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In this candid episode of Remarkable World Commentary, Donna J. Jodhan welcomes blind technologist and entrepreneur Mike Calvo and invites him to share the moments that shaped his view of accessibility as a civil right. Calvo describes growing up in Miami as the son of Cuban immigrants, and he uses everyday stories, like how “help” can turn intrusive when strangers grab a blind person’s arm, to highlight the importance of respect, clear communication, and personal autonomy. He also reflects on discovering computers in early adulthood, crediting a mentor’s message that “behind that computer you are an equal” as a turning point that propelled him toward technology, advocacy, and entrepreneurship.
He then looks back on building assistive tech at Serotek, creating community-centered tools like the Freedom Box and the System Access screen reader to expand independent access to the web and PC software, before explaining how that work evolved into Pneuma Solutions. Today, Pneuma focuses on large-scale digital remediation (including making PDFs WCAG-compliant) and the urgent push for public entities to meet the ADA Title II digital-accessibility deadline in April 2026, an issue echoed in the episode’s opening message and his mention of the Title2.info resource. The conversation closes with a shared commitment to empowering blind youth, Donna discusses her “if you believe you can achieve” camps, and Calvo underscores that “there are no lone rangers in the blindness community,” urging listeners to seek community, mentorship, and personal advocacy.
TRANSCRIPT
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Advertisement: ADA Title II has a real compliance deadline. April 2026. Public entities are required to make their digital content accessible, including websites, PDFs, reports, applications, and public records. If a document cannot be read with a screen reader, it is not compliant and if it is not compliant, blind people are still being denied equal access. For a clear explanation of what the rule requires, visit http://www.title2.info. It’s one of the leading resources explaining what agencies must do and when. This message is brought to you by Pneuma Solutions, we have remediated hundreds of thousands of pages in days, not months or years, aligned with WCAG 2 AA guidelines at a fraction of traditional costs. Accessibility isn’t a privilege, it’s a right. Now that you know, ask your agencies a simple question, are your documents actually accessible?
Podcast Commentator: Donna J Jodhan, LLB, ACSP and MBA, invites you to listen to her biweekly podcast, Remarkable World Commentary. Here, Donna shares some of her innermost thoughts, insights, perspectives, and more with her listeners. Donna focuses on topics that directly affect the future of kids, especially kids with disabilities. Donna is a blind advocate, author, site loss coach, dinner mystery producer, writer, entrepreneur, law graduate, and podcast Commentator. She has decades of lived experiences, knowledge, skills and expertise in access technology and information. As someone who has been internationally recognized for her work and roles, she just wants to make things better than possible.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Hello everybody, and welcome to another episode of Remarkable World Commentary. I’m Donna Jodhan, a lifelong disability advocate and one who sees the world mainly through sound, touch and stubborn optimism. I am a law graduate and accessibility consultant and author, lifelong barrier buster who also happens to be blind. You may know me from a few headline moments, as in November 2010, I won the landmark charter case that forced the Canadian government to make its websites accessible to every Canadian, not just a sighted ones. And in July of 2019, I co-led the Accessible Canada Act with more than two dozen disability groups to turn equal access into federal law. And most recently, on June the 3rd, 2022, I was greatly humbled by Her Late Majesty’s Platinum Jubilee Award for tireless commitment to removing barriers. When I’m not in a courtroom or in a committee room or in a pottery studio, you’ll find me coaching kids with vision loss, producing audio mysteries, or helping tech companies to make their gadgets talk back in plain language. Everything I do circles one goal to turn accessibility from an afterthought into everyday practice. I invite you to think of this show as our shared workbench where policy meets lived experience and lived experience sparks fresh ideas. Now, before we jump into today’s conversation, let me shine a spotlight on today’s guest, a change maker whose work is every bit as remarkable as the world that we are trying to build. Mike Calvo. It is my pleasure and my privilege to welcome you to my podcast.
Mike Calvo: Thank you. I am I am humbled, honored and curious. Do you sleep?
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Because, I mean.
Mike Calvo: You do so much. That’s like, when do you sleep?
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: It’s catching up with me. Mike, it is just as it probably is with you as well. Right.
Mike Calvo: Well, luckily, and I and I have a team.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Oh, okay. Good.
Mike Calvo: I have a team, and and and it’s a bunch of. We it’s the blind army. And we are we we all we all like, get somebody to tell us in what direction to go and we march there. But no, we. Yeah. I mean, it is it has been a challenge. And as I’m sure you know, sometimes it’s it’s lonely doing what we do because we believe it. And some of us are told, don’t, don’t like. I was told when I was a kid. Don’t don’t shoot so high. Don’t be a problem. My, my favorite was be normal. It’s like.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: What?
Mike Calvo: What is normal people? I have no idea. But whatever it is, I’m not it. And you know. So yeah, it is it is difficult. I have watched you from afar and admired your tenacity and just your your chutzpah, you know, and the fact that you don’t Cubans. I’m Cuban, and we have a saying, and it sounds gross in English, but it makes sense. It says we don’t have any hair on our tongue, which means we don’t fumble words. We’re real clear. And that’s what I love about you. You’re a very direct person, and that’s been awesome, too.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Thank you so much. But now we gotta focus on you and Mike. I’d like to start with this beginning. Can you share your journey as a blind technologist and entrepreneur, and the key moments that shaped how you think about accessibility as a civil right, rather Then as a nice to have.
Mike Calvo: So I grew up in Miami, Florida. I’m a son of Cuban immigrants. They came here in the 1960s. And as I grew up in Miami, I started to I’ve got my training. When my parents found out I was blind. The Cuban culture doesn’t didn’t, at least at that time, think very highly. Or the the Latino the Latin American culture didn’t have very high goals and aspirations for blind people, you know. So most blind people in, in developing Latin American countries were beggars in Cuba as well. Ironically enough, without getting political in any way, just the fact, you know, you got to give the devil his due. Whether you agree with with the with the political situation in Cuba or not, the group that probably gained the most value out of the revolution that took place in Cuba in 1959? Is the are Cubans with disabilities?
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Okay.
Mike Calvo: You and I will go somewhere here in the West, in the US or in Canada or even in Europe. And we’ll walk somewhere and we’ll be standing on a street corner with our dog or with our cane, and some very well-meaning sighted person will run up to you and grab your arm and tell you, hey, you’re about to walk into moving traffic.
Mike Calvo: At which point I’m like, yeah, I just my UFO just dropped me off. How do you think I got here? You know? And it’s because, you know. Well, I’m just trying to help. I’m like, yeah, I appreciate it. But the way to do that is to walk up and say, sir or ma’am, I see you have a dog. I see you have a cane. Obviously you are visually impaired. Is there anything I can do for you? At which point, if I’m standing in front of four lanes of traffic and you’re going across. I’d be like, sure, can I grab a wing? You know, I mean, it’s not it’s not. I’m not too proud to beg, you know, and, and and, you know, and and we’ll do it that way. But the moment you put your hands on me and you break my space, we’ve got a problem. And and that and that. I say that to preface in Cuba, on the other hand, I’ll go and I’ll be like, hey, I’m looking for so and so restaurant. And they’ll the person will walk up, they’ll put their hand on my shoulder and be like, okay, in front of you there. You see, there’s a sidewalk there. Walk down. Listen, you hear, on the corner over there, you hear the music over there, turn left. And then if you walk down and count with your cane, literally, I’m telling you, this is what the public tells you. Count with your cane. Count how many doors. When you get to the third door, turn right, cross the street, listen for cars, cross the street and there’s the restaurant you’re looking for. Would you like me to go with you? No, thanks. I’m good. Cool. See ya. And that’s the level of social respect.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Yes.
Mike Calvo: You asked how I got into technology. I found technology when I was 21. I’m not going to. I’ve spent a lot of time on other podcasts and stuff talking about. I grew up in a very racy environment in Miami in the 1980s with drugs and, you know, sex, drugs and rock and roll or sex, drugs and disco, you know.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: And.
Mike Calvo: And and so I’m not going to belabor that too much, but I was heavily involved in the music industry, in the drug trade when I was a young kid. What I, you know, and, and as I got older I realized I needed to do something with my life and my first, my first exposure besides sell drugs, you know, and do music. I at 21, I found that my, my girlfriend was pregnant and we were going to get married, so that was cool. But I, you know, I kept dreaming of my kid waking up. What is your dad would do? Well, my dad’s a drug dealer. He’s like, no, we don’t want that. So I went and I got a job at a bank. It was the only job I had. And later I, you know, I it was the first and only job I had. And the reason is because when I went to go look for another job. Donna, it was such a challenge. And I had been an entrepreneur all my life. I started a DJ business when I was 13. I, you know, and I said, you know, there’s an 80% chance that a business will fail in the first three years. Well, there’s an 85% unemployment rate amongst the blind.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Definitely, yes.
Mike Calvo: So so I’ve got I’ve got better upside potential to start my own thing and, and and hope that it works as opposed to spending, you know out of every ten visits I get one and a half that might say yes. And even then I’ll get to treatment like I got at the bank, which was like after six months, you know, I’m there and I’m like, okay, what am I going to run this thing? You know, I’m used to being I’m used to being the boss, you know? And they’re like, we don’t know what to do with you. People. Like what?
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Oh, no.
Mike Calvo: And I went to my my mentor, a guy named Greg Luther, who I will forever be thankful for. I ran into a lot of lazy people in V.I., and I don’t know if it was lazy or just burned out or whatever, but Greg was just one of these guys who was just so encouraging, and he said, you know what, Mike? I believe in you so much. He said, you need to learn that computer. And behind that computer you are an equal. And that resonated with me so much. And I found I had a knack for the damn thing. And so I started learning how to, you know, this is back with with dos and vert and all that.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Yes.
Mike Calvo: You know, so I learned how to script and and all that stuff at the time and started Making my job better at the bank by increasing my productivity. If there was going to be, there was literally a blind productivity and a normal employee productivity rate, and it was stated as such. And I said, well, if I’m going to be abnormal, I’m going to be abnormally awesome. So I, you know, so I did that and they liked the level of productivity that I brought. And they were like, hey, we want another blind one. So they went, they went back to VR and Greg calls me up and he’s like, hey, Calvin, listen we got a guy. I’m going to send him over there you know, and see if you can teach him the ropes around the bank. So I trained this guy who never trained a person in my life, you know? And I was like, wow, this is cool. And one day Greg says to me, hey, I have a presentation at Ryder Trucks that I need to do for another blind person, and all they need to do is, you know, you need to connect to their mainframe. Show them. Take a computer over there. Show them that you can do it. Show them that a blind person can, you know, navigate and answer some questions. You know. So I was like, okay. So I went and I walked into this room full of supervisors.
Screen Reader: Notification from outlook.
Mike Calvo: And the first thing I said to them I’ll never forget was, hey everybody, it’s really great to meet you. And I said, I know that, you know, you see before you this really gorgeous looking blind guy and you say to yourself, how does he look so awesome? How does his clothes match? How is his hair? You know, how is that? How is he so polished? And I said, let me tell you a secret. I said, I’m married. My wife told me.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Oh, yes, indeed.
Mike Calvo: And I said, now, fellas, be real. How many of you dressed yourself versus your wife told you that you’re going to go out like that because you can’t tell them that. You can’t tell them that. No, babe, you’re going to go out like that. But what? You’ll die. But we get told you’re going to go out like that all the time. So And I said, but but the reality is, I said, you know, that’s how I did that. I make sure I look good because I have a fashion consultant for life. So I said, but what what we’re here to talk about is productivity and how a blind person can be a constructive and contributing part of your team. And that began just a love affair for me to talk to open minded, open hearted people that truly are curious, you know, and I’ve, I have struggled to separate ignorance from stupidity in people. And don’t I got a cure for ignorance. And that’s real straightforward, honest talking and communication and question asking. And you know, ask me anything. You know, there’s no such thing as a stupid question, but there are stupid people, you know. And stupid is the people that just make assumptions. They see, you know? Well, you’re not like normal blind people. You’re like every other blind person. You’re really special. It’s like, no man, no, I’m not, I’m me. I’m an individual person that happens to be visually impaired, that happens to be blind. And we are all different. We are janitors and lawyers and moms and dads and students and all of these different things. And there are nice blind people and there are nasty blind people, and there are lovable, and there are dislikable blind people. Because you know what? We we took a survey a few years ago at, at at Sarah Tech, the company I used to run and and we found out that consumer habits of blind people and mainstream people, oh my goodness, they’re exactly the same.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Oh, my.
Mike Calvo: I imagine that we’re we’re normal, I guess. So that’s kind of, you know I, I stayed at the bank for about a year and a half. I ended up getting a contract with the state of Florida to train blind people. And we proceeded to train over over 400 blind people in the next five years in in Florida and in other states and ended up getting a federal contract. And then in 1993, ish Bill Clinton cut a lot of funding for VR, VR. So I ran back to the studio and trying to figure out what my next steps were, and didn’t live as good as I should have for the next couple years. And in 95, 96 just had a spiritual experience to just kind of took me in a different direction, took my life in a different direction, made me realize that, you know, I have a calling. I’ve been given a gift. And that gift is to really help people Understand, you know, and to talk and to communicate and not get angry and not be judgmental, you know? And so I took that to heart and really started to figure out where I fit. And I found this thing called the internet, and I had never. So I, I’m a hustler, you know, I grew up in Miami, I hustle, I walk the streets, I did whatever, man. When I saw the internet, I was like, oh my goodness, I don’t even need to leave home.
Mike Calvo: I can just hustle right from here. And I started meeting blind people and understand I had never met a lot of blind people. This is the problem that many of us had in the 70s and the 60s and the 70s. And, you know, we were we were very fragmented. At Sirotek, again, we used to call our community the disenfranchised, visually impaired, you know, because that’s exactly what we were today. I mean, anyone listening to this podcast that’s used to hearing podcasts and grew up with it. It wasn’t like that. It was not. I mean, whenever you saw a blind person was like, what? Oh my goodness, where did you land from? You know, now they’re I mean, I know hundreds and hundreds of blind people. And the internet has been the great equalizer. It really literally has leveled the playing field in many ways. And, I mean, we could we could, you know, get the nitty gritty of accessibility and all of that. But for the most part, this, this thing we call the internet has given us as a community an opportunity to organize and to mature our community. And in 1999 I put out a product called the Radio Webcaster, which would allow you to transmit audio from your computer to an FM radio. And a bunch of blind people started buying it. I was like, oh my God, these people got money.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: You know.
Mike Calvo: These people. I was still there. I mean, I’m ashamed to say I was still it was still a me versus them. It was just like, yeah, you never you never met, you know, you never met blind people. And the ones that I did were multiple handicapped folks.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Yeah. Yeah.
Mike Calvo: You know, so it was like, yeah, you know, and and I mean, that that even reflected later when I got a guide dog because I was like, I’m not going to have my dog. I don’t, I can’t, I don’t have to do, you know, I don’t have to feed my cane, you know, put my life in the hands of a dog, for Pete’s sakes. You know, and, and and all of a sudden, people I deeply respected are, like, hauling ass with their dog. And I’m like, okay, wait, guys, catch up. I’m coming with the stick. Like, listen, why don’t you just grab my arm and we’re gonna. And I walked with this blind person sighted guide with their guide dog. Shh. Not supposed to do that, but, man, I we flew and I was in love. I was like, oh my goodness, I gotta have one. And I got I got a dog later. But in 1999 people started buying this product. And blind people, as we we would be to do, we would do we they started telling, well, it would be great if it did this. And if it did that, it did the other. Well, in 2001 created a company called Sirotek and.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Stop you right there, because I want to know I want to move on a bit. When you look back at your Sirotek years, what do you see as the biggest breakthroughs you helped to pioneer, and what lessons from that era directly influenced how you built humor solutions?
Mike Calvo: Oh, wow. I learned, I think, I think I learned the power of us as a community, the power of us. I realized I met some really awesome people. Jeff Bishop, Daryl Hilliker all of the Jim Snowbarger. Jonathan Mosen just so many people that that were that were my my just my mentors, my friends, my role models. And I realized, man, I can do this and understand, you know, I’m a drop out of high school. I have no formal education whatsoever. None. And you know one of the reasons I work so much to do what I do and believe so much in the law of accessibility. 508504 is because I got in just at the beginning of those 504 50508I mean, had just been done. So when I was in school, in elementary school, and in junior high and high school, it was. They were still working out the kinks in the in the system. But, you know, the law is so important because it makes people stop or it should make people stop. And, you know, think about this underserved community or how they can help this person. And I realized that there was an 85% unemployment rate amongst the visually impaired back in 2001. And in my naive 30 some odd brain, I’m like, you know, technology, technology is going to change this, man. You watch, we’re going to we’re going to eat the world. And and I had a developer that I’d met on a, on a, on a board named Matt Campbell. And, and he was just this young kid voice hardly even changed. And he started I talked to him and he was just like a super nerd and told him what I was doing. And he’s like, I can help you with that. Okay, so Matt started. He was he was the first person that started working with. And we we we built the first freedom box. And I realized, you know, because at that time, blind people could get on the web, but you needed to be really nerdy, you know, and use Linux, or you needed to be really wealthy and be able to afford jaws, you know.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Right on. Yes.
Mike Calvo: You know, so I said, I don’t care about the 9 to 5. I mean, obviously I do, but my my job is more about the 5 p.m. to 9 a.m. people. What am I going to do? What are they going to do? How are they going to get entertained? And the biggest thing going at that time was like web TV, you know, I said, well, let me make an accessible web TV, which is what Freedom Box was. It was kind of a an Alexa, sorry if anybody’s machines off an a lady for the for the 20th century. And 21st century, I guess. But she it it was an amazing product that people really started taking to and again, started it just evolved into a screen reader. I realized we needed a little screen reader because while everything we did online was online, but there was still some software that people needed to use on their computer. And we, you know, you had to spend $1,100 for Jaws, or we came up with something called system access, and system access was a screen reader, but it was we didn’t want to lie and call it a screen reader. So we called it System Access, Accessible access to your system. That’s it. And all it could do is run in windows and stuff. So, so essay to Go was used by, you know, thousands of people everywhere. And it just showed me that, wow, if we build something, we can really give blind people an opportunity to be upwardly mobile. And this is before mobile phones and all that stuff. I mean, you know, mobile. I think I think things like the iPhone and even Android have just literally changed our lives as blind people. Yeah, but before that, the computer was all we had. And I’m sure you remember, you know, our blind friends with that look like little pack mules with their big old backpack on their back full of computer technology. Oh my goodness. To go to a conference. And you got that blind person that didn’t realize how big their backpack is and smacks people with it?
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: No I know. Yes, I remember that.
Mike Calvo: I love it. But what we what what we did at Sirotek was we created a community. We created podcasts through the talk network. And from there we have great people. Rikki Enger, Joe Steenkamp, Lisa Salinger, Richard Wells, buddy buddy buddy Brannon. Yeah, just all of these.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Yes, buddy.
Mike Calvo: I remember all of these people that Brian Kivlahan people that that are, that are, you know, really still even active in the community. And they started with us and I was so honored to work with that team. And we worked together for a number of years. In 2017, my business partner got very ill and passed away last year but stepped down in 2017, and we tried to keep the business up for a while, and it just, it couldn’t. So our lawyers just said, you know, we’re going to close it down. And and we basically just rebranded and, and, you know, and reopened the company pneuma in 2019, Matt had left Sirotek and started working at Microsoft on the narrator team. And we had some ideas. I mean, Matt and I built seven products together. We built, you know we built dock scan, plus we built an accessible meeting platform. We built remote incident manager Rim in 2007. A lot of people don’t know Rim is from 2007. So we were the first remote. Excuse me? We were the first accessible remote platform out there.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Right.
Mike Calvo: So it was it was very cool. And now, you know the the the reality is, you know, I go where I’m needed. You know, I don’t I’m not going to, you know, I have no sacred cows, you know and to me, it’s a matter of saying, you know the consumer space is not necessarily where a company is going to make its money anymore in our community, because there’s just not enough, enough income. You know, the sad truth of the matter is that, you know, I came into this community developing software with an 85% unemployment rate and did some really earth shattering stuff with technology, us and others. And they’re still in 85% unemployment rate.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: And yeah.
Mike Calvo: And as I said earlier, it’s a social problem. It is not a technical one. We we are capable. And I was honored to be part of of a very nice elite group of people that had to do with the web accessibility standards, that had to do with UI automation and, and all of that good stuff that all of these, you know, the wcaG the wcaG standards, all of that stuff. We worked to do that and to see that organizations are not doing this is just so sad. Which is why I think the law, as much as I’d love for people just to be nice and do it, that’s where the law is. I mean, that’s just the world we live in. You’re you’re not going to get, you know you’re not going to get enough. And the sad thing is there’s some reality to it. I mean, you know in a restaurant, how many blind people go in a year, you know?
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Absolutely true.
Mike Calvo: You name your restaurant, yet that restaurant is required to have Braille menus. You know, so, you know, the way I do it is, you know. And now, thank God we’ve got, like, Covid gave us QR codes on the table.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: So.
Mike Calvo: So yeah, I love it. And and if not, you just wave your phone around and see if it gets a QR code somewhere. And and and and now, of course, the meta glasses. I mean, there’s so many options, but you know, but back then it was just dreaming, man. We, we we really wanted to change the world and we, you know, and and it was we to this day, the sad thing, the sad truth is to this day, I don’t know where my next paycheck is coming from, you know. We have we built pneuma to be an what we call an augmented media remediation company, which means we remediate digital media. We make we make you know, PDFs. We tag them, we make them wcaG compliant. We do scribe for documents, which converts any, any printable document to an accessible format, be it large print, Braille, MP3, daisy, all of that stuff. And, you know, we we have a number, a couple of enterprise customers for Rim. Because we brought Rim back in 2021 because we needed to make some money and and money wasn’t coming in from scribe for documents. The technology wasn’t where it needed to be yet. So we brought Rim in and that sustained us. And then, you know when title two came up, we were like, yes, you know, we’re going to be able to do this. And And then AI started coming along and was like, wow, this is cool. And then then, you know, the current administration came into office.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Never mind.
Mike Calvo: And they rolled up Di with accessibility. And I have a very big heart for diversity, equity and inclusion. I believe it’s a right. I believe that people have the right to be themselves, love who they want, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. But sorry, blindness doesn’t fit in that.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: No.
Mike Calvo: It does not. And there are laws, you know, while di for the most part, in many, especially for folks that live alternative lifestyles, is a a social problem, blindness and the remedies to to deal with blind people in public places are laws, and those laws need to be adhered to. And unfortunately what we found is that very few organizations, because of the political climate we’re in, which historically, interestingly enough, a Republican started the Ada and the Republicans have been the worst embracing it ever. But, you know, we’re this year, we’re hoping we’re we’re pounding the pavement because title two the the laws over in Canada, the Aoda law in Canada, the European accessibility act, all of these different acts are hopefully getting people to come to us and remediate lots of documents. We’ve created a technology, Donna, that is just really, really amazing. It creates wcaG aligned documents tagged PDF, and we can do hundreds of thousands of pages a day.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Are people coming to you, Mike?
Mike Calvo: We I am restricted contractually of saying who. Yes. In in a public setting. But yes, we have had some we had one big customer last year. That was how we, you know, that’s how we lived. That’s how the company survived this year. We’re living on what’s left over from that and we’re moving forward. We’re, you know I’ve been here a long time and I’ve, you know, lived on the edge for a long time. I’m not I’m not used to three digits. I, I’m not I’m not scared. I’m not, I’m not used to I’m not scared of three digits in the bank when they need to be, you know I’ve been in a company with $100 in the bank, you know.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: But it takes a special type of person, trust me. I’ve lived off the edge many, many times. Aaron would tell you that my dear friend Aaron. And Aaron has encouraged me to. Donna, you can’t give up. Donna. No. Donna. No. And I’m saying, oh, God. Aaron, I don’t know how much longer I could take this, you know? But you’re right. It takes a special type of person like yourself. And we need more of you.
Mike Calvo: And you. It’s it’s the audacity of hope. I think Barack Obama said it. It’s the audacity of hope. How dare you hope, Donna, how dare you, blind person, step out of the, you know, the little public, the little public frame that that the world has put you in that little box where you can maybe do this and do that, but you couldn’t possibly do that, you know? How dare you, you know, dream and actually accomplish those dreams. And for me, that’s that’s what it’s all about. My kids. I gotta tell you, I’ve got five beautiful children.
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Mike Calvo: And my my wife has two, so we have seven between us. Okay. And five of them are girls. Yeah. Someone. Some would call that karma. Yeah. Yeah. Women’s have been. Women have been a big part of my life. So but to me, you know I got to be able to look at my kids, and they got to look at me with respect. I’m dad.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Yes.
Mike Calvo: You know what I’m saying? And and and if I, if I show, you know, not weakness because I believe in being transparent. I had a very sordid childhood. My children know what I used to do. My children. I’m not that you know better than thou. I was this way, and now I would have never done that. I did it all. I did what I needed to do. I did what I wanted to do when I was younger. And I just believe very much in owning your stuff. You know this is a rated G show, so we’ll keep it there, but owning your stuff. And don’t be a jerk, you know? I mean, you know, be honest with people, be honest to self and understand that everybody gets scared, you know? Yes. Everybody gets concerned. There is not. I’ve been speaking in public for 25 years or more.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Right.
Mike Calvo: There is not one time that I go up there that I’m like, oh yeah, I got this. No. Every time there’s butterflies in the stomach, there’s, oh my God, am I going to do okay? Am I going to stay on track? Am I going to remember my notes? Are people are people going to be, you know, changed from this because the whole idea of going up there is not to get a stipend or get a payment. It’s to change people’s lives. It’s to make people say wow and to remind them there is absolutely no difference between you and me, except for that you’re you and I’m me. Aside from that, we’re the same. Which means that we are all unique. I’m not looking to do things the way you do them, but I do want to know how. And you don’t need to be doing everything the way I do. But let me help you, and you know, and we will get through this. One of the one of the most awesome things I used to enjoy was going to the conferences and watching a big old herd of blind people trying to get somewhere. Absolutely hilarious.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: I’m sorry. That is so descriptive. And it is so very.
Mike Calvo: Oh, it’s like, you know, everybody’s like.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Yeah.
Mike Calvo: And and and the thing about it is that what I noticed is sighted people are intimidated by you or me on our own, but let a whole bunch of blind people come up to a sighted person be like, oh, yeah, come on. And they having a great time with. Oh, and everybody’s laughing and they’re taking us and you know, it grabs they do the conga line thing where one blind person grabs the sighted person’s arm, and then everybody starts running after them. And we got a hell of a show going on at the hotel, you know? But it’s fun and it’s the power of us, and it’s the power of people sharing with other people. Hey, if you go down to the lobby and you listen, you hear there’s a water fountain and and watch it because it echoes. So when you’re walking through, you need to listen carefully because it’s going to be on your left. But it might sound like it’s coming from your right.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Right?
Mike Calvo: Yes. You know, things like that. That it is the power of us. The power of us. The power of communication, the power of technology, the power to say we can as a community and that we have as a community. Things really suck right now in the way of in accessibility circles. They don’t look very promising in many respects. But you know what? But we’re going to do this. We’re going to get through this.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: How are you planning to do this, Mike? Are you going to continue with your I don’t know what what word I’m looking for to describe you dynamic. You know, what is next for you on the drawing board. You know, tell me, show me.
Mike Calvo: So I’m I’m going to continue to do what we’re doing with scribe Matt, my business partner who used to be my CTO. My son David just joined our team last year. He’s our AI genius. David graduated from Johns Hopkins top three in his class. Oh yeah, very smart young man. And he just got married. And so, you know, I’m I’m going through that. I’m watching my kids grow up, and I’m like, oh, my God, I did that.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: You’re responsible for.
Mike Calvo: It. You know, we did that, you know, and and it’s like, it’s so amazing to watch them and to and to realize, you know, so many of us feel unworthy when your kid says, yeah, but dad, you said, I’m like, yeah, nobody else gives a shit what excuse the darn about what I say, why should you? You know, because I’m your son. I’m your daughter, I love you, you know, you set an example for me, you know, and my kids are open minded. They are. They are transparent people that ask questions and want to know. So for me, I’m just going to continue to to help people. I mean, I believe very strongly that I have a calling and that calling is to help, you know, just to help people understand life and, and the challenges that it comes and to encourage people you know, and, and and to into our, our, our, our sighted friends or people that are listening. I have a talk that I used to do. It’s called no excuses. And and you know, we as blind people, society gives us every excuse to do absolutely nothing, and they’ll be cool with it. What do you do? Blind person? No, nothing. I sit at home and read talking books.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: In my rocking chair, I watch TV.
Mike Calvo: Oh, good for you. Oh my God. But you live alone, right? Yeah. Nobody wants to share. My.
Mike Calvo: Nobody wants my lazy butt.
Mike Calvo: But but yeah, I mean, but you know what? I refuse to accept those excuses because if you don’t, you know, there are some very legitimate reasons for things. And, I mean, listen, I, you know flight simulator is a great thing, but you’re never going to see my blind behind a in a in a in an airplane flying it, you know? So that’s a, that’s not an excuse. That’s a reality check. But I don’t want to do this because this will fail. And and so what? You know what? Failure isn’t isn’t not something not working out for you. It’s never getting up off your booty and doing it. It’s never it’s saying it’s it’s saying, okay, I’ve got this way. I want this to work, but I need to be flexible. I need to be like that. Bamboo. You ever seen how bamboo? A shoot of bamboo. You can bend it all the way down to the floor. And you. And then when you let it and it goes down, and then when you let it up, it bounces back up and you can never see the crease of the bend because it bounces back. And that’s what we need to do as blind folks. We need to be bamboo. We need to be. And I’m not saying to be people’s, you know, emotional verbal punching bag or any of that kind of thing.
Mike Calvo: But you know what? Really? Count your battles, man. Sometimes, again, separate the stupid from the ignorant. If you’ve got that Uber driver that you know didn’t like your dog or whatever, he’s pretty stupid. But are you going to really ruin the rest of your day over it? Are you really going to go home to your family or go into your office pissed off because you ran into a stupid person? You know how many, how many stupid people those sighted people ran into in traffic that morning, you know? So so to me, it’s it’s just a matter of really just being available, you know, here I’m, I’m older now. I’ve got experiences that I can share. I’m not angry anymore. And that’s. I don’t know about you Donna or the listeners, but as I’ve gotten older, I’ve gotten less angry because it’s like, you know, I told you when I was 20, I. When I was in my 20s, I swore I knew everything. And then when I got into my 30s, I realized that I may not know as much as I thought I did when I got into my 40s. I’m like, I don’t know nothing. I’m here to learn. And then for whatever reason, when I hit 50, it just didn’t matter anymore. This is who I am. Take it or leave it, man. I’m good.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: But it takes a lot of confidence to say that. And I’m presently engaged in developing camps for for kids leaving high school and those young adults. And the mission here is if you believe you can achieve.
Mike Calvo: But Amen.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: It’s not easy. And as our clock winds down, I want to ask you this. What’s next for Mike?
Mike Calvo: I don’t know, I, I don’t know, I you know, Donna, I’ll tell you something. You know, I. I love Steve Jobs. Steve Jobs is Steve. Steve Jobs has every right to be and totally was a narcissist. Why? Because Steve Jobs is one of the only people I can think of that can stand in front of a mirror and look and say, if I hadn’t come, the world would be different. And Amen.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Amen. Amen.
Mike Calvo: Amen. Yeah. Listen, Steve, wherever you’re at, you can you you can be as narcissistic as you want, dude, because you are absolutely right. The world would have been different. It would have been different for millions and millions and millions of people. There are billions, literally billions of accessible devices in this world behind places where you and I could have never gotten things to 30 years ago. 20 years ago.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Agreed.
Mike Calvo: You know, so.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: My hero, home.
Mike Calvo: I don’t know, I, I, you know, I, I, I’m, I’m here I speak to groups, I speak you know, we remediate documents. We’re, you know, we’re we’re here and and we’re going to keep, keep working in this community. And I forgot to mention earlier, I have to comment. Aaron has been such a blessing to me as well. Aaron is a super encouraging human being. And there’s a there’s a special place for him in my heart because.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Me too.
Mike Calvo: He has he has truly just been inspirational to me, encouraging to me. And and the guy happens to know what he’s doing. So.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: No, I mean, Aaron is special. Aaron is my friend for life, my associate, my mentor, my advisor. You know, I don’t know what else to say about the man. I don’t think he sleeps.
Mike Calvo: Yeah. Listen, same back at you. You know, Donna, it has been an honor to be here and to finally meet the woman behind the legend.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Oh, God. Please.
Mike Calvo: No. Seriously?
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: You ever come to Canada?
Mike Calvo: I do every once in a while. And in fact, I was thinking about My wife’s daughter’s grandparents live up there, and we were thinking about going there, and if you ever want a guest speaker at one of those at one of those camps be it even remote or whatever, I would be happy to do it.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: I will probably be calling on you like we have two camps that we’re developing right now. One is the. To have Air Canada has given me a certain number of tickets to fly participants to the I retreat camp next July, 2027. Doctor Allen Chase and the other camp is we’re developing it to be able to hold a camp in Quebec, camp Massawippi. We’re working on that, but we have to find the funding. And I would be delighted to ask you to be a guest speaker.
Mike Calvo: Let me know.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: If anybody else. Yes.
Mike Calvo: I I’ll tell you. For me, as a kid, camp was life changing. It was a great social experience. You know kissed my first girl at camp, you know.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Secrets are coming out.
Mike Calvo: Yeah. Oh, yeah. It was it was a great time. The Florida Lions camp was was and and, you know, we went in and we did normal quote unquote stuff. Rode horses. You know, went swimming in the lake. You know, learn to clean our room, learn to fold our our, you know, make our beds and all that stuff. Camp, camp and independent living facilities to me are so important to our community. There are no lone rangers in the blindness community. If you are recently visually impaired, find find a blind person to shadow or 2 or 5 or ten. Get involved in a group. Listen. Blindness, you know, just to be honest, is a pain in the behind, you know, but it is not unsurpassable. We’ve got more problems with the way people see us than the way we see ourselves, you know? So you know, if we can get beyond that, if we can support one another, you know, count me in, count me in. And thank you again for, for for inviting me to your program.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: It has been a true pleasure and honor, and I hope we find an opportunity to work together. I really, really do.
Mike Calvo: Let me know.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Okay. I will be in touch. But again, thank you, Mike.
Mike Calvo: Thank you.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Thank you very much. You take care now.
Mike Calvo: You too.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Okay.
Mike Calvo: Oh, by the way, by the way. Wait wait wait wait. You may want to give this. We may we may want to give this to Aaron. Aaron I’m going to give contact information. So Donna, if anybody wants to reach out to me I have a very open door policy. You can visit you can email me at Michael. That’s c a l v as in Victor o at pneuma solutions.com. And I’m going to spell pneuma because it’s a little strange. It’s p n e u m a.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: R.
Mike Calvo: Solutions.com. I put the p in there just to tick off blind people.
Mike Calvo: It’s actually a, it’s actually a Greek word, but. And the other and the other thing that we run that I’m very proud of is called title two. Title number 2.info. And if you want to know about upcoming laws and, you know, go to your local, whatever, whatever your local you know, your local place of business government business any, any, any kind of place that has inaccessible PDFs and if they need to comply with title two, they’ve got a very short time to do it in.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: I know.
Mike Calvo: So point them at that resource. Yeah. You know and and advocate folks advocate for yourself because you know, we’ve got groups that do it. But individual advocacy is so important anyway. So thanks again.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: I think what I’d like to do is reach out to you about my camps if you believe you can achieve. And I think we can do magic together.
Mike Calvo: I agree. Let’s do it.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: All right. Mike. Thank you.
Mike Calvo: Thank you. Donna.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Okay. You take care.
Mike Calvo: All right. You too.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Yeah. Bye. Bye now. Bye bye. Bye.
Podcast Commentator: Donna wants to hear from you and invites you to write to her at donnajodhan@gmail.com. Until next time.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA
Global Leader In Disability Rights, Digital Accessibility, And Inclusive Policy Reform
Turning policy into progress for people with disabilities.
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Remarkable World Commentary Episode #78: Interview with Mike Calvo, CEO and Co-Founder, Pneuma Solutions
🎙️ Listen to this Podcast.
In this candid episode of Remarkable World Commentary, Donna J. Jodhan welcomes blind technologist and entrepreneur Mike Calvo and invites him to share the moments that shaped his view of accessibility as a civil right. Calvo describes growing up in Miami as the son of Cuban immigrants, and he uses everyday stories, like how “help” can turn intrusive when strangers grab a blind person’s arm, to highlight the importance of respect, clear communication, and personal autonomy. He also reflects on discovering computers in early adulthood, crediting a mentor’s message that “behind that computer you are an equal” as a turning point that propelled him toward technology, advocacy, and entrepreneurship.
He then looks back on building assistive tech at Serotek, creating community-centered tools like the Freedom Box and the System Access screen reader to expand independent access to the web and PC software, before explaining how that work evolved into Pneuma Solutions. Today, Pneuma focuses on large-scale digital remediation (including making PDFs WCAG-compliant) and the urgent push for public entities to meet the ADA Title II digital-accessibility deadline in April 2026, an issue echoed in the episode’s opening message and his mention of the Title2.info resource. The conversation closes with a shared commitment to empowering blind youth, Donna discusses her “if you believe you can achieve” camps, and Calvo underscores that “there are no lone rangers in the blindness community,” urging listeners to seek community, mentorship, and personal advocacy.
TRANSCRIPT
Advertisement: This podcast brought to you by Pneuma Solutions.
Advertisement: I can’t see it.
Advertisement: ADA Title II has a real compliance deadline. April 2026. Public entities are required to make their digital content accessible, including websites, PDFs, reports, applications, and public records. If a document cannot be read with a screen reader, it is not compliant and if it is not compliant, blind people are still being denied equal access. For a clear explanation of what the rule requires, visit http://www.title2.info. It’s one of the leading resources explaining what agencies must do and when. This message is brought to you by Pneuma Solutions, we have remediated hundreds of thousands of pages in days, not months or years, aligned with WCAG 2 AA guidelines at a fraction of traditional costs. Accessibility isn’t a privilege, it’s a right. Now that you know, ask your agencies a simple question, are your documents actually accessible?
Podcast Commentator: Donna J Jodhan, LLB, ACSP and MBA, invites you to listen to her biweekly podcast, Remarkable World Commentary. Here, Donna shares some of her innermost thoughts, insights, perspectives, and more with her listeners. Donna focuses on topics that directly affect the future of kids, especially kids with disabilities. Donna is a blind advocate, author, site loss coach, dinner mystery producer, writer, entrepreneur, law graduate, and podcast Commentator. She has decades of lived experiences, knowledge, skills and expertise in access technology and information. As someone who has been internationally recognized for her work and roles, she just wants to make things better than possible.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Hello everybody, and welcome to another episode of Remarkable World Commentary. I’m Donna Jodhan, a lifelong disability advocate and one who sees the world mainly through sound, touch and stubborn optimism. I am a law graduate and accessibility consultant and author, lifelong barrier buster who also happens to be blind. You may know me from a few headline moments, as in November 2010, I won the landmark charter case that forced the Canadian government to make its websites accessible to every Canadian, not just a sighted ones. And in July of 2019, I co-led the Accessible Canada Act with more than two dozen disability groups to turn equal access into federal law. And most recently, on June the 3rd, 2022, I was greatly humbled by Her Late Majesty’s Platinum Jubilee Award for tireless commitment to removing barriers. When I’m not in a courtroom or in a committee room or in a pottery studio, you’ll find me coaching kids with vision loss, producing audio mysteries, or helping tech companies to make their gadgets talk back in plain language. Everything I do circles one goal to turn accessibility from an afterthought into everyday practice. I invite you to think of this show as our shared workbench where policy meets lived experience and lived experience sparks fresh ideas. Now, before we jump into today’s conversation, let me shine a spotlight on today’s guest, a change maker whose work is every bit as remarkable as the world that we are trying to build. Mike Calvo. It is my pleasure and my privilege to welcome you to my podcast.
Mike Calvo: Thank you. I am I am humbled, honored and curious. Do you sleep?
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Because, I mean.
Mike Calvo: You do so much. That’s like, when do you sleep?
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: It’s catching up with me. Mike, it is just as it probably is with you as well. Right.
Mike Calvo: Well, luckily, and I and I have a team.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Oh, okay. Good.
Mike Calvo: I have a team, and and and it’s a bunch of. We it’s the blind army. And we are we we all we all like, get somebody to tell us in what direction to go and we march there. But no, we. Yeah. I mean, it is it has been a challenge. And as I’m sure you know, sometimes it’s it’s lonely doing what we do because we believe it. And some of us are told, don’t, don’t like. I was told when I was a kid. Don’t don’t shoot so high. Don’t be a problem. My, my favorite was be normal. It’s like.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: What?
Mike Calvo: What is normal people? I have no idea. But whatever it is, I’m not it. And you know. So yeah, it is it is difficult. I have watched you from afar and admired your tenacity and just your your chutzpah, you know, and the fact that you don’t Cubans. I’m Cuban, and we have a saying, and it sounds gross in English, but it makes sense. It says we don’t have any hair on our tongue, which means we don’t fumble words. We’re real clear. And that’s what I love about you. You’re a very direct person, and that’s been awesome, too.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Thank you so much. But now we gotta focus on you and Mike. I’d like to start with this beginning. Can you share your journey as a blind technologist and entrepreneur, and the key moments that shaped how you think about accessibility as a civil right, rather Then as a nice to have.
Mike Calvo: So I grew up in Miami, Florida. I’m a son of Cuban immigrants. They came here in the 1960s. And as I grew up in Miami, I started to I’ve got my training. When my parents found out I was blind. The Cuban culture doesn’t didn’t, at least at that time, think very highly. Or the the Latino the Latin American culture didn’t have very high goals and aspirations for blind people, you know. So most blind people in, in developing Latin American countries were beggars in Cuba as well. Ironically enough, without getting political in any way, just the fact, you know, you got to give the devil his due. Whether you agree with with the with the political situation in Cuba or not, the group that probably gained the most value out of the revolution that took place in Cuba in 1959? Is the are Cubans with disabilities?
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Okay.
Mike Calvo: You and I will go somewhere here in the West, in the US or in Canada or even in Europe. And we’ll walk somewhere and we’ll be standing on a street corner with our dog or with our cane, and some very well-meaning sighted person will run up to you and grab your arm and tell you, hey, you’re about to walk into moving traffic.
Mike Calvo: At which point I’m like, yeah, I just my UFO just dropped me off. How do you think I got here? You know? And it’s because, you know. Well, I’m just trying to help. I’m like, yeah, I appreciate it. But the way to do that is to walk up and say, sir or ma’am, I see you have a dog. I see you have a cane. Obviously you are visually impaired. Is there anything I can do for you? At which point, if I’m standing in front of four lanes of traffic and you’re going across. I’d be like, sure, can I grab a wing? You know, I mean, it’s not it’s not. I’m not too proud to beg, you know, and, and and, you know, and and we’ll do it that way. But the moment you put your hands on me and you break my space, we’ve got a problem. And and that and that. I say that to preface in Cuba, on the other hand, I’ll go and I’ll be like, hey, I’m looking for so and so restaurant. And they’ll the person will walk up, they’ll put their hand on my shoulder and be like, okay, in front of you there. You see, there’s a sidewalk there. Walk down. Listen, you hear, on the corner over there, you hear the music over there, turn left. And then if you walk down and count with your cane, literally, I’m telling you, this is what the public tells you. Count with your cane. Count how many doors. When you get to the third door, turn right, cross the street, listen for cars, cross the street and there’s the restaurant you’re looking for. Would you like me to go with you? No, thanks. I’m good. Cool. See ya. And that’s the level of social respect.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Yes.
Mike Calvo: You asked how I got into technology. I found technology when I was 21. I’m not going to. I’ve spent a lot of time on other podcasts and stuff talking about. I grew up in a very racy environment in Miami in the 1980s with drugs and, you know, sex, drugs and rock and roll or sex, drugs and disco, you know.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: And.
Mike Calvo: And and so I’m not going to belabor that too much, but I was heavily involved in the music industry, in the drug trade when I was a young kid. What I, you know, and, and as I got older I realized I needed to do something with my life and my first, my first exposure besides sell drugs, you know, and do music. I at 21, I found that my, my girlfriend was pregnant and we were going to get married, so that was cool. But I, you know, I kept dreaming of my kid waking up. What is your dad would do? Well, my dad’s a drug dealer. He’s like, no, we don’t want that. So I went and I got a job at a bank. It was the only job I had. And later I, you know, I it was the first and only job I had. And the reason is because when I went to go look for another job. Donna, it was such a challenge. And I had been an entrepreneur all my life. I started a DJ business when I was 13. I, you know, and I said, you know, there’s an 80% chance that a business will fail in the first three years. Well, there’s an 85% unemployment rate amongst the blind.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Definitely, yes.
Mike Calvo: So so I’ve got I’ve got better upside potential to start my own thing and, and and hope that it works as opposed to spending, you know out of every ten visits I get one and a half that might say yes. And even then I’ll get to treatment like I got at the bank, which was like after six months, you know, I’m there and I’m like, okay, what am I going to run this thing? You know, I’m used to being I’m used to being the boss, you know? And they’re like, we don’t know what to do with you. People. Like what?
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Oh, no.
Mike Calvo: And I went to my my mentor, a guy named Greg Luther, who I will forever be thankful for. I ran into a lot of lazy people in V.I., and I don’t know if it was lazy or just burned out or whatever, but Greg was just one of these guys who was just so encouraging, and he said, you know what, Mike? I believe in you so much. He said, you need to learn that computer. And behind that computer you are an equal. And that resonated with me so much. And I found I had a knack for the damn thing. And so I started learning how to, you know, this is back with with dos and vert and all that.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Yes.
Mike Calvo: You know, so I learned how to script and and all that stuff at the time and started Making my job better at the bank by increasing my productivity. If there was going to be, there was literally a blind productivity and a normal employee productivity rate, and it was stated as such. And I said, well, if I’m going to be abnormal, I’m going to be abnormally awesome. So I, you know, so I did that and they liked the level of productivity that I brought. And they were like, hey, we want another blind one. So they went, they went back to VR and Greg calls me up and he’s like, hey, Calvin, listen we got a guy. I’m going to send him over there you know, and see if you can teach him the ropes around the bank. So I trained this guy who never trained a person in my life, you know? And I was like, wow, this is cool. And one day Greg says to me, hey, I have a presentation at Ryder Trucks that I need to do for another blind person, and all they need to do is, you know, you need to connect to their mainframe. Show them. Take a computer over there. Show them that you can do it. Show them that a blind person can, you know, navigate and answer some questions. You know. So I was like, okay. So I went and I walked into this room full of supervisors.
Screen Reader: Notification from outlook.
Mike Calvo: And the first thing I said to them I’ll never forget was, hey everybody, it’s really great to meet you. And I said, I know that, you know, you see before you this really gorgeous looking blind guy and you say to yourself, how does he look so awesome? How does his clothes match? How is his hair? You know, how is that? How is he so polished? And I said, let me tell you a secret. I said, I’m married. My wife told me.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Oh, yes, indeed.
Mike Calvo: And I said, now, fellas, be real. How many of you dressed yourself versus your wife told you that you’re going to go out like that because you can’t tell them that. You can’t tell them that. No, babe, you’re going to go out like that. But what? You’ll die. But we get told you’re going to go out like that all the time. So And I said, but but the reality is, I said, you know, that’s how I did that. I make sure I look good because I have a fashion consultant for life. So I said, but what what we’re here to talk about is productivity and how a blind person can be a constructive and contributing part of your team. And that began just a love affair for me to talk to open minded, open hearted people that truly are curious, you know, and I’ve, I have struggled to separate ignorance from stupidity in people. And don’t I got a cure for ignorance. And that’s real straightforward, honest talking and communication and question asking. And you know, ask me anything. You know, there’s no such thing as a stupid question, but there are stupid people, you know. And stupid is the people that just make assumptions. They see, you know? Well, you’re not like normal blind people. You’re like every other blind person. You’re really special. It’s like, no man, no, I’m not, I’m me. I’m an individual person that happens to be visually impaired, that happens to be blind. And we are all different. We are janitors and lawyers and moms and dads and students and all of these different things. And there are nice blind people and there are nasty blind people, and there are lovable, and there are dislikable blind people. Because you know what? We we took a survey a few years ago at, at at Sarah Tech, the company I used to run and and we found out that consumer habits of blind people and mainstream people, oh my goodness, they’re exactly the same.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Oh, my.
Mike Calvo: I imagine that we’re we’re normal, I guess. So that’s kind of, you know I, I stayed at the bank for about a year and a half. I ended up getting a contract with the state of Florida to train blind people. And we proceeded to train over over 400 blind people in the next five years in in Florida and in other states and ended up getting a federal contract. And then in 1993, ish Bill Clinton cut a lot of funding for VR, VR. So I ran back to the studio and trying to figure out what my next steps were, and didn’t live as good as I should have for the next couple years. And in 95, 96 just had a spiritual experience to just kind of took me in a different direction, took my life in a different direction, made me realize that, you know, I have a calling. I’ve been given a gift. And that gift is to really help people Understand, you know, and to talk and to communicate and not get angry and not be judgmental, you know? And so I took that to heart and really started to figure out where I fit. And I found this thing called the internet, and I had never. So I, I’m a hustler, you know, I grew up in Miami, I hustle, I walk the streets, I did whatever, man. When I saw the internet, I was like, oh my goodness, I don’t even need to leave home.
Mike Calvo: I can just hustle right from here. And I started meeting blind people and understand I had never met a lot of blind people. This is the problem that many of us had in the 70s and the 60s and the 70s. And, you know, we were we were very fragmented. At Sirotek, again, we used to call our community the disenfranchised, visually impaired, you know, because that’s exactly what we were today. I mean, anyone listening to this podcast that’s used to hearing podcasts and grew up with it. It wasn’t like that. It was not. I mean, whenever you saw a blind person was like, what? Oh my goodness, where did you land from? You know, now they’re I mean, I know hundreds and hundreds of blind people. And the internet has been the great equalizer. It really literally has leveled the playing field in many ways. And, I mean, we could we could, you know, get the nitty gritty of accessibility and all of that. But for the most part, this, this thing we call the internet has given us as a community an opportunity to organize and to mature our community. And in 1999 I put out a product called the Radio Webcaster, which would allow you to transmit audio from your computer to an FM radio. And a bunch of blind people started buying it. I was like, oh my God, these people got money.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: You know.
Mike Calvo: These people. I was still there. I mean, I’m ashamed to say I was still it was still a me versus them. It was just like, yeah, you never you never met, you know, you never met blind people. And the ones that I did were multiple handicapped folks.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Yeah. Yeah.
Mike Calvo: You know, so it was like, yeah, you know, and and I mean, that that even reflected later when I got a guide dog because I was like, I’m not going to have my dog. I don’t, I can’t, I don’t have to do, you know, I don’t have to feed my cane, you know, put my life in the hands of a dog, for Pete’s sakes. You know, and, and and all of a sudden, people I deeply respected are, like, hauling ass with their dog. And I’m like, okay, wait, guys, catch up. I’m coming with the stick. Like, listen, why don’t you just grab my arm and we’re gonna. And I walked with this blind person sighted guide with their guide dog. Shh. Not supposed to do that, but, man, I we flew and I was in love. I was like, oh my goodness, I gotta have one. And I got I got a dog later. But in 1999 people started buying this product. And blind people, as we we would be to do, we would do we they started telling, well, it would be great if it did this. And if it did that, it did the other. Well, in 2001 created a company called Sirotek and.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Stop you right there, because I want to know I want to move on a bit. When you look back at your Sirotek years, what do you see as the biggest breakthroughs you helped to pioneer, and what lessons from that era directly influenced how you built humor solutions?
Mike Calvo: Oh, wow. I learned, I think, I think I learned the power of us as a community, the power of us. I realized I met some really awesome people. Jeff Bishop, Daryl Hilliker all of the Jim Snowbarger. Jonathan Mosen just so many people that that were that were my my just my mentors, my friends, my role models. And I realized, man, I can do this and understand, you know, I’m a drop out of high school. I have no formal education whatsoever. None. And you know one of the reasons I work so much to do what I do and believe so much in the law of accessibility. 508504 is because I got in just at the beginning of those 504 50508I mean, had just been done. So when I was in school, in elementary school, and in junior high and high school, it was. They were still working out the kinks in the in the system. But, you know, the law is so important because it makes people stop or it should make people stop. And, you know, think about this underserved community or how they can help this person. And I realized that there was an 85% unemployment rate amongst the visually impaired back in 2001. And in my naive 30 some odd brain, I’m like, you know, technology, technology is going to change this, man. You watch, we’re going to we’re going to eat the world. And and I had a developer that I’d met on a, on a, on a board named Matt Campbell. And, and he was just this young kid voice hardly even changed. And he started I talked to him and he was just like a super nerd and told him what I was doing. And he’s like, I can help you with that. Okay, so Matt started. He was he was the first person that started working with. And we we we built the first freedom box. And I realized, you know, because at that time, blind people could get on the web, but you needed to be really nerdy, you know, and use Linux, or you needed to be really wealthy and be able to afford jaws, you know.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Right on. Yes.
Mike Calvo: You know, so I said, I don’t care about the 9 to 5. I mean, obviously I do, but my my job is more about the 5 p.m. to 9 a.m. people. What am I going to do? What are they going to do? How are they going to get entertained? And the biggest thing going at that time was like web TV, you know, I said, well, let me make an accessible web TV, which is what Freedom Box was. It was kind of a an Alexa, sorry if anybody’s machines off an a lady for the for the 20th century. And 21st century, I guess. But she it it was an amazing product that people really started taking to and again, started it just evolved into a screen reader. I realized we needed a little screen reader because while everything we did online was online, but there was still some software that people needed to use on their computer. And we, you know, you had to spend $1,100 for Jaws, or we came up with something called system access, and system access was a screen reader, but it was we didn’t want to lie and call it a screen reader. So we called it System Access, Accessible access to your system. That’s it. And all it could do is run in windows and stuff. So, so essay to Go was used by, you know, thousands of people everywhere. And it just showed me that, wow, if we build something, we can really give blind people an opportunity to be upwardly mobile. And this is before mobile phones and all that stuff. I mean, you know, mobile. I think I think things like the iPhone and even Android have just literally changed our lives as blind people. Yeah, but before that, the computer was all we had. And I’m sure you remember, you know, our blind friends with that look like little pack mules with their big old backpack on their back full of computer technology. Oh my goodness. To go to a conference. And you got that blind person that didn’t realize how big their backpack is and smacks people with it?
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: No I know. Yes, I remember that.
Mike Calvo: I love it. But what we what what we did at Sirotek was we created a community. We created podcasts through the talk network. And from there we have great people. Rikki Enger, Joe Steenkamp, Lisa Salinger, Richard Wells, buddy buddy buddy Brannon. Yeah, just all of these.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Yes, buddy.
Mike Calvo: I remember all of these people that Brian Kivlahan people that that are, that are, you know, really still even active in the community. And they started with us and I was so honored to work with that team. And we worked together for a number of years. In 2017, my business partner got very ill and passed away last year but stepped down in 2017, and we tried to keep the business up for a while, and it just, it couldn’t. So our lawyers just said, you know, we’re going to close it down. And and we basically just rebranded and, and, you know, and reopened the company pneuma in 2019, Matt had left Sirotek and started working at Microsoft on the narrator team. And we had some ideas. I mean, Matt and I built seven products together. We built, you know we built dock scan, plus we built an accessible meeting platform. We built remote incident manager Rim in 2007. A lot of people don’t know Rim is from 2007. So we were the first remote. Excuse me? We were the first accessible remote platform out there.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Right.
Mike Calvo: So it was it was very cool. And now, you know the the the reality is, you know, I go where I’m needed. You know, I don’t I’m not going to, you know, I have no sacred cows, you know and to me, it’s a matter of saying, you know the consumer space is not necessarily where a company is going to make its money anymore in our community, because there’s just not enough, enough income. You know, the sad truth of the matter is that, you know, I came into this community developing software with an 85% unemployment rate and did some really earth shattering stuff with technology, us and others. And they’re still in 85% unemployment rate.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: And yeah.
Mike Calvo: And as I said earlier, it’s a social problem. It is not a technical one. We we are capable. And I was honored to be part of of a very nice elite group of people that had to do with the web accessibility standards, that had to do with UI automation and, and all of that good stuff that all of these, you know, the wcaG the wcaG standards, all of that stuff. We worked to do that and to see that organizations are not doing this is just so sad. Which is why I think the law, as much as I’d love for people just to be nice and do it, that’s where the law is. I mean, that’s just the world we live in. You’re you’re not going to get, you know you’re not going to get enough. And the sad thing is there’s some reality to it. I mean, you know in a restaurant, how many blind people go in a year, you know?
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Absolutely true.
Mike Calvo: You name your restaurant, yet that restaurant is required to have Braille menus. You know, so, you know, the way I do it is, you know. And now, thank God we’ve got, like, Covid gave us QR codes on the table.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: So.
Mike Calvo: So yeah, I love it. And and if not, you just wave your phone around and see if it gets a QR code somewhere. And and and and now, of course, the meta glasses. I mean, there’s so many options, but you know, but back then it was just dreaming, man. We, we we really wanted to change the world and we, you know, and and it was we to this day, the sad thing, the sad truth is to this day, I don’t know where my next paycheck is coming from, you know. We have we built pneuma to be an what we call an augmented media remediation company, which means we remediate digital media. We make we make you know, PDFs. We tag them, we make them wcaG compliant. We do scribe for documents, which converts any, any printable document to an accessible format, be it large print, Braille, MP3, daisy, all of that stuff. And, you know, we we have a number, a couple of enterprise customers for Rim. Because we brought Rim back in 2021 because we needed to make some money and and money wasn’t coming in from scribe for documents. The technology wasn’t where it needed to be yet. So we brought Rim in and that sustained us. And then, you know when title two came up, we were like, yes, you know, we’re going to be able to do this. And And then AI started coming along and was like, wow, this is cool. And then then, you know, the current administration came into office.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Never mind.
Mike Calvo: And they rolled up Di with accessibility. And I have a very big heart for diversity, equity and inclusion. I believe it’s a right. I believe that people have the right to be themselves, love who they want, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. But sorry, blindness doesn’t fit in that.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: No.
Mike Calvo: It does not. And there are laws, you know, while di for the most part, in many, especially for folks that live alternative lifestyles, is a a social problem, blindness and the remedies to to deal with blind people in public places are laws, and those laws need to be adhered to. And unfortunately what we found is that very few organizations, because of the political climate we’re in, which historically, interestingly enough, a Republican started the Ada and the Republicans have been the worst embracing it ever. But, you know, we’re this year, we’re hoping we’re we’re pounding the pavement because title two the the laws over in Canada, the Aoda law in Canada, the European accessibility act, all of these different acts are hopefully getting people to come to us and remediate lots of documents. We’ve created a technology, Donna, that is just really, really amazing. It creates wcaG aligned documents tagged PDF, and we can do hundreds of thousands of pages a day.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Are people coming to you, Mike?
Mike Calvo: We I am restricted contractually of saying who. Yes. In in a public setting. But yes, we have had some we had one big customer last year. That was how we, you know, that’s how we lived. That’s how the company survived this year. We’re living on what’s left over from that and we’re moving forward. We’re, you know I’ve been here a long time and I’ve, you know, lived on the edge for a long time. I’m not I’m not used to three digits. I, I’m not I’m not scared. I’m not, I’m not used to I’m not scared of three digits in the bank when they need to be, you know I’ve been in a company with $100 in the bank, you know.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: But it takes a special type of person, trust me. I’ve lived off the edge many, many times. Aaron would tell you that my dear friend Aaron. And Aaron has encouraged me to. Donna, you can’t give up. Donna. No. Donna. No. And I’m saying, oh, God. Aaron, I don’t know how much longer I could take this, you know? But you’re right. It takes a special type of person like yourself. And we need more of you.
Mike Calvo: And you. It’s it’s the audacity of hope. I think Barack Obama said it. It’s the audacity of hope. How dare you hope, Donna, how dare you, blind person, step out of the, you know, the little public, the little public frame that that the world has put you in that little box where you can maybe do this and do that, but you couldn’t possibly do that, you know? How dare you, you know, dream and actually accomplish those dreams. And for me, that’s that’s what it’s all about. My kids. I gotta tell you, I’ve got five beautiful children.
Advertisement: Oh.
Mike Calvo: And my my wife has two, so we have seven between us. Okay. And five of them are girls. Yeah. Someone. Some would call that karma. Yeah. Yeah. Women’s have been. Women have been a big part of my life. So but to me, you know I got to be able to look at my kids, and they got to look at me with respect. I’m dad.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Yes.
Mike Calvo: You know what I’m saying? And and and if I, if I show, you know, not weakness because I believe in being transparent. I had a very sordid childhood. My children know what I used to do. My children. I’m not that you know better than thou. I was this way, and now I would have never done that. I did it all. I did what I needed to do. I did what I wanted to do when I was younger. And I just believe very much in owning your stuff. You know this is a rated G show, so we’ll keep it there, but owning your stuff. And don’t be a jerk, you know? I mean, you know, be honest with people, be honest to self and understand that everybody gets scared, you know? Yes. Everybody gets concerned. There is not. I’ve been speaking in public for 25 years or more.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Right.
Mike Calvo: There is not one time that I go up there that I’m like, oh yeah, I got this. No. Every time there’s butterflies in the stomach, there’s, oh my God, am I going to do okay? Am I going to stay on track? Am I going to remember my notes? Are people are people going to be, you know, changed from this because the whole idea of going up there is not to get a stipend or get a payment. It’s to change people’s lives. It’s to make people say wow and to remind them there is absolutely no difference between you and me, except for that you’re you and I’m me. Aside from that, we’re the same. Which means that we are all unique. I’m not looking to do things the way you do them, but I do want to know how. And you don’t need to be doing everything the way I do. But let me help you, and you know, and we will get through this. One of the one of the most awesome things I used to enjoy was going to the conferences and watching a big old herd of blind people trying to get somewhere. Absolutely hilarious.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: I’m sorry. That is so descriptive. And it is so very.
Mike Calvo: Oh, it’s like, you know, everybody’s like.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Yeah.
Mike Calvo: And and and the thing about it is that what I noticed is sighted people are intimidated by you or me on our own, but let a whole bunch of blind people come up to a sighted person be like, oh, yeah, come on. And they having a great time with. Oh, and everybody’s laughing and they’re taking us and you know, it grabs they do the conga line thing where one blind person grabs the sighted person’s arm, and then everybody starts running after them. And we got a hell of a show going on at the hotel, you know? But it’s fun and it’s the power of us, and it’s the power of people sharing with other people. Hey, if you go down to the lobby and you listen, you hear there’s a water fountain and and watch it because it echoes. So when you’re walking through, you need to listen carefully because it’s going to be on your left. But it might sound like it’s coming from your right.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Right?
Mike Calvo: Yes. You know, things like that. That it is the power of us. The power of us. The power of communication, the power of technology, the power to say we can as a community and that we have as a community. Things really suck right now in the way of in accessibility circles. They don’t look very promising in many respects. But you know what? But we’re going to do this. We’re going to get through this.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: How are you planning to do this, Mike? Are you going to continue with your I don’t know what what word I’m looking for to describe you dynamic. You know, what is next for you on the drawing board. You know, tell me, show me.
Mike Calvo: So I’m I’m going to continue to do what we’re doing with scribe Matt, my business partner who used to be my CTO. My son David just joined our team last year. He’s our AI genius. David graduated from Johns Hopkins top three in his class. Oh yeah, very smart young man. And he just got married. And so, you know, I’m I’m going through that. I’m watching my kids grow up, and I’m like, oh, my God, I did that.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: You’re responsible for.
Mike Calvo: It. You know, we did that, you know, and and it’s like, it’s so amazing to watch them and to and to realize, you know, so many of us feel unworthy when your kid says, yeah, but dad, you said, I’m like, yeah, nobody else gives a shit what excuse the darn about what I say, why should you? You know, because I’m your son. I’m your daughter, I love you, you know, you set an example for me, you know, and my kids are open minded. They are. They are transparent people that ask questions and want to know. So for me, I’m just going to continue to to help people. I mean, I believe very strongly that I have a calling and that calling is to help, you know, just to help people understand life and, and the challenges that it comes and to encourage people you know, and, and and to into our, our, our, our sighted friends or people that are listening. I have a talk that I used to do. It’s called no excuses. And and you know, we as blind people, society gives us every excuse to do absolutely nothing, and they’ll be cool with it. What do you do? Blind person? No, nothing. I sit at home and read talking books.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: In my rocking chair, I watch TV.
Mike Calvo: Oh, good for you. Oh my God. But you live alone, right? Yeah. Nobody wants to share. My.
Mike Calvo: Nobody wants my lazy butt.
Mike Calvo: But but yeah, I mean, but you know what? I refuse to accept those excuses because if you don’t, you know, there are some very legitimate reasons for things. And, I mean, listen, I, you know flight simulator is a great thing, but you’re never going to see my blind behind a in a in a in an airplane flying it, you know? So that’s a, that’s not an excuse. That’s a reality check. But I don’t want to do this because this will fail. And and so what? You know what? Failure isn’t isn’t not something not working out for you. It’s never getting up off your booty and doing it. It’s never it’s saying it’s it’s saying, okay, I’ve got this way. I want this to work, but I need to be flexible. I need to be like that. Bamboo. You ever seen how bamboo? A shoot of bamboo. You can bend it all the way down to the floor. And you. And then when you let it and it goes down, and then when you let it up, it bounces back up and you can never see the crease of the bend because it bounces back. And that’s what we need to do as blind folks. We need to be bamboo. We need to be. And I’m not saying to be people’s, you know, emotional verbal punching bag or any of that kind of thing.
Mike Calvo: But you know what? Really? Count your battles, man. Sometimes, again, separate the stupid from the ignorant. If you’ve got that Uber driver that you know didn’t like your dog or whatever, he’s pretty stupid. But are you going to really ruin the rest of your day over it? Are you really going to go home to your family or go into your office pissed off because you ran into a stupid person? You know how many, how many stupid people those sighted people ran into in traffic that morning, you know? So so to me, it’s it’s just a matter of really just being available, you know, here I’m, I’m older now. I’ve got experiences that I can share. I’m not angry anymore. And that’s. I don’t know about you Donna or the listeners, but as I’ve gotten older, I’ve gotten less angry because it’s like, you know, I told you when I was 20, I. When I was in my 20s, I swore I knew everything. And then when I got into my 30s, I realized that I may not know as much as I thought I did when I got into my 40s. I’m like, I don’t know nothing. I’m here to learn. And then for whatever reason, when I hit 50, it just didn’t matter anymore. This is who I am. Take it or leave it, man. I’m good.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: But it takes a lot of confidence to say that. And I’m presently engaged in developing camps for for kids leaving high school and those young adults. And the mission here is if you believe you can achieve.
Mike Calvo: But Amen.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: It’s not easy. And as our clock winds down, I want to ask you this. What’s next for Mike?
Mike Calvo: I don’t know, I, I don’t know, I you know, Donna, I’ll tell you something. You know, I. I love Steve Jobs. Steve Jobs is Steve. Steve Jobs has every right to be and totally was a narcissist. Why? Because Steve Jobs is one of the only people I can think of that can stand in front of a mirror and look and say, if I hadn’t come, the world would be different. And Amen.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Amen. Amen.
Mike Calvo: Amen. Yeah. Listen, Steve, wherever you’re at, you can you you can be as narcissistic as you want, dude, because you are absolutely right. The world would have been different. It would have been different for millions and millions and millions of people. There are billions, literally billions of accessible devices in this world behind places where you and I could have never gotten things to 30 years ago. 20 years ago.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Agreed.
Mike Calvo: You know, so.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: My hero, home.
Mike Calvo: I don’t know, I, I, you know, I, I, I’m, I’m here I speak to groups, I speak you know, we remediate documents. We’re, you know, we’re we’re here and and we’re going to keep, keep working in this community. And I forgot to mention earlier, I have to comment. Aaron has been such a blessing to me as well. Aaron is a super encouraging human being. And there’s a there’s a special place for him in my heart because.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Me too.
Mike Calvo: He has he has truly just been inspirational to me, encouraging to me. And and the guy happens to know what he’s doing. So.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: No, I mean, Aaron is special. Aaron is my friend for life, my associate, my mentor, my advisor. You know, I don’t know what else to say about the man. I don’t think he sleeps.
Mike Calvo: Yeah. Listen, same back at you. You know, Donna, it has been an honor to be here and to finally meet the woman behind the legend.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Oh, God. Please.
Mike Calvo: No. Seriously?
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: You ever come to Canada?
Mike Calvo: I do every once in a while. And in fact, I was thinking about My wife’s daughter’s grandparents live up there, and we were thinking about going there, and if you ever want a guest speaker at one of those at one of those camps be it even remote or whatever, I would be happy to do it.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: I will probably be calling on you like we have two camps that we’re developing right now. One is the. To have Air Canada has given me a certain number of tickets to fly participants to the I retreat camp next July, 2027. Doctor Allen Chase and the other camp is we’re developing it to be able to hold a camp in Quebec, camp Massawippi. We’re working on that, but we have to find the funding. And I would be delighted to ask you to be a guest speaker.
Mike Calvo: Let me know.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: If anybody else. Yes.
Mike Calvo: I I’ll tell you. For me, as a kid, camp was life changing. It was a great social experience. You know kissed my first girl at camp, you know.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Secrets are coming out.
Mike Calvo: Yeah. Oh, yeah. It was it was a great time. The Florida Lions camp was was and and, you know, we went in and we did normal quote unquote stuff. Rode horses. You know, went swimming in the lake. You know, learn to clean our room, learn to fold our our, you know, make our beds and all that stuff. Camp, camp and independent living facilities to me are so important to our community. There are no lone rangers in the blindness community. If you are recently visually impaired, find find a blind person to shadow or 2 or 5 or ten. Get involved in a group. Listen. Blindness, you know, just to be honest, is a pain in the behind, you know, but it is not unsurpassable. We’ve got more problems with the way people see us than the way we see ourselves, you know? So you know, if we can get beyond that, if we can support one another, you know, count me in, count me in. And thank you again for, for for inviting me to your program.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: It has been a true pleasure and honor, and I hope we find an opportunity to work together. I really, really do.
Mike Calvo: Let me know.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Okay. I will be in touch. But again, thank you, Mike.
Mike Calvo: Thank you.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Thank you very much. You take care now.
Mike Calvo: You too.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Okay.
Mike Calvo: Oh, by the way, by the way. Wait wait wait wait. You may want to give this. We may we may want to give this to Aaron. Aaron I’m going to give contact information. So Donna, if anybody wants to reach out to me I have a very open door policy. You can visit you can email me at Michael. That’s c a l v as in Victor o at pneuma solutions.com. And I’m going to spell pneuma because it’s a little strange. It’s p n e u m a.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: R.
Mike Calvo: Solutions.com. I put the p in there just to tick off blind people.
Mike Calvo: It’s actually a, it’s actually a Greek word, but. And the other and the other thing that we run that I’m very proud of is called title two. Title number 2.info. And if you want to know about upcoming laws and, you know, go to your local, whatever, whatever your local you know, your local place of business government business any, any, any kind of place that has inaccessible PDFs and if they need to comply with title two, they’ve got a very short time to do it in.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: I know.
Mike Calvo: So point them at that resource. Yeah. You know and and advocate folks advocate for yourself because you know, we’ve got groups that do it. But individual advocacy is so important anyway. So thanks again.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: I think what I’d like to do is reach out to you about my camps if you believe you can achieve. And I think we can do magic together.
Mike Calvo: I agree. Let’s do it.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: All right. Mike. Thank you.
Mike Calvo: Thank you. Donna.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Okay. You take care.
Mike Calvo: All right. You too.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Yeah. Bye. Bye now. Bye bye. Bye.
Podcast Commentator: Donna wants to hear from you and invites you to write to her at donnajodhan@gmail.com. Until next time.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA
Global Leader In Disability Rights, Digital Accessibility, And Inclusive Policy Reform
Turning policy into progress for people with disabilities.
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Published in Remarkable World Commentary