This afternoon our group visited the Association of People with Disabilities (APD) facility. We were given a tour of the therapy spaces, adapted classrooms, and vocational training workshops.
Throughout the tour we interacted with the equipment used by the beneficiaries of the program.
I was struck by the phrase our tour guide used, ‘Disability is in everyone.’ Our guide explained that crooked teeth and poor eyesight are not typically thought of as disabilities because we have found solutions like braces and glasses.
After our tour, we got the privilege to speak (through a translator) to a group of deaf students that receive mobility and livelihood training from the APD program. The impactful experience led our group to pool money to donate to the APD program. Our next stop was at Intellicap, an investment firm focused on social enterprise support. The director of Intellicap gave a brief presentation over dinner about the platforms offered to start-ups. These platforms are based on three principles including knowledge, capital, and networks. We learned about the ease of finding investors and the struggles of ensuring that invested money results in quantifiable impact. Intellicap’s goal is to focus on solutions that affect the “bottom of the pyramid.” By using data “hooks” to collect information on sales of goods and customer traffic, Intellecap is truly encouraging innovation for the masses.
