127: Creating an impact unicorn with assistive tech: Prateek Madhav, Co-Founder, CEO AssiTech Foundation

The Elephant in the Room

Show notes:

What role can technology play in breaking down barriers and building inclusion? Can AI be a force for good? There is sufficient research to show that assistive technology can be a game changer for people with disabilities enabling them to be more independent(self-care) and improving their participation in social interactions, education, employment etc. So, when I came across an article by Prateek Madhav on assistive technology, I jumped to the chance to invite him to be a guest on The 🐘 in the Room.

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), a staggering 16% of the world’s population or 1in 6 of us or about 1.3 billion people experience significant disability. Under international human rights law, sometimes domestic laws countries have an obligation to address the inequities faced by persons with disabilities. Disability inclusion is an imperative to achieving the SDGs. However, disabled people face huge barriers to accessing education, livelihood opportunities and of course there are stereotypes and stigma that continues to prevail.

It was inspiring to hear about technology for good, about innovations that are enablers to inclusion and help people live more fulfilling lives. AssisTech Foundation(ATF) the non-profit founded by Prateek Madhav aims to build an ecosystem that leverages innovations by technology startups in assistive technology. Today, the foundation is the world’s fastest and largest ecosystem of assistive technology, with a network 450 innovators and startups in India and access to 1200 globally. Through the Inclusive InnovationNetwork (+N) (IIN) that he co-founded, Prateek Madhav aims to create a global ecosystem for collaboration and peer learning by partnering with entrepreneurs and investors.

The vision is for ATF to become an impact unicorn – creating scalable impact on the

lives of at least a billion people. The big takeaway for me, is that social

impact companies can be a force for good and help address some of the biggest

problems facing our communities and the world. ATF shows that is possible.

To get your daily/weekly dose of inspiration and hear more about the ATF head to the podcast. Link in the comments 👇🏾👇🏾👇🏾

Episode Transcript:

Sudha: Good afternoon, Prateek. Thank you for being a guest on The Elephant in the Room podcast today.

Prateek: Thank you very much for the invitation. It's a pleasure to be here.

Sudha: We always start with an introduction. So please share a brief introduction with our listeners.

Prateek: Thank you. So, my name is Prateek Madhav.

I'm the co-founder and CEO of AssisTech Foundation. I grew up in North part of India, in a town called Jaipur. Out of house for 25 years. So don't know my kids probably are more Bangalore kids than Jaipur kids. I went to NIT Jaipur and then IM Calcutta to do my MBA.

I've lived in multiple countries, chose to come back to India for good reasons. The way I think of my life is that probably I'm living the second one. The first one professionally was in corporate, so I worked for 18, 20 years for corporate organisations and I loved the roles. It gives you visibility, it gives you opportunity to travel, meet different people, but what's more interesting honestly is the second life, which is where the attempt is to create more awareness about disability inclusion, create an ecosystem, which will use the technology innovation to help people with disabilities.

I'm sure we'll talk more about it. But yeah, I mean, beyond all this which I shared with you i'm a runner. Recently done a 500-kilometer cycling tour. Finished a couple of weeks back, next year aspiration to enter triathlons. So yeah, `that’s on the sights, but I'm very thankful to get these opportunities, to do different things and definitely blessed with a lot of good people around me.

But thank you again for inviting for this podcast and having this conversation.

Sudha: The thing about second innings really resonates with me. I faced barriers to career progression in the UK. And at that time, I didn't realize that this was an opportunity and a new beginning and a new start. And there was a lot of angst, but I'm so grateful now that I'm here on this journey and that I'm able to speak with people like you who inspire me every single day.

Prateek, what inspired you to start the AssisTech Foundation, and what is your vision for it?

Prateek: Sure, and thank you for asking that question. See, like I said, I started volunteering in the second life for various different disability focused organisations. In fact, my early experiences was to be a part of the organizing committee of first ever T20 World Cup Blind Cricket which we organized way back in 2012 in India, Bangalore. And we were a small non-profit sitting with an aspiration of doing a World Cup. How uncool and foolish that could be. But we did it, and I have to tell you what fun it was to really see, 10 countries, including India, playing the first ever T20 World Cup cricket for the blind.

And I don't know if you or the listeners understand how blind cricket is being played. It's played with a white ball, which makes sound. So, we did that World Cup. And in fact, I'm very happy to share that, that year India won the final beating Pakistan in it. It was a great experience for me personally and I continued volunteering for different disability focused organisations.

I was a part of the advisory of Dr. Reddy's Foundation and many other organisations. Now when I think of your question of inspiration, there's no one day or one instance. As I was spending more and more time along with my corporate roles in disability, I realized that number one, we were looking at challenges of different sort. Now, all of us know that we are talking about 1. 4 billion people with disabilities in the world, which makes us one in six or one in seven of us have, some or other kind of disability.

In India, somewhere around 70 to 80 million people with disabilities. So, we're talking about enormous challenge. And while we think about this large number, I looked around to see who was trying to solve the problems of people with disabilities to help them learn better, to help them get into employment While there were very, amazing organisations around me. One observation was they were using very 14th centuryish solutions. While our life was getting transformed through tech, we were getting access to online digital content faster, better, easier ways to travel, order food all that cool stuff.

People with disabilities were not given that opportunity. So that's number one. Second unlike a lot of us believed in, they were happy people and I have to tell you I have so many friends with disabilities. They are full of joy, full of aspiration. They may or may not have resources like you and I, but unlike my corporate employees who had everything but complained. People with disabilities live with a lot of hope very confident YouTube. And third, because my day job was to build technology, infrastructure, technology platforms I started realizing the same phenomenal tech can also be used to help people with disabilities learn, get employed, or live a very independent life. So, my curiosity was to see how I can use my skills, connect. knowledge experiences to help this section of society, which has been ignored is where the seeds started.

In those years, I started working with a lot of technology entrepreneurs and they would come to me. I took a sabbatical from Accenture to be full time CEO of a large nonprofit in India.

And a lot of technology innovators will come to me with their innovations. And I saw an opportunity in helping them. And if we had created a platform to help them, they will in turn help so many people with disabilities where the thought and the journey started, but I'll take a pause, if you have any follow up questions, but I'm happy to talk more about ATF and the vision.

Sudha: No, I think it's amazing because, yeah, we always think that everyone has an aha moment where you suddenly in one moment decide. But I think there is always a series of things and experiences that inspire us. Rather than just one thing for most of us.

Please, I'd love to hear more about the vision.

Prateek: So the journey started where I started sitting in this nonprofit and beyond when my sabbatical also ended. Imagine, a couple of guys coming to you and saying Prateek, we have built this app which will help blind people move independently, in an indoor and outdoor environment. And I would look at them, like, who are you?

And as I explored more, in this case, they were two individuals who resigned from their very well paying job from the corporate organisation and built this tech for six months, sitting in their flat in Bangalore. And they built a very credible tech. They were passionate. I said, okay, wait, hold on. And I called my friend Chandru who was 100 percent blind. I said, Chandru, can you please test it? And, he doesn't know who's sitting with me and he goes around and comes back and said, sir, it doesn't work.

So now, if you look at this more closely today you will see that tech founders had great passion, when you double click and explore more why they did all that what they did is because they realized that a friend of theirs got blind and they wanted to do something about it, but they never involved a wider set of users. So they built phenomenal tech, which was of no use.

I was meeting some of these xxxxxx when I said, what can I do to help them? And we do what we can do in our, area sphere of influence where they don't connect them with this different organisation. But then the idea started growing to see what if we create a platform. What if we create an ecosystem? What if we create an organisation which will help hundreds of these innovators and entrepreneurs grow? Helping one person is great, I think we all, in our individual capacities do that job day in day out. But idea is to create this ecosystem, because if we are able to help hundreds of these innovators, who are building assistive technology solutions for people with disabilities and elders, then in turn, what if they help a hundred thousand people? Imagine the kind of ripple effect. Imagine the principle of non-linearity. Imagine force multiplication starts to kick in.

Hence, we will be able to create that kind of, impact.

Having that thought and belief, we founded ATF, AssisTech Foundation in 2018/19, but I'm really happy to also share with you now, what we started with 20/25 Innovators is an ecosystem which is world's fastest and the largest ecosystem of assistive technology. Now we have a network of 450 such innovators and startups in the country.

We are global alliance, you have access to 1, 200 such innovation, and you're very, very excited that what model, which we initially thought should start kicking in is not scaling very well as well.

Sudha: Wow. That's amazing, it's not always easy to create this ecosystem. People say that India doesn't have enough of people who innovate, there is not enough of talent, failure of the technology. In spite of all the good intention behind it, if you are not inclusive at the design stage, including those who need to use it and keeping in mind the diverse needs even of that group, ultimately the product is likely to fail. So, it sounds like an amazing and very interesting journey. I'm sure you have a lot of stories. Prateek, you also founded the ‘Inclusive Innovation Network.’ Is it aligned to the ATF and what is the purpose of this network?

Prateek: So fundamental beliefs Sudha is technology is beyond boundaries. We have seen that when we have worked in an industry.

Another brilliant thing about technology is that technology doesn't discriminate while people do. So when we started to think about putting together ATF, which is a section 9 non-profit organisation, we also said let's also see what's happening around the world. We spoke to a lot of people in Australia, New Zealand. Israel was doing amazing in terms of tech innovation and assistive technology, a lot of folks in the US Europe as well. And we started to realize that the task of creating an ecosystem in India was important, but we were looking at an opportunity of creating a global ecosystem because for various different reasons, a lot of organisations working in different countries, the whole ecosystem was also fragmented, but they were phenomenal organisation, nonprofits, innovators, whom we were speaking to beyond India. And we started realizing that if we do not expand and create this ecosystem and think of a design of this ecosystem as a global design, I think will undermine the whole opportunity here.

And hence we co-founded this network called ‘Inclusive Innovation Network’ with six other countries. So, ATF India from India, Remarkable, who's a part of the largest cerebral palsy alliance in Australia, New Zealand. Kenya has a very interesting geography we have a very good friend and probably one of the best disability leaders in the whole South Africa called Bernard and we have Canada, there's some people in Hong Kong, China. What we started was, a few years back is now taking an amazing global shape because we have at least seven to eight countries joining us next year. Now, through this network, like I said earlier, you already have access to at least 1, 200 innovators and startup.

And I'll go back to the point which I was making that technology is beyond boundary. So, imagine a startup who's building solution for helping with social skills and communication to autistic kids. Is also talking to a similar tech startup who are trying to solve same or similar challenge in Australia. Look at the collaboration, look at the peer learning. Look at the possibility of they joining forces, collaborating, sometimes synergizing in terms of resources. They're investing in building this tech and then launching a global product. Imagine investors that's in many ecosystem, although we have tried building in India, but awareness in Western countries about investment in assistive technology is far better.

And hence we are talking to several investment houses, family houses as well, who are interested in investing innovations in assistive technology. So, I think that really is the purpose of plus and to create a global innovation ecosystem by partnering with different entrepreneurs and investors, very excited because we have seen that model working very well.

But obviously more needs to be done as we go forward.

Sudha: I think it's amazing that from now six to you have another same number or greater number wanting to join. That's brilliant. Prateek, so we all know the challenges of disabled people in India and they are the invisibles. I call them the invisibles because, most parents, society, I think for whatever reason, they try to hide those children or try to hide the disability, if it is possible.

How does ATF help disabled people take charge of their lives, I think if parents knew or if even their, support network, were aware of the things that technology can enable them to do that would be brilliant.

Prateek: You're right when we think about disability as a section of society, we are not just talking about the visible disability. So, if somebody is on wheelchair using crutches or a person's vision impairment, there's a large section of society like you rightly said are invisible disabilities, learning disabilities, neurodiversity, neurodivergent kids. And you're also right that in our experience a lot of time people with disability themselves or their parents do not like to really come out in the society. And I think there are good reasons for that because construct of our society is that we are not giving, equal opportunity to people with disabilities.

In fact, some of the organisations I have seen, if they divulge that there is a disability, they could marginalize, they don't get that equal opportunity. And hence, a lot of time, it's a question of acknowledgement, because of emotional reasons, acceptance. And hence, if you do not accept and acknowledge, you would never seek out solutions, you will never seek out help in the wider society because of marginalisation and stuff like that. My point of view, and I want to share with you and the listeners that the world has changed. We have seen so many kids with disabilities, with smarter tech today, they are not just excelling in their education, but they are growing with so much of confidence that they are entering into employment. One of the things which you would know that parents will always worry about what will happen to my son or daughter with disability after me. What after me is always a thought.

And I'm here to give them strength, I'm here to give them a thought which is very optimistic that if we open up, if we invest in training them on various stuff, various skills, I have no doubt that they will be able to take care of themselves and be independent. We have seen so many people with disabilities now entering workforce. The world has changed, not just because the newer technology is there to help, the world it's changed because there's a greater awareness about people with disabilities and their capabilities.

I will give you an example of a friend of mine, her name is Al and she was a very senior leader in one of the corporate organisation and then she resigned and she started a non-profit. She's a person...