At EY we commit to mentoring and equitably sponsoring individuals with diverse abilities in order to truly harness the power of all.

To build inclusive cultures and the diversity of our teams and like Arthur Young, those with diverse abilities will help us drive innovation and growth across our great organization. I'll close with a couple more thoughts.

We're not quite at the level of Northrop Grumman, but I do want to recognize a few tables of EY people who are here tonight.

And share this recognition with me and on behalf of all of our people at EY.

Led by our own Lori Goldman.(Applause).Who I know is just plain Lori to most of you as I learned.Thanks for your hard work every day building our inclusive

workplace culture.And I feel good at EY, as our leader, knowing that our

people really believe they can be themselves every day.We try and reinforce that through our communications,

through the tone we set, through the culture we build. And I also know that in our country today, this is more important than ever.

I also -- this May, when we were recognized as the number one company in the United States by diversity, Inc., for diversity and inclusion, and I shared that night in accepting that recognition -- I'll say it again today -- that you know, for us it's not a competition.

We're all in this together. If we as a company and I as a CEO have inspired others, then that is just great in our book.

And so finally, thank you again Jill and John, the USBLN for this wonderful award and your longstanding commitment and know that I and EY will be back at it immediately after continuing this journey and being as inclusive as we can be. Thank you very much.

(Applause).>> GERARD DEHRMANN: All right. Congratulations, quite an

honor, Steve, great speech.(Applause). Also always great to see John as well. Round of applause

for him.Should all strive to have an award named after us. We know

he did something really good and we left a legacy, which is great. So with that being said, I have something that's been added to the script and No, it's not a special award that will be bestowed upon my company. Although I guess I could just announce it. So this is for a retailer just based in Arkansas and employs 1.3 million people. Very exclusive category.

(Laughter)But we're going to be more inclusive. So instead we're

going to give away a TV, not from Walmart but this is another one of our giveaways from today from discover things, the winner of the insignia 1080p smart TV is Lawrence Davis, Jr., with George vocational rehabilitation agency. Lawrence, apparently you get the honor of picking it up back stage and trying to get it home. So good luck with that.

I'm sure we'll figure out a way to get it to your place or we could just order that TV on Walmart.com. It could be delivered right to your doorstep or you can use grocery pickup and we'll put it curbside in your car for you. All of those things work. I don't know that Amazon offers any of those services. I wouldn't even try.

(Laughter)I just don't know. I don't study them. The only Seattle

company I love is Microsoft.And by the way, how great is Jenny and her leadership at the

USBLN board.(Applause).I know people mentioned it in passing but it's an honor to

serve on the USBLN board. If all the board members could stand up they deserve a round of applause for all their hard work and the time they put in.

(Applause).So we've come to the end of the road for me and before I

introduce the final speaker of the night, I wanted to thank Jill and the team for giving me this high honor of being the master of ceremonies, my wit and sometimes wisdom comes through hopefully.

If not, I certainly won't be invited back. But the price is right for me because I'm free. And every once in a while I can keep the program going. I will tell you for those who don't know me or know what I do, my day job involves an awful lot of working with government officials, state and local level. Some of the people who would be considered in the swamp. And it's inspiring to me especially on a night like tonight where my phone purposely, by the way, is one of those things I'm trying to instill with my kids, put your phone down and live in the moment. I've been off my phone now for two hours, haven't checked Twitter, Facebook, my team has probably been posting stuff which is great. I'll have that to look forward to. But I've been struck by all the great award recipients and great speeches and great messages we've heard tonight of the. And for me last year when I was able to speak and this year get to spend more time with folks and get to know folks a little bit better, it's an inspiration for me in many ways. Not only a CTRL/ALT delete reset of what's going on in the world today but when you can be inspired with the folks in this room, Rising Leaders, business leadership and everyone in here who will go back to doing what they do, you got to have a lot more hope walking out of here than you had walking in. That's on all of you guys and everyone. So congratulations to all the award winners. One last round of applause for them.

To Jill and the team, to Marriott, to everyone else and now I get the honor as my last order of business to introduce USBLN executive vice president, Liz Taub to take us home. Thank you, everyone.

(Applause).>> LIZ TAUB: My goal is just not to fall.His name was Nicky Ember. He was born in 1920 in Vienna and

as a young child he was already recognizable as a budding artist prodigy.

When World War II started, his mother succeeded in escaping to Shanghai.

But Nicky was taken to Dachau, a concentration camp in Germany.

While there, he endured unimaginable pain and suffering watching friends and family die.

So he began to plot his escape.Nicky worked really hard to memorize the face of one of the

Nazi guards.Almost.He saved most of his preciously scarce bread, water, and

sand for weeks.Using his skills as a sculptor, he chopped up the bread,

mixed it with sand and water, and carved himself a mask of the

face of a Nazi guard. Then he stole a Nazi uniform from the tailor shop.

One day he put on the uniform and the mask and walked out the front gate.

Past the guards and past the watchdogs.By the way, this is a true story. Against all odds, against

the barbed wire, against the Nazis, against the watch towers, against the odds of the millions of innocent people who were murdered, Nicky survived and went on to become a famous sculptor.

Because, folks, extreme circumstances are the birthplace of innovation. Necessity is the birthplace of innovation. Every day people with disabilities are living in a world that is stacked against us to come up with unexpected ways to survive and to thrive.

Like Louie Braugh who invented a communication system as a teenager that people in this very room rely on today, millennia later. Because genius comes in unexpected places. Over the past several days you have hopefully had a chance to meet our outstanding Rising Leaders. They are our future and our future looks bright. Lots of pressure for the students!

Let's challenge ourselves to give the Rising Leaders a chance to demonstrate their personal genius to allow that unexpected genius to have novel applications on business.

Some of you have taken us up on that challenge. In fact, Northrop Grumman is leaving this conference after making 11 offers and counting, Boston Scientific two and counting, many of you showed up big this week. Thank you, PNC Bank, Boeing, I'm sure I'm going to forget people.

So it's a dangerous road. But Northrup, you've set the bar and you've set it high.

Last but certainly not least, on behalf of the USBLN team, I want to thank our fearless leader, our boss, our friend, our mentor, this organization is a beautiful reflection of you, Jill.

(Applause).We invite you to mark your calendars and join us at the 21st

annual USBLN conference July 9th-12th, 2018 at the cosmopolitan of Las Vegas and it's a Marriott property.

The theme is next gen disability inclusion and branding is first come, first served. I want to exit stage by thanking each of you for being here, for supporting the organization and for literally being here innovating with us and creating a new reality.

I know you're all taking time away from your families, your day jobs some of you, your office, your life, and we sincerely appreciate it. So thank you. Have a wonderful night.

(Applause) ***

This text is being provided in a rough draft Format.  Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) or captioning are provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings.

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