Hello, and welcome to another episode of Coffee and code. It's now May, which is one of my favorite months because it's spring. And all of the flowers are blooming and it's just nice to be in nature again. But it's also mental health awareness month, and Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, and Global Accessibility Awareness Day, which happens to fall on May 19.
I'm so excited to have a special guest on the show with me today. Mr. Albert Kim.
Albert and I met in California this past March and accessibility tech conference, and I was immediately inspired by Albert's story. I'm so excited to have him on the show with us today. So without further ado, Albert cam, welcome to the show.
Thank you for having me. Nice to meet you, everyone.
Thank you, Albert. So a little introduction to Albert. Albert Kim is a neurodivergent accessibility leader who specializes and including D E. i A from the design phase in solving the usability challenges of digital products. As a Marine veteran, Albert is also an active advocate and including cognitive learning and mental disabilities into the digital accessibility. Currently, Albert is an accessibility lead at Korn Ferry, and he works cross functionally across different teams in product development cycles to make user centered, inclusive and accessible products beyond legislation and compliance.
When he's not working, he loves exploring different food and desert scenes and Los Angeles. And he is always open to share his Yelp la collection. I might have to take you up on that Albert for the next time that I'm in California, because I'm always down for checking out new food places.
Yeah, of course, anytime.
Well, I gave a little brief overview about your bio, but I'd like to hear a little bit more. So tell us a bit more about yourself, Albert.
Yeah, I'm Albert Kim. My pronouns are he him. I'm an Asian men in 30s.
I li ve in LA. And as Ashley introduced I'm currently an accessibility that Korn Ferry, I also organize in an organization called Accessibility next gen. For people who are starting their accessibility journey in the beginning of their accessibility journey, whether that is learning or career wise. And I'm also a Marine veteran. And I myself neurodivergent. Yeah, happy to be here and talk about some digital accessibility and mental health. Thank you. Thank you.
I'm so glad you're here just for so many reasons. But for the audience who might not be familiar with the term neurodivergent Can you give your best explanation?
Yeah. neurodivergent as in people who are have. So for example, for me, I have ADHD, PTSD, depression, anxiety,and dyslexia, soneurodivergent as in I have diversity, diverse ability in terms of your cognitive and neuroability. Soyeah, that's what the neurodivergent is. And I also happen to be in W three C Cova task force team where I work on researching accessibility guidelines for people with cognitive and learning disabilities, and mental health disabilities. So I use my insights as someone who is neurodivergent to help build accessibility guidelines for that
That's incredible Albert and thank you for that explanation. I think that's a great explanation and and thank you for disclosing with the audience. And I also wanted to say that for the audience that's listening neurodivergent and neurodiverse. Those are two different terms. We could go on and on about that. But I want to kind of circle back around to something that you mentioned Albert. And that's accessibility. Next Gen. So can you tell our audience a little bit more about that? And what inspired you to create accessibility? Next Gen.
Yeah, so when I was first starting out, trying to learn about digital accessibility, it was very challenging because I couldn't find a dedicated community for people who are people, people like me, who were at the time trying to start learning about digital accessibility. So I joined Teach access. Later, their study away program, where I met a bunch of other people who are interested in learning about digital accessibility. And I felt like I finally found friends. Even in college, when I was trying to tell people or friends that, hey, I love I'm passionate about digital accessibility. And that's what I want to, like, pursue for my career and everything. And everyone was like, Oh, what is digital accessibility? Like, nobody knew there were there were a lot of student clubs for like, data science, AI, or computer science or something, you know, very catchy words, and very popular data science, those kinds of topics, but there wasn't any digital accessibility student clubs, or people didn't even really know about digital accessibility when I shared. So for me, attending teach access and finding other colleagues in the nation who were also interested in digital accessibility meant a lot to me, I finally found like, I felt like I found allies. So I, after the Teach access study away program, however, the community was over, like I, there wasn't any continuation of interaction. And I felt like oh, like, I wish I could keep interacting with them. And this community still continues on even after the study away program. So I started this community, like meetup community, called Accessibility, next gen to F first with the Teach access, study away program, students who joined that that year, and it grew to 500 people now globally, and it's just anyone who is interested in learning about digital accessibility, and they want a support community. So yeah, now we run mentorship program, we have study groups for taking the certifications in accessibility, such as IAP, CP, ACC certification, or W A. S. And yeah, many more. So people ask questions on the Slack channel and different people ask. And yeah, it's not just people who are interested in learning about digital accessibility. But there are also a lot of professional professionals who are passionate about growing the next generation of accessibility professionals and want to mentor who want to help out. So it's a very vibrant community.
For people who want to get into this field, I think you set it really well a vibrant community. And I just want to take a moment to just express some gratitude and appreciation for you creating this group in this community because I, I personally know it is no easy feat to build a community and for those in the audience who may not know accessibility next gen. You have just exploded with just lots of people joining and visibility, which is fantastic. And that also demonstrates that there is a need for this type of community. So I will be sure to link in the show notes. Accessibility next gen that way if anyone's listening can take a gander and look at all
The resources that you have available.
Yeah, of course, I'll share the links for you and for the audience to check out. And we have meetup page, Twitter, also we have a Slack. So yeah, anyone can learn to join. And it's a very open, inclusive and warm environment. And very supportive. So yeah, like, I think, if you want to go fast, then you go alone. If you want to go far, you go with your friends. And that's what I learned the military too. So whenever I feel a little less motivated, or whenever I feel a little discouraged, or feeling impostor syndrome, this friends that I made in this community have been super helpful. They have supported me. And emotionally and mentally and so very good community. I love them. Yeah,
I love that that warms my heart to hear because I feel like having that type of community is so important. And especially now, with everything going on in the world. I mean, it's just critical to have that type of environment where you feel safe, and you feel supported and heard. So if anyone's listening, I encourage you to check out accessibility next gen. And so Albert, you touched on this briefly, but I want to circle back around to it because the intersection of mental health and technology is just so ripe. And I'm interested in hearing more about your time as a Marine. And being a Marine veteran. So can you tell us more about your journey in service? And how it led you to where you are today?
Yeah, actually, it goes back to my early childhood. If I were to explain my journey to military because I was born in a family with domestic violence, and I have always wanted to become stronger, so that I could protect my loved ones. And yeah, and I always felt like I was a coward. Growing up as a child, because I couldn't really protect my mother. So that was one of the biggest motivation for me to go to the Marine Corps. And so I applied to South Korea Marine Corps. I'm a South Korean citizen. So we call it Rock Marine. And then, and then I went through the training and was assigned to telecommunications battalion, First Division, South Korean Marine Corps. And my specialty was telecommunications. And I also did a side job as an interpreter during the combine the military exercises with the US Marines. And yeah, in terms of my journey, military, well, there are a lot of things to cover, but it's never, if I start talking about military experience is going to take a long, long time. We can go over hours and hours. But I think some of the biggest thing was that for me, I came in with a specific intention of getting stronger so that I can protect my loved ones.
But at the same time, as we all know, military there's a lot of physical violence and me having that trauma from my early childhood is very challenging at first to navigate.
And another thing is, especially in South Korea, mental health is a huge taboo. So no one would be openly talking about it or even seek for mental health help. So and because in South Korea military service is compulsory. It's a little bit different from the US military system that I feel like In the US, there is a lot of good system that are placed for military veterans. When before joining, and after getting discharged, such as medical things or benefits and things like that, but in South Korea, literally, I was getting paid almost like 100 bucks per month. I know. But it's not that, you know, in South Korea is so cheap, actually, you know, an American a couple of Americano costs, like $5. So, I know is because it's compulsory military, I get paid 100 bucks per month, literally, and just, but you know, they, they give you clothes, they let you sleep in the military base and the food, so I didn't really need to spend any money. So I was able to kind of, like, I guess, survive. But yeah, that's, it was a really tough environment. And but it was only after the military service, that I really started paying attention to mental health, because even until I joined the military service, I, my mindset was, oh, I need to become stronger. As I was saying, I need to become stronger, in terms of my mind, my self discipline, determination to be able to protect my loved ones, but I did not know how to protect myself, or how to love myself. Wow. So I think it kind of resulted in depression. After getting discharged, I had a lot of panic attacks and things like that. So I started seeking out for mental health therapies, but even then, the therapy journey was really challenging, because first of all, I realized that I internalized those social stigma towards mental health within myself, so I constantly doubted Oh, do I really need a mental therapy? Like, is this a bad thing? Like, isn't this gonna, you know, screw up my mind or whatever? And am I, you know, kind of be perceived in a weird way, or things like that. So it took me a while to actually seriously get therapies and start treatments. But yeah, it was a difficult journey. Sorry, I, I'm kind of going to tangent. Oh,
no, that was that was a great overview. And I just, I love everything that you've said there. And I think it's so important to have that self love relationship. And it takes time. And I want to thank you for being so open with your experience, because I feel like that that's what helps reduce that stigma of talking about it. And knowing that there's a process and there are resources out there that can help. But I want to ask for the audience. I want to hear from you. Why is it important to advocate for accessibility, mental health and community in this virtual space? And why are you so passionate about it?
Well, there's a lot of statistics about the rise of mental health crisis. But sometimes those numbers are hard for us to really feel what that really means. So I will just give a my one example of my personal story. I actually have a friend who committed a suicide. College and not many people, actually, it's a very widely known fact and statistics, but South Korea has is is number one in ranked as the number one for this suicide rate among OECD countries. Yeah, and for teenagers, main cause of death If there's suicide in South Korea, and then you might think, oh, you know, maybe USA is a little better actually, for USA. In the United States, suicide is the second leading cause of death among people, ages 10 to 24. And it's been increasing every year since 2007. And just to give you kind of a little perspective about that, I went to USC, University of Southern California, and at USC, in 2019. I think it was a fall semester, there were nine student death in one semester,
oh, my gosh.
More than, as far as I know, half of that number was due to suicide and accidental drug abuse. And accidental drug abuse is also very, very common among in the mental health among people with mental health, disabilities, because because of the social stigma, and the image of mental health, people are usually worried about, oh, if I say, for mental health therapy, will my career be screwed up? Or will I, how will my employer see me or can my school check that and, you know, see me in a bad way. So what most people do is rather than seeking for actual medical help, when they're going through anxiety, disorder, depression, PTSD, they seek for these drugs on streets, more that maybe a little more accessible for them. And so there's a lot of accidental drug abuse and addiction, drug addiction in the mental health community. So having said that, you know, my personal experience, in addition to my friends, and my school, I think it kind of shows like, it kind of showed me why mental health is important. Personally, as well as in terms of societal. And especially, I'm, I'm an Asian man, and I was born in Busan, South Korea, and grew up there until I was 15. So the mental health stigma in Korea, as well as in Asian community, is, is is really, really bad. And oftentimes, in Asian parenthood and culture, we emphasize self discipline, willpower.
It's all about mindset, self determination, those things alive, but you don't really you don't, when you broke your bone, your leg or something, then you don't really heal that by working out more, or doing more squats, right. So.
But this kind of cultural, cultural norms, I guess it kind of contribute to even more crisis in mental health and especially in the Asian community. And I think I saw another statistics recently that in the USA, for Asian American, young adults, suicide is the number one cause of death. I mentioned. I mentioned it's a second leading cause in USA in general, but for Asian communities number one. So I think this kind of shows why mental health is important. And I've I have a friend who works at State University as a psychologist and especially in the college settings, and the rapid rise of mental health crisis, whether you know, rate of depression more anxiety among college students has been just soaring up that college campuses are kind of, they don't really know how to really accommodate all the students with the mental health therapy needs. And so USC after the student death in 2019, they literally restructured their mental health therapy, mental health care for students. And now, what used to be one room of an office being a mental health clinic is now an entire floor is and also the Keck hospital, the USC Keck hospital. At one point didn't have a capacity to see any other patients, then unless you are part of the USC community, like whether you are a student or worker, you know what I mean? Like it's like a hospital that can because it's so over loaded with patients that you can't see any patient other than your own workers and your students, like, you know, I mean, like it kind of it's ironical, and so yeah, I mean, mental health is very important. We talk about COVID pandemic right now. But, frankly, speaking, mental health crisis was already here, even before COVID. Yeah, and it's, and as we all know, the impact of pandemic and COVID. Physically, we emphasize that impact a lot in terms of the physical impact, but we don't talk enough about the mental health impact. Yeah, the stress and the divorce, or a lot of conflicts within the family who's during the pandemic? And yeah, I mean, it's very, very important, but have been traditionally ignored. So yeah, that's why it's very important to start talking about now.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I couldn't agree more. And I want to put a note here, for the listeners who are listening, I will be linking a resource sheet that I put together, actually, this time last year, it's mental health resources for immediate response. So it's a really good one pager, take it, download it, share it with your friends. But it's a great list of resources for immediate help. If you or someone that you know, are struggling with depression or domestic violence. Definitely check that out. Now, Albert, I, I'm absolutely just floored by your journey and your resilience. And just I'm very appreciative that you were having this conversation. And I want to hear from you. Can you talk more about your advocacy work and the accessibility space? Because you work at Korn Ferry? We've kind of touched a bit on this digital accessibility. But can you emphasize why it's so important to build digital tools with accessibility in mind to avoid exclusion?
Oh, yeah, definitely. Well, during the COVID, as we all know, the digital transformation has accelerated. And not like physical, even government services were closed, physical offices were closed and everything was online. And even if you wanted to renew your driver's license, sometimes during the pandemic, it you had to go through the online service and but then these critical essential businesses and critical services that are provided now online only, we're not accessible because the websites were not designed with accessibility in mind, whether that is as compatibility with assistive technologies, like a screen reader, or, or design aspect or so or contents aspect. So that's why digital accessibility has become very important, has become very, very important. Recently, and it's now, especially in this year, it's one of the key trend topics in in the UX field. So the work that I'm doing is, I'm part of this organization called the World Wide Web Consortium, Toby to see where, who is is the, the body where they build Internet standards, right. So. And in that organization, there is an group of people who build accessibility guidelines for internet. So just like physical space, like, you know, physical buildings, how do you access that building? For you know, everyone, including people with disabilities, you need to build digital space, also accessibility for people who are who, who, for everyone, but including people who might be blind, or who are deaf, or who have cognitive and learning disabilities. So, my advocacy work in accessibility space, especially focuses on cognitive and learning disabilities, as well as mental health disability, because those areas have traditionally been not covered in the accessibility arena, because first of all, access digital accessibility is relatively new. And first off, we started with tackling the blind, deaf and physical disabilities first. So the invisible disabilities or is cognitive learning disabilities and mental health disabilities have not been covered yet. So that's where I'm come in and try to research and find out what are the accessibility guidelines for users for neurodiverse users? That what are the accessible guide lines that we can build for them? So that more and more developers and designers who build digital products will take a look at our resources and be able to reference what would be the standard way to do it, and how to design and develop products accessibility for neurodiverse users, so everyone can use our digital space equally and accessibly.
Absolutely. I am glad that you mentioned that because I love one of my favorite phrases is technology that works for all people is good for all people. And I hope people can take a moment to just marinate in that, because at some point, everyone at some point in their lives is going to experience a disability, whether that is situational or temporary or permanent, it will happen. So it's important to make sure that we're not excluding anyone from being able to access anything digitally.
Yeah, and just to add one more, like I used to play Starcraft game, Starcraft when I was young, but and Microsoft Office was built even before StarCraft, but now there's I recently saw an article that people who used to play Starcraft when they were 30s at the time, or 40s or 30s at the time, are now 60s. Right? So the people who and for Microsoft Office, it's now it's even more aging because they it started earlier. So the first users of computer and web are now aging. And as we all know, with aging, we all age as a human and with aging comes inevitably sometimes hearing loss or vision loss. For example, my mom, she always asks me, Alber like what does he say here? Like she cannot read it like she have a hard time seeing the letters because it's so small I'm so I turn on the accessibility feature to make the letters bigger and so that she can zoom in or whenever she needs to reader things on there, she noted on her cell phone like a password or something, she needs to work glasses to do that. So it's really it affects everyone in terms of it's not just people with disabilities, and it affects everyone. And nowadays, we, we a lot of people are working remotely virtually. And that means we are in front of computer, at least eight hours minimum per day. Right? So, yeah, so it's part of our lifestyle, and digital digital technologies are now part of our lifestyle. It's a part of our life, that it's important for these essential technologies and essential tools in our life, to become accessible for everyone and sustainably for us to use until however long we need to use.
Absolutely. And I want to hear more about your time as an accessibility next gen mentor. I'm curious what have been your biggest takeaway so far?
Yeah, biggest takeaway for me is that, I guess, the surprise that, first of all, a while there are a lot of people who are interested in learning about digital accessibility. And second of all, they don't know how to still navigate this space. For example, there's a lot of resources and information out there on the web guy guidance for how to pursue or learn more about digital accessibility. But sometimes more information may not be always better. Because especially if you're starting out, and if you're new to the environment, then you don't really know because you don't have background knowledge, it's too hard for you to know which information to trust or which information to go by, or be able to filter certain contents and be able to know which advice to take. So that's why I think a lot of mentees were looking for mentors. And so when I came across that I think I was surprised by their passion and enthusiasm, as well as despite of their enthusiasm, how challenging it is for them to learn and get into this field. Yeah. So that is one of the biggest thing takeaways that I have learned so far.
What do you think maybe the future holds for the next three years in terms of progress on accessibility?
Yeah, so the future of technology and accessibility as we recover from the pandemic is is that this the demand, the soaring demand during pandemic for accessible digital accessibility will I will less likely to be going down because there are new technologies coming up such as VR AR, and also new medical diagnosis? As we have as we advance our science and medical science? So there's going to be there is going to be continuously more and more demand in terms of digital accessibility and not recently so web aims 2022 accessibility report, and I think ISO 96.4% of the web has accessibility facts. So there's a long way to go. And and the demand for this digital transformation. The rate of digital transformation as well as demand for accessibility will continuously grow. Especially on the legal side, for example, in in Europe, European Accessibility Act will come into effect in 2025 and the aging population of early computer users and Things like that. So the demand will continuously soar. But there's lack of professionals and experts who specialize or in this field or who are developers and designers in general who have an at least any basic understanding about accessibility. So my thoughts on the future of technology and accessibility is that it'll continue to become more important and digital accessibility and there will be continuously will continuously need to work on digital accessibility, and also grow the next generation of accessibility professionals and accessible champions to be able to really resolve this demand and fill this gap and demand sustainably. Yeah.
Absolutely. And I will be linking the resources, some of them that you mentioned today, in the show notes for the audience. I've had a great conversation with you, Albert, if you'd like we could talk for hours. But this final question I want to ask is, what kind of advice would you have for those listening, that want to learn more about being an advocate for mental health and accessibility? Well,
let's start small. First of all, if you want to be an advocate for mental health, look around you first. You will be surprised how many people around you're actually going through a hardship. So start within your community. And actually even before then, start with your own self first, if you want to be an advocate for mental health. Love yourself first, right? In order to love others, you need to love yourself first. And take care of your own mental health first, and then start thinking about people around you, your loved ones, check on them. How are you doing and trying to if anyone needs your support, emotional support, be there for them. And this, you will be surprised to find out how many people are struggling and how to you can be of help for them. And for those who are currently going through mental health challenges. I hope you know that. I hope that they know that. They're not alone. That's I think one of the most important thing when I was going through my own challenges in terms of mental health, I felt like I'm alone. And I felt like I didn't have anyone to talk about this hardship that I'm going through. But that was not true. There's a ton of people who are going through similar or challenges out there and you'll be surprised when you open up and share your hardship. How many people will be willing to help you and support you? We don't live this life alone. We live together with other people. And it's okay to ask for help. And it's okay to say that you are not okay. So that's my biggest advice that you know normalize and normalize mental health care and if you ask for help, you will get it and I openly talk about my mental health challenges and so, you know, you will be surprised by how much how many people will feel empathized and will will empathize with you as well. And also for those who want to pursue digital accessibility feel free to check out accessibility next gen. Ed's on meetup and I'll share the link with Ashley and feel free to join we are very open and inclusive community trying to help each other. Learn about digital accessibility. If you have questions you can ask you can also find mentors here. And, yeah, also, please feel free to follow my twitter I often share about my mental health journey a lot there. Also there is if you are currently going through cognitive and learning disabilities or have cognitive and learning disabilities or going through mental health disabilities then or you are have knowledge about them. You can also contribute in making web accessible for users with cognitive and learning disabilities as well as mental health disabilities, by joining WPC coca community group, and anyone can join this group and you can start, they have like a regular meeting set up anywhere in the world remotely. And you can join the meeting and start reviewing some of the work that Koga group has done and share your feedbacks and things like that.
Wonderful, thank you so much. Well, Oliver, I just I'm so appreciative that you've taken time to come on the show. And thank you for sharing your journey and your passion. And yeah, I just I wish I could give you a big hug from from Oklahoma, sending out through through the channels here. But thank you for sharing these resources. I'm hopeful that someone out there listening at least one person can find this helpful and beneficial and share it and with with that, just remember, you never know what someone's going through. So you be kind to one another and try to do your part to help reduce the stigma of talking about mental health. But without further ado, thank you so much Albert for coming on coffee and code.
Thank you so much Ashley for having me. And sorry for the audience. Who will be listening to this if you are confused by what I'm saying. Sometimes I go tangent a lot and it's not very organized, but I hope that if you have any questions, feel free reach out. Feel anyone feel free to reach out and connect with me on LinkedIn. Albert Kim, my Twitter handle is Dj que Albert feel free to add me there as well and ask any questions if you have any. And yeah, thank you so much, Ashley for having me here today.
