BIZABILITY SERIES: How Creatives, Entrepreneurs, and Non-profits Are Changing the Way We Understand Human Potential

This series has passed and will not be repeated. The replays will be online throughout August 31, 2022.

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BIZABILITY is a series of online panels at The New York Public Library's Business Center in July 2022 to celebrate Disability Pride Month in NYC.

BIZABILITY = Business + Ability. We're celebrating how uniquely abled persons are doing and improving business.

Four programs in this series will examine –from a business angle– the contribution that entrepreneurs, creatives, and organizations are making to harness the power of inclusivity. Gustavo Serafini, host of the Enabled Disabled Podcast will interview special guests to learn how to increase business success, tell better stories, and reshape our environments, making them more inclusive and adaptable for everyone. 

Click on each of the links below for more information and registration.

► Universal Design: How "Inclusive Architecture" Benefits Businesses & People (Click here for replay)

With one in four American adults living with a disability, it’s hard to believe that only a handful of organizations and institutions have truly embraced the benefits of Universal Design, but for some reason, it is still largely misunderstood and rarely applied. This program will change forever–and for the better–the way you look at commercial buildings, public spaces, and bathrooms. 

► How Diversity Actualizes Potential: The Omnium Circus Approach (Click here for replay)

Discover how Omnium Circus designed an entire hiring philosophy and practice to create a jaw-dropping audience experience by employing gifted circus performers from different countries and cultures embracing a multi-racial, multi-abled, LGBTQ inclusive approach.

► The Nuance of Disability: “Because of,” NOT “In Spite Of” (Click here for replay)

A film director and producer, along with a writer, share their stories as creatives who embraced their disability and made a conscious choice to flourish because of it, not in spite of it. As a result, their work is now reclaiming the narrative around disability and portraying it not as a burden, but instead, simply as another essential consideration within which to work, much like a budget or a guideline. When reframed like this, disability changes from an afterthought or a legal requirement to a welcome and helpful element that, along with others, guides the ingenuity, design, beauty, and usefulness of the end result because it tells a better story from all angles.

► Millions Lost: The Unrealized Potential of Entrepreneurship and Disability (Click here for replay)

We often read that people with a disability are especially good at solving problems, have a surplus of resilience, and utilize soft skills–like empathy–to better adapt to the world. If solving problems, resilience, and soft skills–like empathy–are common and requisite traits for entrepreneurs, why are so few people with a disability entrepreneurs, or working with entrepreneurs? What biases and narratives still exist that continue leaving people with a disability out of these opportunities? And what can we do to shift these narratives so that more companies recognize the latent and untapped potential in the disability community to start businesses or help businesses thrive? Entrepreneurs with a disability share their stories, as a way to shed light on the millions of people who are facing unnecessary roadblocks that often prevent them from realizing their true entrepreneurial potential and contributing their genius to the world.