one afternoon my son and I had just Dow
stepped out of a cafe he was three years
old at the time and without any warning
he took off running straight ahead into
heavy traffic I was screaming calling
his name pleading for him to stop and
without a moment to lose
I managed to grab the back of his
t-shirt just in the nick of time pulling
him back just as a car rushed past his
little body inches from us this was
before we knew he was deaf since the
diagnosis of my son my life has been
immersed in the world of advocacy and
activism for children just like him and
I’m not alone there are thousands of
people across this country that are
doing the same and strides have been
made struggles have moved forward but
there’s a lot of good things that have
happened for example no baby leaves the
hospital without having their hearing
checked we have state and federal laws
in place meant to ensure that students
with disabilities have equal access to
education we even have in some states
insurance mandates that cover hearing
aids for babies and children so it’s not
like we haven’t achieved anything at all
but we do have to question and ask
ourselves one very important thing is
that if there still prevails a large
opportunity gap then maybe we are a
culture of exclusion when you have a 50%
unemployed and you have another 10 to 20
percent of severely
employed then we do have to look a
little deeper and ask ourselves harder
questions as I was thinking about
launching my initiative let me tell you
how that came about there were many
indicators along the way as I started
observing a rapidly evolving workforce I
noticed a lot of indicators that made it
clear to me that perhaps we are at a
crossroads of great opportunity we have
increased were remote working styles
people can work out a state people can
work out of their homes we have
increased digital communication within
industries and corporations across all
sectors text messaging email platforms
like slack the US Department of Labor
has projected that by the year 2020
there’s going to be over a million jobs
requiring individuals with computer
science skill sets across all sectors
across all states but here is the the
main points and there are two of them
that was the catalyst for me launching
this computer science computer
programming coding is global and it’s
visual its global and it’s visual it’s a
visual voice to the world perhaps it can
do what society has not been able to do
maybe it is the great equalizer I
believe that the digital age is the
great equalizer as I was formulating the
idea of deaf kids code I was thinking to
myself how is that going to
look how is that going to happen and
what is going to be of the most great
impact so I thought to myself well it’s
going to be hands-on it’s going to be
visual it’s going to be interactive and
most importantly it was going to promote
and provoke stimulation it was very
deliberate to stimulate that interest in
pursuing this knowledge let me tell you
about when I started searching for
feedback among administrators and
educators across the country just trying
to get some feedback from them what they
thought and I’ll never ever forget what
the director of diverse learners for a
city public school district told me he
said I welcome anything that can break
the school to couch pattern school to
couch pattern never thought of it that
way
but he’s not wrong with all the early
intervention and everything that we’re
doing this is the paradigm this is the
so feeling as though I had nothing to
lose let me tell you about my very first
workshop I was going to work with a
group of middle schoolers over summer
school and I had asked the teacher some
feedback tell me about these kids that
I’m going to be working with and she
said I’m just warning you that they’re
behind by several years English math
especially on average these kids are
three years behind so of course I myself
started questioning oh my gosh how on
earth are they going to figure out
command sequences algorithms complex
problem-solving
if they’re on average three years behind
on math but let me tell you what
happened that day was nothing short of
extraordinary
it was it really was
these kids were immersed in deep
autonomous learning they were executing
tasks and writing code as though they
had had some previous experience as if
they had done any of this before and I
can tell you that they hadn’t less than
1% of the hundreds of children that I’ve
had the privilege of working with have
had any knowledge or notion of computer
science it was so unbelievable what
these kids were doing that the teacher
took me aside and she said I’m sorry I’m
sorry
can you tell me again what are these
kids doing I said they’re programming in
JavaScript it was so magical what was
happening that the principal of the
school called in the superintendent to
come in they all knew the enormity of
what was happening
in that moment the superintendent came
in being a longtime educator himself
took out his personal cell phone and
started taking video footage of what was
happening we all knew what was going
from that day forward I decided without
a doubt that I was going to spread this
knowledge to as many deaf and
hard-of-hearing children as I possibly
can there have been so many moments that
have been magical is no other way to put
it
let me tell you about a few weeks ago I
had the privilege of working with a
group of girls and in our hardware
segment I was going to give them a
challenge I had been saving up our
garbage our recyclables and I dumped it
in the middle of the classroom and I
told them okay you have to figure out a
way to repurpose this garbage make it
useful create a gadget do something
whatever you want they have to go
through the whole design process right
visualization sketch it out wire it up
construct it let me show you what they
did that’s a cereal box
that’s a discarded carton berry holder
cardboard all of that in one hour they
did that in one hour with no prior
experience that is the next generation
of our problem solvers this is who we
should be embracing to be the next
problem solvers this is the next
generation of greatness I don’t know
about you but I welcome them to search
for resolving some of our world’s
greatest challenges I welcome that and
we should too we all of us should
because we ultimately are the greatest
beneficiaries of such talent and the
notion that they may end up on the couch
should be criminal for a population
where the majority of them do not have
an intellectual disability we should not
be so easily accepting of this what I
have learned is that the capacity for
greatness is simply seeing what others
don’t so simple not complicated
I started this having no research having
no data no evidence that this was going
to work I created this organization on
two simple things intuition and a blind
belief that somehow this was going to be
it and I’ve been so fortunate so
fortunate that I’m right we are right we
should have an ecosystem embracing our
children and cultivating the next
generation let me tell you how many
emails I have received from these kids
writing to me and saying I want to
continue learning my dream now is to
build a website I see myself as an app
developer just two days ago I received
an email a girl that wants to be in a
digital animator she’s saying tell me
how let’s talk about inclusion for a
second inclusion and diversity the data
is out and we know that it is a powerful
economic driver we know it makes
companies and industries more
competitive and regardless of what
anybody says it should not be a
political debate the value of this
inclusion and diversity is the societal
I’m going to leave you with this quote
sometimes it is the people no one
imagines anything of that do the things
that no one can imagine thank you
[Applause]
[Music] [Applause]