Inspiring Story-

It has always fascinated me that people discriminate so much based on disabilities. When I was working for Sun Microsystems in the early 1990's there was a big push to decrease this type of discrimination. The initial trigger for this effort was a minority employment report from a government agency. Sun Fed, the division within Sun Microsystems that sold to government agencies was concerned that they would lose major bids if Sun didn't improve hiring of minorities and disabled.

By the time that Sun actually rolled out the program the focus had changed. Some one had the insight to realize that while a person's skin color, heritage, or physical condition might be different, that their brains and intellectual assets were unimpared. What a waste of precious ability it would be to not utilize someone because of a disability or race. What started off as a mandated program, turned into a positive, leveraged opportunity to improve the company. Managers jumped on the program instead of resisting. Everyone won.

Interestingly enough one of the most successful trainers in the program was a blind Japanese fellow that had imigrated to the US and founded his own consulting business. While most people tend to freeze when they have to get up in front of a large group of people and give a speech, it was never a problem for him because he couldn't see their faces!

Now the same type of awareness is starting to surface in Japan. The article linked to below is about a new book "The Reason I Became A Company President at the Age of 15" (only in Japanese so far) by Kentaro Iemoto. Iemoto, confined to a wheelchair had the guts to overcome his disabilties, and his age, and succeeded in founding a successful internet server company. His efforts to take control of his life and destiny in the face of tremendous cultural stereotypes are definitely inspiring.

Japan Today Japan News - Book Kitchen - 15-year-old overcomes disability to become CEO
- posted by tempusmaster @ 9:12 PM