Supercharge Your Bottom Line Through Disability Inclusion: January 30, 2025: Eddie Mazariegos, CEO, Future Gen

Podcasts By Dr. Kirk Adams

In this episode of Supercharge Your Bottom Line Trough Disability Inclusion, Dr. Kirk Adams speaks with Future Gen CEO, Eddie Mazzariegos, about innovative ways to improve employment outcomes for youth with disabilities.

They explore how technology-driven career exploration can reduce barriers, highlight new opportunities, and empower students — especially those who are blind or visually impaired — to chart their own professional paths.

Eddie also shares the inspiring story behind Future Gen, the platform's collaboration with vocational rehabilitation programs, and practical tips for educators, families, and advocates aiming to supercharge career readiness and break the cycle of chronic unemployment.

📌 Key Topics Covered:

• 👉 The importance of early exposure to diverse career pathways
• 👉 How short-form video curation personalizes career exploration
• 👉 Strategies to build confidence, self-advocacy, and high expectations
• 👉 Partnerships with schools and vocational rehab agencies for inclusive education
• 👉 Real-life successes and how to scale meaningful impact

For more insights or to connect with Dr. Kirk Adams: ► Website: https://drkirkadams.com | Email: [e-mail] 📧️ | LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kirkadamsphd/

Learn more about Future Gen: ► Website: https://www.futuregenxyz.com/ | LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmazariegos/

Don't forget to like, share, and subscribe for more conversations on disability inclusion and employment!

TRANSCRIPT:

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

disability inclusion, employment for disabled, career pathways, workforce participation, chronic unemployment, poverty issues, home ownership, health disparities, blindness skills, high expectations, internal locus, career exploration, future Gen, mentorship programs, career readiness

SPEAKERS

Speaker 1, Speaker 2

Speaker 1 00:02 Welcome everybody. This is Dr Kirk Adams speaking to you from my home office in Seattle, Washington, and this is my monthly live streamed webinar. Supercharge your bottom line through Disability Inclusion, where we focus on employment for people with disabilities, and that is my passion, both professionally, personally, academically, what I have focused on. And each month, I bring a guest who shares that passion with me to create career pathways for people with disabilities to thrive our world. And today, I have the pleasure of having a conversation with Eddie mazzariegos from future Gen. And Eddie, if you can just say hi, and then we’ll come back to you in a bit.

Speaker 2 00:53 It sounds perfectly fine. Hi everybody. My name is Eddie mazzaregos, as Dr Kirk just mentioned, and I’m Di Len as a neighbor nearby Kirk here in Tacoma, Washington,

Speaker 1 01:06 and you are the CEO of a fairly new company called Future Gen, which is addressing some really pressing needs in the space of employment for people with disabilities. So it’s a pleasure to have you here, and we’ll hear a lot more about future Gen in a bit. So for those of you who don’t know me, again, it’s Dr Kirk Adams. I am the immediate past president and CEO of the American Foundation for the Blind, prior to that same role at the lighthouse for the blind here in Seattle, I’ve spent the last 30 plus years really focused on employment issues for people with disabilities, people who are blind, in particular, and there’s, there’s, there’s some really well documented reasons why I do that. Only about 35% of us with significant disabilities are in the workforce. That’s about half the workforce participation rate of the general population. So with chronic unemployment, chronic lack of workforce participation, come to poverty just to just to be really clear about it. So a lot of our people in our community live in poverty.

02:23 Many people have a small

Speaker 1 02:28 transfer payment from the government. Social Security, disability insurance being the most typical one, where people get a $1,700 or so per month, which is is not a living income level in our country. So along with poverty comes a lack of home ownership. Our home ownership rate is about 110 that of the general population. Health Disparities, lower life expectancy greater substance abuse issues, depression, mental health issues. So I say, if you look at people with disabilities, blind people in particular, compared to the general population, our outcomes are either half as half as good or twice as bad as the general population. So we really want to address that by being thoughtful and understanding what all the dynamics are to this complex problem. And I want to talk about young people in particular. So as we look at the demographics, as I said, Only 35% of us are the workforce. Of those of us who are working, the majority of us,

03:49 more than half, work for nonprofits or government,

Speaker 1 03:54 which is a lower income ceiling than general employment, and we’re in a much narrower band of occupations. We know, and I know blind people are capable of being successful in any profession you can think of. I know blind chemists and blind auto mechanics, of course, lawyers and software engineers and cyber security analysts, teachers, any occupation you can can think of, but we’re grouped in a narrower band than the general population, and we’re also tend to stick at the Bottom couple levels of the org chart. So you don’t see a lot of people with significant disabilities up in for management at major corporations, CEOs of companies, nonprofits, et cetera. So we really want to address that, and the route really starts in childhood. So. And you know, there are people who’ve lived their lives as sighted people and become blind as part of the aging process, or through accident or or or illness, but I really want to talk about people who are growing up visually impaired. So something like only 10% of us are totally blind. I am totally blame myself. Many people, most people who are legally blind, have some level of vision, some some usable, some more usable than others. But it’s, it’s really a quite, quite a wide spectrum, and so my retina is detached when I was in kindergarten, and I went to a school for blind kids, because that’s what kids with disabilities did 60s. And I went to the Oregon State School for the Blind and in first, second and third grade, and I was given three things that are now that I know through research, and I am a researcher. I have a PhD in leadership and change. I did an ethnographic study of blind adults successfully employed in large corporations. But through research, I now know I was given three things that are strong predictors of future success in employment as a blind adult. So so first I was given blindness skills. So being totally blind as a six year old, there was no question that I needed to learn braille. I needed to learn how to travel independently and confidently with a white cane. I needed to learn how to type on a typewriter. So when I started in public school, I could type my spelling tests and my assignments and papers and things for teachers. So I so I learned those things as a six year old, and we now know that the stronger your blind, your specific blindness skills are, the more likely you are to be able to succeed in appointment. The second thing I was given was high expectations. The school I was at, there was 110 120 blind kids. It was K through K through eight. And I know lots of blind kiddos have additional disabilities that are challenging. You know, the philosophy of the Oregon State School for the Blind was that you should be performing at grade level consistent with what your sighted brothers and sisters and neighbors would be doing, as far as reading and math and things like that. So the school held high expectations of me and my parents did as well. They were very young when I became blind. They were in their mid 20s, but my they were both teachers. My father was very involved in athletics. He had a career as a high school basketball coach. They didn’t want to see anything less than an A on a report card, and they didn’t use my case. The third thing I was given was a real sense of agency, or a strong internal locus of control, which means I really came to believe in my bones that I could create my own path forward. I could solve problems, I could figure things out. And, you know, the school gave us a lot of experiences. We went horseback camping in the Three Sisters wilderness area. We went up on Mount Hood and built snow forts of huge snowballs. We got on the tide pools on the Oregon coast and built around for starfish and sea anemones. And we climbed trees and scraped our knees and did all the things kids that age should do and that strong internal locus of control is opposed by an external locus of control when you and that’s a feeling that you really believe things happen to you, you can’t do much about it, kind of at the whims and mercy of fate, rather than creating, creating your destiny. So I was, I was given those three things, not not all kids with disabilities, blind kids are given those, those things. No kids with usable vision. Sometimes there’s a question, does this kid really need to learn to read Braille? Could they use magnification? They listen to stuff. But in my case, that literacy question was was clear. I needed, needed to get those blindness skills. So

09:32 looking at

Speaker 1 09:35 developmentally appropriate stages of life, know you as a parent. If you’re a parent of a blind kid, or you’re a young blind person, or have a young blind person in your life, you want them to be doing what sighted kids do at that at the same age. So if your four year old sighted child is out tussling around in the sandbox on the playground with the. Neighbor kids. You know your blind child should be doing that with a probably with a cane in their hand. If your middle schooler, sighted son or daughter is going to meet their friends to go to the movies, your blind child should be doing that too. They may have a different transportation solution, but they should be doing those things so it’s it’s typical that those developmentally appropriate stages can be managed up until the teen years, and then some things start happening. I grew up in small towns in the Pacific Northwest. When kids turned 16 in the towns I grew up in, they got driver’s licenses, which I didn’t do, and I lived where there was not public transportation, and most kids got some sort of job, did something for pay, and the statistics show that less than 23% of us with significant disabilities get any kind of paid work experience before the age of 23 and that’s opposed to over 70% of the general population get some some kind of paid work experience. So so that’s kind of where the divide tends to start. And if you don’t get that early work experience, and the others competing for jobs, have it, you, you’re you’re at a significant disadvantage, looking at the factors that lead to successful thriving as blind adults, looking at blind kids and blind adults, there was there was really good research done the American Foundation for the Blind, my organization I proudly led, and Dr Phil hatland, Among others, developed concept called the expanded core curriculum, and this, this may not be welcome news for any young, blind kids listening to this, but you have to learn all the stuff the cited kids learn, and nine other things, right? Nine more things. It’s a lot of hard work, and those things include those blindness skills that I mentioned, Braille. If you’re not able to read print with magnification at the same speed as a sighted kid, you need to learn braille. You need to learn to use assistive technology, screen reading software, refreshable braille displays, zoom, text, JAWS, NVDA, all those things, orientation and mobility skills I mentioned cane travel you need to be able to travel confidently throughout the world independently. Self Advocacy is another part of the nine elements of the expanded core curriculum, and my my little story is, when I was in high school, Snohomish high home of the Panthers here in Washington State, I was one of about 30 kids who are kind of the college bound group. And in my senior year in high school, we all went to physics first period, and we all went to math analysis, second period, and we all went, went to chemistry third period, and I walked into the chemistry class the first day, and like the teacher, just, oh, no, this is a safety issue. You cannot take chemistry. You need to go to the office and have them give you another class. And I was, I was quite upset. I went home and told my parents, who were both teachers, and we were very isolated. We weren’t connected with any blindness organizations. Didn’t know any blind adults, really. And you know, they just said, Well, if, if you know, Mr. So and So says, then you know, that’s that. So I was assigned to study hall and spend an hour reading trashy novels in Braille in the library third period my senior year. And now, you know, I know that the people around me didn’t know better, but they certainly didn’t tell me the truth about the capabilities of blind people. I now know, blind people who are PhDs in chemistry, blind people who teach chemistry at the university level. So self advocacy is one of the nine elements of the core curriculum that I didn’t, didn’t really have. And I’ll get to, I’ll get to another element in a moment that’s related directly to what Eddie’s and his company is doing. Before I go there, I want to touch on the important importance of the IEP. So if you’re a child with a disability, if you have a kid with a disability in school, you’re entitled to an individual. The Education Plan, the IEP, and that’s where the school, school district commits to providing services and training and specific focus areas. So it’s really important that the IEP be really well done and thorough, and that blind child or child with a disability should be in those meetings, because that’s where you learn. That’s one way to learn self advocacy. Sometimes the school district will have a team of specialists. You know, your your parent probably doesn’t have a lot of experience in these spaces. They you may feel overwhelmed. So I remember talking to one parent of a blind Katie said, you know, if they bring six people to the IEP, I’m bringing seven, they bring 12. I’m bringing 14. If we have to have it in the in the gym, we’ll we’ll do that. So I really recommend getting connected with advocacy groups, the National Federation of the Blind or the American Council of the Blind, or both.

16:05 Anywhere you live, there’ll be a chapter

Speaker 1 16:09 within striking distance of you. So ACB and NFB are great resources to find some successful blind adults who can really weigh in and speak with authority and expertise on the IEP, which leads us to the specific part of the IEP of the expanded core curriculum, the ECC, which is career exploration. So it was understood through research that blind kids don’t have the same level of understanding as their sighted brothers and sisters and neighbors around career possibilities, career pathways, professions, whether that’s because their family and school holds slow expectations for them and doesn’t expect them to have the same range of opportunities as their sighted classmates, or isolation. For whatever reason, research is clear that blind kids don’t have the same level of understanding of careers, pathways possibilities as their sighted peers do, and Eddie and his company future Jen, are addressing that in a very cutting age modern way, using technology. And I know they are working with school districts and kids with disabilities here in Washington State to open up that world of possibility as far as future employment and careers go. And I know Eddie has some family dynamics with with his brother that really has ignited this particular passion for him.

17:53 So I really like

Speaker 1 17:56 to turn it to you, Eddie, and just kind of ask where, what, what’s the journey been to bring you up to this point in life, and where are you out with your company, and where do you see things going? And you know what’s working well for you. What are the challenges that you still need to overcome to take future Gen to where you see it going. So, kind of, where have you been, where you’re at, where you’re going, what, what’s what’s working well, what are the challenges you’re facing, and how can people get involved in and help you in your noble cause to move forward? I do want to, acknowledge one really interesting thing is that you’re very proud of being an Eagle Scout, and I know that you have engaged people of Norman, fellow Eagle Scouts, enlisted them in the mission. That’s very interesting to me, personally, my my father, who’s passed away now his, his he was born in 1939 his his father was a doctor, and he was enlisted in the military in 1941 and was an Army doctor, and actually worked at a prisoner of war Camp in Texas that housed German prisoners of war, and he came back to Lake Quinault, where they lived in 1945 and then he passed away in 1949 so my my dad really grew up largely without a father, and he and his brother, my uncle, Lou, Who’s 11 months older, both got very involved in Scouting when they both became Eagle Scouts, and it really helped shape their lives. And they, they with, with, without, you know, Father present. They both became remarkable men and leaders. And, you know, they, they’ve have fond men. Series of scouting and being at the jamborees and the journey and the pathway of Eagle coming in Eagle Scout and the guidance they received from adults involved in scouting. So it was very important to them. And so when you mentioned that your pride in that, to me, it really resonated. So I just wanted to acknowledge that, and with that, I will stop talking. I will ask you, Eddie, to tell our live and the audience viewing the recording about future Gen pathway so far, where are you at? Where you going? So Eddie, it’s yours.

Speaker 2 20:43 Thank you, Kirk. I appreciate it. It’s a I was keeping track. I think you asked maybe 12 questions. At least. I’ll start with the one you just mentioned here. But before I say that, there’s a you’re very true. You’re very right when it comes to there’s a saying, once an eagle, always an eagle there. If you really like look around. We’re kind of sprinkled over everywhere you look. And this is a little side tangent from your initial question, but there’s about trying to remember how many millions of us who have become alumni at this point in time, and that’s actually kind of where I started future Gen, I was a I’ve always been very passionate with the question, what do you want to do in the future and in doing so, I have always involved myself in creating mentorship programs, career exploration programs and company culture programs for the past decade, despite this young face, and outside of future Jen, I just had a strong love for that. And at some point in time, I was talking to some buddies of mine in college who, go figure, were also Eagle Scouts. And we just started talking to ourselves like, hey, what’s the what’s your next, what’s your next project? And at the time, I share to everybody that I really do think that people are asking for more guidance in the world, but not necessarily always in the shape and form as as a mentorship program. I wonder what that could be. And you know from those discussions, one of them actually ended up helping me build future Gen where it is. And the founding team of folks that ended up creating future Gen actually were a bunch of Eagle Scouts. I literally had a when you become an Eagle Scout, there’s this organization called the National Eagle Scout Association, and they give you, they ask you if you want, basically, like, a Yellow Pages book of all the contacts of Eagle Scouts. And I remember, I didn’t know when or this would apply or be important, but I just remember when it was offered when I was 18, and I was like, Yes. And you know, four years after that first point, I remember pulling that book out and telling myself, I need to talk to the smartest people that are out there to talk about, talk about this real problem that I really think that’s out there. And little di we know that’s how future Gen kind of got all started. But you know, before I maybe start talking about future Gen, and you know why we really believe everybody should love what they do and how we can really get that done. And, you know, get people excited about the question, what do you want to do in the future? Because it’s really a story about you. It’s your adventure. It’s something is your journey that you should always be excited about. Maybe I should maybe talk a little bit about who is Eddie,

Speaker 1 23:40 yeah. And I think if you just gave a headline for context of what future Gen is and what what you do,

Speaker 2 23:49 of course, of course. So if I had to put it all in a nutshell, future Gen is a Gen Z career readiness and exploration platform. We essentially curate short form videos of working professionals from YouTube, Tiktok and Instagram to identify the career and skills acquisition interests of the future workforce. So we share these career insights of students and young adults across their entire support network. I’m talking about their parents, their teachers, their counselors, anybody that it touches the lives of these kids and together, put put these insights in a way so they can collaborate on what comes next. Me myself again. I mentioned that I’m an Eagle Scout. I also describe myself as, again, as a mentor and as a lennial, who, over the past 10 years, have been very involved in creating career exploration, mentorship and company culture programs. Again, despite this, maybe the smile here, young smile here, but that’s that’s me and myself and the company. In a tiny nutshell, I’m happy to dive into anything specific. Kirk, yeah.

Speaker 1 24:57 Well, I just thought. Yeah, it’d be good to have a snapshot. Well, we can dig into details a bit later, but I want to hear the story of Eddie,

25:10 who is Eddie, gosh,

Speaker 2 25:14 well, I’ll maybe give a little bit more than a nutshell, but not too long. But I come from. Come from an immigrant family. My My mother is from Ecuador. My father is half Spanish, half Guatemalan. And the reason why I bring that up is, when you’re the first born of a whole generation, which which I am, and you come from that background, it’s kind of expected, or there’s high pressure, to become the family’s first doctor, lawyer or engineer. And at age 12, I declared to the world that I’m going to become the family’s first emerging trauma surgeon. And so I did everything that I could to really get myself into that space, from internships to volunteer opportunities, etc. And, you know, captain of soccer teams, etc. And I was fortunate enough that, before going to college, I was given an opportunity to go to a medical apprenticeship program at Harvard University to discover what I didn’t want to become a doctor. So I did the most sensible thing any you know, 1718, year old kid could do, which was when it was time to apply for college all my personal statements that were written for for medical school related opportunities, I decided to scratch everything, and in front of our only family computer in the living room, I rewrote all my personal statements for environmental sciences two days before the last before applications for do at University of California schools, and which I don’t recommend, by the way, but I was fortunate enough to the reason why I did that was because of my Eagle Scout project actually just reopen a entire wildlife corridor in my local area, and that just opened up my eyes even further that there are just countless ways to add value to the community. And so after getting into UC Davis, which into their environmental sciences program. Guess what? I quickly learned that I had a huge love for the world of finance. And so I had asked myself at a point in time like, How on earth does somebody that loves medicine, the environment and finance make me me? Because at any point in time, I don’t believe pursuing a passion is a waste of time, and I definitely didn’t feel like I was wasting my time discovering more about myself. And so I was fortunate enough to kind of define my own North Star in my early 20s, which I still follow today. So whenever I find myself in a fork in the road making to to many, a tough decision, it’s pretty simple to me. So my North Star, my compass, essentially, is, I hope, to become somebody that’s able to make long, lasting impact and helping as many people as possible, which isn’t a job title, but it has been my guiding compass and whatever I do, and that was whether I was back in, and you could say maybe that foundation was put in the boy scouts. Go figure our Scout Law, our scout oath, or Scott motto. I saw all that lives and breathes still in me. And you know, I hope to, I hope I continue to showcase that compass of mine through my actions. But yeah, that’s that’s a little bit about myself and a little more than a nutshell.

28:51 So it’s hopefully I didn’t bore anybody.

28:54 Oh no, not at all. So

Speaker 1 28:57 very, very inspiring, actually, that you had that level of self awareness at that age. I feel like I stumbled along my path in comparison. But then, how did these passions and this level of self awareness and the North Star coalesce around creation of future temple.

Speaker 2 29:27 I think, a big passion to why I would always, I was always, always a huge advocate for mentorship programs at a company level, like at Hyundai, or for smaller club and organizations that I was involved in, such as my college clubs, or in the local greater Los Angeles area, for the for the Boy Scouts down there, our Area Council down there.

29:54 I just always have,

29:56 I’ve always seen

Speaker 2 29:59 I am not. Where I am today because of my own self. There’s a saying in the south which is, if you see a turtle on top of a fence post, it’s most likely the turtle didn’t get there themselves. And so I recognize that I didn’t get where I am today by myself. I actually as many times as I also stumbled to I also asked for a lot of help, and it’s something that I know that is not easy for everybody to do. To ask for help, you’re showcasing vulnerability when you are asking. But I really do think that it’s a position of building in public when you’d be surprised. When you’re building in public, how many of those are in your corner, you’d be surprised how many are out there. So how it ties to future Gen is that I realized for my own self, that I got to where I am today because of the many, many of thought leaders and individuals that decided to say yes to me when I asked for help. And so with future Gen, was an opportunity to like, How can I also pay it forward and say yes to not just folk on a one to one basis, but at scale?

Speaker 1 31:13 Have you created the companies prior to this, or is this your first venture, as far as actually creating a corporation and developing

31:23 a product, taking it to market.

Speaker 2 31:26 This is the first company I ever led from scratch. I’ve supported ideas and projects and initiatives, but as in terms of a company that

31:37 it’s more than just an expensive hobby,

31:41 the first

Speaker 1 31:44 and tell, was there an aha moment? Was it

31:51 I’m, you know, I

Speaker 1 31:55 have a company myself, innovative, impact consulting, but it really came out of my career in focusing on creating opportunities for opportunities for people are blind, and when my it was time to close the chapter at the American Foundation for the Blind and relocate back to my hometown in Seattle and start the Next chapter, it kind of happened by osmosis. Those people I worked with before and had relationships with reached out to me and asked, Can you help with this? Can you help with that? Can you give us some advice? You connect us with some people? So it kind of developed naturally for me. But I’m just, did you wake up one morning and say, I’m starting a company, and it’s going to be called Future Gen, and that’s what, this is, what we’re going to do, or how did it actually What’s the origin story of the company? I’m very curious.

Speaker 2 32:52 Thanks. If I had to go back to inspiration, I guess you can say, with future Gen, a lot of it really had to come from a mixture of experiences that kind of come together. So Kirk, you mentioned my little brother, which I know that you and I have talked in passing, but to share a little bit more to the audience here, I have a little brother. As I mentioned, I’m the oldest of not just my generation, but essentially also my family here and my immediate family. And so I have a younger brother. I have a younger sister, but my little brother, there is actually an 11 year gap between us and between which is quite a bit actually. He’s actually graduating high school this year, but super smart kid, super funny, musically talented, but for some reason, just doesn’t, didn’t see what others saw in him. And when asking myself, did I ever see that? Did I ever myself directly experience that problem? I would say, potentially not, but I cared about my brother very much, and I historically, we’ve seen so many good friends of mine also struggle with this. And I started thinking to myself, Okay, well, how did, how did, how was I so certain with all the actions that I’ve done? Maybe, maybe there are some and who are some others that have also may have experienced certainty in terms of very specific decisions of what they wanted to do, or maybe at least the next step. And I started thinking to myself, Okay, well, I don’t want more people like my brother that experience the what’s next question in a daunting way, because it can have I’m going to continue, but I’m going to ask Kirk I noticed that it is only the two of us now and or it is the we may have lost our other host.

Speaker 1 34:54 Oh, well, kalana got us started and set the recording. So perfect. I’ll continue that. Perform recording. So carry on, carrying on then.

Speaker 2 35:06 And so there’s that experience that was there. I’ve also experienced as as often, as you mentioned, not challenged. I’ve also experienced a lot of no’s. I remember another big experience that was big to me in creating future Gen was in college, there was this club that was relating to finance, and it was very, very elitist. And I was fortunate enough to earn a position in leadership, and I started to administer some change in there, and the change was not welcomed, unfortunately. So I was unfortunately removed, but I didn’t take that remove as, hey, that’s just it, and I decided to actually create my own organization that was much more inclusive of anybody that did not have finance experience. And that was actually a huge uplift in learning how to build career exploration programs from scratch, making partnerships with universities and local companies, being able to actually build workshops with other PhD and colleges nearby to make sure that folks that are really wanting to upskill themselves they can. So I’ll stop there. There’s there’s several others, but those are two very big things. Was, I understand that there is a need for access, and there’s a hunger for access, but it’s not necessarily always as accessible. And everybody, I think, could benefit so much when they hear their first Yes, when you have your first Yes, you’d be surprised how much confidence that gives into an individual and just how much more drive that feeds anyone.

Speaker 1 36:47 And I know you’re working with kids now future dens working with kids. I know the Tacoma area with various school districts, and you have a contract with our Department of Vocational Rehabilitation here in Washington State. So tell us what the experience is like for a young student with a disability has the the opportunity to access future Gen platform, what, what is? What is their experience like? What? What? What value are they gaining from future Gen Yeah, of

Speaker 2 37:27 course. Be careful Kirk, because I can talk about this part all day. So So, yes, future gens, one of our what contracts that we service is with Washington’s department of vocation rehabilitation. They have a specific program called pre ETS, which is pre employment transition services. And we specifically help the job exploration slash career exploration side of that their efforts, in which case the full picture is to really help students with documented disabilities between 14 to 21 transition to the workforce successfully, and so we have been had the wonderful opportunity to service hundreds of kids and growing here in Washington State. And the I’ll share a more recent one. I’ll use a las names for some folk, but I’ll tell you something that was really, really cool, because this is a this is the work that I love. This work that seeing the smile on other kids, that it’s just it is amazing. It’s very meaningful in its own, in his own regard, too, but actionable too, which is great. So what we do is we typically go into schools. We onboard again, school on students that can have a range of high needs, ranging from sometimes sensory challenges to

38:59 short attention spans to just

Speaker 2 39:06 physical challenges as well. And as we do so, we start showing them these videos, and we capture, again, their career skills, acquisition interests, from their engagement with these videos. They’re liking, their disliking. You know, it’s a passion is we believe is a superpower, and we introduce, well, what are the necessary skills that are needed for these, for these potential occupations that you just never even knew existed? And so there’s this one individual. I’m going to call him Connor. And this the student, Connor, I remember we had like an A B test, which was, we’re going to have some workshops. We’re going to work with the student manually to try and gather what our current

39:49 What did you say, A, B,

Speaker 2 39:52 something? Oh, yes. Sorry. Maybe some spark, our startup talk right there, which is, you have a control group. And then you have, like, a real group testing out the product itself. And so with Connor, in a specific example, this is a student that, if handed a, you know, a laptop or tablet of any kind, if frustrated, will throw their laptop across the room. Their eyes are, you know, darting left and right. Their attention is everywhere and so initially, when we first started servicing this specific student, we decided to do, okay, we’re going to do a manual career exploration workshop with this individual, and then we’re going to compare how the results are on the Atlas or career Atlas. And Connor, turns out, before he touches the future. Jones Corrales, we found out that he, he loves the content creator economy. He has his own YouTube channel. He’s posting all these videos. He’s just super like, all about YouTube, essentially. And so we discover, like, Okay, this guy is probably going to have something interesting and or interesting or aligned with entertainment, possibly, okay, let’s, let’s give him Corrales, now that we have a strong understanding what he may want. And I remember, when first giving him, handing over corals to this the student Connor, I explained quickly, you know, or I explained to him, you know, how to use future Gen. And was it I walked to I walked I took two sets back, and Connor, he was just liking and disliking videos within two seconds or less.

41:33 This is web based or app based, revolt.

41:36 He’s on a tablet. Connor’s on a tablet.

Speaker 2 41:38 Yes, in this case, on tablet.

Speaker 1 41:42 And he’s get, he’s given glimpses through video that you’ve

41:47 harvested

Speaker 1 41:49 from the virtual world, right? And then he can say,

41:54 I like that. I don’t like that. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 42:02 And typically, most students, they’ll spend about 30 seconds and 90 minutes or 90 seconds on a video and decide whether they like or dislike from there, once they get the hang of things, they may be shorter, shorter to maybe 15 seconds, but Connor here immediately, was adding or putting input within two to three seconds for a number of videos. And so I stepped away thinking results, his results are going to be interesting. And when he raised his hand to announce that he was done, I walked back over to his seat. We looked at his results, and guess what? The number one recommended industry that was for him was entertainment theater. And we were like, Okay, what, what’s, what else is there? And we started diving into, specifically into, like, Hammerman opportunities. And it was just, it was like, Wow, I’m so

Speaker 1 42:52 how long did that initial assessment take

Speaker 2 42:57 Connor himself? I think he probably did that all within maybe six or seven minutes. Oh, okay, which is very, very speedy compared to other students that are taking more of their time maybe, or maybe have different, different high needs.

Speaker 1 43:18 So this is in a school based situation that sounds like you were there to guide him and give him that support. And I’m imagining as future din grows and more and more school districts and vocational rehabilitation systems that adopt use of future Gen, you’re not going to be able to be with each user. How how can people do this from home? Does it need to be in a school based situation? What are the various scenarios in which young people with disabilities can’t access the value of future general Well,

Speaker 2 43:58 as of right now, the the best way we’re more locally engaged here in Washington, go go figure, especially with the contract. But when it comes to if you are a pre es eligible student here in Washington State, you we can’t contact you with a local RTC, a regional transition counselor, etc, and then we can get you access. I will say, though, even though I mentioned that example, that that was there physically, we’ve already had two schools successfully do it themselves without my presence there necessarily, other than maybe some. Hey, here’s your email to get things started that’s that’s also been really cool. At this point in time, we have more of a we don’t necessarily do something called direct to consumer. We typically do more organizational engagements. But hey, if anybody’s listening and curious, I’ll drop my content. Ask the email or information down here, and can change that

Speaker 1 45:03 and speak if you speak it as well. People listening to the recording can access it. So let’s do that now. How and then, I want to ask some the future of future Gen questions. But for now, how can people get in touch with you. Eddie, how can they learn more about future Gen and how it can be so helpful to young people with disabilities in that vital element of the expanded core curriculum, which is career exploration?

Speaker 2 45:34 Well, we can find you. Can find us on the internet. You can type in future Gen, x, y, z, Career Compass. I just dropped the URL in the chat here that’s reported anywhere. Sometimes when you just type in future Gen, there’s like a power plant that pops up. That’s not a line the the green energy in that kind of space we do support the climate workforce. Give us a highly separate discussion. But future Gen career, compass, XYZ, put the any combination source together, we easily pop up in the top.

46:12 You can also easily most active, also on LinkedIn.

46:17 I’ll also share that here as well. Spell

Speaker 1 46:19 that last name goes or the people out there? Yes,

Speaker 2 46:24 so Eddie spelled E, D, D, I, E, and my last name, maze rigos is m, a, z, A, R, I, E, G, O, S. So happy to also do a quick screen share, if that makes any sense at all, yeah. Why not? Yeah. Okay. I’ll go ahead and give a quick screen share, then and close some text. Because I don’t know about you, Kirk, but I

Speaker 1 46:55 opened way too many and then and then for me, if anyone wants to talk about careers, employment for people with disabilities, blind kids, opportunities for blind people and people with other significant disabilities to thrive in the world of work. I will, I will talk about that all day long so you can reach me at Kirk Adams at Dr Kirk adams.com is my email. So Kirk Adams at Dr Kirk adams.com I’m also very active on LinkedIn, Kirk Adams PhD, and you can find me, we can set up time to talk. So as as we, as we, as we spend the next few minutes. Eddie, what are the top two or three things that you and your team need to accomplish to to move the company forward to where you where, where you see it going, which is obviously to serve a lot more kids and a lot more settings. So what are the top two or three things you need to get done?

Speaker 2 48:07 Well, as of right now, we’re actually looking at putting together a much larger agreement with, again, the local Department of Vocational Rehabilitation department here in Washington.

48:21 But if I had to say two or three things,

Speaker 2 48:25 and if we were specifically talking about career exploration and what I described as the tech accessibility space, our team actually has a whole plan, actually, for 2025 specifically just catered to this one, is we have to go ahead and partner ourselves with the research institution to make sure that we are scientifically backed. So we have many smart people that are here on the team, including our chief science officer. And he again, talk about gentlemen another time, but he’s somebody that is really a lot of the thought capital comes to really building the career exploration focused algorithm, I guess you can say, but there is a hunger for evidence that’s out there in as much so needed nothing that’s wishy washy. So we’ve been talking to a couple of universities that are considering to partner with for the long term. Another thing that we see ourselves really become much further and have a much wider impact is becoming the del facto technology partner here with Washington’s department vocational rehabilitation, pre ETS program here, which we’re in heavy discussions with that would actually enable us to be able to have an impact across multiple other states and be competitive in that sense, because we would then have a government level entity that we support and for a lot of many other states, that’s a more than a request. This all. Then sets things up for ourselves to go into a place called Transition Tennessee, which we have been in touch with that organization as well. They have, they’re a hub, I guess you can say, a lot of resources for building a more inclusive workforce. And they’re again a specific segment for pre ETs and job exploration, slash career exploration. So those are kind of like three things specifically, there’s, you know, at a high level, there’s several other things that we’re specifically diving on. But do we really want to talk about, you know, being section 508, compliant, um, I’m happy.

50:38 There’s, there’s other things good.

Speaker 1 50:39 Well, you’re on a great path, and you and I met the fall at Seattle disability Connect, which is a event that happens quarterly on the Microsoft campus. Actually, one this evening, january 30, 2025 I’ll be there. And really just a pleasure Eddie, to have you with me today. For anyone listening, if you have a young person with a disability in your life and you’re cognizant of their future, it would behoove you to reach out a future Gen, G, E and x, y, z, you can find them on, on with the search engine. Of course, connect with Eddie and we’ll, we’ll do it. We’ll do what we can do to make this valuable career exploration tool available to you and your loved ones. Again, this is Dr Kirk Adams. This has been super charge your bottom lines for disability inclusion. Next month, on March 27 I’ll be back, and I’ll be having a conversation with Aaron De Blasi of mind vault solutions, and we’re going to talk specifically how a blind person such as myself, who is not a tech whiz, can use AI tools to create to create content, to create impactful professional content. Using artificial intelligence, we’re going to walk through a real world example and give everyone a step by step guide, step by step guide on how to do that. So again, Eddie, thank you so much for your time and attention. It’s really been fortunate for me to have connected with you and future Gen I’m excited about what you’re doing. It’s sorely needed. I wish it had been around when I was in school, because I can honestly say I had no clue. So thank you for what you’re doing.

Speaker 2 52:42 Thank you Kirk and thank you for having me here. Take

52:46 good care. Everyone. See you next month. Bye.