It can be tricky to write about disabilities. As Small Business Britain’s excellent Disability and Entrepreneurship report acknowledged in its introduction: “There is no single consensus on how to talk about disability. The word disability covers a wide range of conditions, manifests in an array of differing lived experiences, and is understood in different ways.” But we shouldn’t let this hold us back.
That’s why I’m delighted to share that I’m joining the Steering Committee of The Lilac Review, a government-backed independent review, aiming to tackle the inequality faced by disabled-led businesses and level-up entrepreneurial opportunity across the UK.
It will be chaired by the Department for Business and Trade, the Department for Work and Pensions and Victoria Jenkins, CEO and founder of Unhidden. I’ll be working with a topnotch group of entrepreneurs with disabilities, including Sarah Berthon, founder of Excel Against The Odds; Dr Mark Esho MBE, founder of Easy Internet Solutions; Joseph Williams, CEO and co-founder of Clu; and Martyn Sibley, co-founder of Purple Goat Agency.
Disability and entrepreneurship is an under-researched topic, but we’ve held a few events over the years that have shown the need for more. Our webinar Disability in the Time of Coronavirus taught me a lot. For example, while the impact of the pandemic clearly had a negative impact on many disabled people, for some the realisation that people can work and build businesses from home opened up new opportunities.
That webinar featured Liz Johnson, gold-medal winning Paralympian and co-founder of The Ability People, who shared how the sporting industry had changed in its approach to disabled athletes and suggested that we can transfer this into every aspect of our society:
“Authentic inclusion and normalising people’s differences is what’s going to make the world move forward and what’s going to support people with disabilities to use their entrepreneurial skills and opportunities [...] We have to push and work with people to constantly make sure that accessibility is the underlying factor to everything and people are included in consultation at every level because you can’t be expected to fix things for people. If you don’t know what’s wrong with them.”
Entrepreneur Kush Kanodia argued that the ‘fear’ of losing benefits is the single biggest barrier to disabled entrepreneurship: “We need to focus and enable an environment where disabled entrepreneurs feel confident and not afraid to take the additional risks that are associated with starting a new business.”
The Lilac Review was spearheaded by Michelle Ovens CBE of Small Business Britain, so I know it’s sure to be two things: laser-focused on practical change and shot through with positivity. Get in touch with me if you want to chat about this review.
Final Call
We’re deep into a piece of research on neurodiversity and entrepreneurship. To help bring our report to life, we’re looking for neurodiverse founders of tech (or tech-enabled) startups to feature as case studies. There’s still a little bit of time left to get in touch with Eamonn to learn more.
AI-volution
There aren’t enough hours in the day to keep up with the latest developments in AI. While some people reading this will have a solid handle on how the world is being turned upside down, many more will feel perplexed. For those wanting to understand the past five years, you could do no better than carving out an hour to read Nathan Benaich’s The State of State of AI Report.
Advisers’ Meetup
After a great evening at OakNorth, this month we’ll be hosted by Ben Greenstone, Partner of Milltown Partners. Ben is an entrepreneur, having founded Taso Advisory, which was acquired by Milltown Partners last year. The attendees will be a mix of entrepreneurs, policy people and corporates. While we need to give priority to our Advisers, please request a place and we’ll let you know early next week if there is space.
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