Stanford Neurodiversity Summit Day 3_2

9:55PM Aug 25, 2021

Speakers:

Lawrence Fung MD PhD | Stanford | Assistant Professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences | child and adolescent

Christy Clark Matta | Program Manager at Stanford University

Keywords:

program

organization

question

individuals

companies

autism

jose

roles

sap

opportunities

hiring

great

employees

part

spectrum

microsoft

neil

employers

started

jpmorgan chase

Thank you, Sarah. And I have a feeling you're going to get some interest in the in the connection just from some of the comments that I've seen already. So thank you for just a fascinating presentation. And there's so many pieces of it, the I sort of was thinking about this evolution of outreach that you've done from starting with baking, and then evolving into these bespoke workshops. It's just amazing transformation and evolution over over the years. So let me jump into some questions for you. And one is related to those workshops. There's a question, Are there plans to expand the bespoke workshops for mature students?

Whoo, for mature students. Um, we haven't considered that yet to be honest, because we obviously still trying to raise funds just to do the ones for the, you know, for the younger students. So we're doing it really weren't the, you know, the idea for me is to do them for students that are in what we call primary school. And then for students in in secondary school before they go into university, but we haven't considered doing things. Hopefully, we would have some workshops. So we're hoping to have activities, things like hackathons that we do with our students, when we have our students from the Royal College of Art, Royal College of Music, and imperial, you know, I'm just can't wait to do some projects with all those neuro diverse students and staff.

Wonderful. On the on the topic of connection, we do have several questions about how how can people connect with you?

Oh, well, my Twitter is just there. It's at ranking Prof. But yeah, just look me up, you'll find my email very easily on, you know, if you just search me, and just suggest drop me an email.

Okay, that sounds great. And how about, we have another question here about are there opportunities for neurodiverse? autistic United States citizens to go to graduate school at Imperial?

Well, yeah, yeah. We have a lot of grad students from the US. Yeah, we have we have a lot of international students at Imperial. So yeah, there's there's lots of opportunities. And we have people that come on our masters courses, for example, if they're their grad students and PhD students, so yeah. Okay.

And in some of the facts and figures that you gave, do you have facts and figures on specifically female experiences or rates of females in STEM fields? we talking about neuro diverse females, I believe so I believe that's what the call Yeah, referring to.

And I think it's really hard to actually get any of this information. But it's, it's something that I'm, you know, intended to look at at Imperial. I mean, I went to a great one day conference. in Cardiff name is gone. And I was, yeah, about the sorts of gender differences between things like ADHD and an autism. So yeah, I think, yeah, I think that's a really fascinating area. So yeah, something definitely to consider.

Okay, we have a question here. I'm currently attending school with the goal of finding work that combines sustainability with creativity. Do you know of neurodiverse scientists who are doing that kind of work?

Yeah, um, we actually have a group at Imperial and then we have a lot of areas that are around sustainability. And we have a specific group, if they email me, I can send the details but it's, and they do a lot of citizen science. And again, you know, bringing creativity into that. But I think, you know, if you look at myself, you know, I'm a scientist, but I'm very creative. You know, it was one that those people in school, I could have have gone either way. But I wanted to kill cancer. But yeah, that never happened. So, but anyway. But I've used my creativity in other ways. So I can still apply my creativity I apply actually in the design and my experiments and the type of things that I do a lot of the things that very innovative or blue skies, people would put it. But also, you know, I'm drawn to arts or not, and I was work with artists on on my outreach project. So, you know, I do have the opportunity to get involved in other sort of, you know, so so I feel because I need that, you know, it's part of who I am I am creative.

Absolutely. And it is, yeah, many fields have creativity built into them that you don't, not necessarily obvious on the outside. So there are a couple questions here in terms of parents and engaging kids. The first one is, is there a playbook or resources for parents teaching kids at home for STEM?

know, what a great idea. And that I mean, there are zillions for STEM activities. So you can go on the internet, and you can find loads, what there isn't, is how do you adapt them for your student, you know, for that particular student that, you know, maybe has an aversion to sticking their fingers in? I don't know, an identified substances or, you know, making slime or things like that. I mean, those are the sort of things we had to consider when we were dealing with the, with the with the primary school kids. So I think it's Yes, knowing how to adapt the activities to make them work. For young kids, I don't think that exists as such.

And I'm, and there was a follow up question that may have the same answer, but it was about content from middle school neurodiverse girls, for STEM that aligns with their coursework in school.

Yes, I mean, yeah, I mean, there is, as I say, there are there are lots of there's lots of content, but what the sort of the unique thing of our workshops was having the whole, you know, and it was great for the students to actually feel normal, you know, there were, you know, students with ADHD that weren't, you know, they were allowed to get up and move. You know, we, when we were doing the workshop with the dyslexic and dyspraxia and ADHD, we did a whole fist, what we called physics, busking, and we got them to, you know, rather than reading anything, everything was sort of, you know, visual, and we had experiments that they had to work out how the experiment worked, and set it up, and then what was the impact of it, or what did it mean, and they had to present that in an interesting sort of way, actually back to their parents at a later time in the workshop. So, you know, that they could just be moving around the whole time and chatting the whole time, not being told off, you know, it's just something as simple as that is it which is pretty sad, isn't it? if, you know, it comes to it, but the fact that they all sort of, you know, swapped their contact details with each other, because so that parents network, the students network, and the other great thing is when I bring in professors to teach these students, you know, they are a bit sort of, you know, had their mind sort of opened a bit because they realized, you know, the, the, the strengths, and they, if they see them as a whole group, they really sort of notice maybe their sort of differences. And so it's a learning experience from them as for them as well.

And we're continuing to have questions about just this whole whole range from from younger kids Middle School, around connecting and then learning. And we have another question here is, are there internship programs for someone who graduated already from university?

An internship What do you mean by internship? Is that somebody wanting to come and work at Imperial or is it I don't what

Yeah, that's a good question. It might mean something different in the UK, I'm not sure typically internship in the US is a is a program. For students. It's short term, it's meant to provide people with experience, but it's not technically a job. It's more considered sort of part of a extended learning where people go into the workplace as sort of a student. learner. I'm not sure what the would be.

We have something at Imperial called Europe. Yeah. That's undergraduate research placements for graduates. Not that I know of, not that I now have we have it definitely for undergraduates that come and work in the summer. I'm not aware for graduates.

And then we have a question here about chemistry demonstrations. And I think the questions relating to while some of these demonstrations, I think you've touched on it a little bit in terms of how did you modify some of these activities that you did in your workshops? But it was a question kind of along those lines, that there are these chemistry demonstrations that might be engaging and interesting, but are also terrifying to some and how do you go about modifying some of those or making them more accessible?

Yeah, I mean, I think a lot of it is so so I think, for me, it's it's doing, running these workshops made, it makes it very clear that if I'm running one with students that are dyslexic, you know, they love that they love things that get bang, they love the The, the, you know, and they love a source of Oh, changing things at the last minute or, you know, surprise, there's an exception. And then I have the polar opposite, if I have students that are autistic, and I'm trying to, you know, make sure we keep exactly to time and do exactly what we say and pre won them and and so if we were going to do anything like that, I think it would just be a case of we would say explicitly, right, we are going to do this, there will be a large bang at the end, there will be a strange smell, you know, if you are going to be uncomfortable with this, you know, stand away or stand outside the room come in afterwards. We're video it you can watch it, you know, it's just that sort of thing.

Yeah, preparing people is a big piece of the big piece of it. Yeah. So a Next comment is, thank you, Sarah. And it continues I've ADHD and work for a nonprofit in the US. Employers in the states want autistic candidates? How can we convince them that neurodiverse, dyslexic ADHD etc have skills to? How can you convince who the the employers are the employers? Yeah, I think that was the question.

Well, this is why I guess I'm I using my position as a professor now to sort of go into STEM businesses and challenged them a bit on this because to sort of say, okay, you know, this is, this is me, and this will be also some of your employers here, even though they haven't. And I think that's, that's the main thing is taking away the stigma, because these people are lying, are not not lying, that that they are in organisations already, there are lots of people like myself that didn't really realize that they were neurodiverse. And there are people that know there are neuro diverse, and they're just masking it, because it's got such a sort of negative stigma. And so one of the things and one of the things has been really great, I've been going into, you know, AstraZeneca and GSK. And, you know, there are senior scientists there that that are coming out and saying, yes, you know, this is me as well. And that's really important for younger employees to see. And that's what I want, really hope will happen is that there will be more people like myself, you know, because it's fine having, you know, role models like Steven Hawkins and Steve Jobs, but you know, that's not sort of the average sort of Professor out or academic. And so we just want, you know, STEM professionals, people that are, you know, scientists neuro diverse just to talk more about that. I mean, it's it's almost, you know, celebrated in in the creative fields because you know, so many creative people and famous creative people and people living creative people are neuro diverse and they sort of acknowledge it. Whereas it's it's very tough getting scientists to actually come out and and talk about their neuro diversity.

Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. And I think we have time for one last question. And this one is just related to research. And this person is saying they're not having luck finding research articles, studies on ADHD, dyslexia and autism, on the commonalities and was wondering if you had thoughts on that, or had places where you were finding research or particular research suggestions.

I think you probably got other people that could answer that much better than myself, to be honest. This conference.

All right, that sounds great. Well, thank you, Sarah, for your presentation. I'm sure we'll have that last question. Some of the other sessions, I imagine that we'll have people who can speak to that, but absolutely fascinating. And so such a pleasure to have you here and sharing everything that you are doing. And I will turn it over to Dr. Fung. Now, who will let us know what's coming up next.

Great, thank you very much. And thank you so much for the invite. And it's amazing to hear all the really impressive work that everybody else is doing. And, you know, really, the companies and Stanford with their whole neuro diversity project. I mean, that's just incredible. So it's no, I think everybody is, you know that there is a, we're on such a good trajectory, it seems. So thank you again.

Thank you, Sarah. And we'll be partners on different continents. And yeah, yeah, collectively, we can do much more. So looking forward to continued continuing our conversation. Thank you for the presentation. I am going

to have to just shut my computer off because I can't exit the screen. So I hoping it won't do anything horrible to your to your

that's fine. So yeah, was See See you some other time. So for everyone else that's in the conference right now, if you are signed up for a networking session, please. You can end your webinar, and then enter your own zoom link. If you already have one. Check your email for detailed instructions. If there are any changes by the speaker, they will send the emails to you directly. And for everyone else. That's not going to networking session. Please have lunch. This is lunchtime. And we'll be back at one o'clock for our employer session with five very experienced executives in the autism at work and neuro diversity at work initiatives. So we'll see you soon at one o'clock.

Welcome to the Stanford neuro diversity summit. Some of you may have participated all along in the summit. For those of you who has just joined, welcome. We would like you to know that all sessions are recorded and transcribed. Please check our summit website for YouTube videos. All questions from the audience who will be submitted through the q&a function at the bottom of your screen. The moderators will try to cover as many questions as possible. So I like to welcome to the to our employer panel with big corporations. First, I would like to introduce Neil Burnett. Neil is the director of inclusive hiring for people with disability disabilities and Microsoft. Since the announcement of world autism day in 2015. Neil Burnett have been responsible for the program evaluate evolution of the Microsoft autism hiring process. Next person I'd like to introduce is Michael Fieldhouse. Michael is the director of emerging businesses and cybersecurity and program is that executive of T See technology at the center line. As a leader of GSC social impact practice, Michael worked with clients and the community to develop and run programs that benefit individuals and society. Next person who I would like to introduce is Anthony pasilla faciliate. Anthony is the Vice President at autism at work, JPMorgan Chase. In this role, he manages recruiting efforts as well as developing candidates pipelines and ensuring best practices for ongoing support. Anthony has been with JPMorgan Chase for eight years, serving in variety of technology roles in customer and community banking. Next person I'd like to introduce is hiring shoe club shoe clay is the automation and innovation neurodiverse. co Ed leader at Ernst and Young hiring experience spans more than 20 years across the field and accounting strategy, automation, innovation and information technology. He currently leads the internal automation and enrollment at your interesting young. And finally, I'd like to introduce Jose Velasco. Jose is the vice president president Product Management at SAP. Jose is the chief program manager and product engineering board area at SAP and autism at work ambassador, Jose 30 years Information Technology career career spans private and public sector and companies ranging from startups to fortune 500 Enterprises. And now I will introduce you panelists by one by one and you will able to share your story. So first I'd like to welcome Neil Burnett from Microsoft.

Great, perfect. Thanks for Thanks for having me. I'm so good morning. Good afternoon. Good evening, I have one slide, I just want to level set some context on our program for everybody. Our Microsoft autism hiring program started five years ago, back in 2015. And at Microsoft, we have a very strong disability community. We have a very strong autism community at Microsoft, but we knew we could do more. And about five years ago, I saw some of the great work that SAP was doing. And I reached out to Jose and and had a chat with him to learn more about what SAP was doing. And as a technology company, I knew that we had a lot of roles and opportunity that we could do more than what we were already doing. So with that, we did a pilot program. And we started out with five software engineers for our pilot program, all local here in Seattle. And we quickly found that we were finding great talent and great success by just changing the way in thinking about our interview process by being a little more inclusive by creating more opportunities for candidates to showcase their skills in front of hiring managers. And so from that pilot, we've just been really iterating on our model. Over the last five years, we started out with a four week program, then went to a two week program, then two a week. And now we're at four days, we have over 100 full time employees across 95 teams and seven different role types. As I mentioned, primarily, our sweet spot has been software engineers, we've, we've hired roles in data data analytics, we've hired roles in finance, we've hired roles in our retail store, so customer service roles. So we're expanding the type of roles that we have at Microsoft. The other thing that was really interesting to me is that as we went about our evolution of our program, we clearly had to expand from just recruiting folks locally. So roughly 70% of our candidates, pre COVID had relocated to the Seattle area to our campus. We have just completed our first virtual cohort. A few weeks ago, we found great town and great success with this program, doing it virtually. And that's something that we're continuing to iterate on and figure out how to do a better job. And so, you know, we're really excited about what we're finding, I can tell you that a lot of our existing employees that were not hired through our program, they we've seen a lot of support from our employee base and not just creating the program, but mentoring, advising, having us come and educate their teams. So it's been it's been a really collaborative process with our existing employees. And obviously, we're finding some tremendous talent, and it has been a talent play for us by far. And then the last thing I'd close in the last moment is just talking about the Autism at work round table, which hopefully we'll be able to talk about a little later about too, but all of us, James Anthony, Michael Jose, we partner with other employers, there's over 30, I think it's like 35 today that also have similar type of hiring initiatives. And we spent a lot of time working with other companies to help them on their business case. And just trying to every company is different, every culture is different. But I think, you know, our Northstar Microsoft has changed is to change the unemployment rate for people with disabilities. And we know we can't do that ourselves. We need all companies to lean in and do something in this space. And so we're very eager to help any company of any size, or in any industry to think more inclusively. And, and, and to focus in this space. So with that, I'll turn it over.

Thank you kneel. And now I'd like to welcome Michael Fieldhouse from the underlying program at GRC. Technology.

Thank you, Ron, thank you for having me. And hopefully, I'm coming through loud and clear from Australia. So yeah, thank you again, to all my colleagues on the on the panel. So it's a long time since we've actually spent any time together, but hopefully wishing you all well. And so your deadline, obviously, it's been around since 2012. And we've kind of launched the program in late 2013 14. And we're really calling it 2.0. Now, because we've been very much focused on the last two or three years focusing on mental health and incorporating that into our program. So which has been a big piece. Just trying to work out how to tap through the slides here. So. So we'll come back to Well

said,

oh, they're not looking that great. Do you want me to share my screen instead, you want to stop sharing? And I'll share my screen.

I'll do that.

Quickly, is now coming through. coming through now, guys. So yes, so we've been from a kind of an impact perspective, we've been with quite quite a few different models. So we've had hard over about 120 plus people at the moment, we've had over 40 plus graduate through the program. in various stages, we've done about 70, plus higher education, internships, and probably one of the biggest things we've been very focused on is open sourcing our or our kind of our material, and at research that we've had over 600 organizations download the material, Chris 99 countries, fire Cornell, we will continue to do our focus on our evidence based research, which we've been very big in. And that will be evolving our evidence where our research will be around mental health as mental health tools, which we'll be releasing, like next year. So our program really focused on really, probably the pillars of it is really executive functioning and life skills and, and, and mental wellness. So that's kind of probably the three big pillars in our program. Just a little bit about the platform. This is, you know, we've got a curriculum, obviously, we've been doing training and education, we've got a number of tools, which we've kind of mobility tools, mobile tools we actually use for help with mental health and routines, life chirper News optimize, which to help out with some of the CO training. And there's a bunch of, obviously, some key assets that came out that are available through the Cornell website that you might want to download. And there's obviously a COVID-19 plan and how we've actually operated in a COVID-19 environment. Again, this is a little bit about the assistive tech, we actually use in our assessment processes. Well, we use a machine or gamification, regards to playing games to really unlock from the talents to look at strengths based, we look at it very much a strength based hiring approach, and try to really kind of really unpack some of those strengths. So we also have mentioned before, mobility tools as well to help with coaching and also to help out with executive functioning, saying our program is very much very geographically spread across Australia. And this is just a little bit about the mental health framework, which actually we're releasing. It's actually been developed we're releasing next year, really talks about how to really to provide support into our employees. Assistance Program and also our, into our program in general. So there's a whole bunch of material in that. Really, that's where our biggest focus for the next couple of years is in building this thing, and really focusing on really providing the really mental support for the, for the people in the program, and also the organization more broadly. Well, thank you very much for having me. And

more personal.

Thank you, Michael. And attendees. If you have questions for a specific panelist, please include the panelist name so it'll be easier to sort the questions. And now I would like to welcome Anthony Basilio from autism at work from JPMorgan Chase. Hello, everyone,

I don't really know how a follow up Michael field houses NASA diagrams that were just showing.

That was pretty impressive. So I'm gonna go with the the one to two slides scenario here. So So just like Neil and Michael, and you'll hear from Jose here, and I think we all have a combined effort and passion to get autism or neuro diversity programs off the ground ours started JPMorgan Chase five years ago. You know, we started with four quality assurance employees, and we're at 200 plus at this point. And I'll get into a little bit about our model of hiring in a moment, because it's kind of changed over the years, and we had to change by necessity of business as well. So I know that, you know, some of you can see that we're in eight countries and 40 different job roles. And I think the 40 different job roles speaks to the point of, you know, just not pigeon holing folks that are on the spectrum into one job category, whether that be technology, most of our jobs at this point, are almost, I should say, are evenly split, actually about 6040, about 60%, technology, 40% operations, we've really gone very strongly into the operations arena over the past year and a half. We, of course, are always looking for software engineers in that space. But we've kind of gone into compliance and audit. And we're really not, you know, set in stone about any particular jobs. I mean, we have everybody from an apprentice or internship all the way to a Management Director, who are on the spectrum. And I think one of the proudest things that that that we've done over the past five years is, when we first started, we didn't know what we didn't know, obviously, and we had vendors help us get training and education ready for our colleagues and managers. And we've since taken that over and done instructor led. Obviously, it's it's virtual at the moment. But you know, we hope to maybe in 2021 2022, I don't know, get back to the going on campus and doing those instructor led trainings, but we're over 6000. Now, that seems like a large number. But when you look at JPMorgan Chase with 250,000 employees, we're only hitting a small percentage of those. And it sounds like no one doesn't know us internally, it's managing to get out to that recruiting team, into those those colleagues and managers who want to have this train, we've actually embedded a piece of the training into our diversity, inclusion and onboarding training, which is great, obviously, we definitely want that DNI is a big piece of what we do, and all of these companies, actually, but I think that'll get us a little bit more presence inside the organization. We work really hard and making sure that we do have support mechanisms in place that kind of speaks to the greater than 90% retention rate that we have currently, we have support circles, we have the buddy program, we have the mentoring program. These are all key takeaways of things that Jose here and Neal, myself and Michael have done over the past five years to take a look at how do we best support folks that are on the spectrum, and not just folks that are on the spectrum, but all the people that are in the organization? Right? So that's a culture shift. And I'm sure we'll talk about culture shift a little bit later, in doing these types of presentations at Stanford, and thank you, Lawrence, in all of the people who put this together, it's an outstanding forum for all of us to get together and kind of talk about what we've done. But I think, you know, the greatest part of it is that we're going to tell you kind of what we're looking to do and some of the struggles that we may have had along the way. That's what makes our programs even stronger today. In a few other things before I turn it back, is the hiring models that I said that we talked about. So we originally started off as doing some contracting Then we were gung ho on the direct hire model, which is full time employees, which has been absolutely amazing. And now we've kind of turned right. So we're doing temporary workers as well in our government space. And, you know, what we realized was that the opportunities that we were missing to provide people a piece of let's say, JP Morgan Chase on the resume, we might not have that full time position available, but people need work. And it's also a good resume builder as well, if you can put, you know, one of our companies on on your piece of paper, or your virtual paper at this point. So I think, you know, changing that model has brought in a different skill set, which is absolutely wonderful. But again, we'll talk we'll talk about the culture and how it shifted in the five years since we started these different programs, and some of us a lot longer than five years. So with that, I will turn it back to our host.

Thank you, Anthony. And now I would like to welcome hiren Shukla from Ernst and Young.

Great, thanks so much, Mark. And super excited to be here today. Thank you all for joining us. Dr. Fong, thank you and the Sanford neuro diversity team for putting this great event together. I think particularly when we all need to come together and organize as a community around things that are really important. So thank you, again, if we can go to the first slide, please the next slide after this. But I'll call out a couple of things beyond the numbers that you'll see on this slide are the locations, there is a fundamental premise around neuro diversity at UI. And that premise is diverse teams produce incredible results. We all know this, nobody will ever argue or, or, or say anything contrary to that, what we proved out or wanted to prove out four and a half years ago when we started this journey. And we were very thankful for all of our colleagues who are on the phone today that really open sourced and shared information. So many calls with our friend Michael in Australia, at different times of the day or the evening just to share information. But when we started this journey four and a half years ago, I will be honest, it was not about neuro diversity, it was the power that you can unlock. When you have a true multi dimensional diverse team. We think that what happens in the neuro diversity space that we proved of all of this great value, and a sense of belonging is then applicable to every other group. At some point, you don't have a neuro diversity program anymore, because you don't need to have. And so what you're seeing on the screen right now, is what we believe is the point of view that says organizations today, more than ever need to stand up, speak out, include individuals, because it will make their companies and their communities even better. And so when we think about the pillars around digital transformation, or the workforce of the future, or the ESG agenda, in which the as the social side, has not gotten actually much attention at all, because climate change on the east side has gotten all of it. We think about what we can do today and what we can hopefully enable, inspire and activate other organizations to take their diversity and inclusion, commitment, and extend that to belonging and equity. And to some point, say you're not looking for individuals to conform, you're actually looking for individuals to come to work and be their best selves. Because when you do, you will unlock the power of intelligent innovation that is applicable across your organization. You will build in the agility and resiliency of transformative thinking. And effectively you will take a diversity inclusion conversation into diversity, inclusion, belonging, equity action. And so we think that this is an important time to build connections with your stakeholders. And frankly, we see our neuro divergent employee base as a fantastic way to activate all of this potential that we see with any why and other organizations. We can go to the next slide please

What you're seeing here are the hard skills that we talked about. And while these skills will look very technical nature, I would be remiss if I didn't say neurodivergent individuals already exist at a why and every other organizations, they exist at all levels. And they do all kinds of jobs, marketing, finance, sales, business development, in addition to traditional accounting, and consulting, or even technology development. So what you're seeing on the screen is, as he Why has embraced the digital transformation journey that is pervasive across every single thing that we do at a why, how do we harness these skill sets to produce the future solutions that we need and who is going to imagine those solutions for us, and help us realize them. So our neurodivergent teams today, work hand in hand across all of epi, really working in this truly multi dimensional way to produce value. And one of the most beautiful stories that I think about when you look at this screen, is most recently, we helped to build a blockchain solution for a global financial services organization that needed to track the money it was handing out, so that a hospital in the Ivory Coast of Africa can buy ventilator equipment, to treat their COVID patients and our diverse team was part of a broader team to bring and imagine and realize great value that we have to provide. And so there's truly hard skill that is based in here. And part of the reason that we deliberately went down this route, is we talk about our HR and our DNI partners supporting us. But our program, like Neil said, is a talent Innovation Model. In effect, what we are proving is the workforce of the future, not workforce of the future includes everybody. And that's a really important piece to this. Let's go to the last slide, please. And the only things that I will call out as you briefly look at this is that this is a snapshot of a codified methodology. And the reason we have codified methodology is we realize that not every organization has the bandwidth, the time, the ability like a JPMorgan Chase, like a Microsoft and SAP, a DFC deadline, or EMI to go on a multi year journey, how do we take these learnings and put them into an actionable program that we can effectively enable other organizations to say, you too can go down this path, whether you are a large organization like UI or a small organization, but effectively there really is a process that you go through. And I would say one important thing. This entire process has been built and consulted with our neuro divergent team members, they are part of the process of defining what UI does and how we do it. And last but not least, many of our neural diversion leaders who have now come forth and will be publicly producing videos and other venues for E y are going to talk about neuro diversity and leadership levels. What does this look like? What is those challenges as well as the success and the value? And I say this because as an employer, it is not up to us neurotypicals to speak on behalf of neurodivergent individuals. And in fact, again, we know, neuro diverse talent pool exists across all of our organizations already. So with that said, the last slide is only some contact information, but really excited to be here. Mark, I will pass it back to you.

Thank you, hiren. And now I would like to welcome our final panelist Jose Velasco from autism at work program at SAP.

Thank you so much, Mark. And thank you, Dr. Fung, the entire Stanford team here in Michael, Anthony and Neil for the partnership Many years already, in trying to get neurodiversity off the ground in the enterprise world. Before I get started, I think that I would like to to address one important element that was mentioned by everybody already, but I want to reiterate it, and that is why do we hire folks that are neurodiverse? Why do we have a hiring program for individuals on the autism spectrum. And I would like to start off with that, at SAP, we thought that we wanted to attract the best possible talent that we could, for the company, across our industries, in the industry that we cover, we also knew that it would be extremely important for us to bring people into the company that have a different perspective, if you don't do that, and if you don't have a good representation of your employee base, as it relates to or maps to your your own customers, if you don't have that diversity, if you're reflected back to your install base of customers and partners, your ability to innovate is not going to be very strong. So we have a saying at SAP that is obviously known elsewhere, that we innovate because of our differences in north in spite of them, that's a very important thing for us. It we also again, feel that a different perspective is super important in our creative processes. And we've heard Alan Kay creator of object oriented programming, and many other things in computer science say once that a different perspective is worth 80 IQ points, including the artistic perspective. For us another reason why we want to bring folks into the spectrum because our new neurodiverse into the company is to tap into into an underutilized source of talent. We realized by talking to universities out there that there was a significant number of people out there that a were part of the university system. As a matter of fact, there were universities that were graduating, you know, hundreds of individuals on the spectrum, a only to be part of that hugely known unemployment problem at 85% that we know off today. So again, it was a combination for us starting this program of finding the best possible talent that we could find, number one, number two, being able to be able to mitigate an unemployment program in the community in And lastly, again, capturing the special skills of people on the autism spectrum. If we can go to the next slide mark, that would be great. So without this might work. The program today is deployed in 16 countries in 34 locations that you see here, we currently employ between 175 and 180. People This is a number that is always varying because we have people coming in different parts of the organization, different times of the year. All in all, we have provided approximately 600 opportunities for folks on the spectrum. It does include present and past beta opportunities. But we also launched what we called a training program mentorship program, where we have invited high school students also to participate in university students who have also taken opportunity to receive training from SAP as part of their assessment process in order to become employees of sa p some people have decided not to take a job, but they have taken jobs elsewhere. As a matter of fact, approximately 23% of those that were trained in the United States, as part of the autism I work program have taken jobs with other companies as well. We have a great retention rate above 90% on a global basis in the US approximately 92% over the last six plus years of the program. We employ people in 25 different types of roles 125 between 25 and 29. Today, in this is a very, very important thing for us. We started the program with the idea of hiring folks, software quality specialists in Data Quality Assurance individuals in the program very very quickly grew to not expanding beyond those those roles. We realized that we were getting so many great resumes. So people it was just impossible to say look, if you are neurodiverse you're going to be doing this to jobs. So we opened the floodgates very, very early on in again, we have representation of colleagues on the autism spectrum in just about every board area at SAP a board area for us is like a division in the company. So we have have individuals employed at sa p that are part of our human resources department, Office of the CEO, we have individuals that are part of the consulting organization, we have folks that are part of engineering, every division is represented in the company today. So our program counts with very well defined supports that include sourcing and screening processes that we do with our partners, they are specialized. In the United States, we have a pre employment training program that we call the enterprise readiness Academy. And that's an opportunity for us to get to know the individuals are applying without going through the traditional model of a typical interview where you have somebody sitting on one side of the desk, another one sitting on the other side, going through our resume, line by line. This training, this pre employment training program allows us to get to know the individual is less significantly more than one interview is a multi week training program. In again, we've had individuals that have taken it have decided to stay the course and apply for a job at sa p other individuals that have decided to take a job elsewhere, everybody has won in the end, from a retention. From a retention point of view, we have a a support circle that we have put into place, which includes a training for a manager, we assign a team body for the individual who has been just hired, we have an artist in my work mentor and we also have a job in life skills coach. So that support structure is something that really has allowed us to to create those sustainability elements for the program. Community wise, we've been extremely fortunate to partner with Microsoft, the why jpmorgan chase the xe by a bunch of companies out there that are like minded, we are part of the Bismarck werkraum Roundtable, which is administered by Neil Barnett from Microsoft, we have an opportunity to do some things outside of the company with customers of ours like Dell, where we have in SAP Dell hackathon, where we had approximately 200 people participating in a two and a half day event. In we are members of various different bodies out there that are trying to get this this message out there trying to get neurodiversity. Some mainstream element of diversity and inclusion in the workplace is a core part of cities of inclusion, we have our own altruism and inclusion pledge, I encourage you to, to Google that and find a webpage for that. We are part of the autism at work Eastern group in the United States as well. And we've had, we've been very fortunate to share our message with many of the companies that are now represented in the panel of the united nations of the world economic forum, United States Congress at the White House in the senate of Mexico to name a few. So very, very thankful for the opportunity to be here to share some of our experiences. And looking forward to the remainder of the panel. Mark, back to you.

Thank you, Jose. Thank you to all the panels. It's been truly a privilege introducing you. Now, Dr. Lawrence Fung will lead the q&a. Take it away, Dr. Fung,

I'm going to invite all the panelists to be joining us. So the first half of the session. We're actually we're free parts what the first part you just completed talking about your own programs. And then the next segment is going to be pre prepared questions that we all know that we want to get answers for. And and then the third segment will be the q&a. We already got many questions coming in. So we most probably will not be able to answer them all but I think we'll try our best to be as comprehensive as possible. So the first question is about scaling up the autism at work program on neuro diversity at work program. I think several of you have started talking about this already. And having a roadmap is really important when you're doing the scaling. So So I think one part of the question is, how do you scale the program within your company and also But the other is how do you think, as a society, we can scale the neuro diversity of work? initiative? So let's have Jose lead off with this particular question.

I want to start from the second one. Dr. Fong, I think it's a very, very important question as a society, what can we do to get this topic of neurodiversity? As part of the new normal in the workplace, I think that we are doing some of the right steps are ready. The very fact that we have right now 207 folks in a virtual room right now that in spite of scheduling challenges in our day to day responsibilities, our giving of their time to be part of this conversation, encourages me and I think the courage is also my fellow panelists, in knowing that we are going in the right direction, is there more work to do? Absolutely. My personal take on this is also that we need to be more deliberate about the utilization of resources when it comes down to cross company type of integrations. We do a lot of sharing amongst the companies here that you see, we have regular calls between eBay and JPMorgan Chase, and in Microsoft, in everybody here and be seen in this panel. But I think that the topic of optimizing resources across companies is going to be the next frontier. Why do we have to each one of us have our own technical program or our own multi step this or multi step that my feeling is that we will go through an optimization process in which we're going to be able to realize commonalities between our companies in have joint discussions on how we can basically leverage each other's competencies in realize economies of scales? Now, regarding the question of how do we scale programs from within our companies, for those of you who have already started a program, you typically would have gone probably to two or three cohorts already, the program has become popular within your organization. And you are known as an employer of neuro diverse talent outside of your organization. So you're, you're at that point where again, you already said this works, this is something that we can do. Let's go ahead and scale it, there are a number of questions that you would need to ask yourself, in order to get to the next level, the next level of performance and amplification of your program within your company borders. The first one would be out of their practices that you implemented, the sourcing, the screening, the training, the onboarding that you have done, and the retention practices scalable. In other words, can you hire neurodiverse candidates in more than one or two or three locations, because if you're a large organizations, you have presence in not only multiple locations within one country, but in multiple countries. The other question that you can ask yourself is can can our internal or external processes in service providers give you the support that you need across multiple locations, not only across multiple locations, but I crossed an increased number of applicants in your in your pipeline? Because again, if you are known as an employer of people that are new or diverse, it's very likely that that pipeline of candidates that are new or diverse are starting to grow. Okay. Then, the other question is what happens when you have now individuals that might be neurodiverse? Who are stepping up? They say, look, I love working for this company SAP, or Microsoft or E y, or jpmc, or DMC really get it? Okay. I am somebody who was hired not through an autism hiring program, but I am neurodiverse. And I would like to disclose to see what services are available to me. Now, you are not going to be able to control the head and say, well, we only provide services in this location or that location. Suddenly, when people feel comfortable, people are going to start raising their hand and you need to have a strategy in order to be able to satisfy those those those needs of neurodiverse employees. And lastly, the question is, once you get to a point where you are beyond a certain controlled environment, you're going to have to ask yourself, do I buy or build or partner on the services that I am providing? What is the absolutely best way for me to deliver on those services that are needed across the Let me pass it on to some of the other guys because I don't want to hog the microphone here.

So, Anthony, let's go with JPMorgan Chase. JPMorgan Chase has a really good trajectory, very fast growing program. How do you do that? How do you just go so fast in hiring so many people on the spectrum within a short few years? And what do you think JPMorgan Chase vision on influencing the society and help other smaller, smaller guys to actually start their own neuro diversity work program?

Yeah, thanks, Dr. Fun. I think it first starts with, you know, when we started out, you know, rather small, we prove that business cases and senior leaders across the firm, you know, we actually had roadshows like we went to Chicago, we went to Tampa, we went to our bigger sites, and again, that was, technologically speaking back in the early days. But I think here's what happens, you know, word catches on very quickly amongst, you know, the four or five senior leaders understanding that, you know, the untapped talent is actually providing some of the best work, that we've seen a different way of thinking about it. And it just kind of kind of hangs on to itself and kind of motors through the the firm, I think the other thing that we did, well, in order to scale it was that we marketed it, meaning we marketed the program, so that others in the firm could understand that we do have an autism work hiring program. And we have 250,000 employees who have relatives, sons, daughters, nieces, nephews, who were struggling to find employment, and we tapped that kind of hidden pipeline. We were successful in a couple of other different ways. Our culture was changing at that time as well. Right? So we officer we opened the office of disability inclusion, we have this other kind of forum, the my accessibility hub, who helps with reasonable accommodations. So the company was becoming probably, you know, multi pronged in that approach with disability hiring. So I think, you know, kind of getting out there. And we always thank, you know, Neil and Jose for for starting the autism working players Roundtable. That was actually the catalyst. So when we did forums like this, when we did panels, and we started to talk about how we could go bigger, go stronger, it was the expansion into the other countries, we had the opportunity to go forward and build our own kind of infrastructure. Jose just talked about it. We didn't know we didn't know back in 2015, we had to have vendors help us do some of the education and training. Once we took that on ourselves, after a couple of years, we were able to kind of permeate the the culture and permeate our training and development within the firm, so that more people could see that and hence, you know, you get to that 6000 level. But it only takes one person sometimes to see the incredible work that folks on the spectrum were performing for the firm. And that's really how it takes up. Now, if you have a smaller type company, and you want to be able to build kind of that talent. You know, we a lot of our calls, and I'm sure Jose in here, and the rest of the folks get these all the time. But we get phone calls or an email or, you know, LinkedIn message that says, hey, listen, I'd love to know about your firm and how you started and what you did so, but five hours of my week is spent talking to other companies large and small, about neuro diversity programs, autism, you know, what's the education like? How did you do the interviewing, if you give them them small pieces, they kind of figure out what their firm's gonna be able to handle, right? You might not be a JPMorgan Chase or Microsoft with, you know, x 100 1000s of employees. But you need to give everybody the opportunity. And the scalability comes in once that one person is doing well. And listen, it's all not roses. So everybody who's asking questions, you know, and we're giving you all these wonderful tidbits about our programs. Listen, we all have failures in there as well, but we will learn from them. And I think that that kind of helps, you know, our senior leaders understand that there's still work to do. But what we're experiencing now is just a growth of unparalleled germs.

Thank you anything new? Same question, what what do you think the steps that Microsoft is taking to go to the next level to really drill kind of dramatically expand this program? I think one thing that I want to point out is, collectively, all of you guys are really doing a really wonderful job and has capitalized a lot of the activities in the society. The the numbers are still too small, collectively, we have millions of people on the spectrum that need jobs, and really is a couple of 1000 people, Max that are in these programs. So So how do you really make it scaled? Yeah, and how do you influence others and small to medium sized businesses?

Yeah, so that's a great question. And I think that's, that's how this thing really scales, because you're right. I mean, if if we double our numbers from 100, to 200, or 200, to 400, it's still, you know, meaningful, but it's not 1000s and 1000s, as you're just mentioning, and so, you know, that's why I think we are so committed, all of us are to really, you know, to grow this exponentially. And to scale it has to be with other employers big and small. And I think the, the mid size, small size is such an important market, that we need to continue to figure out how to, to partner and work with, as you know, Kieran, and in Anthony mentioned around, you know, resources and, and really, you know, enabling others, even if it's starting small, to hire and to think like this, because, you know, we, we talk to folks all the time, and we may not have opportunities at Microsoft today. But you know, there's such a need out there. And so I think we're doing work in the roundtable with job marketplaces, we're doing work around education of small businesses and connecting more with those small businesses. And, you know, I think that's how this thing's going to scale. And so ultimately, we all need to, to think about what we can individually do as our own employers. And in tried to, to leverage one another, it's not necessarily a financial thing or a resource thing, we need to kind of democratize this. So it's easier to do enable success, you know, once hired, hiring as though part we always talk about, but then obviously, once hired, it's the, the the retention and growth is so important to

you, can you hear if you have already started presenting that roadmap, would you like to add to what you have already talked about? Yeah.

Thank you, Lauren. So you know, the only thing that I'll add, and Neil said it very well, is everybody has their own journey to take on this, what the application could look like. But you have to start somewhere. I know, as Anthony was saying, it's a we kind of didn't know what we didn't know when we started out. But it is all good intention. But I think that the knowledge that you get from this open source community is probably one of the most valuable things that I have learned and gained, and that we continue to do as a corporation or individual sole proprietorship, wants to go on their own journey. And really, I would say, the most critical thing is why are you doing this? What is the why behind it? Because if it's not sustainable and scalable, then you have to really figure out, you know, how much effort Can you put into something and what would happen to these individuals if the program did not receive its attention anymore? And I know for all of us, we talked about not having a program one day so I think it starts with your why why do you do this? answering that question and gaining some collective knowledge is a great starting point.

Miko the same question about scaling. I know you have been thinking about that in all sorts of different ways because we talk quite regularly and what what do you what do you want to say about really the XC technology internally would be willing to do to scale and also what what about influencing others I kind of know a little bit of the background and is very innovative approach and would be great if the audience know a little bit about that.

Yeah, I think Yeah, thanks stand up. For me. I think the part of it is also we try and open source as much as possible. I think that's an important part that you know, that if you look at all the people that organizations have downloaded, or a lot of our material, they're kind of quite geographically spread those small companies. And I think the continue open sourcing of material, I think, that allows, you know, people to develop their own programs and hire ones and twos, and could be threes. And that's how you can I get a bit of a wave, we know 80% of employment happens with small business. So it's really how you kind of scale that out. And they and small business has lots of different job roles as well, you know, from doing cake decorating to, you know, to, you know, doing mechanics work. So I think it's, it's key to keep continuing to open source. I think the other key element is evidence based research. I think that's important too. So give people a kind of a Northstar, knowing what are some of the blueprints that can be to be done, I think that's where academia, and also corporations, especially large corporations that can afford it, really making sure there's evidence based research underneath the program. So we know what works and what doesn't work. And I think that's important for scaling. And kind of in is kind of Jose was saying that allows for interoperability between different models as well, if you know, things are working, I think the other part for us is to scale through we've been very much focusing on as well as kind of pulling apart our program and providing it as part of you would call the us into the vocational rehab sector to scale it. So we've been very much doing that Australia, which is a pilot actually going on at the moment, which then we hope to impact close to probably a probably half a million people. That's what we've been doing this year. That's a big program. So we're hoping to impact about half a million people through our program. And also, I think the part of it is also which we've been, I think another big part is high school. internships, I think men are giving opportunities very early in the piece for people to participate in some kind of work. And I think we need to be a lot more open in in that and that gives obviously, opportunity for people to grow. And also seek other opportunities in other sectors, not only just in maybe just the IT sector, Baba, but other sectors as well, I think was quite important. And I think, you know, in in doing that to layering, developing kind of models that can be operationalized, like support models, and through technology and support models that are can be scaled as well, I think that's quite important as well. So to take off some of the some of the initial kind of major, maybe residents of maybe all kind of perceived kind of issues around how hard a program is as well.

Thank you, Mike. So kind of piggyback on that. So Michael is successfully engaging the Australian Government to be taking this seriously. How about our country in the United States? Any any of your organization's have the plan to maybe engage with any of the government bodies, agencies? Anyone?

Doctor found out, I'll jump in first. I think you'll find many of our companies have already engaged at a state and local level. And often we find it's the governor's office, it's a senator's office, there's a late there's a congressman or district representative in these individuals are very actively engaged in this arena and where geographically it happens to intersect with where our programs are. It's beautiful of how it happens. Anyway, we are now going to take a bigger approach. We are working with our government and public sector and our Office of Public Policy to drive this into basically, Capitol Hill and and to government and basically say, this is a topic that will impact and have exponential value on multiple levels. But it's not sustainable for companies just to do this on our own. As Neil said before Even if we doubled our program size at this point, without the support structures of vocational rehab in other government function or agency, clearly, we are not going to be able to scale and that will be an impediment to each and every single one of us. So we absolutely think and hopefully, after the election, as we know what the administration is going to look like, we can bring this conversation to a federal level. And we are lucky with the likes of SAP, JPMorgan Chase, DSC and Microsoft and Eli that up to our global Chairman, Chairwoman and leadership, we have commitment. So we're hoping that business can be a voice here that influences government change, but I'll pause and see if any of my colleagues have any thoughts to add here.

This is whatever the last thing that you've characterized all the different dimensions of the government participation, there's, as you said, here in work to do okay, it plenty of opportunity for us to grow in those relationships, and really help drive this private public partnerships to the next level. I believe that the current models that we have are just kind of a starting point, I think that there's, again, an opportunity for us to have that connection with, with organizations that support this, because as Neil was saying earlier, this is not something that we can do on our own. It does require significant private partnerships with the private sector, the public sector, the third sector, the NGOs, in many others. school systems as well, you know, it's super important. But anyway, back to you,

Dr. funk. Anything new? Or?

No, I just I think there is some good work going on with government agencies, looking to figure out how to create these type of hiring practices across all government agencies in the US. So I would you know, more to come. There's some good, good effort going on.

Yeah, and last year, I think some of us were at the United Nations or the neuro diversity at works. Roundtable. So definitely, this is getting a lot of attention already. And quite recently, Heron was actually on 60 minutes. So this is really a really prime time to really continue to talk about this in a more public way. So, um, any any additional ideas on like, public engagement? Are there particular strategies that you think we should be thinking about? Maybe, right now we have the Black Lives Matter. Movement, diversity is now really on the table. So how, how do we think about the timing? Like, right now? Is this actually the best time to to do this? Even more than if so how?

Dr. folds? Michael here. And I think one of the things we learnt, we're doing a lot of engagement with the Australian Government at the moment. And one of the things we've learned is, the more that government agencies can actually be involved and actually operating programs themselves, they become part of the mission. So I think that's kind of important, I think, is a really obviously some good work happening. I think, initially, as Neil was saying, you know, happening in the within the US federal government, I think there's a program that's being run by treason with murder. I think there's how you expand that, you know, further to get more agencies, but that was some of the we've, we've got a research program at the moment, looking at how public sector more broadly engages in these types of works. But one thing it came back for very senior executives from the from the qualitative kind of research was really about, you know, being engaged and being emotionally engaged in these kinds of programs, helps drive the broader overall kind of push upward into into the power of what we call our political kind of hierarchy, as well.

Yeah. Yeah.

Dr. Fang, I'll come back to the question as well that you're asking. I think that this is probably the best time ever to reach Chief Diversity and Inclusion officers chief HR, HR, OHS Chief Human Resource Officers, as well as others that are in companies that are making commitments today. There's great words around standing up for social injustice or racial injustice. And, frankly, what all of our organizations have been able to do is to convert a desire around something good into tangible value. Now, we've only been able to do this with the amazing talent that's there. And frankly, without our diversion team members, we would not be here today, obviously. So I would say that what's interesting when I often speak with C suite folks is I talk about how the neurodivergent community cuts across every single diversity, segment and intersection, gender, race, sexual orientation, socio economic groups. And it's a amazing microcosm, as I use this word before, for what we see elsewhere. And I think that, that is there's tremendous power in the fact that when Neil or Anthony or Michael or Jose or I speak to somebody, we are not speaking, hypothetically, we are speaking based on fact, and value better. And so I think that to the extent that we can help to push promote, you know, they say strike while the iron is hot. I think the iron is very hot right

now. So, I'm going to kind of go with hearing on that. I think what is happening in this day and time is obviously opened up a lot of folks eyes. But it's, I think it's probably opened up a lot of eyes of, you know, colleagues who have never stated that they're on the spectrum or LGBTQ. I can tell you personally, over the past four or five months, that I've been on numerous phone calls with people who want to know about our program, but do cross that intersectionality. And they feel empowered at this moment, to come and speak, that says volumes about what is going on in our world today. And, you know, if tragically, if the events that took place, have had moved this needle, if something good comes about this, which it will, this is one of those good things. And you know, I hope everybody understands that, that all of us on this panel, and and listen, you know, you have five guys, you know, sitting here, right? So everybody's probably looking going, Oh, geez, you know, but five guys on a panel? Well, that's not very, you know, diverse, so to speak. Well, we're trying to start the movement to get the movement going. If we started five or 10 years ago, I shouldn't have this job and a little bit, it should be BYU of how we do this. From a company perspective, even small companies, it should be built into your hiring practices, and by having a DNI movement, if it forwards that. I'm all for it. And I'll get off my soapbox.

We'll say our new any anything to add on this?

I just have a couple of thoughts. I think that diversity and inclusion is a seven by 24 topic, all year round all seasons in I think that we need to continue to drive this things in the topic of neurodiversity is one of the more nascent ones in this space of diversity and inclusion, not generally adopted by many companies in I guess from my perspective, I would encourage everybody out there to learn more about it. As Hera said, this is a great opportunity to take you to your your leadership, whether it's the business leadership, or your HR, diversity and inclusion. It is it is a perfect time to start driving this dialogue. But again, we look at it diversity and inclusion as an umbrella. I think it's a wonderful thing to do seven by 24. But if we can drive a specific topic of diversity, I'm sorry, new diversity, at this point in time, I think will be very helpful to the community, the communities that we serve. Thank you. My peers said Well,

yeah, so kind of along those veins actually, maybe I'll come back to hearing at this moment because your organization is named neuro diversity, Center of Excellence. So so that's that's definitely very much including not only people on the autism spectrum, but as well as other people with dyslexia or ADHD or other neuro diverse conditions. So how do you view the specific needs, that each of those groups are being supported? So apparently, if you have only one group of people maybe at least a little bit easier to, to figure out what to do even that it's not so easy with autism. So now, if you expand it, do you find it very challenging to actually provide all the support needs or anything that's involved? Because it's more broad than a circumscribed population?

Yeah, wonderful question. And, you know, we were very deliberate Anyway, when we started to use the term neuro diversity, understanding, and acknowledging that this umbrella term, it campuses, a number of different types of individuals. But, Dr. funk, I think you said something that was probably most relevant to us. And as the saying goes, that I've heard, if you've had one person on the spectrum, you've met one person. I think that, as we started out in the why making sure that we design process used from recruitment, to assessment, to onboarding, to ongoing support to career transition, and career progression, that we're doing this targeting the individual. And that really allows us, I think, the flexibility as well as the right level of support to say, you could be an individual, you know, an autistic individual, and you will be very different from the other autistic giving them you could be an individual that has co occurring conditions. Or you could be an individual that just needs different types of support. And so for us starting that, from day one, really forced us into that mode of how do we coach support to the individual, as opposed to the group or a team. And, as I've recently had conversation, some of my colleagues to say, in fact, it has benefited us. And it's been almost easier to do, because the amazing thing that we find is that our team members support each other. And and I don't think that's amazing. I think among the neuro diversity community, there's a tremendous amount of empathy and emotional intelligence, and they understand each other. And when they understand each other so well as they work together, as well as with with everybody else. You're not thinking about matching different groups, you're thinking about managing to the individual.

And you're here. So Michael, your program dandelion program also does not have to work autism on it. So your program is with focus on autism, however. So what what do you think the trajectory of the deadline programs? Do? Are you going to expand to include this toxic individuals, people with ADHD etc?

Yeah, I think you think Dr. Fong, um, throughout kind of program at the moment, we kind of take on this concurrent co occurring kind of issues we do deal with, as we know, with autism. But I think the thing we've kind of really focus now is that we're expanding that. So we've now been into dyslexia for quite a while for now almost a year, really focusing on building that program out and working with the dyslexic community on that. So we've been very big on that. So we've been customizing some of our material and obviously, attention deficit disorder as well, we've been focusing on building that and I think, overall, we're now kind of your program will start to there's lots of intersectionalities going on, I think what about what will happen is we'll have some foundation pieces of our program, which will end up being came in obviously streams around major pathways. So we've been very much you know, also now creating a very much a different pathway and support program for for gender. So that's been one thing we've realized is gender has been, you know, we've needed to actually be a bit more nuanced in how we actually support and also recruit, you know, individuals that you know, that take in treating them as individuals in that so you know, in regards to females and women in general that we kind of have a different pathway. So that's kind of one of our big things, we'll actually segment the program into very much more different pathways. And also dealing with having a broader set of based education in regards to dealing with some more more life, Scott, lifestyle issues as well. So we're looking at the moment, as part of it is dealing with online gaming and gaming in general, as a as an issue as an addiction. So there were some addictive behaviors around it. So I think that's something that these kind of modules will actually be quite broad. And hopefully, we can then provide that to the broader population as well. But we're, you know, I think in probably what we're hoping probably in five years time, is the down line program would probably be more integrated into our overall corporate structure. So we probably won't see downline anymore. But we're actually part of a more general human capital management approach, which will be the lot more nuances. So we're hoping that the goal is by about in about five years time is that we won't have the program in its in its same form.

Thanks, Mike. How about in SAP? Jose, what's the the general sense of I mean, your SAP is the first company that really has done successfully in hiring people on the spectrum. Are there other groups, like people with dyslexia or people with ADHD that come to you and say, What about us?

Yes, we we certainly have had that, even if I mean, most most prominently within our own artistic folks, because, as Michael was saying, there's a lot of intersectionality in from various different dimensions. Okay, so we are already doing that, and providing the resources and the support that people need. But I think that if we take a step back, really, the ambition would be maybe for this programs to one day, become a portfolio of services that are provided to employees, without the specific need to have a certain classification or a diagnosis. In other words, if you are an employee who is dyslexic, and you need certain amount of services, those will be part of a company wide portfolio that we provide them. Why is this important? Well, there's a whole bunch of people out there that do not know that they may be neurodiverse. But they do need the services. And those services manifest in many cases in director interactions with other employment employees in the company. Right. So again, my feeling is that the next stage in this is the establishment of those of those services or platforms that would allow for more that programs, perhaps I wouldn't necessarily say to this appear, because there will always be room for having a program out there that administers this this topics. But I think that it would be super beneficial to have them available to everybody. We've had a significant numbers, number of employees that are neurodiverse self identified as employees who did not come through the autism at work program. And I think that as companies become more of your levers, as companies create a sense of openness within the organization, that immediate next thing that will happen is where can we find those services that may allow me to be a better employee? Okay.

Thank you, Jose. Neil, what do you think? and Microsoft? Will What? What What do you think Microsoft is heading with this issue of having people with dyslexia and ADHD starting to also want to have some specific support, like people on the spectrum?

Yeah, so yeah, I totally agree with everything Jose said. I would, I would say that you know, we look at all of disability Microsoft and disability being a strength and so we have programs not formal programs like the autism program for folks today for pan disability and so, but I think the topic round expanding the program. per se to be more inclusive for neuro diversity than than just autism, it's definitely a place that we will be going at some point for sure. And then, you know, we continue to hire folks every day. I think that's what's really important too, is it's not even these programs that are important. I think there are lighthouse moments. But it's the everyday hiring. Right. And so that's, you know, right now, Microsoft, we're interviewing folks, not through the autism hiring program that are artistic, right? And what does that experience when you're interviewing today for a job in office or Xbox or windows? And so I think that's what's the ultimate, you know, pieces that we keep talking about these programs going away and how it scales into the everyday hiring. And I think the everyday hiring is how this thing will ultimately scale and be inclusive for everybody.

So yeah, for sure. Actually, I think, colleagues talk a cover song brought anything to add.

No, I think I think you know, the the larger thought about the programs, autism nerd verse. But listen, we have even a separate program called the best program, which really delves into everything except autism, but you can't you can have pockets of that Down syndrome, dyslexia, dyspraxia, we hire folks that have the different cognitive nature than autism. And that program is just off the ground, probably less than a year. So you know, we have, it's not a competing program, like everybody thinks so, you know, you're taking away from your program. Now, this just as for the betterment of JPMorgan Chase, this is growing what we've already started, they take some of our basic training, apply different principles. But think about it this way, we have an office of disability inclusion, we have assistive technology for folks who are hard of hearing, that do have dyslexia who have cognitive differences, it is a part of what we do, taking the autism work program with the best program away. only happens when we really kind of delve into our recruiting, and make sure that what we're doing at the campuses, what we're doing at experienced employment, that they all follow the universal design that Jose here and Neil, Michael have all laid out from a training and development perspective, so that when you walk into one of our organizations, it's the same for everybody. And we're all on the same page. And we're giving the same questions. And we're throwing some of that, you know, where do you see yourself in five years junk out, because I don't even know where I see myself in five years, throwing that out the window, level, the playing field, and you'll get everybody right meal set of best wondering people that are on the spectrum. We know they're not coming through our program. We might find out later when they self ID. But we got to level the playing field microphone.

So now, I'm going to post the last question In this segment, and then I'll move on to the audience q&a. So in light of the pandemic, how is your organization managing all these challenges? I think at various different levels, probably the kind of individual level maybe at the organizational level, and and how, how is the pandemic really affecting the jobs available in your own company? And does that actually negatively affect this specialized employment program? versus the general recruitment? Hearing? What would you like to start? Yeah,

you know, I think the pandemic clearly is not only having an impact on the workplace today, but the unfortunate ripple effect will last for quite some time afterwards. And it'll affect change the way an organization operates. And, frankly, not only to survive today, but to thrive in the future. All of that being said, I go back to a point that we talked about earlier, Dr. Fung around any organization asking, Why do they have a neuro diversity program? And frankly, that the answer to that question will determine the sustainability and scalability of what you do and if we think about it, roles that are integral and critical to that organization's mission and their vision and their purpose there, I think you will see an increased growth and they will be a parallel correlation a positive correlation. As the organization moves, the neuro divergent talent pool will increase and be embedded even that much further, I think there is an unfortunate possibility of the opposite happening in some cases where hiring is getting shut down the gig economy, meaning the contractor contingent workforce is increasing. And the rules of engagement are going to change. And those rules be confusing to everybody. And so the opposite of what could happen if we are not deliberate, conscious and careful, is that we could find that you have segments of society that are in effect online, they're waiting behind others for their opportunity, because maybe they're not the loudest, or they're not the most vocal. And I think that smart organizations today are realizing the agility and resiliency doesn't come from the person who speaks the loudest, it comes from the person who has focus, and who wants to do good work. And other than that, those individuals provide great loyalty and teamwork. And frankly, what I'm so proud of working with my colleagues on this panel, is our organizations are really proving and exuding diverse teams really provide better results. And so that the end of the day, I think that will transcend the UPS or downs of pandemic and post pandemic. Michael, would you like to go next

year? Dr. Phil, I'm very happy to be here next year, I think it's it's here was saying is that I think there's just this, the COVID-19 is definitely a seismic shift across all seismic wave across a whole bunch of industries. And I think the part of it is that employments can be my belief is going to be quite patchy across a lot, a lot of actual segments. And I think the part of it is that the growth in kind of the gig economy will probably see. And I think the part of it for I think programs like ourselves is actually preparing, you know, individuals to actually participate in the gig economy and allow that to grow in occur. You know, we one thing I think being it, companies, most of us here, we do already actually experience shortages as much in most areas already. So I think, for us who I think will be looking to recruit, and I think that's going to be going on, especially for the IT industry, which will be the wave of kind of people going to using digital going going digital, or they're all making making their organizations more, more or less leaner, and actually will put more productive. But I do think, I think part of it is that it's actually how do we scale out or provide our knowledge more to more organizations to, as I mentioned before, really small and medium companies and small businesses to actually assure that when employment occurs, it's actually going to happen more and more at the grassroots community level, and ensuring that, you know, we're you know, they have the ability and the tools and the knowledge to hire people that are neuro diverse. I think that's going to be very critical. So government has a role to play in that education. And obviously, large organizations such as ourselves, now, leveraging our supply chains, and our our knowledge is trying to actually disseminate that to a broader range of audiences. So there's, as employment kicks up in a good kick up in a move very much in very different sectors, other than just it Creative Industries, working in advanced manufacturing, so allowing those opportunities really to be be very provided to people that are neuro diverse.

Thank you, Jose, your views on the pandemic.

I think that for us, the pandemic has provided us an opportunity to also look inside of the company and strengthen the program strengthened the purpose and the momentum that we had. We establish more community calls with our colleagues that are on the spectrum, this this feeling of isolation that we all had or have been having. I think that sometimes it's is more detrimental for some of our colleagues in the spectrum that might be living by themselves. Okay, they often don't have family around. So for that reason, we we have again, strengthened that community involvement in have more Receiving points with them. But another part is the strengthening of the community within SAP at large. This just about two weeks ago, actually, we launched their first dot first out disome inclusion network, which is an employee network group is not part of the autism at work program. Formerly, even though many of the people that are part of our program are part of our network is something fascinating happened, we sent out an invitation to all of our employees in North America to see if they wanted to participate. This employee network group has three pillars. One is for self identify folks in on the spectrum, as well as those that were hired to the program. So that's employees that are on the autism spectrum, that we have a second pillar, which is family members that have a loved one, who is neurodiverse. And the third one is allies. And, frankly, when we sent out the invitation to all of North America, we thought we would have maybe 50 people participate 75 people, within a few hours, we failed the 550 seats that we had on on that session, their staff says that there's a need for this type of talk to address this type of topics inside of your organization. And again, if we look at what are what has resulted from from COVID, yes, we've had some difficult moments all of us have. But on the other side, there's been some, some brilliant moments as well that have allowed us to operate better to improve our processes. But probably most importantly, Dr. Fung is to strengthen our internal employee community within the organization.

Okay. Neil? Yeah, yeah,

I would just add more on the optimistic side of the pandemic equation, which is I do am very optimistic that now working from home is become kind of normalized, where, again, working from home was not. It's not for everybody, there's a lot of folks that want to be in the office, in general speaking. But I also think hiring managers who used to say I have roles, and it's based here, in our case, Seattle, and we need to move, like I said, most of our hires have moved from cross country to Seattle, that I'm actually optimistic that this will open up the opportunity for folks not to have a choice if they want to move or not. And we have found talent that, you know, guide jobs, but they just, you know, didn't want to move, understandably. So their support systems are, are back where they live. And so I am optimistic all are both in the autism community, but brah disability, that, you know, this is going to break down some of those barriers to employment, the need to relocate or the need to move, or the need to transition to another place. And I am optimistic when we come out the other side of this, that corporate employers will now see the ability to do remote work as efficiently as being in person. So that's the plus side. And

yeah, I'll be super brief on this. Right. So my four other colleagues probably nailed what we're all kind of doing. Yeah, I think there's, there's two schools of thought, right? So we encountered folks who are doing well, at home, and you encounter those who do not. But that applies to both neurotypicals. And folks who are on the spectrum, too, right. So we've, we've been dealing with folks that we normally wouldn't have to deal with, right, because they're in the office, and you know, their routine has changed. And those folks are neurotypicals. So we've developed COVID guidelines for employees, colleagues, managers, to ensure that, you know, they know the resources that are available, we've set up chat rooms, for those that are on the spectrum so that they can talk, obviously, to us, but to one another, see how everybody's doing. So it does build that sense of community that was a set of best. You know, I don't know that, you know, everybody's gonna come back to the office, which I just talked to a young lady in the UK, today was her first day back, but by next week, that could change, right? They could go on lockdown. So we, myself had to prepare, say, Hey, listen, you know, just just so that, you know, this could be temporary that you're back in the office. She goes, I know, I've resigned myself to the fact that I might have to go back Fourth for somebody on the spectrum that could be devastating. Luckily, she's handling it in the best fashion that she knows how, but we're there to support her. So, and she's got a lot of other colleagues in the UK, who can support her as well. So I'm pleased in that respect it Listen, this is a day by day thing, you know, we can employ as many tactics and strategies and help as we can. But invariably, there's going to be someone that just may not be able to be helped. And we have to actually prepare for that. And I'm as transparent as they come. Right. So, you know, sometimes that takes on another life of its own. And when somebody is in a dark place, and we're trying to help, we're not diagnosticians. We're not clinicians. You know, luckily, a few of our firms employ people who, who are those types of folks. But we make sure that we have those outside resources available to help them through this as best we can.

So I'll stop there. Thank you. So we're going to move on to the next segment. With the q&a from the audience. The first is common to Jose, thank you for being a pioneer in the autism at work program at SAP some of our students have gone on to have invaluable experience working at SAP felt up. And then there's a question for Neil from Marcel champion from ultra knocks. She's saying that to see autistic individuals working in different departments, Do you have plans to hire people in the human resources department such as recruiters or trainers? You're on mute. Yep.

So so yes. So I think one of our so the answer is yes. The one of our goals is, as I mentioned, is to kind of diversify the role sets outside of just what I call stem or technical roles. We've started to do that when retail with customer service. We've hired folks and content, content writers, technical content, writers, finance, I would love to get into HR marketing, those type of roles also.

Absolutely. The next question is also addressed to you, Neil, came up in social media, from several autistics wanting to get involved directly at the autism at work roundtable and have a voice at the table. How can they reach out? Sure,

yeah. So there's, there's a couple when we take a step back. So the autism network Roundtable, it's autism at work employer round table, is, the goal is to bring employers together that have existing programs that have been in place for at least one year that they actually do hiring in this space to share best practices held by their companies, and create create jobs. So that's kind of like the roundtable. And so you have to be an employer that has a hiring program in place. But we do, we meet monthly, and we have guest speakers all the time. There's probably people that are listening to this call that have been guest speakers. And so if there is a topic that you know, you are representing a group Association, nonprofit, and you want to come present to the roundtable, you can send me an email. And I can put you on our schedule to present to the roundtable.

Thank you. So next question can be for anybody is kind of touched on already. This asking about what opportunities are there for your diverse neurodivergent individuals to rise to? leadership positions are key stakeholders. If you have not really talked about that, do you have plans to include individuals with different minds at the table while making significant business decisions?

You want me to jump in microphone? Yeah, please. Alright, that I can do. There's no shortage of air on this side. So, you know, listen, we've had to shift and make sure that the interview process we will get you in the door, right, we got to get you in the door. But I think all of our companies want mobility opportunities. But there's some you know, you can have individual contributors, you can have the team collaborators, everybody calls it something different, right? If you do good work, you're going to move. That is how I think all of us would agree. That goes about right. So there's a performance review. There's a scorecard, whatever you want to call it, if you're doing a good job. We are going to move you I mean, we all have examples of just recently gentleman who came in as a QA specialist testing pass fail, moved to a compliance role two years later. And now two years later, again, he's moving to a marketing role. So and he's moved been promoted three times since then. So I mean, he's one example of our many examples. And I think we, we touched upon it, that we have folks at all levels of the organization who are on the spectrum, but we will create those opportunities, if you want to mentor to help you through your career path, we can provide that to you. Now, conversely, you will find the people that want to come in and do that same job, they love their job, they're not going to move from that job, they don't want to do anything else. Now business needs necessitates, you know, we might need to kind of change those skill sets a little bit if we can. But we'll try to keep you in that role as best we can. So give it to my colleagues, I'm sure they have something different to say as well. If I can add something

up their phone to this for several hours. Yeah, so I think that you touched on something important here, Anthony, in when we talk about leadership, I think that we usually think in terms of leading people, okay, in leading organizations, I think that we need to have also a different mindset, because we also have individuals that can lead with ideas. Okay. And sometimes, an idea leader can be somebody who introduces a new mechanism and hearing has plenty of stories around this as well from from a why, in your way of doing things that to me requires thought leadership. Okay, so I think that we need to think in terms of, of people leadership, idea, leadership, etc, etc. One of the examples that we have at SAP is a colleague of ours that in 2019, won the single most prestigious Innovation Award of our company, we have 1000s of people that participate in this award are nominated to this award. Most of them are nominated steams. In other words, there will be three or four or five people. I think that this this year, again, one of our colleagues who is on the autism spectrum was the sole winner of this award. It was the first time that a single individual won that award, I mean, put that into perspective, you we are a company of 100,000 employees at SAP, an employee who is neurodiverse is on the autism spectrum, from Argentina. Okay, from a fairly small location was the one that one that very prestigious award. That's leadership. And going back to your point, Anthony, the opportunities there, there's no other way to shine and grow. And we don't have career paths for autistic people, we have career paths for people in and I think that's basically what we're all about here.

Yeah, that's really a wonderful example. I hope this can be on headlines in many different places, because this is really inspiring to hear that people on the spectrum. And kind of in a not expected fashion, to be acknowledged in really significant ways. So anyways, um, this question is, can be for anybody as well. on the panel, what is the most effective point of entry to your organization's autism at work program? So maybe each of you can very quickly talk about how you practice that.

I'll go real quick. So we have a website, you just go to aka.ms forward slash inclusive hiring. And it talks about our different hiring programs and just everyday hiring at Microsoft. There's an email alias, you can also email at ms autism and Microsoft Comm. But our website has a lot of good information

here. Yeah. Dr. Fung, can I just clarify the question in terms of getting started? Are we talking from a entity point of view or from an organization's point of view or both?

Oh, well, this is for the individual that wants to get a job.

I thought, Okay. Yeah. I think that you will find that as Microsoft SAP JPMorgan Chase, see why GSC and many others that are not here have have programs, I think reaching out to them to have a conversation is probably the most important thing, because sometimes that I did see a question come out in the q&a, where you don't feel like you fit into a particular role. And I think it's important to have a conversation with somebody at that organization to say, here's who I am, what I like to do, what I don't like to do, how can we shape this role together, that's maybe possible in some cases may not be possible in others. But I think that reaching out to these organizations to have an open and candid conversation and it, I confess, it may take a couple of rounds of conversations to make that happen. So please, don't get frustrated, sometimes are large organizations, connecting the dots is not as easy as we would like it to be. But we are all very accessible as our team. So please reach out to us and, and have that conversation going direct to the source. And I think that conversation will provide you an avenue whether we directly can help us more organization, if not, our commitment is to connect you into a broader network that we're lucky enough to help cultivate and curate, to see what could help you.

Michael, can us answer this question? What is the most effective point of entry to the dandelion program?

Here we are probably similar to, to Neil, we have a website, which you can, you can actually go to dig down line so that you can we can apply through there. And we actively have rounds of recruitment. And also, you know, we we align it with our kind of recruitment cadence as well. So that's the best way to actually put our program to kind of connect through.

Yeah, so I think there's a there's a couple of ways, of course, we're going to be doing some campus recruiting. So that's one avenue, but an easier ways to go to autism.at. Work at JP Morgan comm and get in touch with us. So, you know, this is my full time job. And it's a lot of these other folks full time job. We have a couple of folks on our team that can kind of get into the email and reach back out into here at this point, probably have a couple of conversations. You know, we always set the expectation as well. Right. So, you know, sometimes JPMorgan Chase is not a fit for everybody. But maybe that person is a fit at Microsoft and, and Neil and I will trade a resume in the UI and JP Morgan Chase will trade a resume. And that has happened, just FYI. So you know, there's opportunities. If you're just reaching out to one of us, you might be reaching out to all of us,

Jose? Yeah,

I think that we have three possible ways. One is to go out to just Google SAP altruism careers, and I think there's going to be one of the top links there does not take you to a website that can give you the information you need. Alternatively, you can email us at our autism underscore at underscore work@sap.com. Again, out there's some underscore app underscore work. app is not the ampersand symbol is the word app. Okay. That would be the second possibility. The third one would be to contact our our partners. We work very closely, specifically here in the United States, with neurodiversity in the workplace. So you can email him or email them at neurodiversity app in IPW. And as the neuro diversity i d in the workplace that's in it w.org. And we have, of course, our partner in the Bay Area, Abel, the Brit, go out to their website, and there's plenty of contact information there that you can get your hands on and contact the team at Eva libri. And they can also share with you some ways not only how to get into companies like sa p but they are they are great companies, great third parties that work with multiple companies. So they have their eyes on where the jobs are available, who's hiring etc, etc.

Thank you. So next question is from Michael. This attendees interested in knowing if down deadlines programs mental health program is going to be rolled out for Only the deadline programs employee? And how about the other employees? Yeah.

So we do roll out this couple of things with our mental health program, we do roll out manager, first day training. So for for managers and co workers is quite broad is just just for neuro diverse. But there is a sub segment around your diversity, which we built. For the individual perspectives, we try and work that's very much more targeted to neuro diversity, but we also are going to be embedding that into our employee assistance program. So it actually strengthens the overall mental health capacity across the whole organization, which is kind of critical. And then we'll be open sourcing a segment of it to allow other organizations and other support organizations to leverage that. So there will be a segment of that that will be open sourced as well. So it's quite about it's all about building overall capacity within the actual organization more broadly, across our, across our overall our overall workforce.

Since you have the mic, the next questions for you to like. So this is about do you bring in, in person training to complement optimize quality training?

Yeah, we do bring in Yeah, we do bring in personal training, I think, I think that's one thing we've we've kind of have a bit of a, an onion approach, meaning that we kind of really focus on, you know, all the contact points or potential issue areas of, of webmail, maybe potential anxiety points within the organization. So for example, we've kind of, we do in personal training for kind of, for the cafeteria, and security guards, sort of being very big on doing security guards in the cafeteria. And, and also, then we also provide for the managers training, we have a really a three hour training, which is goes through a bunch of scenarios, and we have autistic individuals actually helping out with manager training as well. So they'd actually providing the manager training, which we found a very, very productive fella found that very, very useful actually having our autistic individuals and delivering the training.

This participant is interested in knowing if machine learning data science rows are those that are available for autistic individuals. Are there a lot of those opportunities? Maybe just very quick from each one of you?

I can keep going? Well, yeah, we do say that, definitely in the machine learning and AI, especially around things like data labeling and exception handling. So we did we are actually involved in those roles.

Dr. Wagner is here and I'll tell you that in addition to what Michael just said, data science, the analytics portion, augmented virtual reality, we are seeing the future of the workforce and solutions across all the industry and sector being built on these. And so machine learning and skills such as that are very desirable. And we can we see them applicable across industry and sector today.

So the answer The short answer is yes. Anthony? Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Yes, Jose? Yes. Yeah. So this is easy. And then Anthony, you got a couple questions back to back. This one. This person is at Salem, Oregon, is how does someone participate in a mentoring program?

Sure. So the mentoring program is we've actually gone out to our senior leaders, managers, and asked them if they would like to participate in the program. We have a lot of folks who are parents, children who are on the spectrum. Hope this is where the question is going. And it's not actually specific to Salem, Oregon is I don't know that we have a big presence out in Salem, Oregon. But yeah, so I mean, listen, we are we put it out there, right. So we're on our own intranet page, we have these different forums where we can actually ask in a broader sense if people want to participate, most of the time, it comes from our parents and caregivers group, that they say hey, listen, you know if you guys need help, Or you need a mentor, I would love to be that person and we can marry them up. And it's not like we have a shortage that's for sure we have, you know, quarter million people

in between, it's just a comment about your retention rate is higher than the retention rates for the whole organization.

Yeah, that the comment on that one I think it's across everybody's is, it's because of the dedication, the loyalty, the focus, all those things that Karen talked about earlier, listen, some of these, we all have the same message on because we see the same things. That's why the retention rate is what it is. But every one of these folks will tell you, sometimes it doesn't turn out positively. You know, we're not going to feed you the line that it's, you know, 100% Golden every time. But the large majority, nine out of 10.

This is an interesting question here. Is your program able to be duplicated in industries that rely on social skills? And does your process do anything to test for social skills with less adverse impact? So anybody want to jump on this?

Yeah, Lawrence, I'll jump onto it. You know, it's interesting when we use this from social skill, I think every single one of our organizations today depend on teamwork, and teamwork and collaboration are probably the keys here to organizational effectiveness. And at the end of the day, our processes today, don't test for that. They assess for how you, as an individual are most comfortable contributing on a team. And I think as we know, there's always different roles on the team. And frankly, when you get that beautiful mix of all the individuals who want to play different roles, I think that's when you get a highly effective team. Even that means the individual who is extremely quiet, but but loves to, you know, build and create some of the solutions in the background as a support player. That is a beautiful and important role to have. And so I would pivot the question away from social skill, and more towards teamwork and how you as an individual can bring your part to that team and compliment other team members.