Transcript: John Sullivan Discusses the Top Emerging Workplace Trends Impacting People with Disabilities
PEAT asked John Sullivan of General Services Administration: What emerging workplace trends or technology do you think will have the biggest impact on people with disabilities in the next five years?
What do you see as possible accessibility concerns or solutions related to these coming trends? I think it’s clearly the internet of things: wearable technologies, sensor-based technologies, guidance systems, the ability to help people navigate through the buildings. The VA is doing it to the hospitals. So here’s where I walk in, here’s where I gotta go, here’s a map, it guides me to my next appointment, to the the lab, to the doctors office. Not designed for those with disabilities, but extremely valuable and then vice versa, things designed for those with disabilities really help the rest of us create these types of things. And I know many sight-impaired folks who are just waiting for autonomous vehicles and that sense of freedom they’re going to get and end the reliance on paratransit. People are ready and waiting.