Our Progress In Diversity, Accessibility, And Innovation

Hello, I’m Emma Earley – the Head of Acceleration programs at Remarkable!

This year, on International Women’s Day (IWD), in order to stay accountable, we publicly committed to:

1. Prioritising discussions to identify where we can take action to improve our processes and practises that foster a truly inclusive Disability Tech ecosystem; and
2. Share updates on this work today – which marks one month after IWD.

In my first blog post for Remarkable, I’m proud to share some of the work we have done, and hopefully encourage you to make some small steps within your own organisation.

What Led Us Here?

It’s important to recognise that the team has prioritised and made incredible progress in the areas of diversity, inclusion and accessibility since Remarkable launched in 2016.

Part Of Remarkable’s Ethos Is Acknowledging That We Won’t Always Get It Right, But Are Committed To Continual Learning, Growth And Progress.

In late February, at our team offsite, it wasn’t all team-building lunches and paint-and-sip activities. Though, they were definitely highlights! We identified our team’s desire to enhance knowledge and skills to ensure we are more accessible in all areas of our work. We have prioritised training and capability-building across the team.

Then, throughout our Launcher pre-accelerator program in February and March, which supported 38 startups across seven operating countries with a range of accessibility needs, we listened to feedback on how we can improve our accessibility and inclusive practice.

When IWD 2024 came around, we had a number of discussions internally on what content we might create for you, our Remarkable community. However, we found ourselves stuck on what would contribute meaningfully to conversations and tangible action.

These IWD-related conversations uncovered an opportunity for us to solidify and build upon this work, and share it publicly to encourage collective action across the tech and startup ecosystem.

How Did We Approach It?

We approached this with a few principles in mind:

1. Momentum – keep it going strong post-IWD, whilst being realistic about achievable timelines.

2. Embedded, not an afterthought – we want diversity, inclusion and accessibility to be embedded in all of our work, not something that sits on the side as a discrete project. This is to ensure it is core to our way of operating, and to realistically account for resourcing and workload.

3. Progress over perfection – Combine long-term strategic thinking with immediate and short-term, achievable steps towards a bigger goal, and have a bias for action.

4. Accountability – dedicated staff leading the project and people responsible for specific tasks and mini-projects. We will share our progress with our community.

What Progress Have We Made In One Month?

The week after IWD, we surveyed and met with our Remarkable team to discuss how to approach this work and what to prioritise.

Quick Wins (One Month Post-IWD)

1. Create a new internal Slack channel for this work to ensure targeted Remarkable team communication. [Completed]

2. Engage a subject-matter expert to facilitate an ‘Introduction to accessible presentations’ for Launcher program. [Completed]

3. Review Accelerator application and judging process to foster diversity and minimise bias.

• Review and update application questions. [Completed]
• Build and test application form to optimise for readability and screen readers. [Completed, and can be improved further]
• Update judging process to de-identify applications and minimise bias. [Work in progress]
• Define minimum standards for diversity of judges. [Completed]

4. Review our approach to Remarkable programming to ensure accessibility and inclusion is embedded, starting with Accelerator 2024.

• Update Accelerator commitments and operating principles. [Completed]
• Come along to our Accelerator AMA sessions this week to find out more!

5. Narrow down team training priorities, service providers and budget [Work in progress]

• One staff member has commenced a digital accessibility training course, but we acknowledge we need to do more work in the short-term on this.

Let’s Create Change Together

It can sometimes feel overwhelming to look at blue-sky outcomes and realise how much work it will take to get there, so we’re focused on making constant progress, no matter how seemingly small. Let’s continue shifting beyond awareness and inspiration on the day of IWD to perpetual, collective action that moves the needle in the right direction.

Remarkable’s Next Commitments

We’ve checked a few things off our to-do list already, which is a great start, but there’s
more important work to be done!

Here’s what we commit to over the next five months:

1. Strategy: Define the focus areas for diversity, accessibility, equity and inclusion, our key metrics and how to navigate competing priorities.

2. Data analysis: Review our current representation across all programs and stages of the user journey, and identify any data gaps.

3. Internal processes: Review, update and publish our Inclusion and Accessibility Commitment on the Remarkable website.

4. Training: Tailored training for Remarkable team members.

Join Us On The Journey

We encourage you to join us in this work and to keep each other accountable!

1. Please share your thoughts and feedback on our commitments.

2. If you have some commitments for action, share them on LinkedIn and tag Remarkable so we can stay in touch and on track.

If you’d like to be connected with someone working in diversity, accessibility and inclusion in the Remarkable community, feel free to get in touch at hello@remarkable.org

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