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In this inspiring episode of Remarkable World Commentary, Donna J. Jodhan welcomes Jerry Nicholson, co-founder of Accessible Data, from the UK. Jerry traces his path from studying geography at the University of Edinburgh and qualifying as a chartered accountant to moving to Bangladesh with his wife, Fiona, after the two of them read Muhammad Yunus’s Banker to the Poor. There they set up Tindercapital to bring early stage venture capital to businesses that could scale, invested in the eco-friendly manufacturer Oasis Coffins, and ran Open Accelerator for rural entrepreneurs. Jerry speaks openly about how hard that first investment was, including a breakdown just before COVID that he says he has fully recovered from.
Jerry then explains how the platform he and his business partner, Christophe Geiser, built under the name Preignition became an accessible survey tool after the International Disability Alliance found that many of its members could not fill in its global survey and put out an open call. Jerry describes the barriers people face with online forms, from keyboard navigation to sign language and Easy Read needs, and why forms that shut disabled people out leave them unheard and leave organizations with biased data. Donna presses the point that organizations too often collect lived experience for free, Jerry says a paid panel of disabled respondents could be a future product, and Donna closes by inviting him to write an article for https://barrierfreecanada.org.
TRANSCRIPT
Podcast Commentator: [upbeat music] Greetings. Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, and MBA invites you to listen to her bi-weekly 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, sight 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, everyone, and welcome to another episode of the Remarkable World Commentary. I’m Donna J. Jodhan, a lifelong disability advocate and one who sees the world mainly through sound, touch, and amongst other things, stubborn optimism. I am a law graduate, an accessibility consultant, 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 to 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.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Everything I do circles one goal, and that is 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 quick spotlight on today’s guest, a change maker whose work is as every bit as remarkable as the world that we are trying to build. I am pleased and privileged to welcome Jerry Nicholson all the way across the pond in the UK. Hello, Jerry, and welcome to my podcast.
Jerry Nicholson: Hi, Donna, and it’s a pleasure to be speaking with you today.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Great. So what’s the weather like in the UK at the present time?
Jerry Nicholson: Well, the weather in the UK constantly changes, so—
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: [laughs]
Jerry Nicholson: It was rainy this morning, but it’s now beautiful outside.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Good.
Jerry Nicholson: Big blue skies with a few fluffy white clouds.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Oh, nice. Nice. So Jerry, welcome to the Remarkable World Commentary. I always like to begin at the very beginning. So tell us about your early path from studying geography at the University of Edinburgh to qualifying as a chartered accountant with the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland. Back then, what did you imagine that your life’s work would be?
Jerry Nicholson: Oh, that’s a good question, Donna.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: [laughs]
Jerry Nicholson: [laughs] Yeah, I think I left university with just, I suppose, a desire to do something meaningful with my work. So more than just make money and live comfortably. But to actually do something that had purpose at the center of it. But I’ve also always been quite interested in business and making things commercial. So I suppose that’s what drove me to study accountancy. Not as an end in itself, but just feeling that that would be a useful thing to learn a bit about finance and how businesses worked, to see what would then open up at the end of that. So in many, many respects, my time training as an accountant was a bit like a continuation of my education. So I would say that I really started pursuing my work journey when I was 30. So after qualifying as a chartered accountant and spending times with PwC and Ernst & Young—
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: [instrumental music] Now, at around 2010, you and your wife, Fiona, moved from the United Kingdom to Dhaka, Bangladesh. A move in, I understand, was sparked by… Sorry, it was sparked by reading Muhammad Yunus on microfinance. What drew you there, and what did those users teach you about who gets included and who gets left out when important decisions are made?
Jerry Nicholson: Yeah.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: A loaded question, so I—
Jerry Nicholson: Yeah, no, it’s a good question. Yeah, so I suppose I first went to Bangladesh with Fiona shortly after we got married, and I had qualified as a chartered accountant. And a bit like I was saying previously, Donna, I’d always gone into accountancy as a means to an end. So we’re really just asking those questions, “Well, what are we gonna do with our lives?” And particularly, “How’s our work gonna fit into that?” So in 2000 and… I think it was probably 2004, 2005, Fi and I, we spent a year traveling, and we spent a bit of time in a country called Tajikistan in Central Asia.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Oh, okay.
Jerry Nicholson: And then we did a big trip starting in Cambodia and working—
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Oh.
Jerry Nicholson: Our way over land back to the UK.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Ooh.
Jerry Nicholson: And we were meeting up with lots of different people who were doing interesting things and using business and finance to create opportunities. And as part of that trip, we passed through Bangladesh. We’d both read Muhammad Yunus’s book, Banker to the Poor, and had read about microfinance and this idea of financial institutions lending people with very limited means really quite small amounts of money, so maybe $50 or $100, which would enable them to—
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Yeah.
Jerry Nicholson: Maybe buy a sewing machine or buy a cow, some sort of small income-generating asset, and then that would then provide some additional revenue for the family. And this was an idea that seemed quite interesting to us. So we actually spent about three weeks in Bangladesh and had the pleasure of meeting Professor Muhammad Yunus, who is incredible, a incredibly humble man and a great leader. And that was a wonderful time. But as part of that trip, one of the things we thought was, well, microfinance has a role. It also has its critics, which I agree with some of the criticism of the microfinance model, but I think it definitely has a part to play. But Fi and I then started thinking, well, really microfinance is very widely provided, particularly in a country like Bangladesh, so it doesn’t need more microfinance. But what Bangladesh and I think many countries like it do need are venture capital or risk capital—
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Right.
Jerry Nicholson: To help businesses which have the potential to scale. So not sort of microfinance to finance a cottage industry, but, yeah, venture capital to really grow enterprises. So that’s really what Fi and I then started thinking about. And ultimately, we went back to Bangladesh about four years later, four or five years later in 2010, and we set up an organization called Tindercapital to try and get—
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Oh.
Jerry Nicholson: That type of venture capital going to those early stage scalable businesses.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: The name Tindercapital, I’m just curious, how did the name come about? What went into giving this name to your venture?
Jerry Nicholson: Yeah, that’s a good question. Well, we actually named it… I mean, there’s now the very famous dating app Tinder, but we actually named Tindercapital before Tinder came about, or certainly we didn’t know about it. So the idea is this, tinder being the small bits of wood or material that you would—
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Yeah.
Jerry Nicholson: Start a fire with, which would then lead to a much bigger fire. So it’s the idea of providing that sort of quite strategic early stage capital to businesses which just needed it at that stage with the goal or the aim that as the business grew, that it could take on additional capital and later stage capital and really grow quite significant enterprises from it. So that was the idea behind the name.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: I like the name Tindercapital.
Jerry Nicholson: Oh, thank you.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: I do.
Jerry Nicholson: [laughs]
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: So [laughs] through Tindercapital and the Open Accelerator, you backed and supported rural entrepreneurs working far outside Dhaka, people who were often a long way from the usual sources of investment. Now, looking back, do you see a connection between investing in overlooked entrepreneurs then and making sure that disabled people are counted in the day-to-day operations?
Jerry Nicholson: Yeah, I do. I mean, I think I didn’t consciously make that connection, Donna, but now that you ask me to reflect upon it, I think, yeah, there definitely is a strong connection there. I suppose I have a strong conviction that we’re all valuable, have a contribution to make, and really should just be given equal opportunities. So whether that’s an entrepreneur from a not wealthy background in a remote area of Bangladesh looking for opportunities to grow their business, or someone trying to fill in a form so they can participate in a consultation or— there are definitely some similarities there of looking to remove barriers and just sort of level the playing field.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Because I know today, from my own lived experience, it’s still very difficult for persons with disabilities to make their contribution and to be successful entrepreneurs. We’re still fighting a lot of that. So it’s really refreshing to hear you talk about it in this manner.
Jerry Nicholson: Yeah.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Yeah.
Jerry Nicholson: Yeah. And thanks for asking me to reflect on that, Donna. It’s—
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: [laughs] Oh, my pleasure. Now, Tindercapital’s very first investment was Oasis Coffins, an eco-friendly manufacturer that you helped to turn around by rewriting its business plan and rebuilding its balance sheets so that it could attract institutional backing. What did that experience teach you about patience and persistence, and how have those lessons shaped your way you build accessible data?
Jerry Nicholson: Ooh, yeah, no, that’s a good question. Yeah, I mean, it was a really good experience investing in Oasis Coffins, but if I’m honest, it was also one of the hardest experiences. Yeah, and I think the reason for that is, well, one of the things it did, Donna, was really show me how difficult it is to invest successfully in an early stage business, just the number of variables and things that need to be right in order for the investment to work. So it felt—
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Yeah.
Jerry Nicholson: I was involved with that business for probably about five years. And as you say, the entrepreneur was someone who we met when we first came to Bangladesh. And, yeah, the entrepreneur is a good friend of mine. He’s also an engineer, so he’s fantastic at setting up a factory and everything that goes on inside of the factory, he’s all over. But he wasn’t particularly keen or gifted at sales. So it was a constant, yeah, I suppose struggle really to encourage the main founder of that business to look outside of the existing customers that the business had to really scale the business. So it did feel like in many respects it was making progress in one area, but then slipping back in another area. And actually the major customer that the business had was a UK company, a distributor. It bought a lot of coffins from the manufacturing business in Bangladesh, which was great to help the business get on its feet, but it was also an extremely demanding customer, so was always trying to cut the price or—
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: [laughs] Yeah.
Jerry Nicholson: Seek a different product or whatever.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Yeah.
Jerry Nicholson: So—
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: I know all about that.
Jerry Nicholson: The poor entrepreneur spent—
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Yeah. [laughs]
Jerry Nicholson: 90% of their time—
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Yeah.
Jerry Nicholson: Trying to look after this one customer, and that meant that they had limited bandwidth to go after other customers. So what ended up happening at the end of that business, Donna, was they sold the manufacturing business to its UK customer. So in some respects it wasn’t a huge success in terms of scaling that business, but on the other side, the business is now very stable, and it employs about 100, 120 people in Bangladesh.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Wow.
Jerry Nicholson: So yeah, it was an interesting case study in the challenges of [laughs] starting and growing a business.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: And you’re still alive to tell the story. I mean, I think a lot of people might have given up and said, “Oh, good God, I can’t do this,” right?
Jerry Nicholson: Yeah. I mean, it’s interesting, Donna. I don’t know how honest you want me to be in this podcast, but I actually had a bit of a breakdown—
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Oh.
Jerry Nicholson: As part of my leadership of that business. When was that? That was in just before COVID, which I’ve now—
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Oh.
Jerry Nicholson: Fully, I’ve now recovered from. And it—
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Oh.
Jerry Nicholson: Actually was a… In some respects, those tough times force—
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Yeah.
Jerry Nicholson: You to look inside yourself and look at some issues that you might have just glossed over. So I actually view it as quite a positive and a productive time in my life, but it was also very hard as well.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Oh, all right. So many of our listeners would wonder how a chartered accountant and impact investor came to build accessible survey software. Your company began life under another name, Preignition, before becoming Accessible Data 2024. What was the moment or the conversation that turned your attention to the way that disabled people are shut out of surveys and forms? I want… I’m very curious to want to hear this answer from you.
Jerry Nicholson: [laughs] Well, first of all, Donna, congratulations. You’ve done your research.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: [laughs] Thank you.
Jerry Nicholson: So [laughs] yeah, so I mean, it really carries on from where we left off with Oasis Coffins. So we arrived in Bangladesh in 2010. We started working with Oasis Coffins and investing in Oasis Coffins quite soon after arriving. But my wife and I, we’re not hugely wealthy, so our company, Tindercapital, had very limited capital. So we started thinking about how can we work with more businesses, and how can we network with Bangladeshi banks and external investors who do have access to capital and can invest that in businesses in Bangladesh? So we then ran something called an accelerator program. So an accelerator program is, I suppose, a business support program designed for existing businesses that have got the potential to grow, and it really just provides some support for those businesses, helping them articulate their business plan, connecting them into mentors with particular skills, and also making introductions to investors. So we ran an accelerator program. We called it Open Accelerator. Normally accelerator programs are focused on early stage tech businesses, tech startups typically, and there were a few accelerators for tech startups happening in Dhaka. But we really wanted to work with rural entrepreneurs who didn’t have the opportunity to participate in accelerators. So we had a fantastic year running Open Accelerator. We worked with…
Jerry Nicholson: Well, we had about 140 businesses that applied, and we worked with, I think it was a cohort of 30, 30 businesses.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Yeah.
Jerry Nicholson: And, yeah, it was a really good program. It was more a sort of a pilot program. And ultimately we were hoping to get it sponsored. So we had lots of conversations with Bangladeshi banks and telecom companies to see if we could encourage them to take over or to sponsor the Open Accelerator so it became sustainable and had a life going forward. But ultimately, we weren’t successful at doing that. However, the journey into accessibility and accessible data collection was just as we were… I’ve been working with my business partner, Christophe, since 2015, when we started building. ‘Cause when we were running this accelerator program, Donna, our entrepreneurs were all over Bangladesh. Our—
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Right.
Jerry Nicholson: Investors, some of them were based in Bangladesh, others were based in Holland or the UK or the US. So we had this very dispersed network, and our data was all over the place, and we spent a lot of time—
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Yeah.
Jerry Nicholson: Just trying to get the data together and present it to a particular investor or… So lots of data, but real difficulties managing that. So we started thinking there must be a better way of doing this.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Yeah.
Jerry Nicholson: I then met Christophe—Christophe’s actually a friend of my brother’s—and found out that he was an expert at building information management systems. So we then initially started building a platform to support the accelerator that I was running to manage its program, well, but also to be able to use all that data that we had collected from the businesses to make that available to the investors, and also the information on the investors, make that available to the entrepreneurs. So just to make those connections. So we did that under the name of Preignition, and that’s really what got Christophe and I working together. And we started building that platform for a couple of years. But then we realized that it was extremely difficult to commercialize that product. So we’d got some grant funding from USAID and UK Aid to start building that platform. But in order to really get it to work and commercialize itself, it needed… Well, yeah, it just basically just needed more development resource than we had. So since 2020, Christophe and I were slightly sort of running out of energy and running out of money—
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Yeah.
Jerry Nicholson: When Christophe’s wife worked… Have you come across IDA, Donna, or the International Disability Alliance?
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: I’ve heard about it, yeah.
Jerry Nicholson: So IDA’s this amazing network of organizations of disabled people. So they have, I think it’s about 12 core members. But then those members also have members. So they represent… There’s about 4,000 organizations of disabled people who come together under the International Disability Alliance umbrella. So IDA essentially represents the global disability community to organizations like the United Nations. So they’ve been really influential in things like the Convention on the Rights of Disabled People. IDA played a key role in advocating for CRPD.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Oh, right. Yeah.
Jerry Nicholson: And Christophe’s wife, Priscille, worked for IDA back then. This is back in 2020. And IDA run a global survey to find out how their members are involved in decision-making in the country where they’re based. And they were using a well-known survey tool in order to do that, and really struggling ’cause many of their members just couldn’t fill in the survey. So the members were frustrated ’cause they couldn’t have their opinions heard. And IDA had this big problem, and they just couldn’t get the views of their members, which was what they wanted to base their advocacy upon. So Christophe kept hearing about these struggles and realized that through Preignition, we already had many of the components that we needed in order to host a survey. So our platform already had a form builder. It already had a process management, so a way of managing the data and managing data through different stages. So IDA put out an open call for proposals for an accessible survey tool. Because of the relationship between Christophe and Priscille, there was obviously needs to be… There was a potential conflict of interest there, so it was a very sort of transparent and clear bidding process. And eventually, Preignition was awarded that contract.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Oh.
Jerry Nicholson: So essentially under the terms of that agreement, we agreed to work together with IDA and IDA’s members to essentially develop the platform that we had already been working on for a couple of years, but to really develop that into an accessible data collection tool. And we agreed to do that for quite a low cost, but on the understanding that they would have a platform that would be developed and deployed under their own domain and branding. So they have a tool called https://idata.tools. But we would retain the intellectual property and would release it under our own branding and make that available for other customers outside of IDA. So in that way, we would be able to commercialize the software, the platform, and continually be able to work on it and improve it. So that relationship with IDA and IDA’s members is absolutely foundational to our origins, how we started building Accessible Surveys. And IDA is still, not only they’re a customer, but they’re a really important stakeholder for us. So yeah, that’s—
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: That’s wonderful. That’s—
Jerry Nicholson: That’s how we got into building… We’re focusing on accessible data collection.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: It sounds like a very, very interesting, challenging journey for you, and I guess your background as a chartered accountant really helped, right?
Jerry Nicholson: Yes. Yeah, I think it did. I think it did. I mean, I think I’ve been very fortunate in that we’ve always been able to sort of pay the mortgage and put food on the table. So if you can do that then, and you can also do work which you find meaningful, then that’s the ingredients for a happy life, I think. Yeah.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: I think it takes a very special type of person to be able to do that because a lot of people would probably be scared to take those chances, right? I mean, a lot of people are so insecure about their future, how to move forward, what to do and things like that. But I think for you, you didn’t seem to be afraid to take the bull by the horns and go, right?
Jerry Nicholson: Yeah. And I think maybe two things on that. I mean, first of all, it’s very much a shared, a joint thing with my wife, Fiona. So I couldn’t… She has the same outlook, I suppose, and an appetite for adventure as I have. So that’s really helpful. And the other thing is, I think maybe the fact that I do have that accountancy qualification. I sort of feel that if it all goes horribly wrong, I probably could get a job as an accountant, which is not what I want to do, but it’s sort of like, I suppose maybe it feels like having a bit of a card in the pocket if I ever need to use it. But, yeah. So—
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Okay.
Jerry Nicholson: Whether that sort of quite, I dunno, conventional start to my career has been helpful to allow me to take some more risks as I’ve developed it.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: I think for one thing, having a backup plan, and two, having a wife who is very like-minded certainly helps in the way you progress through your lifelong journey, right?
Jerry Nicholson: Yeah. Yeah.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Yeah.
Jerry Nicholson: I think so.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Yeah.
Jerry Nicholson: And Donna, one important thing which I didn’t mention in terms of our journey into accessibility, it’s a real partnership between myself and my business partner is a guy called Christophe Geiser. Christophe is a lovely, lovely, talented guy. He’s a Swiss national, but he lives in Lyon, in France, and he had a sister who had a disability.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Ah, okay.
Jerry Nicholson: And so Christophe has been aware of the barriers that his sister faced all her life. And yeah, so for him, the working in accessibility also had that sort of personal connection.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: I think that helps a lot. I think if a person is either a person with a disability or a person who has a friend or family member with a disability, it certainly helps them to understand more what the needs are and how to go about dealing with it. And then if you have the additional talent, you’ve got a lot of ingredients for success, don’t you?
Jerry Nicholson: Yeah. Yeah.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Yeah. Your company’s guiding belief is that if a survey is not accessible, the data is incomplete. Researchers can adjust their results for people who choose not to answer, but no statistical method can recover the voices of people who were never able to answer in the first place. And for listeners who have never thought of a survey as a barrier, why does that gap matter so much for the roughly 1.3 billion people worldwide living with significant disabilities and for the decisions made about their lives?
Jerry Nicholson: Yeah. I mean, I think online forms are everywhere, you know? Companies—
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Quite.
Jerry Nicholson: Governments—
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Yeah.
Jerry Nicholson: Universities. I mean, organizations are constantly wanting to collect data—
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Yeah.
Jerry Nicholson: To understand the world that they are working within. And they often use an online form or a survey to do that because for them, it’s a fairly easy and low-cost way of collecting data from a large number of people. So because of the prevalence of online forms, if you’re a person with a disability and you face obstacles filling in an online form, whether it’s, maybe it’s, you can’t navigate it easily using your keyboard, so things aren’t announced in the right order, or if you arrive, you use a sign language and the form doesn’t support the sign language, or if you have an intellectual disability and you’re used to, or you find it helpful to have things in an Easy Read format.
Jerry Nicholson: So really lots of different barriers that different people and different communities face when filling in a form. And that has sort of profound implications for an individual’s right to be consulted, to have their opinion heard, to vote, to sign up for a service. But equally on the other side, it has implications for organizations, who— Yeah, I think we’ll give organizations the benefit of the doubt in saying it’s better for them if they include everyone in their data collection, for different reasons. If you’re a business, that’s customers or suppliers or employees. If you’re an academic and you’re doing research, that’s the people who you want to consult so your research can become just representative and not biased. Or if you’re a government, you want to consult all your citizens. So I think there’s really good reasons both from an individual perspective and a human rights perspective, but also from an organizational perspective and wanting better data to make better decisions.
Jerry Nicholson: So I think making forms and surveys accessible, I think it addresses both of those key requirements.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: I think one continuous concern for me personally is that I agree with what you’re saying, but I don’t think people have really given much credence to the fact that you’re asking me to fill out a survey, but you’re not paying me for it. You’re getting my information for free, and I really, really don’t— [laughs] I’m not very keen on that type of way of thinking.
Jerry Nicholson: Yeah. I’d say to that, Donna, in terms of the survey, whether people are incentivized to fill in a survey or not, that is… I mean, you can run a survey on Accessible Surveys and offer incentives or rewards or payment for completing the survey. Or you cannot, but that’s really… Yeah. I think making the survey accessible is really what we focus on—
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Right.
Jerry Nicholson: In terms of the process that that survey takes place in, and whether that’s a paid survey for consumer research or any other type of research. That’s really a decision for the organization running the survey and a decision for the survey participant about whether they want to fill in the survey or not.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: No, I agree with you. I just thought I would just voice my own personal opinion on the fact that too many organizations, you want… They are ask you to fill out a survey, but you’re getting my information for free. You’re getting my lived experience for free.
Jerry Nicholson: Yeah.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: And I think it’s about time respect should be shown to those of us who have unique experiences and unique skills.
Jerry Nicholson: Yeah.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: But anyway, I mean, that’s not what you concentrate on. And clock is right—
Jerry Nicholson: Yeah. Interestingly, Donna, you say… I mean, on that, the name of our company is Accessible Data, and Accessible Surveys is our first product. So we are actively looking at other products, and we certainly do. I mean, within the market research sector, they use paid panels a lot. So a company might come to them and say, “We really want to understand about the experiences of people who are blind or low vision when they’re using our services in this part of the world,” for instance.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Right.
Jerry Nicholson: And they will have a budget to pay for the insights on that subject. So there’s no reason why we couldn’t put a panel behind Accessible Surveys. Maybe it’s Accessible Surveys, or maybe it’s another product. And then have a panel of people with disabilities who then get invited to fill in surveys—
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Right.
Jerry Nicholson: And receive rewards and payments for doing that. And potentially our relationship with IDA and their incredible network throughout the world opens up some opportunities to do that. But that is a slightly different product, and we—
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Yeah.
Jerry Nicholson: We’re not there yet. But I take your point, Donna, 100%.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Clock is starting to wind down on me, so I wanted to ask you this final question here. What are your plans for the future? Well, you talked about other products. You talked about different things, but you got anything in your tank waiting to be disclosed or—
Jerry Nicholson: [laughs]
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: You want to share?
Jerry Nicholson: Yeah. I mean, I suppose I feel that Accessible Data is really just sort of getting going. We’re… Yeah, we’re at a really exciting stage in that we have some brilliant customers, early adopting customers. We have a great product which is improving every day. But it really just feels that we’re just taking our first… We’re in the shallows at the moment, and there’s so much scope to build the company and develop the company.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Yeah.
Jerry Nicholson: And as we do that, I think this thing of Nothing About Us Without Us and involving disabled people and people with lived experience not only as consumers of the product, but as teammates, as co-owners, as really part of who we are as an organization is really exciting and I think important, and I think that’s the direction that we’re going to go down. And I’d really love to look to develop relationships with networks like IDA, and there’s also another network called the African Disability Forum. So looking at ways of involving organizations of disabled people more, that’s where the business started. Our origins are in that relationship with IDA. But to really make that an active living part of who we are as a business and part of our future, that’s really exciting for me.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: I think it is, and I think it opens up a lot of opportunities, again, to enable persons with disabilities to have their voices heard. We struggle to have our voices heard as a community, so any sort of innovation, any sort of initiative is always welcomed. And I wanna congratulate you on this. And also, in closing, I’d like to offer an invitation to you, if you have the time, to write a short article on what you do and how you do it. And what I would like to do is to publish it on my website, one of my websites, https://barrierfreecanada.org. Because I think it’s important not just to have a podcast, but also your written word. So if you’re interested, I’m gonna be sending out invitations to those who have been on my Remarkable World Commentary podcast.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: So look for that, and if you’re interested, I will not edit your article. I will simply post it as is. And I will also have your name there as well. So think of it, and an invitation will be coming your way in the next week or so.
Jerry Nicholson: Brilliant. Okay. Well, yeah, thanks, Donna. It’s a pleasure to speak with you today. And, yeah, thanks for inviting me onto your podcast to talk.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Yeah. It has been my pleasure, and you keep on going. [laughs]
Jerry Nicholson: Okay. Thanks, Donna. Enjoy the rest of your day.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: You too, Jerry. Thank you very much.
Jerry Nicholson: Okay. Bye.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Bye-bye. Bye.
Podcast Commentator: [upbeat music] 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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Related
Remarkable World Commentary Episode #116: Interview with Jerry Nicholson, Co-Founder, Accessible Data
🌐 Also available in: Français
🎙️ Listen to this Podcast.
In this inspiring episode of Remarkable World Commentary, Donna J. Jodhan welcomes Jerry Nicholson, co-founder of Accessible Data, from the UK. Jerry traces his path from studying geography at the University of Edinburgh and qualifying as a chartered accountant to moving to Bangladesh with his wife, Fiona, after the two of them read Muhammad Yunus’s Banker to the Poor. There they set up Tindercapital to bring early stage venture capital to businesses that could scale, invested in the eco-friendly manufacturer Oasis Coffins, and ran Open Accelerator for rural entrepreneurs. Jerry speaks openly about how hard that first investment was, including a breakdown just before COVID that he says he has fully recovered from.
Jerry then explains how the platform he and his business partner, Christophe Geiser, built under the name Preignition became an accessible survey tool after the International Disability Alliance found that many of its members could not fill in its global survey and put out an open call. Jerry describes the barriers people face with online forms, from keyboard navigation to sign language and Easy Read needs, and why forms that shut disabled people out leave them unheard and leave organizations with biased data. Donna presses the point that organizations too often collect lived experience for free, Jerry says a paid panel of disabled respondents could be a future product, and Donna closes by inviting him to write an article for https://barrierfreecanada.org.
TRANSCRIPT
Podcast Commentator: [upbeat music] Greetings. Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, and MBA invites you to listen to her bi-weekly 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, sight 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, everyone, and welcome to another episode of the Remarkable World Commentary. I’m Donna J. Jodhan, a lifelong disability advocate and one who sees the world mainly through sound, touch, and amongst other things, stubborn optimism. I am a law graduate, an accessibility consultant, 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 to 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.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Everything I do circles one goal, and that is 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 quick spotlight on today’s guest, a change maker whose work is as every bit as remarkable as the world that we are trying to build. I am pleased and privileged to welcome Jerry Nicholson all the way across the pond in the UK. Hello, Jerry, and welcome to my podcast.
Jerry Nicholson: Hi, Donna, and it’s a pleasure to be speaking with you today.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Great. So what’s the weather like in the UK at the present time?
Jerry Nicholson: Well, the weather in the UK constantly changes, so—
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: [laughs]
Jerry Nicholson: It was rainy this morning, but it’s now beautiful outside.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Good.
Jerry Nicholson: Big blue skies with a few fluffy white clouds.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Oh, nice. Nice. So Jerry, welcome to the Remarkable World Commentary. I always like to begin at the very beginning. So tell us about your early path from studying geography at the University of Edinburgh to qualifying as a chartered accountant with the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland. Back then, what did you imagine that your life’s work would be?
Jerry Nicholson: Oh, that’s a good question, Donna.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: [laughs]
Jerry Nicholson: [laughs] Yeah, I think I left university with just, I suppose, a desire to do something meaningful with my work. So more than just make money and live comfortably. But to actually do something that had purpose at the center of it. But I’ve also always been quite interested in business and making things commercial. So I suppose that’s what drove me to study accountancy. Not as an end in itself, but just feeling that that would be a useful thing to learn a bit about finance and how businesses worked, to see what would then open up at the end of that. So in many, many respects, my time training as an accountant was a bit like a continuation of my education. So I would say that I really started pursuing my work journey when I was 30. So after qualifying as a chartered accountant and spending times with PwC and Ernst & Young—
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: [instrumental music] Now, at around 2010, you and your wife, Fiona, moved from the United Kingdom to Dhaka, Bangladesh. A move in, I understand, was sparked by… Sorry, it was sparked by reading Muhammad Yunus on microfinance. What drew you there, and what did those users teach you about who gets included and who gets left out when important decisions are made?
Jerry Nicholson: Yeah.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: A loaded question, so I—
Jerry Nicholson: Yeah, no, it’s a good question. Yeah, so I suppose I first went to Bangladesh with Fiona shortly after we got married, and I had qualified as a chartered accountant. And a bit like I was saying previously, Donna, I’d always gone into accountancy as a means to an end. So we’re really just asking those questions, “Well, what are we gonna do with our lives?” And particularly, “How’s our work gonna fit into that?” So in 2000 and… I think it was probably 2004, 2005, Fi and I, we spent a year traveling, and we spent a bit of time in a country called Tajikistan in Central Asia.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Oh, okay.
Jerry Nicholson: And then we did a big trip starting in Cambodia and working—
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Oh.
Jerry Nicholson: Our way over land back to the UK.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Ooh.
Jerry Nicholson: And we were meeting up with lots of different people who were doing interesting things and using business and finance to create opportunities. And as part of that trip, we passed through Bangladesh. We’d both read Muhammad Yunus’s book, Banker to the Poor, and had read about microfinance and this idea of financial institutions lending people with very limited means really quite small amounts of money, so maybe $50 or $100, which would enable them to—
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Yeah.
Jerry Nicholson: Maybe buy a sewing machine or buy a cow, some sort of small income-generating asset, and then that would then provide some additional revenue for the family. And this was an idea that seemed quite interesting to us. So we actually spent about three weeks in Bangladesh and had the pleasure of meeting Professor Muhammad Yunus, who is incredible, a incredibly humble man and a great leader. And that was a wonderful time. But as part of that trip, one of the things we thought was, well, microfinance has a role. It also has its critics, which I agree with some of the criticism of the microfinance model, but I think it definitely has a part to play. But Fi and I then started thinking, well, really microfinance is very widely provided, particularly in a country like Bangladesh, so it doesn’t need more microfinance. But what Bangladesh and I think many countries like it do need are venture capital or risk capital—
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Right.
Jerry Nicholson: To help businesses which have the potential to scale. So not sort of microfinance to finance a cottage industry, but, yeah, venture capital to really grow enterprises. So that’s really what Fi and I then started thinking about. And ultimately, we went back to Bangladesh about four years later, four or five years later in 2010, and we set up an organization called Tindercapital to try and get—
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Oh.
Jerry Nicholson: That type of venture capital going to those early stage scalable businesses.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: The name Tindercapital, I’m just curious, how did the name come about? What went into giving this name to your venture?
Jerry Nicholson: Yeah, that’s a good question. Well, we actually named it… I mean, there’s now the very famous dating app Tinder, but we actually named Tindercapital before Tinder came about, or certainly we didn’t know about it. So the idea is this, tinder being the small bits of wood or material that you would—
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Yeah.
Jerry Nicholson: Start a fire with, which would then lead to a much bigger fire. So it’s the idea of providing that sort of quite strategic early stage capital to businesses which just needed it at that stage with the goal or the aim that as the business grew, that it could take on additional capital and later stage capital and really grow quite significant enterprises from it. So that was the idea behind the name.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: I like the name Tindercapital.
Jerry Nicholson: Oh, thank you.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: I do.
Jerry Nicholson: [laughs]
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: So [laughs] through Tindercapital and the Open Accelerator, you backed and supported rural entrepreneurs working far outside Dhaka, people who were often a long way from the usual sources of investment. Now, looking back, do you see a connection between investing in overlooked entrepreneurs then and making sure that disabled people are counted in the day-to-day operations?
Jerry Nicholson: Yeah, I do. I mean, I think I didn’t consciously make that connection, Donna, but now that you ask me to reflect upon it, I think, yeah, there definitely is a strong connection there. I suppose I have a strong conviction that we’re all valuable, have a contribution to make, and really should just be given equal opportunities. So whether that’s an entrepreneur from a not wealthy background in a remote area of Bangladesh looking for opportunities to grow their business, or someone trying to fill in a form so they can participate in a consultation or— there are definitely some similarities there of looking to remove barriers and just sort of level the playing field.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Because I know today, from my own lived experience, it’s still very difficult for persons with disabilities to make their contribution and to be successful entrepreneurs. We’re still fighting a lot of that. So it’s really refreshing to hear you talk about it in this manner.
Jerry Nicholson: Yeah.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Yeah.
Jerry Nicholson: Yeah. And thanks for asking me to reflect on that, Donna. It’s—
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: [laughs] Oh, my pleasure. Now, Tindercapital’s very first investment was Oasis Coffins, an eco-friendly manufacturer that you helped to turn around by rewriting its business plan and rebuilding its balance sheets so that it could attract institutional backing. What did that experience teach you about patience and persistence, and how have those lessons shaped your way you build accessible data?
Jerry Nicholson: Ooh, yeah, no, that’s a good question. Yeah, I mean, it was a really good experience investing in Oasis Coffins, but if I’m honest, it was also one of the hardest experiences. Yeah, and I think the reason for that is, well, one of the things it did, Donna, was really show me how difficult it is to invest successfully in an early stage business, just the number of variables and things that need to be right in order for the investment to work. So it felt—
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Yeah.
Jerry Nicholson: I was involved with that business for probably about five years. And as you say, the entrepreneur was someone who we met when we first came to Bangladesh. And, yeah, the entrepreneur is a good friend of mine. He’s also an engineer, so he’s fantastic at setting up a factory and everything that goes on inside of the factory, he’s all over. But he wasn’t particularly keen or gifted at sales. So it was a constant, yeah, I suppose struggle really to encourage the main founder of that business to look outside of the existing customers that the business had to really scale the business. So it did feel like in many respects it was making progress in one area, but then slipping back in another area. And actually the major customer that the business had was a UK company, a distributor. It bought a lot of coffins from the manufacturing business in Bangladesh, which was great to help the business get on its feet, but it was also an extremely demanding customer, so was always trying to cut the price or—
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: [laughs] Yeah.
Jerry Nicholson: Seek a different product or whatever.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Yeah.
Jerry Nicholson: So—
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: I know all about that.
Jerry Nicholson: The poor entrepreneur spent—
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Yeah. [laughs]
Jerry Nicholson: 90% of their time—
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Yeah.
Jerry Nicholson: Trying to look after this one customer, and that meant that they had limited bandwidth to go after other customers. So what ended up happening at the end of that business, Donna, was they sold the manufacturing business to its UK customer. So in some respects it wasn’t a huge success in terms of scaling that business, but on the other side, the business is now very stable, and it employs about 100, 120 people in Bangladesh.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Wow.
Jerry Nicholson: So yeah, it was an interesting case study in the challenges of [laughs] starting and growing a business.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: And you’re still alive to tell the story. I mean, I think a lot of people might have given up and said, “Oh, good God, I can’t do this,” right?
Jerry Nicholson: Yeah. I mean, it’s interesting, Donna. I don’t know how honest you want me to be in this podcast, but I actually had a bit of a breakdown—
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Oh.
Jerry Nicholson: As part of my leadership of that business. When was that? That was in just before COVID, which I’ve now—
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Oh.
Jerry Nicholson: Fully, I’ve now recovered from. And it—
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Oh.
Jerry Nicholson: Actually was a… In some respects, those tough times force—
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Yeah.
Jerry Nicholson: You to look inside yourself and look at some issues that you might have just glossed over. So I actually view it as quite a positive and a productive time in my life, but it was also very hard as well.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Oh, all right. So many of our listeners would wonder how a chartered accountant and impact investor came to build accessible survey software. Your company began life under another name, Preignition, before becoming Accessible Data 2024. What was the moment or the conversation that turned your attention to the way that disabled people are shut out of surveys and forms? I want… I’m very curious to want to hear this answer from you.
Jerry Nicholson: [laughs] Well, first of all, Donna, congratulations. You’ve done your research.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: [laughs] Thank you.
Jerry Nicholson: So [laughs] yeah, so I mean, it really carries on from where we left off with Oasis Coffins. So we arrived in Bangladesh in 2010. We started working with Oasis Coffins and investing in Oasis Coffins quite soon after arriving. But my wife and I, we’re not hugely wealthy, so our company, Tindercapital, had very limited capital. So we started thinking about how can we work with more businesses, and how can we network with Bangladeshi banks and external investors who do have access to capital and can invest that in businesses in Bangladesh? So we then ran something called an accelerator program. So an accelerator program is, I suppose, a business support program designed for existing businesses that have got the potential to grow, and it really just provides some support for those businesses, helping them articulate their business plan, connecting them into mentors with particular skills, and also making introductions to investors. So we ran an accelerator program. We called it Open Accelerator. Normally accelerator programs are focused on early stage tech businesses, tech startups typically, and there were a few accelerators for tech startups happening in Dhaka. But we really wanted to work with rural entrepreneurs who didn’t have the opportunity to participate in accelerators. So we had a fantastic year running Open Accelerator. We worked with…
Jerry Nicholson: Well, we had about 140 businesses that applied, and we worked with, I think it was a cohort of 30, 30 businesses.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Yeah.
Jerry Nicholson: And, yeah, it was a really good program. It was more a sort of a pilot program. And ultimately we were hoping to get it sponsored. So we had lots of conversations with Bangladeshi banks and telecom companies to see if we could encourage them to take over or to sponsor the Open Accelerator so it became sustainable and had a life going forward. But ultimately, we weren’t successful at doing that. However, the journey into accessibility and accessible data collection was just as we were… I’ve been working with my business partner, Christophe, since 2015, when we started building. ‘Cause when we were running this accelerator program, Donna, our entrepreneurs were all over Bangladesh. Our—
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Right.
Jerry Nicholson: Investors, some of them were based in Bangladesh, others were based in Holland or the UK or the US. So we had this very dispersed network, and our data was all over the place, and we spent a lot of time—
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Yeah.
Jerry Nicholson: Just trying to get the data together and present it to a particular investor or… So lots of data, but real difficulties managing that. So we started thinking there must be a better way of doing this.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Yeah.
Jerry Nicholson: I then met Christophe—Christophe’s actually a friend of my brother’s—and found out that he was an expert at building information management systems. So we then initially started building a platform to support the accelerator that I was running to manage its program, well, but also to be able to use all that data that we had collected from the businesses to make that available to the investors, and also the information on the investors, make that available to the entrepreneurs. So just to make those connections. So we did that under the name of Preignition, and that’s really what got Christophe and I working together. And we started building that platform for a couple of years. But then we realized that it was extremely difficult to commercialize that product. So we’d got some grant funding from USAID and UK Aid to start building that platform. But in order to really get it to work and commercialize itself, it needed… Well, yeah, it just basically just needed more development resource than we had. So since 2020, Christophe and I were slightly sort of running out of energy and running out of money—
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Yeah.
Jerry Nicholson: When Christophe’s wife worked… Have you come across IDA, Donna, or the International Disability Alliance?
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: I’ve heard about it, yeah.
Jerry Nicholson: So IDA’s this amazing network of organizations of disabled people. So they have, I think it’s about 12 core members. But then those members also have members. So they represent… There’s about 4,000 organizations of disabled people who come together under the International Disability Alliance umbrella. So IDA essentially represents the global disability community to organizations like the United Nations. So they’ve been really influential in things like the Convention on the Rights of Disabled People. IDA played a key role in advocating for CRPD.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Oh, right. Yeah.
Jerry Nicholson: And Christophe’s wife, Priscille, worked for IDA back then. This is back in 2020. And IDA run a global survey to find out how their members are involved in decision-making in the country where they’re based. And they were using a well-known survey tool in order to do that, and really struggling ’cause many of their members just couldn’t fill in the survey. So the members were frustrated ’cause they couldn’t have their opinions heard. And IDA had this big problem, and they just couldn’t get the views of their members, which was what they wanted to base their advocacy upon. So Christophe kept hearing about these struggles and realized that through Preignition, we already had many of the components that we needed in order to host a survey. So our platform already had a form builder. It already had a process management, so a way of managing the data and managing data through different stages. So IDA put out an open call for proposals for an accessible survey tool. Because of the relationship between Christophe and Priscille, there was obviously needs to be… There was a potential conflict of interest there, so it was a very sort of transparent and clear bidding process. And eventually, Preignition was awarded that contract.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Oh.
Jerry Nicholson: So essentially under the terms of that agreement, we agreed to work together with IDA and IDA’s members to essentially develop the platform that we had already been working on for a couple of years, but to really develop that into an accessible data collection tool. And we agreed to do that for quite a low cost, but on the understanding that they would have a platform that would be developed and deployed under their own domain and branding. So they have a tool called https://idata.tools. But we would retain the intellectual property and would release it under our own branding and make that available for other customers outside of IDA. So in that way, we would be able to commercialize the software, the platform, and continually be able to work on it and improve it. So that relationship with IDA and IDA’s members is absolutely foundational to our origins, how we started building Accessible Surveys. And IDA is still, not only they’re a customer, but they’re a really important stakeholder for us. So yeah, that’s—
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: That’s wonderful. That’s—
Jerry Nicholson: That’s how we got into building… We’re focusing on accessible data collection.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: It sounds like a very, very interesting, challenging journey for you, and I guess your background as a chartered accountant really helped, right?
Jerry Nicholson: Yes. Yeah, I think it did. I think it did. I mean, I think I’ve been very fortunate in that we’ve always been able to sort of pay the mortgage and put food on the table. So if you can do that then, and you can also do work which you find meaningful, then that’s the ingredients for a happy life, I think. Yeah.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: I think it takes a very special type of person to be able to do that because a lot of people would probably be scared to take those chances, right? I mean, a lot of people are so insecure about their future, how to move forward, what to do and things like that. But I think for you, you didn’t seem to be afraid to take the bull by the horns and go, right?
Jerry Nicholson: Yeah. And I think maybe two things on that. I mean, first of all, it’s very much a shared, a joint thing with my wife, Fiona. So I couldn’t… She has the same outlook, I suppose, and an appetite for adventure as I have. So that’s really helpful. And the other thing is, I think maybe the fact that I do have that accountancy qualification. I sort of feel that if it all goes horribly wrong, I probably could get a job as an accountant, which is not what I want to do, but it’s sort of like, I suppose maybe it feels like having a bit of a card in the pocket if I ever need to use it. But, yeah. So—
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Okay.
Jerry Nicholson: Whether that sort of quite, I dunno, conventional start to my career has been helpful to allow me to take some more risks as I’ve developed it.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: I think for one thing, having a backup plan, and two, having a wife who is very like-minded certainly helps in the way you progress through your lifelong journey, right?
Jerry Nicholson: Yeah. Yeah.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Yeah.
Jerry Nicholson: I think so.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Yeah.
Jerry Nicholson: And Donna, one important thing which I didn’t mention in terms of our journey into accessibility, it’s a real partnership between myself and my business partner is a guy called Christophe Geiser. Christophe is a lovely, lovely, talented guy. He’s a Swiss national, but he lives in Lyon, in France, and he had a sister who had a disability.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Ah, okay.
Jerry Nicholson: And so Christophe has been aware of the barriers that his sister faced all her life. And yeah, so for him, the working in accessibility also had that sort of personal connection.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: I think that helps a lot. I think if a person is either a person with a disability or a person who has a friend or family member with a disability, it certainly helps them to understand more what the needs are and how to go about dealing with it. And then if you have the additional talent, you’ve got a lot of ingredients for success, don’t you?
Jerry Nicholson: Yeah. Yeah.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Yeah. Your company’s guiding belief is that if a survey is not accessible, the data is incomplete. Researchers can adjust their results for people who choose not to answer, but no statistical method can recover the voices of people who were never able to answer in the first place. And for listeners who have never thought of a survey as a barrier, why does that gap matter so much for the roughly 1.3 billion people worldwide living with significant disabilities and for the decisions made about their lives?
Jerry Nicholson: Yeah. I mean, I think online forms are everywhere, you know? Companies—
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Quite.
Jerry Nicholson: Governments—
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Yeah.
Jerry Nicholson: Universities. I mean, organizations are constantly wanting to collect data—
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Yeah.
Jerry Nicholson: To understand the world that they are working within. And they often use an online form or a survey to do that because for them, it’s a fairly easy and low-cost way of collecting data from a large number of people. So because of the prevalence of online forms, if you’re a person with a disability and you face obstacles filling in an online form, whether it’s, maybe it’s, you can’t navigate it easily using your keyboard, so things aren’t announced in the right order, or if you arrive, you use a sign language and the form doesn’t support the sign language, or if you have an intellectual disability and you’re used to, or you find it helpful to have things in an Easy Read format.
Jerry Nicholson: So really lots of different barriers that different people and different communities face when filling in a form. And that has sort of profound implications for an individual’s right to be consulted, to have their opinion heard, to vote, to sign up for a service. But equally on the other side, it has implications for organizations, who— Yeah, I think we’ll give organizations the benefit of the doubt in saying it’s better for them if they include everyone in their data collection, for different reasons. If you’re a business, that’s customers or suppliers or employees. If you’re an academic and you’re doing research, that’s the people who you want to consult so your research can become just representative and not biased. Or if you’re a government, you want to consult all your citizens. So I think there’s really good reasons both from an individual perspective and a human rights perspective, but also from an organizational perspective and wanting better data to make better decisions.
Jerry Nicholson: So I think making forms and surveys accessible, I think it addresses both of those key requirements.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: I think one continuous concern for me personally is that I agree with what you’re saying, but I don’t think people have really given much credence to the fact that you’re asking me to fill out a survey, but you’re not paying me for it. You’re getting my information for free, and I really, really don’t— [laughs] I’m not very keen on that type of way of thinking.
Jerry Nicholson: Yeah. I’d say to that, Donna, in terms of the survey, whether people are incentivized to fill in a survey or not, that is… I mean, you can run a survey on Accessible Surveys and offer incentives or rewards or payment for completing the survey. Or you cannot, but that’s really… Yeah. I think making the survey accessible is really what we focus on—
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Right.
Jerry Nicholson: In terms of the process that that survey takes place in, and whether that’s a paid survey for consumer research or any other type of research. That’s really a decision for the organization running the survey and a decision for the survey participant about whether they want to fill in the survey or not.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: No, I agree with you. I just thought I would just voice my own personal opinion on the fact that too many organizations, you want… They are ask you to fill out a survey, but you’re getting my information for free. You’re getting my lived experience for free.
Jerry Nicholson: Yeah.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: And I think it’s about time respect should be shown to those of us who have unique experiences and unique skills.
Jerry Nicholson: Yeah.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: But anyway, I mean, that’s not what you concentrate on. And clock is right—
Jerry Nicholson: Yeah. Interestingly, Donna, you say… I mean, on that, the name of our company is Accessible Data, and Accessible Surveys is our first product. So we are actively looking at other products, and we certainly do. I mean, within the market research sector, they use paid panels a lot. So a company might come to them and say, “We really want to understand about the experiences of people who are blind or low vision when they’re using our services in this part of the world,” for instance.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Right.
Jerry Nicholson: And they will have a budget to pay for the insights on that subject. So there’s no reason why we couldn’t put a panel behind Accessible Surveys. Maybe it’s Accessible Surveys, or maybe it’s another product. And then have a panel of people with disabilities who then get invited to fill in surveys—
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Right.
Jerry Nicholson: And receive rewards and payments for doing that. And potentially our relationship with IDA and their incredible network throughout the world opens up some opportunities to do that. But that is a slightly different product, and we—
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Yeah.
Jerry Nicholson: We’re not there yet. But I take your point, Donna, 100%.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Clock is starting to wind down on me, so I wanted to ask you this final question here. What are your plans for the future? Well, you talked about other products. You talked about different things, but you got anything in your tank waiting to be disclosed or—
Jerry Nicholson: [laughs]
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: You want to share?
Jerry Nicholson: Yeah. I mean, I suppose I feel that Accessible Data is really just sort of getting going. We’re… Yeah, we’re at a really exciting stage in that we have some brilliant customers, early adopting customers. We have a great product which is improving every day. But it really just feels that we’re just taking our first… We’re in the shallows at the moment, and there’s so much scope to build the company and develop the company.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Yeah.
Jerry Nicholson: And as we do that, I think this thing of Nothing About Us Without Us and involving disabled people and people with lived experience not only as consumers of the product, but as teammates, as co-owners, as really part of who we are as an organization is really exciting and I think important, and I think that’s the direction that we’re going to go down. And I’d really love to look to develop relationships with networks like IDA, and there’s also another network called the African Disability Forum. So looking at ways of involving organizations of disabled people more, that’s where the business started. Our origins are in that relationship with IDA. But to really make that an active living part of who we are as a business and part of our future, that’s really exciting for me.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: I think it is, and I think it opens up a lot of opportunities, again, to enable persons with disabilities to have their voices heard. We struggle to have our voices heard as a community, so any sort of innovation, any sort of initiative is always welcomed. And I wanna congratulate you on this. And also, in closing, I’d like to offer an invitation to you, if you have the time, to write a short article on what you do and how you do it. And what I would like to do is to publish it on my website, one of my websites, https://barrierfreecanada.org. Because I think it’s important not just to have a podcast, but also your written word. So if you’re interested, I’m gonna be sending out invitations to those who have been on my Remarkable World Commentary podcast.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: So look for that, and if you’re interested, I will not edit your article. I will simply post it as is. And I will also have your name there as well. So think of it, and an invitation will be coming your way in the next week or so.
Jerry Nicholson: Brilliant. Okay. Well, yeah, thanks, Donna. It’s a pleasure to speak with you today. And, yeah, thanks for inviting me onto your podcast to talk.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Yeah. It has been my pleasure, and you keep on going. [laughs]
Jerry Nicholson: Okay. Thanks, Donna. Enjoy the rest of your day.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: You too, Jerry. Thank you very much.
Jerry Nicholson: Okay. Bye.
Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Bye-bye. Bye.
Podcast Commentator: [upbeat music] 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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