The Accidental Ally

Happy Birthday, Luke!!!!

Our team at The Accidental Ally had the opportunity to visit with one of my favorite people Anshu Bhardwaj who is the SVP and COO at Walmart Global Tech! I was very fortunate to have worked with Anshu when she was leading product at Sam's Club a few years ago. It was under Anshu's leadership that I was given the opportunity to work on several high impact projects including #WebAccessibility. It is there that the seed for the Accidental Ally was planted. Anshu has always been a strong supporter of our work. She has always encouraged me to keep doing the work, to keep persisting in the face of challenges. I have learned a lot from working with her, from observing her. What stands out for me about Anshu is that as a leader she leads with a people-first mindset. She has the ability to see potential and aptitude in people and then creates opportunities for them to realize that potential. She did this with me countless times without me realizing it. She kept throwing me into projects I had no experience or skills for but she knew I would figure it out. As we kicked off the summer internship at the Accidental Ally, it was important for me to introduce my team to senior leaders like Anshu so that they can learn from her, get her advise on how to go about realizing your true potential. No one has done it better than Anshu has. She shared her professional journey of focusing on what's in front of her, developing a learning mindset and going with the flow of things. Thank you Anshu for your time, for your kind words to the team and for encouraging them to keep working hard! I will forever be grateful to you and the team at Sam's Club for the 2 yrs I got to spend with you exploring some of the most incredible projects and for creating the launch pad I needed to start my work at The Accidental Ally ! Thank you to Ram Rampalli and Sanjeeth Cherian for joining us and sharing your lessons learned from your own professional journeys. A huge shout out to Rebecca Del Biaggio for your kind, compassionate and warm welcome to our team, for the tour of the facility and for doing the cheer with us! We had a great time!

Here they come.... Priya + Luke + Aditi + Nikita + Ashvik + Delphi + Maia + Sofia Welcome to Team The Accidental Ally ! We are excited to have you on board! Gayatri + Rohan + Laith + Rojene + Michael!

Happy Birthday Rojene!

Earlier this year, I was in the Andes mountains in a remote village in Peru. I was there to take a plunge in the freezing but healing waters of the Sacred Black Lagoon. Later that day, I spent some time with a local shaman who was an elderly man who didn't speak english. We sat in a dark, old room with a shrine. He began reciting his prayers and after a long pause began to tell me about my life. I tried to keep up using google translate on my phone. He said many things to me about my life that were accurate. He described my work and said 'You are a professor? You teach'. He followed it up with, 'There are more out there and they are coming'. I didn't know how to react. More? Where? How? My team and I had kicked off 2024 feeling optimistic about new opportunities and doors opening for us. But for reasons outside of our control, many of these opportunities did not materialize. I was on the verge of hopelessness when I went on this trip. In a way, I was looking for some answers. I needed a break to think about what I needed to do differently to keep the wheels of this work turning. Today, I am beyond excited to tell you that the shaman in the mountains was right. There are more and they are here! In addition to nurturing and growing the talented individuals on my team today, I have been working diligently and eagerly to connect with new disabled talent and their families to expand the impact of our work. The Accidental Ally is dedicated to creating career pathways for individuals with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (IDD). Our work has two main focuses: training these individuals to develop marketable skills and collaborating with employers to create work opportunities where they can learn and grow. We are not a nonprofit, recruiting or staffing agency, or disability services provider. Instead, we operate as a cost-neutral business, funded by employers who partner with us to establish work programs specifically designed for these individuals. We have successfully executed several impactful work programs with various tech companies. Each summer, we invite new individuals with disabilities to join our team through an internship program. This program allows us to grow our team and explore ways to expand the impact of our work. This year, we are thrilled to have a groundbreaking internship with a record number of interns. The interns will engage in team projects across four tracks: Gen AI in Retail, Animation, Filmmaking, and Digital Marketing. We thank everyone for your ongoing support and please stay tuned for updates as we embark on this exciting ride! Please enjoy this 'Coming Soon' video. Video description - A coming soon video with music, a gold confetti background. Video description in the comments.

I have built the foundation of The Accidental Ally to be strongly rooted in one of my strongest beliefs - everyone deserves to have the opportunity to realize their true potential. I have over two decades of experience in tech but I knew in my gut that a tech centric approach to this problem would not deliver impact. I needed to take a grassroots approach, leading with a people-first mindset, diving in with a human-centric approach to understand the problem and the people I am solving for. I have spent 4 years deeply entrenched in looking at this problem from various angles, testing and iterating on solutions and most importantly spending day after day with a group of young people with cognitive disabilities who have taught me everything I know today. Our initiatives are powered by people, by compassion, by a deep understanding of the challenges and barriers people with disabilities face, by a passion to deliver a transformative shift from focusing on the disability to focusing on discovering ability, and most importantly, our initiatives are powered by love. We thank everyone that has supported our work and we are excited to partner with teams small and large to bring about a transformative shift in the disability employment space. Over the next few days, we will share more information on each of our initiatives. Here is a preview. We are a small but mighty team. When you work with us, you don't interact with a platform, you interact with real people! #TheAccidentalAlly #DisabilityEmployment #Inclusion #Compassion #HumanCentric

Early thanks to the nine talk hosts who will knock it out of the park with their collective diversity of thought and experience at this Friday's 9th Accessibility Camp Bay Area: Ken Bigler, Christina Chang, Andrew 🦔 Hedges, Ugurcan Kutluoglu, Brian McNeilly, Linda Nakasone, Yvonne (Yiwen) Hou, Sarah G. Wood, PhD, and Rachael Yomtoob https://lnkd.in/dCQMWY4S

Product managers typically focus on "mainstream use cases," which are common, frequent, and predictable scenarios encountered by most users. However, addressing "edge cases"—rare or unusual situations—can significantly enhance the overall user experience. Edge cases, though infrequent, present unique challenges that, when solved, lead to greater inclusivity, reliability, innovation, user satisfaction, and compliance. An example of an edge case is in ride-sharing apps ( Uber and Lyft ) involving individuals with cognitive disabilities who face difficulties using these services due to safety and anxiety concerns. Addressing this could involve creating a pool of vetted drivers, allowing scheduled rides with the same driver, and offering fixed rates. This not only benefits those with disabilities but also other vulnerable groups like children and the elderly, ensuring a more inclusive and secure service. At The Accidental Ally , ensuring accessible transportation is available is crucial for creating career pathways for people with cognitive and intellectual disabilities. Addressing transportation barriers is essential for building tehir financial independence and fostering inclusivity. If you know someone at Uber or Lyft please share this article with them. We are eager for this to get the proper attention it deserves. There is an opportunity here to explore this particular edge case and build a solution that is a win-win for everyone! What are your thoughts on this?

Thank you Rohan Bhupatiraju for creating this lovely card! Happy 4th The Accidental Ally birthday!!

The one thing most speakers get wrong in their demo reel. I've watched hundreds of demo reels by now. Do you know I've noticed in the best ones? A great demo reel isn't just a random collection of clips. A great demo reel tells the hero's journey. But it's not YOUR hero's journey. 👉 It's the audience's journey. 👈 You, the speaker, are supposed to be the guide/mentor/guru. The only thing your demo reel needs to answer is: "What does this speaker have that the woman in row 3, seat 8 needs to hear?" Your talk has nothing to do with you, and everything to do with your avatar. #storytelling, #personalBranding, #publicSpeaking, #business, #demoReel ____________________________________________________________ Ready to take your speaking journey to the next level? DM me "demo reel" and I can tell you right away if you're a good fit for our done-for-you program.