[Doug]: Welcome to episode 31 of Feeling Through Live. I have the distinct pleasure to be joined today by Ferose of the India Inclusion Summit and of many more things. And before we kind of get into the heart of this conversation, Ferose, we've had the pleasure to get to know each other over the last couple months, but I really got to go a little bit more deep into getting to know you over the last week, preparing for this episode. And because I know we're not going to get to all of this, I just want to give everyone a quick little snapshot of all of the many things that Ferose has accomplished here. And mind you, I'm sure this is the short list here, but let me just give a little bit of a proper introduction of a lot of the many things that he's been involved with, and then we can kind of narrow in on it a little bit more. So Ferose heads the SAP Academy for Engineering, he's also the chairperson on the board of Specialineste...sorry, Specialisterne USA, which is a non for profit foundation with the goal to create 1 million jobs for people with autism and similar challenges. Yes, that's right, 1 million jobs for people with autism and similar challenges. We'll get to more of that very shortly. He's also the founder of the India Inclusion Foundation, which is a nonprofit aiming to bring the topic of inclusion at the forefront of India. Of course, that includes the Indian Inclusion Summit, which we'll be discussing today, but a couple other things that I want to let you know about that we might not have time to get to. He's a best-selling author who co-authored the book Gifted. He's a regular columnist in a lot of different publications that he's had published, some of which have gone viral. And here's some cool things that I just, you know, there's, he has a very long list of achievements. He's in something called the Happiness Hall of Fame, which, Ferose, when I read that, I was like, is there a cooler hall of fame to be in than the Happiness Hall of Fame? I might have to ask you a little bit more about that in a moment, but I just think that's about the coolest thing I've ever heard. And then a couple other things, he's young global leader, named a young global leader by the World Economic Forum, India's top 40 under 40 by Economic Times and Spencer Stuart. And I mean, honestly the list goes on here. I don't want to spend our whole hour just talking about your achievements, even though they're really impressive. But you know, Ferose, I guess before we kind of get into the meat and potatoes of everything, I'd love for you to just have an opportunity to introduce yourself, because to be honest, you're in a great way such a hard guest to introduce because you do so many things. So how would you introduce yourself?
[Ferose]: Firstly, thank you, Doug. I mean, I feel very flattered and I must confess, I hate to share my profile because that's what I call as the official profile because people ask me to send that in, but I have another profile, which I call it my failure as you may, which by the way, is a much longer list, which, you know, I'm happy to share it as well, but I always say the introductions are sometimes very one sided and I love the introduction because I always say, I wish my mom and dad were there to listen to these introductions because my dad will feel very proud and my mom will actually believe everything. Right. So I think we shouldn't put too much emphasis on the introduction part. But yeah, if you, if you ask me the one thing that I'm incredibly proud of is really the work that I've been able to do in the last 10 years in the space of disability, because this was one topic which was a topic which wasn't spoken about, which was really a community which was marginalized. And for me, the work in the disability space gives me the greatest joy. And of course I have a day job as an executive at SAP, which is, you know, which is already a very interesting job. But I think the work that we've been able to do in the disability space has been just both very fulfilling and life-changing for me. So I would say if there's, if there's any introduction, if people remember me for the work in the disability space, I think then I've lived a life worthy of something.
[Doug]: Well, in addition to that, I also want to make sure people don't miss the amazing Dali clock that's right above your head. We had to make sure we pointed that out, but you know, I'm so fascinated by this because for someone who is as accomplished as you are as a business person, and obviously I'm sure tremendously busy and leading teams of thousands of people globally, what brought you into the disability space? Because I know that's something that now takes up a tremendous amount of your time as well, and really is your passion as you just described. So what brought you into that space?
[Ferose]: Yeah, I mean, you know, if you allow me, I'll try to start with where it all began and I have to rewind a little bit. It all started in the year 2010, so it's almost a decade. And at that time I was heading SAP in India, which is, you know, SAP is a German multinational, it's a hundred billion dollar company, a hundred thousand employees worldwide. So it's a massive organization. And SAP had a big R&D center in Bangalore. And I was heading that. We had around 5,000 plus engineers and I was the head of that and when I look back, I think I was incredibly lucky to get a leadership role at a very young age. I just 33 when I was the head of SAP in India ,was one of the youngest to take such a leading position in a global multinational. And in many ways I thought, you know, I had located the perfect life. I was heading a huge multinational. I had married my college sweetheart, which took me by the way 10 years. That's a different story. Me and my wife, me and my wife went to the same college, sat in the same class. And eventually got married after a lot of family pressure because I'm a Muslim and my wife is a Hindu and that's, that's a perfect recipe for disaster. Especially if you know the India context. But I got married, then I had my son and you sometimes feel that life can't get better than that, you know, great career, great family. And then my life changed when one moment, you know, again, I realized that after multiple tests and things like that, my son Vivaan was diagnosed with autism. So that was when he was 18 months old. And I remember that moment when the doctor gave me the diagnosis, me and my wife, and we drove back home and we didn't speak in the long journey of an hour in the car, which is just, we just didn't know what hit us. I went into my bathroom, I locked myself and cried for half an hour. I said, here goes my perfect life. And you know, as an engineer, your default thinking is you can fix everything, right? You think that, oh, you give me a problem, I can fix it. So the first reaction was to the doctor, okay, fine, you know, this is autism, I get it. So tell me, how do I fix this? You know, what should I do? What medications will fix this? And he said, no, this is a condition for life. Of course you can do therapies and so on and you can get a way around it. And he's just very young, so you don't know if this is going to be a severe form or is this going to be a mild form? And I just couldn't understand that I've been dealt with something that I can't fix, right. And I went into depression, I went into denial and I was like, you know, I just couldn't handle it. And after that, I think my, you know, there was one phone call from my mentor that changed my life. And, what happened was when I was going through this low phase, my mentor, her name is Dr. Kiran Bedi. And she is one of the most admired women in India. And I was really fortunate to know her. She called me and said, Ferose, why this radio silence? Why haven't you called me for a month? And now you are not responding to emails and messages. And I broke down and I told her, ma'am, you know, Vivaan is diagnosed with autism and I don't know what to do and they say there is no fix. And she said, Ferose, let me tell you one thing, is that most people spend their entire life not doing what their purpose is. You're incredibly fortunate. The purpose found you. And she said, spend the rest of the life not just taking care of Vivaan because that's required, that is what every parent would do. Your first responsibility is to your child. But you are in a position of power. You are in a position where you're financially independent, you have the network, the intellect She said, use this to support other less fortunate people like Vivaan. Then you would have led a meaningful life. And you know what, Doug, that conversation has stuck with me since that time, right. And for me, even though the time after that has been, you know, a lot of challenges when you have a child with special needs, it's a day in and day out challenge, but it's also been the most fulfilling experience that I've had because I found a way to convert that personal pain to a larger mission.
[Doug]: Well, you know, thank you for that amazing introduction to a lot of the topics we'll be discussing today. What I love so much about that is, in getting to speak with a lot of incredible people like yourself who are doing amazing things in many spaces, but, you know, on this platform, the disability space, something that tends to be a common theme is having this really amazing kind of origin story, if you will. And, you know, I think yours is, you know, I don't mean this to minimize it at all, I mean this to really elevate it, it's kind of this stuff that like great books or movies are made of. Really just this, you know, as far as you kind of having this perfect life, thinking it's one thing, having something happen that really feels at the time this devastatingly bad thing, and then coming to realize the ways in which it changes you in this very deep-set way.It's, quite literally the greatest gift that you will ever receive in your life and just that whole journey and everything that sprouts from it. But I think what separates you from a lot of people is the scope to which you've carried this. And, I think something that I read in reading a lot about you that really stood out to me was that there's a lot of people who want to, when they say have a child with special needs, they want to make the world, they want to make that child have a more fruitful life in the world and help them adjust to the world. But what I loved so much about the way you took it is that you wanted to change the world to be better for your son. And, and it's like, I love this idea of, rather than just helping this person along, I want to help change 7 billion plus people so that they can see things differently. And I think it's the scope of what you do that really sets that apart. So going back to that moment again where you heard from your mentor that really started to crack things open for you and really change your mindset. Can you walk us through kind of like how, you know, I know it's a long journey with many beats, but how we kinda got here, what your first steps were to enact that vision that you had?
[Ferose]: So I think, I will always say this, that we are all actors in a series of coincidences, right? We're all very smart in retrospect. But at that moment, I was just going through a phase of discovery, right. Once I realized that this is my purpose, I said, okay, I really didn't know what to do next. I was like, fine, I found my, I know I want to do something, but I really have no clue. I really didn't understand the disability space at all. But I started by actually talking to parents. I started speaking to a lot of parents who have special needs kids to really understand what are their challenges. And I went on a discovery phase, right, from watching every Ted Talk on autism to every book on autism. In fact, I actually flew down from Bangalore to meet Temple Grandin here in the US. It took me 36 hours and I had a 90-minute lunch meeting and I flew back. I did crazy stuff. I was like, if I have to meet Temple Grandin for 90 minutes, I'm going to go around the world. And so I was, again, I think I was really fortunate that I had the means to do some of this crazy stuff, but I really went out on a phase of discovery because I didn't know what to do. And I think there were a few moments that really defined me and I'll share a few conversations that happened. So while I was speaking to all the many of these children with special needs and their parents, I remember one conversation with the father. When I asked him, what is the biggest challenge that you face? What keeps you awake at night? And he said, Ferose, I got the same answer across everybody. They said, I don't know what to do with my kid after I'm gone. Almost everybody had this as the number one challenge, but I heard something from this father that broke my heart. And he said, Ferose, my wish is to live one day more than my son. And for me, that broke my heart. I said, you know, if you read any form of books that are on pain and death and others, they say the most painful experience any human being goes through is to see their own child die before them. And here was a father saying, my wish is to live one day more than my child, because I don't know what happened to him after I'm gone. And that broke my heart. And that for me, really felt like, yeah, that's true for me too, right. And so I said, we have to change that narrative. We have to do better. We can't leave these kids just to, just in the hands of no one after we have gone. So that was one big moment where I said, what do we need to do to defy, to change the narrative for people with disabilities? So that was one. The other moment, which, and both of these led to two different actions that I eventually took. The second one was I was not able to understand why disability is a taboo in India, right? I was like, why don't people speak about it? Why are, you know, you have, if you look at the data, Doug, in India, they say only, the last census that only 2% of people are people with disabilities in India. World Health Organization says the world average is 15%. So how is it possible that India has 2%? Because we don't talk about it. So the data shows us that we don't either capture them or we don't talk about them. And if you don't have data, you're not going to move the needle. And that's when I really tried to understand and figure it out. It is deeply rooted in our religious beliefs and my mentor, his name is Arund Shandy, he wrote a whole book around this. He said, so he said, let me understand, what does different religions talk about disability? What does Christianity say? What does Buddhism say? What does Islam say? What does Hinduism say? And he said, the core problem is that in Hinduism, they say that if you have a disabled child, it is because you've committed the sin in your previous life. Now if you have that negative narrative, why would anybody want to talk about it? Because everybody's feeling very guilty of having done something so bad that I've been now given a disabled child to suffer, right? And that was a core reason why it's seen as a taboo topic. And he said, for us, if you want to drive change, start by changing the narrative, right. And that was really the genesis of the India Inclusion Summit. He said, Ferose, do something where you celebrate people's disabilities. It should not be one talk which is hidden, and it's not about sympathy, but it's about celebration. And so that was actually the genesis of the India Inclusion Summit, where we said, we will bring these unsung heroes and we will bring these world leaders and we will get disability to be discussed in mainstream. So that is basically the two areas that I started working on. One was really to make sure that there is some form of employment so that autistic children or people with disabilities have independence. And the second was to bring the topic of disability to mainstream so that it becomes okay to have any form of disability in your family or in your friends.
[Doug]: What I really love about what you're doing is it's not just about, again, creating more accommodations for the disability community, it's really about deeply changing the narrative around it. Like you said it's having a much wider-scale awakening for people as to changing their misconceptions and deeply held, damaging beliefs to a community that's really much more diverse and much more capable than a lot of people really know. And again, you talked about creating a lot more opportunities for the disability community and something that I know has been somewhat of a rally cry, if you will, for a lot of the work that you do is that everyone is good at something. Can you talk about how that applies to the work that you've done within SAP, specifically around autism?
[Ferose]: Yeah. So, you know, when I realized, when I tried to dig deeper into this problem of why people with disabilities are not getting jobs, because jobs or employment is the only way of independence, right. And I realized, and when I looked at the data, 99% of the people who are disabled, or especially when they are any form of intellectual disability, have no meaningful employment. And many of them do some small task at home just to be busy, but there was no meaningful employment. And that's when I met Thorkil Sonne, who's from Denmark and he had the same challenge and he started his own organization called a Specialisterne because his son was on the autism spectrum and said, you know, he would never get a job. And the reason he would never get a job is because he was non-social and his communication skills were limited. And he said, these are the two skills that you need in your workplace, good communication skills, and the ability to work in teams. And he said in the absence of those two, my son, who was even though, you know, very smart and intelligent, never got a job. So he said, let me start my own company. And over the years, it became a very successful organization with around a hundred employees. And just to note, this was a for-profit organization. This was not a nonprofit. So he said, I want to prove that there is a business benefit in hiring people on the autism spectrum. I was so inspired by what he did, I actually flew down to Denmark, spent two days, understood what he was doing, came back to India, and I told my leadership team, you know what? We are hiring people on the autism spectrum. And people were like, what are you smoking? I mean, does this really work? What are you talking about? You don't even know what people on the autism spectrum are capable to do, but I've seen it work. So I wouldn't claim any credit for it being an original idea. I've seen it work. And I said, if it can work in Denmark, maybe it can work in India too. So I took a leap of faith, Doug, hired three employees on the spectrum. Believe me, they had no college degrees, you know, they would, they could browse the internet and they had some good skills, but we spent time to train them. And after 18 months we proved that their outcome was better than my best engineers, right. And so I was able to prove that there is a business value in hiring people on the autism spectrum. And I was like, you know, if we can hire people who will never lie, who will always tell you the truth will always show up on time, who's ready to work seven days a week, never ask for a hike, never ask for a promotion, I'm like, and they do better work than my engineers, why the hell shouldn't I hire them, right? And I said, if you can hire sometimes people with bad attitude, I would do anything to hire people with the right attitude. And what happened after that, Doug, was nothing but a series of, you know, just serendipity I would say. Forbes carried an article and that article is called, everyone is good at something, because I just told that in my speech while I was doing the interview and the journalist read to it, the whole article went viral. I think the journalist went, got some awards and he was like, I didn't do anything in this article. I just transcribed your speech. That's it. But that opened up a lot of doors. And that same year I was selected as a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum. And, you know, Davos is like the stage where the who's who of the world comes together. And I got invited as a young global leader. And they said they selected, I think maybe five or 10 people to give a five minute pitch of an idea that can change the world. I gave us four and a half minute speech called the ability in disability and why hiring people on the autism spectrum makes business sense. CNN carried my speech the next day. And my CEO read that newspaper. What's the chance that my CEO reads the news about me in a conference, which is where their are like thousands of people? And he called me for a breakfast meeting and said, is this true? What you're doing? Are you hiring people on the autism spectrum? I said, yeah, I've done it for the last one and a half years, but I didn't tell anybody, right. And he was so inspired. He said, if you can pull this off in India, which is the hardest place to do, you know where there's no healthcare, there's no insurance, there's no medical support, there's really no infrastructure. So if you could pull this off in India and you are saying it makes business sense, let's do it across SAP. And so this was, this happened in Jan, in May we made the announcement, which is, I think one of the most landmark announcements by any corporate for people with disabilities, where they said, we'll have 1% of a global workforce with people with disabilities. And we had 65,000 people then. So we said, we'll hire 650 people on the autism spectrum by 2020. We've hired now almost 180 across 20 different locations. We have given opportunities to another 150 for part-time jobs and fellowships and so on. And you have now more than 100 companies who have their own autism at work program. And there was in 2000 I think it was 14, we were invited to the UN and Balkin Mon asked other corporates to make similar commitments as SAP. 2016 it became a Harvard case study. And in 2019, the highest innovation award at SAP was won for the first time by an individual and it was won by a person who's on the autism spectrum. So imagine the highest award, it's like getting the Oscar, is won out a hundred thousand employees by one person who's on the autism spectrum from Argentina. These people won't have even got a job anywhere and they've gone on to win the highest innovation award. So when I look back, you know, people ask me, how did you plan this out? I said, I just didn't. It just happened. And I always believe that if good people come together with good intentions and if you are at it for a long time, and that's important, you have to keep doing it for a very long time, magic happens.
[Doug]: So much of what you talked about is certainly near and dear to Helen Keller Services, which is our ongoing partner in this, who I work with. And, you know, you're speaking to the fact that I think the narrative that's really changing around employees with disabilities is that it's not just about, hey, you know, let's just give people with disabilities opportunities for work beause it's just the right thing to do. It's like, no, actually in a lot of cases, they make great employees, if not better employees. Something to your point, you're saying that your top engineers can be as productive, your top engineers with autism can be as productive as like three engineers without autism, because there are certain things about them that make them uniquely fit for that job and to do it at a very high level. Similarly, this past month was Disability Employment Awareness Month, and we spent a lot of time talking about these topics. And, you know, we talked a lot about how employees with disabilities are often, like you were saying more loyal employees, they are more reliable employees, as far as showing up on time and doing the, getting the job done. Like you said, one of the unique traits of people who are autistic often is that they are literally incapable of lying, like you said, and how, I mean, how amazing of a trait is that as an employee, someone who's going to be completely straight up with you at all points in time and a whole number, a whole longer list of qualities that really make a lot of people with disabilities really outstanding employees. And I think the way in which you've instituted these larger scope missions to have 1% of your employees at a huge global company be people with autism and how you're getting other companies to realize that and sign on is so deeply important because it's at that level where people globally start to change their minds about it. And it's the big industry leaders taking this on and signing off on this that will make a lot of other people follow, like you mentioned. So it's really so deeply important. Before we continue here, I'm going to just take a quick pause for an interpreter switch. Alrighty. And we're going to continue here. So, Ferose, I would love to get now into the India Inclusion Summit portion of this. I know we kind of started to touch on that, but I'd I'd love to get a little bit more into that. So can you kind of walk us through a little bit more to like you, you started to get at it, but the origin of that and tell people a little bit more about what it is for those who aren't familiar with it?
[Ferose]: Sure. So, when my, when my mentor told me that the lowest common denominator, the thing that, the stairs at the lowest level is awareness, right. And he said, for us, if you want to drive change across the society, focus on awareness first, because if people are more aware, then they become more sensitive. Once people are more sensitive they will drive the change themselves. So a lot of what our mission at the India Inclusion Summit is how do I reach to a 1.3 billion population in India? How do I reach to 7 billion people across the world? And really what are the various things that we can do to have that level of scale? And as I said, it was to really make disability a non-issue. I said, the day disability is a non-issue is a day when I stop conducting the inclusion summit. Then we don't need that summit anymore to spread awareness because people are sensitive. People are aware and people then know what to do with it. But we realize, and this is just for the, especially the American audience, you know, India, I would say, is at least 20 years behind the US in terms of the disability movement itself. I know a lot of things have happened, but because I've lived long enough in India and now in the US, I can see that there's a lot of catching up to do, right. But when we started thinking about this, I also figured out that actually there was no event in the entire world where they were talking about disability. I mean, I'm talking about 2012. Yeah. 2000. That's when we started it. And I realized that disability was one small section in a larger event. And so, they'll have one panel discussion about disability or inclusion, and more often than not, they had no clue what they were talking about. Either there was no representation of people with disabilities, neither in the panel, nor in the audience. And I'm like, what are you guys talking about? When nobody on the panel is a person with disabilities, how do you even know what this story is? So, right? And that's when we said we will make the first, truly inclusive event done across two days. But we were also very clear that we didn't want to just do an event. We said, how do we move from an event to a movement? And that's where I've been very, very deeply, engrossed in understanding large scale movements. I've studied Gandhi's independence movement, Martin Luther King's civil rights movement. I looked at what makes say a Women's March happen. I said, how does this large-scale change happen? Driven by a few committed people. Right? And so when I studied that, I kind of built in a lot of those core principles into what we are doing. So one of the things, for example, some of it may seem completely contradictory, but these were things that we built our entire movement around. The first thing we said is it has to be truly inclusive, right. When I say truly inclusive, it's not just for people with disability, they said it should be inclusive financially, we should have financial inclusion. We should have social inclusion. We should have political inclusion, all forms of inclusion is important. And that's when I realized that if you want to do a world-class event, I said, how do I do a Ted for disability? But can I do it free for all the participants. It was a, you know, how does that work? And if you want to attend Ted it's $10,000, if you are going to the live event, right. And I'm like, no, no, I want to do $0 because that's when financial inclusion happens. Because a lot of people with disabilities just doesn't have the financial means. And I said, why should they not attend an inclusion summit? Absolutely no reason. So they said everything that we will do will be free, but we'll also be world-class because people said, oh, if you get free, nobody will show up. I'm like, you know that the day we opened registration, within a week, I have full house. I have at least double the number of people who would register and, you know, even send me mail, Ferose, I'm willing to come to the summit and get my own sandwich. I don't need to eat the food, but I want to come. So we actually proved that you can do world-class content and do it free. And people still show up. Our event starts at nine, Doug, and have people lining up at 5:00 AM. I wish you were there in person to see that because I'm not exaggerating anything at all. So for the first thing we said is we will have true inclusion in all spirits, but you still do it well to us. This is not one, you know, half-baked effort. This has to be world-class. There is absolutely no reason that people with disabilities don't deserve the best platform on the world, right? The second thing we said is a core principle called no logos and no egos. They said the cause is front and center. I had large companies coming in and saying, Ferose, I want to be the platinum sponsor. I said, you can give me a million dollars, but there is no platinum sponsor. If you want to join us, join the movement, but you can't buy us off. And there's a reason why the people who come, people say you come to the summit, you meet incredibly good people, if nothing else. So we are very, very clear that we want, and one of the core things that Gandhi said was the purity of means is as important or more important than the outcome. I think your means to achieve your goal has to be pure. You can't game it because it's so damn easy to game the system. You know, I'll tell you, our website has millions of views. We don't do paid advertisement. We don't take any money. In fact, I get mail saying, okay, you can, you can make X amount of money just by putting ads on your website. I said, we will not do it. And more people, most people think I'm incredibly crazy, but I said, you know, do the right things for a long enough period of time and that's when you drive change. So really the purity of the means is incredibly important for me more than the outcome. And I leave you with this last thought, because almost everybody asks me this question, say, as soon as you've done this for 10 years, show me the impact. I said, you know what? I am not going to show you the impact because I don't know. How do you measure that? You know, I've changed one person's life after coming to IIS. How do you measure that? I really don't know. I have no ways to figure that out. So we don't measure impact at all. So many people ask me, show me the impact analysis. I said, I really don't know. I mean, these are some data I can give you, but I really can't say that I've changed people's life because it's hard to do it. And I always tell a beautiful chord that Mother Teresa said. So one of my very dear friends who wrote the biography of Mother Teresa, he spent like two decades following her. And so I asked him, so you spent so much time with Mother Teresa, tell me what was your greatest lesson? I mean, he's now 78 years old, pretty senior guy. And he said for those, you know what, after I was inspired, I said, I wanted to do something for leprosy because that's what Mother Teresa's focus was. So I asked her, Mother, what number should I start with? How many people should I support? And her answer was, don't get lost in numbers. If you're able to reduce the pain and suffering in the ocean by even one drop, it is worth it. And that's all you're trying to do. I'm like if one person gets inspired, I'm fine with it, right. It doesn't mean that's the only thing I aspire for. I'm still aspiring for a billion people, but you know, don't get confused with too much of numbers behind it because sometimes really magic happens when things intersect and you can't plan those intersections. As I said, when I started with the autism program, I started with three people, three people. And today, you know, when I, they did an analysis at SAP, impact of the autism at work program. And they said, it's the most impactful program they've ever done in their 48-year old history, more than any product launches, more than any billion dollar things done. They said this program. And they did an analysis, has touched 7 billion people in terms of its outreach and media and newspapers and so on. So, you know, you start somewhere and, you know, you just keep going. And so that's been my biggest lesson through this whole inclusion summit,
[Doug]: A lot of things came to mind in what you were just saying here. One of the first things that, I was kept thinking to myself, I love how bold you are in how you go about doing this. But then I thought about it a little bit more as you were speaking, I think it runs much deeper than bold. I think from the outside looking in, I think it looks bold, but I think really what it really feels like to me when I sit with it more is you're just someone who obviously was gifted with circumstance in the form, obviously your son specifically, and the love and care for your son in the ways in which he's deeply affected and inspired you. And I wouldn't say you're a bold, I would say you're inspired, inspired in the deepest way. And that's what leads to action. I think when you're really moved and connected to the deepest core of purpose and vision, you make bold actions and you make bold decisions because you're not bound to how other people are doing things. You have this very pure connection to that, which is moving you in operating from that place. And that's how real change happens. I think, what's so great about it, everything that led up to before the birth of your son and the position that you were able to hold, as someone who has a lot of influence, who has a lot of ability to change things, it's like the perfect amalgamation of things to change things globally and have that like global vision that you have. And something that I love so much is, being in the social impact and disability space, you know, being a social impact filmmaker, that's been specifically in the disability space the last few years, all the time people go, well, you know, what's the impact? How are you measuring the impact? Right. And like, look, I get that, you know, a lot of times, particularly when people consider investing in or supporting something financially, they want to know like what the impact is and what the numbers are and how many people this and that. But like you're talking about, and what really honestly, is inspiring me at this moment, because sometimes I get a little swayed by those things of like, geez, like, how can we get better analytics on all this? But when you're trying to change things on a global scale and in a really deep way, there are no analytics that can really say, speak to that. You know, we get emails all the time with The Feeling Through Experience that we've gotten to share with thousands of people. And it's like, I can tell you, like, I can estimate roughly how many people have been a part of the experience. I can estimate roughly how many of those people who have joined us are DeafBlind, blind, or low vision, or who were maybe coming to these topics for the first time. I could probably figure out some more analytics, but those analytics will never speak to the type of email I get when it's someone who says, you know, that was a life-changing experience for me. And I'll tell you really specifically how, because the day after I saw The Feeling Through Experience and had a much deeper connection to the DeafBlind community and other disability communities, I saw a man who had a cane, it seemed like he was lost and was looking for help, and I felt very comfortable approaching him. I felt like I knew how to talk to him in a way that really respected his autonomy. And that was all because of that experience that I just had. And those are the types of things like you can't quantify, right? The moment to moment things that, where you've really impacted someone deeply, someone, how someone sees the world and experiences the world, but those are the most important things. So I love how it's not about coming out of this with, you know, the certain numbers or categories of we've hit these benchmarks. I mean, look sure those are great. And if there's a way to do that also by all means, but you really understand that it runs much deeper than that, and you're never gonna, you're never gonna really encapsulate changing people in a really deep way through numbers. It's just not going to happen. And I also love again, how, and I think again, being who you are and being someone who's in a position to really make change, how you make it, not about companies, logos and sponsorship, which can take on a whole life of its own, right? Because you allow one company to come in and be like top billing for something, and all of a sudden the way that can kind of, the politics of that over time can get murky, right? It can, that can become a distraction to the main thing. And what I loved the most about that is when you gave the analogy of someone coming in and offering to be a platinum sponsor, it's like, how about you just join the movement? You know, how about you give us the money that you want to invest because you believe in the movement and then you join too. And maybe you come and you experience this and you hear from the people and learn from the people that are going to be speaking at this. And, you know, I think those are the things that as I've gotten to watch previous speakers at the summit, as I've gotten to watch some of the people who are speaking right now, that's what I think is so powerful about it. Maybe if you could tell us a little bit more about what this year looks like? It's a little different than other years. It's, normally it would all be happening in person. I know you've had many, many hundreds of people at each event that you do in person normally. Obviously this year, we can't do that for safety reasons. So it's all happening virtually. Can you tell us a little bit about how you've had to pivot because of the pandemic and how this year is distinctively different in that way?
[Ferose]: So, great question, Doug. I mean, we are very fortunate that the core group of basically volunteers, everybody's a volunteer. There are no employees in the foundation. Everybody is a volunteer, including myself. And the core group is around 30 volunteers, I would say, right. These are the people who do the heavy lift, but we have maybe thousands of volunteers who are also doing other activities, but the core group of 30 people are all technologists. And so in some ways we lead with technology in some ways we understand the reason I am, I wouldn't say I don't put too much emphasis on data is also I know because data can be flawed and data can be misused. And I know that because I see it in my day job. You can use the same data for doing exactly the wrong outcomes, right. As I said, I can, you know, people, I remember when people come and say for us, if you give me a hundred dollars we'll get you 10,000 views. If you get me $200, I'll give you 25,000 views. And I'm like, how does that matter? It's not going to help you in your movement. It can help you in some report saying XYZ. But if your mission is much larger, I think you don't fall into these traps, right? I'm not saying that I'm right or others is wrong. It's just that it doesn't matter to me. That's number one. So we are very fortunate to have a lot of technologists in our core group. So as COVID happened, we were pretty clear that we have to pivot, which will work, where many other people took a lot more time to think that way. And I like, we were like, this is virtual. And so we had enough run time to understand how to do a virtual event. I'm not saying we know it well, but we've understood a few principles. One of the principles is you have to curate for attention and not just for content. You know, that's the biggest learning I've had that attention spans are small. So you can't do an eight hour event. You have to do a 90 minute event, but do it across four weekends. Then we, you know, last year we started with movies because I have personally seen the impact of movies in driving social change. And it's funny that most people just don't realize how powerful movies have been for the disability movement. And if you just look at the data since 1989, and so, Doug, you notice 14 out of the 27 best actor/actress awards when it comes to Oscar awards have been won with people who played the role of a person with a disability. 14 out of 27. So 50% of the people who won the Oscar for best actor or actress since 1989 have played the role of a person with disability. Now, which means that you've suddenly given a massive global space to a cause of disability. And I looked at the same thing in India. And the answer is there's none. I don't have mainstream media or mainstream movies where disability or the main protagonist is a person with disability. And that's where we said, let's start with the Bangalore International Short Film Festival and the founder who had come to the inclusion summit, et cetera. I didn't even know such a space existed. And I said, I need, you know, he said, how can I support you? I said, please start a section for disability and inclusion. And guess what he said, will anybody apply? I mean, is this important? And he got 450 applications across the world. 450 short film movies. And I watched, you know, I think 32 of them outstanding, including, you know, that's how I met you and saw the Feeling Through part. And I'm like, believe me, a lot of the Indian audience have no access to such movies, have no access. And so a very simple thing like including a disability section has suddenly opened up completely new avenues. So, the summit is all about looking holistically. You know, you've done art, you've done movies, you're doing writing, but really the idea is to bring all forms of topics to enhance and spread awareness about disability. So while the event happens across this time, across three weekends, but our activities happen throughout the year. You know, we identify inclusion fellows or entrepreneurs working in the disability space. So there's a lot of work happening throughout there, but in some ways it kind of converges to this massive in-person event once a year in Bangalore. But of course that's fully virtual this year, but there are, some silver lining is that. We've got so many outstanding speakers, international speakers this year. If you got eight international speakers, you know, I never had a budget to fly more than one, max two speakers because it takes a lot of money to get them to India and so on. And we never had a budget, but now the cost have gone half and our reach much more. But having said that, I don't think that is any substitute to a human connection. I mean, let's all agree to that. I think that's not even a point of discussion. While the virtual world is good I think there cannot be any substitute to a human to human connection. I think we live in a hybrid world where we have both virtual and in-person, but maybe we lead with virtual and the in-person happens later. Unlike the other world, pre-COVID world, where we lead with an in-person and virtual followed. It's like, I feel like I know you like a friend and a brother, Doug, even though we have never met, right. But when we meet, I think we'll just see like, oh, we knew each other for years, which are very different in a pre-COVID world where you lead with an in-person connect, then you kind of keep in touch. But I think that's completely inverted now in the post-COVID world.
[Doug]: I got to say, you touched on, certainly you can never replace the in-person, and I know we'll all be very eager to get back to that when it's possible, but in the meantime, there are some great advantages to doing it virtually. It's not just a silver lining, it's actually more than that. And, you know, it's definitely something that we've experienced with Feeling Through and certainly getting to do it, share it with people, not just across the country, but around the world. We're super excited to do our Feeling Through Experience for the Indian audience and we've had, you know, 20 plus countries join in on previous Feeling Through Experiences that we've done. And, you know, that was something we could certainly never do in person. I mean, we had plans to take it abroad at some point, but to be able to do that from my home and connect with people around the world has been a very, very cool thing that I didn't think about at the beginning of this. But it's certainly been a really great way to connect with people. And I will say having done a lot of virtual events, something that's really great about the India Inclusion Summit and why I really, really encourage all of you watching to join in, and I guess the easiest way go to IndiaInclusionSummit.com.
[Ferose]: It's live, available. You don't, you just need to register if you want it to be sent reminders because you know, that's all we do otherwise we don't take any information other than your email. So one hour before the event, and one day before you will get a reminder, that's all we take the email address for, but otherwise on the website on YouTube and Facebook it's live.
[Doug]: And what's so great about what your team has done is like, you've really taken it to the next level. And as one of the speakers there, one of the first things Ferose told me, he was like, okay, we're going to send you a green screen. So you're going to record on the green scene. We're gonna put you on a virtual stage. And I heard that I'm like immediately I was like, okay, they're already going above and beyond. They're sending all the speakers green screens. But what's really cool about it is I've now gotten to see what you've done with it. And I mean, it's, it looks incredible. I mean, it really does look like we're all standing on this big stage with the India Inclusion Summit up over here and whatever, you know, a screen up here that supports whatever we're talking about or can play clips. And I mean, look, you know, we certainly, we can't be in person right now, but you're getting pretty darn close with how your team has constructed that and it's really...Oh, hey!
[Ferose]: Vivaan, you want to say hi? Come say hi, come here. Say hi.
[Doug]: Hey, nice to meet you.
[Ferose]: Say, how are you? You're good. Okay. Thank you.
[Doug]: We're so glad he got to make an appearance here. This wouldn't be a live event without having a family come in and join us. I love that.
[Ferose]: So now you see there, the family fight, right? Vivaan, this is a live event here. ave.
[Doug]: We'll have to invite him to the start of the next one, so he can just be here the whole time. I love that. What a great, I mean, I'm glad he joined us with just the last few minutes we have here, I'm glad he made an appearance.
[Ferose]: Thank you. My apologies to all the audience.
[Doug]: No. I'm sure that'll be everyone's favorite part.
[Ferose]: As I said, he's been a regular in all my keynotes, Doug, so now I'm not, I'm not feeling embarrassed.
[Doug]: Right, there you go. He's like your right-hand man there, you know, to come in and support whatever you're talking about. But, with the last few minutes we have here, and I think it's perfect timing with your son visiting us, I guess I'll just simply ask you, after all of this, everything that you've experienced and everything that you've done over the years, what has your son taught you?
[Ferose]: You know, that's the hard question, Doug, because he is nonverbal, so he can't speak. He has maybe two or three words, he can say hi, but he's non-verbal. And, honestly, I mean, sometimes, until a year back, my biggest wish was I really know what's going on in his brain. I was thinking, how do I know what he's feeling? Whether it's feeling happy, pain, suffering, I don't know. But thanks to a one breakthrough that happened, there is a method called rapid prompt method where now he's able to point at alphabets and kind of show things what he is. So he's able to write a few words and sentences by pointing fingers at the alphabet. So that's how we know what is happening and he's now attending regular classes. But that's the hard one, having a child who's completely non-verbal. It's very, very, it can be pretty challenging, but you know what? He's done such a great job. You've seen him right. The great thing about him, he's incredibly happy. And I'm like, how blessed are we to have a child? I mean, he has, I didn't tell, but he has Crohn's disease, which is another form of auto-immune disease. And he has a lot of medications, but is an incredibly happy kid. And, and for me, there's no other joy than seeing him to be happy. It doesn't matter whatever pain he goes through. He's always smiling all the time. And I think that gives us great joy. And I teach at Columbia University and I often say, my son has taught me more than any business school can ever teach me without uttering a single word. Right. So I think I've just learned so much from him and I've seen the, you know, it may sound very spiritual, but I have to tell you that everything I've done with very pure intent, even in the most difficult of circumstances, when I expect all doors were closed, the most unexpected door has opened up. And so, and I always say, if you keep your intentions pure, but you can't dilute your intention, that's the key here. If you start gaming your intention, the doors don't open. So I am so relieved. I'm like, I'll do my best, I'll see, and more often than not things happen. And that's the power of the purity of intent.
[Doug]: I mean, beautiful words. And, what I love so much about the purity of your intention and your inspiration is that you become this amazing vessel, that has such a great capacity to kind of hold, and not just hold, but deliver to other people that which has deeply moved you and inspired you. And as a result I can say that I'm certainly one of those people that's tremendously inspired by what you do. And how your life has moved you into that place, and your son being at the heart of that. And also clearly I'm sure many thousands of other people can say that maybe more than that in the scope of what you've been able to do with that. So, I think you so beautifully encapsulated that in what you said. And I think it runs contrary to what people hear a lot of times. I think people think they need to be super smart and savvy about things in a way that I think like you just mentioned can be the very thing that actually cuts off the magic, so to speak, really siphons off the really powerful energy of intent that's really the engine that's driving all of this for you.
[Ferose]: Yeah. Yeah.
[Doug]: So with our last like 30 seconds here, I'd love for you to just like close on whatever you'd like to share. Whatever that may be, but certainly, just if you could also let people know how they could find out a little bit more about the summit.
[Ferose]: Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. Well, firstly, thank you, Doug, for inviting me. I'm also, I must say greatly inspired by what you've been doing and, you know, for me, I get the energy because I meet such outstanding people. The India Inclusion Summit is just an excuse to meet great people. So because of that, I've met you, got to know you a little better and the work that you've been doing. So I think I just want to extend my gratitude to what you've been doing and also to the wonderful translators here. Thank you so much for what you've done for the last one hour. I greatly appreciate it. I just want to end by a very beautiful chord, which says that intention has infinite organizing power. And so if you keep the intent pure and if you keep the faith, things organize. And I can tell you every year I struggle with pulling off the summit. You know, we don't have enough budget. You know, some volunteers are not there yet, but it always worked out because we were so clear on the intent. And I say, that's when I say intention has infinite organizing capacity. So keep the intent pure, things will happen.
[Doug]: Well on that note, that's a perfect way to wrap up today's episode. A reminder for everyone watching, please go to IndiaInclusionSummit.com. You can go right now, it's already begun and it's going to be going until when does it go until, Ferose?
[Ferose]: The next live event is on 21st, November. And then afterwards on 28. Each of these live events are for two hours. But because of the time zones, sometimes it could be a challenge for people in the US to attend it, but you can go there, watch what happened last weekend and all the videos are there. And so, please do watch on the 21st because Doug is going to speak. I mean, actually he's already spoken. So, I'm super excited to listen to what Doug has said. So thank you, Doug, for all that you do.
[Doug]: Absolute honor and pleasure. I'm so happy to have connected with you and really formed a wonderful relationship with you and be a part of the summit. It's really been one of the high honors of this amazing run that we've had with Feeling Through and The Feeling Through Experience. And one last reminder for everyone watching, it's going to be on Tuesday, the 17th in the United States, Wednesday, the 18th in India and abroad, but we're doing a Feeling Through Experience. Ferose will be joining us. Of course, I know all of you who spoke will want to come back because you're just such an amazing speaker and we'll also have Bapin Bhattacharya, who's been on a previous episode of this and is an absolutely incredible man who is DeafBlind, who is just, he works for the Helen Keller National Center. He is a tech whiz, and it has a truly incredible story as well. He'll be with us. So go to feelingthrough.com/register or follow us along on our social media @feelingthrough. We'll have plenty more information about that. And, yeah, Ferose, you'll certainly have to come back and chat with us on here again at some point in the future.
[Ferose]: Sure. Looking forward to, and thank you for the opportunity, Doug.
[Doug]: Well, thank you everyone for watching and have a great weekend and week ahead. Bye.
[Ferose]: Thank you. Bye-bye bye-bye thank you. My gratitude.