Stories that Inspire
If you have been told no enough times, it starts to sound like the truth. It is not. Here are people in the United States and abroad who found the work, built the work, or built the place where other people found it.
Every story on this page is published somewhere else first, by a news outlet or by the person or organization themselves. We summarize it in plain language and link you straight to the source so you can read the whole thing. We do not invent details, and we do not use anyone's story without a link back to where they told it.
We also try to keep the focus where it belongs. These are stories about work: the job, the company, the skill, the paycheck. Not stories about being brave.
Boston, United States
DiVitto, who has Down syndrome, kept being told she was not a good fit after interviews. In 2016 she started Collettey's Cookies instead. She is the CEO, and she has since built a team where roughly half the employees are people with disabilities, training them herself.
Huntington, New York, United States
Cronin, who has Down syndrome, told his father in his last year of high school that he wanted to go into business together. They founded John's Crazy Socks in December 2016. It shipped over 10,000 orders within three months, and more than half of the people who work there are disabled.
Source: CNBC, October 2018, and John's Crazy Socks.
Wilmington, North Carolina, United States
Amy and Ben Wright opened Bitty & Beau's Coffee in January 2016 after learning how few people with intellectual and developmental disabilities hold jobs. The first shop employed 19 people with disabilities. The company has since grown to dozens of locations across a dozen states.
Source: Harvard Business Review, May 2023, and the company's own story page.
United States
Girma is the first Deafblind person to graduate from Harvard Law School, in 2013. She works as a disability rights lawyer, author, and speaker. In 2015 she helped win the case that required Scribd to make its content accessible.
Source: Haben Girma's own biography.
Denmark
After learning his three year old son is autistic, Thorkil Sonne used his family home as collateral to start Specialisterne in 2004, a company that hires autistic people to do IT work. Instead of a sit down interview, candidates show what they can do by building and programming robots. The model has since spread to more than twenty countries.
Source: Specialisterne Foundation, and Slate, May 2015.
Australia
The Dandelion Program started in Australia in 2014 as a partnership between a technology company and an Australian federal agency, training neurodivergent people for long term IT careers in areas like cybersecurity. DXC reports a retention rate above 90 percent since it began, and the program has since opened in several other countries.
Source: DXC Technology.