- My name is Shannon Landin. And I'm actually, I think the unlikely, Founder and CEO of Codecraft Works. Yeah. Following all these talent onto the virtual stages, humbling, but also really exciting. We've done a lot. And I'm here today, because I'm widely passionate about Codecraft Works. And I've seen firsthand, how our work makes positive impacts in the world. So I'm hoping that by sharing my story, maybe someone out there will recognize a bit of themselves in my journey. Maybe learn something new or just simply be inspired towards their own big, hairy, audacious goals. You might have heard this today or another time, but I'm issuing a disclaimer. I am not an accessibility expert. The stories all share are just from my lived experience and examples of human centered design approach to the research and development of a technology project that I dream could benefit a billion people one day. So a little bit bit about us, Codecraft Works is an educational technology company and we're providing learning tools and technology training services in computer science, software development, information technology, and cybersecurity education for youth and adults. In the fall of 2016, I submitted a SBIR proposal. That's a small business innovation research proposal to the National Science Foundation. And it was a ton of work. I hadn't ever done that before. And I learned a lot along the way that being said, it was worth every word, every page, because in late December, 2016, co-Craft Works received the first of two highly competitive awards from NSF, the National Science Foundation for the research and development, and to commercialize education technology, software and services. So the resulting technology innovation emerged at the intersection of cloud hosted software development tools, engaging technical content, and is always accompanied by world class, passionate mentors and care. And today, we partner with the best people and organizations in the world to design and develop or deliver the skills based training and focus on diversity and inclusion. So how did we get here? Well, it's these stories that I hope to share with you today, but I promise it's not a linear process and hopefully you're ready for that. Human centered design is really a creative approach to problem solving. And it starts with humans, people that we wanna understand, and it ends with custom made innovative solutions. So the stories are examples of the inspiration, ideation, iteration, lots of iteration and implementation that really can be a wellspring for approaching accessibility inclusion and universal design. So in late 2015, when I was first hearing about this computer science workforce gap and how, it was, especially in short supply of qualified workers, I didn't really know what to make of it. I had been in tech a while myself and I didn't really understand. Why is there a short supply? So the statistics on this gap and the opportunity were becoming kind of a national and international conversation at the time, spotlight was being shown on the issue. And I recall that at the time, there was an estimate. So in 2015, they were saying by 2020, will be short 1.2 million computer science workers. So they'll be 1.2 million unfilled jobs in the US alone, because we're not producing enough qualified candidates. Hmm. That's interesting. Why aren't people choosing to go into this field? I had seen the opportunity, industry was loud about needing people. Data showed that computer science and stem degrees were the highest paying, fastest growing. And so, it wasn't really lining up for me. but I noticed something else at the same time. As a parent, along with every other parent, that our next generation of workforce, that elementary, middle and high school kid, that they were all spending hours and hours and hours, playing Minecraft and other video games. And they were just stuck in social media websites and parent where really concerned, rightfully so, that their kids would be more happy just to sit at home alone, probably in some dark corner. And no one would talk to them if they were allowed for hours and hours with that soft glow of the digital screen forever, ruining their chance at that competitive sports scholarship school. Well, parents and teachers are trying to figure out how to stay a step ahead of these digital natives and put sensible usage, policies in place to manage screen time. All the while industry is banging on the door, asking for these digital natives to come forward and apply for jobs. I was like, what is going on here? It's two sides. There's this tension and these technical problem is that two ends of a spectrum with competing interests. And anyway, that was sort of the beginning of questions, questions, questions. And I just had to sit on it for a minute, but I- I had my own experiences that I could reflect on. And so, this talk is kind of born out of the idea that empathy and experience can be a catalyst in our lives. So if you all take a minute and maybe you've done this at other times during this conference, but reflect on a moment when maybe you are excluded or a moment when you recognized a blind spot in your own thinking and you accidentally had excluded someone. So with those questions in mind, you can only ask, how should I, or how did I respond? And I would say, that's kind of what was going on for me. This was a long process, not linear. So it's sort of hard to tell the story, but essentially Codecraft Works was born out of a desire to be part of a pipeline solution, a conduit, a remover of barriers, and provide access to learning experiences for anyone who wanted them. Excuse me. it's not necessarily that when these opportunities started appearing, anyone designed barriers, they intentionally put blockers in place. I don't think that was the case. I think it was that technology came about quickly and there wasn't intentional thought that went into creating the pipeline in an accessible inclusive way. And when we talk about that, it's not just digital accessibility, there all kinds of blockers for all kinds of people. And that's where it started for me. So we wanted to kind of make sure that we could provide access to that technical education, qualified mentors, or even just community examples of success that weren't prevalent in places. And as technology had become this cornerstone of innovation, things are rapidly changing in our lives and modern economy is starting to dominate. Ways to make money and earn a living are becoming increasingly digital. But still the system hasn't purposefully included everyone. Now jumping back a bit to that concept of screen time, the concept of screen time was something that I had been thinking a lot about. And I was concerned because I was making a living, working in technology, and I recognized the need for balance. I wanna go outside. I need to spend time away from the computer, but I also wasn't sure that it should be villainized. So looking at the concept of screen time alone, it just wasn't useful. I thought, context really matters here. How much screen time is only one consideration. And at the time, I felt like it was really critical to consider where, when, why. And probably most importantly for the parents and the teachers was that why. Why are my kids on using these screens, using these devices. And it kind of clicked. That was the beginning of an opportunity to change the conversation. I saw that parents and teachers, educators were having with kids, and expose new ways to approach what felt like tension. Enter, the nerds. There are a few key moments that I recognize now as catalyst, conversations or things that I reflect on. Moments where I connected dots between what was happening in my personal life and things that were happening for other people, or even across the world at the same time. So here's a small, but important example of a funny little conversation that spark another bit of action on my part. But I'll just give you a bit of background, I've been around on the Internet for a while now. I persisted through those early dial up days, had some fun learning about communication on a bulletin board system or old BBSs. As access to the Internet improved, you know, we all could maybe laugh about those AOL access discs and stuff. But I saw access to information and art and ideas, business opportunities, the potential to connect with people who weren't from my town. Maybe weren't even ever in my social circles. I was really inspired by the Internet. And also, I'm an optimist. So I immediately believed that the worldwide web would just be a great equalizer. Why shouldn't it be? And I thought, people can live and work on the Internet. They can make a living. And this was what I was seeing in 2015 and 2016. And I had been able to help other people using technology myself as an employee, as a consultant. And just for fun, I've actually done my fair share of volunteering too. I volunteered in various schools, districts, states, grades, and across socioeconomic ranges. I've been involved as an adult in public education for 22 years. It's hard for me to believe that when I say it. But it's quite a long time and you combine that with your own experiences in school. And there's a lot of information there, one perspective, but a lot of information. And funny thing about all of that volunteer time was that, I always ended up in the computer lab. I was always in that media center, in the computer lab, helping the kids or helping the teachers, help the kids with the computers. I met and worked with lots of cool kids. One time I asked, hey, what wanna do this summer? And honestly, the response that I got surprised me. It was something like, oh, I just wanna stay home, but I'm not allowed. I was like, what summer? You know, these are the times like, don't you wanna go to surf camp or soccer camp or science camp, go hiking, get outside. And this guy said, no. Nope, I don't wanna do of those things. But he knew he had to make a choice. So I said, well, okay, where do you wanna go? Like, what do you want? I'm sure you have to pick something. If you could design the perfect camp, where would you go? And he was like, well, what about math camp? What? Who says that? Who wants to go to math camp? Anyway, it struck me funny. And I thought, who is this child? And why does he wanna go to math camp? And it got me thinking that the camps sit out there, the extracurricular opportunities that are out there right now, aren't for everyone, right? There's people that want to do other things. I was asking a lot of why's and stuff. So anyway, to make a long story short, this was kind of that first step that callous and the inspiration. I'm connecting these dots and now I'm talking to a kid who says, I wanna go to math camp? I'm just simplifying it here. But I made a leap. I thought this kid wants to go to applied math camp. This kid wants to think about making their own video games. So I started hosting my own tech meetups for kids. And rather than playing games, we were talking about tech. We applied mathematical concepts, but we also discussed the who, the what, the why, and the how of their favorite video games. So who wrote that game? What programming language was it written in? What does that mean? How do you do that? How many people did it take to write that game? How long did it take? And it kind of gave a new perspective to the kids, lots of new questions, and also a different way for parents. There's a different way for parents to approach their kids that were spending so much time on the screens. You know, I encourage them to have the same conversations to really get into the details of those games and not just accept technology consumption, but prompt for more. Anyway, it was popular. The tech meetup met one night a week with a few kids and then two, and before along, we didn't have anymore seats around the conference room table. And we had to find her bigger space. But there was a problem. Where were the girls? So with computing jobs among the fastest growing and the highest paying, I wanted to know what would happen when we went to work, including more girls. We needed to prepare and excite more young people in tech and our girls represented this valuable, mostly untapped talent pool. I think you're getting the point here that I'm talking about lots of accessibility barriers, and they will lead to a different perspective. You know, a different approach. A different understanding of what accessibility is. But, you know, my first four raises into this, weren't in thinking about people with disabilities or accessible technology. It took me a long time to get there. At first, I focused on removing barriers for a more familiar class of underserved or underrepresented person to me. And so, this is kind of how the story went. And I wanted to make sure that our group of gamer boys, knew how to sit next to the girls. I wanted them involved. I wanted to have a cohesive group of people that recognized the value and all genders being present. And so, we had some great icebreakers to introduce new people, 'cause the groups were growing. And one new Caucasian student on her first day, let everyone know that she dreamed of being a doctor. She wasn't so sure she was joining this group regularly. And it was clear to us that her connection to that dream profession was really an incredible sense of empathy. So she hadn't considered using technology to help express that empathy, but she knew she wanted to help people. That was ringing really familiar to me. I've always been a, how can I help kind of person? So she made lots of friends at the lab and continue to attend. And over time, she shared stories day-in, day-out, what's going on at school? One day, she came in and talked about the social and emotional challenges of a classmate with disabilities. She told us that his disabilities prevented him from having any independence in school. And through her work and relationships at Codecraft, she realized that she could express her empathy for her classmate using technology. So I'm not saying this happened overnight, It didn't. But she did learn and create a web application that she could provide to him as a mobile web based app on his cell phone. And he could use it to guide him through the progression of the day, his day at school, while minimizing the time he needed to have an aid at his side. He loved it. And previously, the aids had used technology time as reward for remembering getting the steps right. Now he was able to incorporate this tech as part of the solution. She was so proud and took it a step further. So with the help of an amazing science research teacher at her school, she invited other special education aids in the district to use her app and then collected their feedback. Then with that feedback, she entered her project into the science and engineering fair. She was the only girl to participate in the CS category and she won first place statewide. So not only did this passion project, help her learn how to solve technical problems with technology and build a mobile web app, but she found a higher sense of confidence. And along the way, inspired other young women in the process. At the end of that year, the Codecraft classes increased to a 46% female enrollment rate. So it's amazing how much seeing examples of things we recognize can help us, how we can connect to and amplify positivity and empathy, helps us understand the people around us. So this student, used empathy to make a difference in her environment and understanding what motivated her, helped Codecraft include more girls in our programs. Oh, oh, you guys. I'm sorry. I forgot to forward the slide. Isn't that nice? That's her science fair board and her awards. All right. So give you a second to glance at that. But we're making strides. You know, today, the AnitaB org Institute found that women make up 28% of the tech workforce. So that's a good increase from the past few years and women are continuing to step into these positions. And there has been a lot of progress in made. So in the last six or eight years, 36 states now offer at least one computer science course for high school students. But despite being a core component of some of the most in demand jobs across the world, computer science and information technology coursework is still not required for graduation from high school. Furthermore, access to these courses and the material. These industry recognize technical certifications remains unequal. In an effort to impact this, Codecraft Works joined the regional Southeastern Consortium for Minorities in Engineering. It's also called SECME. And SECME is essentially an Alliance of K12 educators, universities and industry government partners that aim to address national priorities. There are looking at the declining engineering enrollments on campuses across the US, and also the growing evidence of shortfalls and technical talent required to sustain a digital economy. So their solution at the invention of SECME was to tap into two talent groups, grossly underestimated. In the engineering professions, I think less than 1% at the time. Namely, my minorities and women. So we wanted to contribute to this and developed a really fun tool called the Codecraft Computer Programming competition. The competition has been a staple now in the regional events for a few years, held that universities like the University of Central Florida. And also, used by this school districts like Brevard County School District and their innovation games. So there's good participation from title one schools and minorities. You know, where I'm going, people are still missing. People are still missing from this equation and access is unequal. There are so many, it's a complicated problem for sure. It's not all about access. There is a pipeline issue. You know, we've heard from educators that there is no time if something isn't standards aligned. And I think that since, CS classes aren't required for graduation from high school, even one of them, many students, especially, if they're needing extra supports in school or maybe have a challenging school schedule. They're never seeing this material. They're never even given the opportunity to consider what this kind of a career could look like. Was that? So in 2019, Codecraft Works got connected with an incredible organization now called BAC. They were previously called the Brevard Achievement Center. And BAC is a national nonprofit serving people with disabilities. Their mission is, excuse me, nothing short of inspiring. And their work is really challenging. BAC and Codecraft Works joined forces that summer to offer an on-the-job training program in computer coding for high school students with disabilities The initial group included eight participants in what became known as the Fibonacci program. And my partners and I, combined our experience to develop initial requirements for participation in the program. Now because human centered design is at the core of what we do, I made it a priority and it was a pleasure to meet with every student individually and their parent. We wanted to confirm that we could adequately support their personal learning and working success in the Fibonacci program, and develop the kind of relationships necessary to discuss any blockers or challenges. So it's how we learned the vast spectrum of individual hobbies, interests, and exceptionalities from each of these people early on. Some of them were really fun surprises like all eight loved computers and gaming. And nearly all of them already spent time on YouTube or Discord at home. There were Star Wars fans, Pokemon fans. I also learned that prior to Codecraft Works, career classes, and training options presented to these students were limited to things like landscaping and food service. Those can be great careers, and I love that they were exposed to that. I don't think that's all that they should have been exposed to. And I really wanted to give them an opportunity to see other things. So another thing I learned is that, only one of them had ever considered college. Wow. So I was just new information, new friends, new program participants. And through our program, they earned multiple certifications. They developed impressive work experience and connected with like-minded friends. They didn't know each other before this. They met mentors and developed real relationships there that can last a lifetime. More importantly, they came away with that increased self-confidence and serious technical problem solving skills, a digital portfolio. Things that would be applicable in any industry that they could have in their back pocket. And the parents appreciated it. Teachers were providing feedback and we were excited. We aimed with our partners to scale this program because it became clear that there are all kinds of barriers for students. Time constraints, neighborhoods, lack of transportation, as well as physical and mental health concerns that can sometimes make attending in-person classes hard to scale, or simply unappealing to participants. Armed with new information and experience as well as growing interest in the program. We moved to a hybrid model. So we used our technology, pre-COVID to deliver technical training virtually. As a result of, I think, listening to what these students, what all of our students need and wanted at the time, we were able to add an additional 20 students, the Fibonacci program from our area alone in the fall and winter. So fall of 2019 and winter of 2020. They gained some experience in person as well as with the virtual platform and little did we know at the time that that virtual support, that experience for all of us, with this tech would be so critical come March of 2020. Warning. This next slide may cause some frustration and negative feelings, but I won't stay there long. I just think it's important that we don't forget what happened. It happened to all of us. You know, it was an extreme disruption. And I, for one, was surprised. I feel like I was caught off guard. You know, I was focusing on the services that we were providing. My team was growing and working hard and you know, maybe we were a little heads down. So when you know, Anthony Fauci is testifying, that it's gonna get worse. And, you know, school is closing all the in-person learning and moving classes online. I was shocked. And I want to say we were ready. We weren't really ready. And that's just the truth of it. I mean, while we aim and we're designing our technology to serve a virtual audience, we still relied heavily on in-person services. And so, if you're looking at the slide with me, you'll see me, standing in front of more than 40 middle school students, and I'm taking it all in. We're having an in-person discussion. You know, the kids are wearing brightly colored clothing. They're engaged, and I can tell. They look relaxed, but that's because they're not fidgeting. They're interested. The group is engaged in conversation about the future of technology and our team loved these moments. You know, this is when we got to raise questions that would get participants thinking about the big topics like data collection, privacy governance, or machine learning algorithms and bias. I was comfortable reading the room and I enjoyed creating this psychological safety, a place where anyone could belong, a place where people could participate in a casual discussion of ideas, not worrying about the muting and unmuting of a microphone. It was natural and it was easy. So, a wake up call. It was a wake up call, but it wasn't just for us. I think you all went through it. It turns out, it was affecting 1.6 billion learners and 190 countries all over every continent, school closures, and learning disruptions everywhere. This was a huge problem. So we had to get used to giving up what a day in the life of Codecraft looked like. And luckily, we had designed our app with the intention to support distance learning for both scale and impact. We had mindfully included of a variety of content types, themes, and engagement options, because we had talked to a variety of types of students and parents, a variety of end users with varied interests and abilities. But truthfully, since we hadn't been forced to eat our own dog food as they say, we knew we were still missing blockers that could result in hardship and missed opportunity for our audiences. And without a full focus on web accessibility, we weren't doing everything we needed to. So we had used our tech in-person at our facility, and we had used it at other locations for other clients or school partners. But almost always, there were people in the room, the same room. And we could lean over a shoulder or point at a problem on the screen to solve it, you know. In 2019, we did run that hybrid virtual program. And thankfully, we completed a series of 50 virtual summer camp sessions for our corporate client. Those were our first sessions. We learned a lot. It wasn't perfect. But luckily, inspiration for improvement was not in short supply in our team. And the ideation was enjoyable. Ideas were coming into focus for us. But we knew that we had a huge responsibility. And again, it's a tipping point. It's beyond just our community now. Every student's experience was important to us. And so, we decided to kind of take a breath here. We needed to slow down in order to do things better. And so, that's what we did. We used our experience. We referenced what we loved about the in-person interactions. We worked hard to cultivate a sense of belonging online. And there's a designer. I think she's an urban planner, Susan Guzman, who contributed greatly to making physical spaces accessible to those with disabilities. She said, inclusive design doesn't mean you're designing one thing for all people. You're designing a diversity of ways to participate, so that everyone has a sense of belonging. And that phrase, everyone has a sense of belonging. And this definition is really powerful, but also really important to me. The pictures on these slides that I'm showing, are demonstrations of a fraction of the moments of time that we relied on in-person communication to convey meaning, to understand context, and to create that belonging. And this was gone. There was no going back for us. We had to make big moves and we had to hold onto these moments as inspiration. Let them inform us. While we looked at the new challenges of working with such a diversity of students. Making sure that we kept our students at the center of the conversation. We were able to understand what an inclusive online space could look like. We asked a lot of questions and we got some hard answers. But we knew that it was valuable and worth doing. Again, not linear. Inspiration, ideation, iteration, and implementation. So aiming to build for everyone. Well, it's not building for everyone, it's so that everyone feels comfortable. A little different, multiple ways to access things. But so it's a space where everyone can feel comfortable. With time and virtual space, no more options to read the room. We worked with those students and partners made that full pivot, asking lots of questions. When we couldn't sit next to and point, a whole new perspective emerged. You know, we experienced firsthand the problems. We heard firsthand the challenges. And we were- I mean, it's embarrassing now, but we were pretty new to the specifics of online accessibility. We didn't know the depths. We didn't have it yet, but we did recognize that it was a really important expression of our culture. The things that our whole team valued, that everyone on our team wanted to make real for the students that we already cared about and supported. So we also knew we needed help. It was then that, we were so glad to connect with Deque with their support and advice, we aimed at the WCAG AA conformance standards. And as always learned a lot along the way, the web accessibility audit of our application of course, revealed plenty of areas of improvement. And we thought it was a bit daunting, of course. We have a pretty small team, but the tools were awesome. The analysis and the report that they provided were clear, the guidance was available. So we took action. We took action and our small, but mighty in-house development team used those tools, the Axe auditor report, and the DEVTools, the Chrome extensions to work through all the remediation items and learn. Every step of the way we learn, why something was wrong and how it blocked, and why it should be better. And in the end, our app became more accessible to people with disabilities and conforms to WCAG AA standard. We're not done, we recognize. This is the process. it's the beginning, but we're so glad to have stepped into it. And I kind of feel like this is where the story gets really meta. So I shared an earlier story of this, but it kind of comes whole all around on like full circle here. So I'll summarize to say, the Codecraft Works team writes a software tool that teaches software development like footnotes, explaining footnotes. Tackling accessibility barriers in our tool, we learned ton. So performing these accessibility audits and then, or we didn't perform the audit. But the remediation reading the audit, performing the remediation, we recognize the value. We're going through this. And we're saying like, wow, we wish we had been including this in the things that we're teaching other people. So that's what we did. That's what we did. We went back and we said, we don't wanna just teach an intro to HTML. We wanna make sure that the information we're passing on, is the information that we've learned from. So with the goal, with this goal of mind, we went back and took a look at how students could understand the value of creating web websites that are born accessible. As a matter of fact, I think multiple of our students have attended all of the Axe-con talks. We want them to understand the joys of baking accessibility into the development process in a way that alleviates future, a heartache for them, maybe when they get that first job or have the opportunity to join their first team. And we also wanted them to see that when you make a mistake, you can still fix it.

- So through all of that, we've been so lucky to have multiple partners. Partners we've met along the way, make all the difference. And we've listened to lots of stakeholders in order to understand the many perspectives. We are making stem education inclusive and removing barriers for anyone who wants to learn more specifically in the areas of CS, computer programming, and IT education, where so much opportunity exists. And it's a really rewarding challenge. I think, it's for me to note here that the Codecraft Work technology and tools and services have truly benefited from the SBIR award, given to us by the National Science Foundation. These awards have allowed us to approach this huge CS and stem talent gap with fresh eyes, and lived experience, while working understand the barriers of the people who want to be included. And also the barriers of the people who don't even know they want to be included yet. So the seed fund allowed us the time and the opportunity that we would not have had otherwise to listen and respond in ways that open doors for others, and have helped us create services and products that fit our customer's needs. The most recent exciting iteration, if you will, is a program called Launch IT. And Launch IT educates, inspires, and empowers. It's that partnership between the Brevard Achievement Center, BAC, and Codecraft Works. And the program combines our stem based learning with BACS experience and serving people with disabilities to provide solutions to two workplace challenges. So filling those entry level, IT positions, and increasing employment for people with disabilities. It's a six month comprehensive virtual program for people with varying abilities, from all over the nation to earn internationally recognized certifications with the guidance of specialized mentors. Learning to be experts in their field Launch IT graduates, enter the workplace with independence and confidence. These are adults who are being supported in upward mobility and finding opportunities to learn things that hadn't previously been provided to them. So at a recent graduation, we had the honor of having a guest speaker, Shane Kennedy. I'm not sure if you've heard of him, but he's the Vice President of Workforce Development at Source America. Source America's another national nonprofit. They sort of- I don't, I think it's manage or oversee with partners in the federal government ability one contract. So federal set asides for people with disabilities. And he told the graduates that he had some really inspiring words. And he said, to make a difference in workplace inclusion throughout the US, we have to find those right connections between people and opportunities. So professional certification programs can create those bridges. And those are important because they represent mutual recognition of the skills and knowledge of those who earn the certifications. He went on to say that programs like Launch IT, are examples of what's possible when you start with a mindset of full inclusion. So Codecraft Works not all only welcomes diversity, it showcases how diversity and creativity can create exponential value. As I wrap this up, I hope you'll allow me to read a note, I'm really proud of. I got this email from one of our graduates recently. And he said, sorry, it's been a while, but I just wanted to let you know that I'm continuing to do well with my job at role, IT. I have been doing the usual of documenting, updating, and closing tickets in Jira, as well as using the remote monitoring and management console software to monitor and track issues to resolve. My boss is still proud of me and of the amount of effort I am putting into the work. I will continue to do my best and keep up the great work. Hope all as well, have a great day. Okay. So honestly, this is why I do my job. Words mean so much to me. And this was everything. I loved to know that this guy was able to leave our program, find a place in the world where he felt valued and was contributing value, and was able to recognize it. That he has upward mobility in his career and got that through work that my team and I did. So Launch IT is just entering its second year. Now our it allows participants to build every level of not, entry level. sorry, not every level, entry level experience. But it's that gateway. They build that entry level knowledge and they earn certifications. We offer two different tracks, IT and web. So you just heard from Nick, who was part of the IT track. And our web track really focuses on UX design. Students use tools like Figma and Adobe XD. They also conduct usability studies with third party participants and they learn to read and write semantic, HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. They read the WCAG standards and they practice using tools like MBDA. We focus on those tools and processes. Wire framing, design, and empathy for your users. Graduates like Nick are getting jobs, and others are too. And we just hope that this trend continues, that connecting with communities like this one, can be another bridge to more opportunities for our students. Launch IT right now has earned support from Florida's Department of Vocational Rehabilitation and some support from Source America. They provided opportunities for other MPAs to leverage the program for are candidates. And this was nationwide. So we've been able to serve people from California to Connecticut. And I hope that that trend continues. But as I wrap this up, I just wanted to say that I hope you were inspired by this talk. I do believe anyone can practice human centered design. And that anyone, everyone would benefit from it. I hope my experiences with this, will spark joy or encourage your creative thinking and allow you to in demonstrate, what it might be like to lean into a problem, ask a lot of questions and then go for it. So thank you all for your time.

- Thank you, Shannon. Thank you for the very inspiring story. And listening to your experiences, how you encourage people to really explore something that maybe was first foreign to them, but really encouraged that empathy and that that feeling that they could do something, a lot of inspiring stories mentioned in the chat. I know we're running a little bit over time, but I really wanted to hear Shannon story, have us hear complete Shannon's story. And Shannon, I can't thank you enough for sharing your story and letting us hear how we can inspire others to their best that they are, and also include people as we expand that vision. So what I'll do is actually, just say thank you to Shannon. Thank you to the participants in today's session. Thank you for listening to Shannon's story. And hopefully, as she mentioned, are inspired by it as well. Reminder, that Shannon's talk is gonna be available, use with on Replay as we upload the video. And I would encourage you to share that with others as part of Axe-con. Thanks again for attending Axe-con. Thank you again for attending Shannon's talk. And I'm gonna wish everyone having a great day and thank you very much.

- Thank you.