Maayan Ziv | Founder, AcesssNow | Mapping an Accessible Future
This week, host Eva Hartling is joined by Maayan Ziv, Activist, Photographer and Founder of AccessNow, a connected, global platform with information on accessibility. Through mapping as many places around the world as possible, and with the help of users’ reviews and feedback, AccessNow makes it possible to locate spots that offer accessible resources to visitors, clients and guests.
Living with muscular dystrophy herself, Maayan knows firsthand the limitations and stigma experienced by people who live with disabilities. In this interview, Maayan shares her thoughts on a path to greater inclusivity, her views on the impact COVID has had on people with disabilities, and her hopes for our future.
This season of The Brand is Female is brought to you by TD Bank - Women Entrepreneurs. TD is proud to support women entrepreneurs and help them achieve success and growth through its program of educational workshops, financing, and mentorship opportunities! Find out how you can benefit from their support!
Full Episode Transcript
Eva Hartling: I'm Eva Hartling. Welcome to The Brand is Female, where every week I speak with women change-makers who are redefining the rules of female leadership. This season of our podcast is brought to you by TD bank group women entrepreneurs. TD helps women in business achieves success and growth through its program of educational workshops, financing, and mentorship.
Visit thebrandisfemale.com/podcast and follow the link to find out how TD can help this week. My guest is Maayan Ziv, a photographer activist and the founder of AccessNow, a connected global platform with information on accessibility, through a mapping of as many places around the world as possible.
And with the help of users, reviews and feedback AccessNow makes it possible to. Offer accessible resources to visitors, clients or guests. Maayan's vision with AccessNow is to be able to empower not only people living with disabilities, but really everyone to discover a world of accessible opportunities, make better decisions and remove barriers.
Living with muscular dystrophy herself, Maayan knows firsthand the limitations and stigma experienced by people who live with disabilities. Here is our conversation. Maayan. It's a pleasure speaking with you on the brand is female today. I'm so glad you could join me. And I'm gonna jump right in with my first question.
And I'm asking you to go back in time a little bit, and I'm curious to know, growing up, you were already dreaming of a career in the arts or in photography, or if you were picturing something completely different for yourself.
Maayan Ziv: Yeah, it's great to be here, Eva. Growing up. I was always very into the arts.
I was very creative and grew up in a household where we were constantly painting things, making things. I love dance as well. I definitely didn't think about photography until I was probably in high school, which was really the first time where I got more interested in photography as a medium.
Started playing with the camera and taking some of my own photos. But it's funny. There are pictures of me as a very young girl, like probably five playing with my mom's film camera. And we have a lot of like home video footage of me. Like making movies. And I was apparently always interested in cameras.
I just don't remember that. But yeah, it wasn't really until high school that I got more serious about photography as a career.
Eva Hartling: I'm curious to know what that process was like for you, studying in school that it feel right. Right away the field you were in did you have role models that you looked up to maybe that inspired your chosen career?
I also want to talk about AccessNow because you, art is a big part of your life, but you've obviously dedicated a lot of your work to other pursuits as well. And in this case helping people with disabilities and by providing resources. That they they can easily access. And maybe curious to know how the, kind of your two paths met at some point in your journey.
Maayan Ziv: Yeah. It's interesting. I just fell in love with photography from that first experience in high school and really just followed that. I didn't really know I didn't really have many thoughts about what I wanted to do for work or, what my career would look like in the future, but I just followed the passion of taking photos.
And I think like the first job I got was to take head shots for my friend in high school. He paid me $20 and I shot his head shots during a lunch break at school. And I. I, I loved the opportunities I got, as a woman sitting on a wheelchair fashion and portraiture for, as a photographer was not like there weren't people who looked like me in, in, in the industry.
And It was hard to break in at first. I did a lot of work for free. I showed up and just did like creatives and eventually had an opportunity to start charging and creating a like a proper kind of professional photography studio for myself. And I didn't really see anyone else, that I could say, oh if I could continue.
So really my biggest inspiration at the time was Annie Leibovitz and I continued shooting and taking photos and got a little bit more comfortable with my identity as a photographer. And I felt like I needed like a challenge. I needed something new that could push me. And I found that I was being a bit comfortable.
And so my, I decided to look at Different opportunities to go back to school, which I never thought I would do, but I found this one entrepreneurial program, it was a master's degree, was like a one-year intensive and it just looked like fun. And it was really within the first week of studying that AccessNow became an idea for me and really, I just followed that.
So again, it wasn't like I. I was like, oh, I'm going to be an entrepreneur. I'm going to go build a business. I'm going to be in tech. Like I really didn't have any of those goals set. It was more that I was just very excited about this opportunity and I was very passionate about the problem of accessibility and that's really what I followed all this time.
Eva Hartling: And tell me about getting that off the ground. And I can see how there was obviously a need for a platform like yours. What were some of the challenges maybe you encountered at first and what gave you that, strength and vision to keep going?
Maayan Ziv: Yeah. I think know.
I'll answer your question backwards. That the reason that I was so excited was because I saw an opportunity to make a change in my own life. And that was very initially very rewarding to realize that, I'd lived my whole life with a disability. I had always come across places that were not accessible.
I've constantly. Come up against barriers and, photo shoots at locations that had steps or I'd travel and go to hotels that, I'd book reservation and I'd spend hours online doing research and I'd show up and it was still not accessible. And just, I've been so many times, like I've just been stuck in the street literally.
And it's just such a horrible feeling when you just want to go about your day and feel like accessibility is not like the biggest issue in your life. And to create a platform where I could visibly see every place I'd been to all the information I knew about the accessibility of those spaces. And, I shared it with a few friends and they did the same.
And all of a sudden it was like the first time I saw the potential for something that could change my life. And I knew that if I could follow that But there are literally millions of people who could benefit from the same thing I was building for myself. That's really been the passion that's pulled me through every time that it's been difficult, knowing that I could make a difference and that now AccessNow as a company can make a difference in the lives of millions of people with disabilities has been very rewarding.
And the challenges in the life of an entrepreneur every day, you're going to face a different kind of challenge. And, there are the large challenges about the lack of awareness and education around accessibility. Those are ongoing challenges that people within the disability community have been fighting for and creative
campaigns against. And other challenges include things like, I didn't really know how to build a tech company. I didn't know how to build an app or a website or anything. So I've had to learn different things along the way, but I think really the largest challenge is to get to a level of awareness and realization that as a community, as a society we have to.
Address these barriers for millions of people and that it's, we're talking about human rights. It's not a luxury. Yeah. Yeah.
Eva Hartling: And I'm going to ask something that might be a dumb question to ask, but you obviously, found or are filling a gap that exists in in, in today's world, in today's society.
And by creating AccessNow you are finally offering resources to people with disabilities. As as you've just explained and helping them locate and know about what is accessible to them out there, but why wasn't a platform like that already in place and what you've brought up, some of the challenges around or challenges for people with disabilities, but what still needs to change or what do we need to tackle?
When it comes to being more inclusive and people with disabilities in today's society. And maybe we can talk about Canada specifically, although I do believe it's an international reality.
Maayan Ziv: Yeah. So it's not a silly question, it's a good question. Why doesn't it exist? It was the number one question I asked myself, like why has nobody done this yet?
And there have been some initiatives here and there, like some great community efforts and some not-for-profits that have, rallied their communities. And there are some initiatives out there, but there's nothing that really was able to connect people around the world and create something global and scalable enough that it could reach people.
And I didn't want like a niche micro, solution that if I was in this really specific town, I could gain access to something. If I knew where to look, if I knew the right people who could tell me what to search, I wanted something that was just globally accessible in nature. And I had not found anything like that.
And I think the reason there's a few reasons why. People with disabilities are dramatically underrepresented in the workforce. So we don't have the insights, the perspectives the creativity that comes from living with the disability affecting or impacting a lot of the work that needs to. Just by being part of a team that's focused on design, let's say AccessNow.
Now I'm able to bring a perspective that someone without a disability does not just like any type of diversity that adds to our workforce. So I think that's one really important issue for why we haven't seen those changes. And the second is that there just is really. Still quite a lack of awareness about why accessibility matters and who it serves.
And people assume that it's like a legal thing or it's for somebody else to take care of. Or, if I have time, I'll get to it, but it's not that important. Or, people make all different types of excuses and reasons, but mostly comes down to just people don't know. A lot of people don't know, if you don't have a disability or know someone who does the chances of you coming across accessibility issues are way less it's not in the school system.
It's not on TV. So how would you discover any of this world if you haven't been faced with it?
Eva Hartling: Yeah. Yeah. And you, and I think representation is so important for everyone. Every minority group out there and women included. So when it comes to, and you've talked about representation in the workplace, obviously, but when it comes to representation in media, in social media how can and I think, often and I think of our listeners who have an interest in making sure that, we promote it an equitable and a A very inclusive environment, but for someone with not living with a disability, what can we do?
And as citizens, what can we do to help raise awareness and help increase the representation of people with disability? And I think of even entrepreneurs and business owners, right? Maybe a place to start is featuring people with disabilities and any type of content that they're putting But what do you think can have the greater impact?
What are some small actions that can lead to that kind of impact?
Maayan Ziv: Yeah. Great question. And I actually wrote we put out like a blog post for an international day of disability in December. And it's interesting how it consistently is. One of the most interesting pieces that we've shared is, how to be an ally.
Like how do you show up? And there's like a whole bunch of ways. But one of the first I think, and most important ones is to be curious, is to ask questions and to try and be exposed to people who are different than you, or, one of the things that I like to recommend to people to do is like just follow influencers.
Like on whatever social media channel, you love the most follow a few influencers that, have a disability and just hear their insights. Not every person with a disability feels or thinks the same thing, but just to have exposure to a world that's different than yours is one of the easiest ways to start and often a very educational, for example, I have a few friends with disabilities that, are really avid social media influencers and they talk about travel.
And so you learn about what does it mean to travel with a disability? What are the types of accessibility issues? It's just fascinating, they also visit incredible places, but you learn about your world in a different perspective. So I think just being exposed is the first kind of important thing.
And then being aware that everything that you do. Regardless of what role you're in impacts the world of accessibility. So if you were a designer your designs can be accessible or they can create further barriers, whether it's contrast or, text, or it doesn't matter.
What, there is a way to create that as accessible. And there's a way where it it creates a barrier for someone. If you. Our communicator, what language you use, is it inclusive? Does it signal to people that they're welcome and included? Like I remember when people used to write interviews about me in the past was used words like wheelchair bound.
I'm not wheelchair bound. I, the concept of wheelchair bound suggests that I'm, somehow suffering or stuck in a wheelchair. My wheelchair is an empowering piece of my life. So even just little words like that. Signal people's perspective on a concept that they either know about or don't know about.
And so being informed and asking questions and getting out of your bubble, looking online and educating yourself, and there are tons of resources to do that. So I think that's really where it starts is just being curious enough to learn. And then, the one, one very critical point that I always like to point out is that accessibility is really for every person.
When you watch a video with captions, like even I was, I've been watching this trend on Tik TOK, where originally people would post videos with no captions. Now all these content creators, whether they realize it or not are captioning their own videos. Why? Because more people are watching them.
They might not realize that those captions are a form of accessibility, but they. Yeah, and that there are many versions of this where accessibility is part of our lives, curb cuts and, electric toothbrushes and text messaging, like all of these examples and where if we realize that accessibility benefits, every person, it really shifts the understanding of what accessibility is here to do, which at the end of the day is here to empower people and to create a sense of inclusion.
It's not like the scary medical or toolbox thing. It's it's a vehicle. And then it applies to everything you do.
Eva Hartling: Yeah. That's yeah. It's such an interesting perspective that we often forget or don't realize interesting. This season of the Brand is Female is made possible with the support of TD bank group women entrepreneurs confidently building your business, takes sound advice, plus guidance to the right connections, tools, and resources.
As a woman, entrepreneur myself, I know I need all the support I can get. What's great about TD's services for women in business is their collaboration based approach. They work with both internal and external partners who can provide education, financing, mentorship, and community support. TD employees are able to be proactive in the advice and guidance they give to women business.
They can facilitate and connect you to workshops, coaching, and mentorship, and they engage other like-minded business leaders in an authentic. So we can share experiences and learn from each other.
Maayan Ziv: Do you ever wonder what goes on behind the scenes of your favorite homegrown films and TV shows? It's time to pop some popcorn, go behind the camera and meet the people who are making it happen. I'm Marriska Fernandes, host of the maple popcorn podcast. In this new series, you will discover exclusive interviews with Canadian icons and hear them talk about Canadian.
And even break the fifth wall to share set anecdotes. This podcast is produced by the brand is female and powered by telephone Canada. Subscribe now on the podcast app of your choice, and don't miss an episode. Stay in the know by visiting telefilm.ca/seeitall.
Eva Hartling: What needs to be addressed in the workplace? You talked about representation, but I think generally speaking, Even women are underrepresented and in many professions still, although we are overrepresented in some professions when it comes to people with disabilities and I'm thinking of women with disabilities specifically what do most employers, what should employers know and what should employers be doing to become more inclusive?
Maayan Ziv: Yeah, that's a great question. And I think one that people are asking now more than ever, with COVID, we've seen how work has changed and what it means to work and how people work has changed dramatically. And what's very interesting is that a lot of the things that we now assume, about being able to work remotely and having flexible hours at times, using technology is one of like your key vehicles to communicate.
A lot of this is stuff that people with disabilities have been advocating for and have not been seen. It always employers are very receptive to, so for example, Hey for me commuting every day into the office from nine to five is challenging for these reasons. Would I be able to work from home some days in the past people would say no, or we don't operate that way.
Or, some of these barriers mentally, and then now we've seen it's possible. So it's just a lesson to show that when we think about inclusive hiring, it really comes down to flexibility. And recognizing that not everybody works the same way and that when we give people the flexibility and the tools, accessible tools to be empowered, they show up in their best self.
And that equally as important is then to be responsive in a way where you value that, it's one thing to hire for diversity. But if you're hiring people for the sake of, having a diverse workforce if the work culture is not effective, inclusive and respectful of people's differences, if we don't value people for what they bring, that's different than somebody else.
And we're not really doing the work, so it starts with, are you submitting your call for job applications? Is the software that you're using to conduct an interview accessible, or are you signaling anything when you interview someone that might suggest, if there are any accommodations, but not in a way where people are then afraid to disclose, but in a way, because you've actually done the work to make sure that there are things in place to support people, regardless of who they are.
And I think that the best employers understand that. But it's challenging if you've never done it before, for sure. It becomes very like second nature once you've learned these ways of working, which we all aspire to, it just becomes of course we should do this. Yeah. So that's what I love the most about this industry is that once we, once I'm able to engage with people and they've seen oh, this is what you've been talking about.
I've never met someone who said, oh, I did it. And I regret it. I've never met someone who said, we tried the diversity thing. We tried the inclusion thing we invested in accessibility. We wish we never did. Yeah,
Eva Hartling: Yeah. That makes sense. So hopefully more, more, business owners and entrepreneurs and leaders here.
Hear those words. From you. I want to talk about the reality of COVID. We're, it's, it seems like we're finally starting to emerge from me almost 18 months of a pandemic reality. And we know obviously we spend a lot of time at the Brand is Female looking at how women are affected and women have been really suffering a lot of the negative impacts, including domestic violence, job loss added responsibilities when it comes to childcare and so on.
And I'm curious to know, and you brought up actually, some of the things that have changed throughout COVID especially when it comes to work culture. And it sounds like some things have benefited people with disabilities. If we think about not going into a physical office as much, or having additional.
Technology solutions that can enable us to do work wherever we are, but I'm sure there's there's waste. That's the, like people with disabilities are also negatively impacted by COVID. So I'd love to know how, how you feel, what the impact has been and how can we make sure moving forward that we're not going backwards?
Yeah.
Maayan Ziv: Great question. I think about when COVID started. When, before anyone even realized what it would mean or what a lockdown was like, where we were still just like living our lives and pretending everything was the same. There was like a few weeks there where people are like, oh no, it's going to be a couple of weeks.
Eva Hartling: It's not
Maayan Ziv: a big deal. And I remember the messaging and the news and that's, I realized like this could get very ugly because from the beginning, The narrative was COVID will really only impact those with underlying health conditions, or, those who were vulnerable. Like it's not a big deal.
The majority of us will be fine, good luck to the rest of you who might fit in that category. And the way that those stories were told. If you identify as someone with an underlying health condition or immunocompromised, or, if you're, within an aging population, like that was the first signal, which we've always known within the disability community, that there really is some very dramatic inequalities being played out right in front.
Yeah, whose lives we value were literally being told to us on the news across, national and international broadcast. And so early on within the disability community we had to do our own research, which is not new. We had to, there were like Google documents being shared, what are the impacts on COVID if you have this disability or what, like people were just trying to find whatever they could.
Cause there just wasn't any information available yet. What we've seen is that narrative played out and really highlighted how broken a lot of the healthcare system is in caring for people who need support. A lot of people who were left without care, because they were at risk of exposure.
If people were coming in and out of their homes I know that there were caregivers who had to choose, I can only go work here. All of a sudden people were left without care. If you were living within a facility where other people are sharing certain resources, then
you were at higher risk of exposure. They were, moments where if you needed to be hospitalized, you weren't able to bring someone with you. Like all of these weird barriers, where it was a system designed for people without those people, as part of the design process disproportionately people with disabilities have suffered.
Very difficult times. A lot of people have died. Like it's the worst case scenario you could play out. And it's really hard to watch that happen when it's your community like, and there are many communities who are vocalizing similar experiences, different people for different reasons have really been affected.
And I totally, I empathize with that experience. And I think one of the things that we need to do now is look at that and understand who have we missed and why? We have a chance to redesign a lot of the way that we did things and including those voices who were not listened to were not part of, creating solutions for, I think is the number one thing we have to do.
We can't design systems for people without their involvement in the process. And that's, from the disability community, one of the strongest messages we say is nothing about us without us, there's, there should be no policy, no product, no service, no nothing that is generated created without the involvement of people with disabilities.
And that's really what I hope for is that we can learn from this time. And not just go back to repeating old ways.
Eva Hartling: absolutely. What would you say to them? Young and, I, we usually we obviously talk about women and nonbinary people. So what would you say to young women and young binary people who also live with a disability in terms of what's possible in the years ahead, and I think we're also sensing this change happening for many years. Of our, I hate calling them minority groups, but are underrepresented groups in society. There is a wave of change. People are being, more outspoken and coming to the defense of, and talking about representation for all groups.
And I think social media is actually one of the good sides of social media I believe is to help get the word out. So what would you say to the younger generation in terms. What they should be believing in fighting for and what they have to look forward to.
Maayan Ziv: Yeah. Great question. I feel very strongly that, if you see something that you feel needs to be different, whether it's about you, your own life, your experience, or someone, don't wait to raise your voice.
I think, when you see something. That could be different for the positive. I think a lot of young women and people who identify as non binary we wait until we know enough and often, people who with much less experience with much less insight with much less credibility are speaking up and getting notice and getting praised and.
And there are brilliant people who I've met even within, the work at AccessNow who have so much to offer. But they're like I, who am I, to, and I think that the second you start that self doubt, that's where I think it's like the most kind of dangerous place, because you can get into these habits of there's somebody else who's going to do it, or somebody else who's smarter and knows more.
And I just think that if every person contributed even just a little, if I take, the example of accessibility if every person did even the smallest thing, we would create a world that's more accessible. And so this concept of waiting for. For permission or for government or for your boss or for whatever.
It takes a lot of courage to raise your voice, especially if you don't see yourself reflected in the solution or you don't see yourself reflected amongst the board that you have to pitch to, or, the per you're the person you report to. It doesn't matter. Like it's very hard where when you feel that you're the only one.
I get that's like my life. But it's so important because when you do that, you create space for somebody else. And I think that those little opportunities, however, small or big, depending on your ambition, your ability, your energy level. Make a really big difference. And so don't be afraid and don't wait.
And the second piece that I would offer is find the people because when you do that, it takes home, it takes a toll, for sure. So find the people who you can lean on for support. If it's your family. Great. If you've got great friends or if it's just like one person or a teacher, or, a colleague, even someone online that you've connected with, like it could be anyone or more than one person, it could be a pet like someone And that you can lean on that, that can just help when you just need to decompress in whatever version that is, whether it's ranting or crying or laughing or doing nothing at all.
And just hanging out with someone having the support system is so important, especially if you're, constantly feeling like you're up against battles that, that people don't see or understand. I would say that those two pieces have been really important.
Eva Hartling: Yeah that's good advice.
And I want to ask about what's next at AccessNow, and what's something that you're looking forward to when it comes to that part of your work and coming months or the coming year?
Maayan Ziv: First thing I'm really excited about the opportunity of the world. Opening back up a little bit. Yeah. I've been working remotely from home for over a year now and.
I'm really excited to have a chance to, I'm vaccinated now and have a chance to get out a little more. Start to see human beings again. I think for AccessNow, our focus has always been to help people discover new places and go places and, just to have a world that's more open to them.
And this last year we've really been focused on our technology and, some initiatives around COVID and, trails and outdoor experiences. And so now, the next few years are really about being that source of empowerment for people to find information, to go out and do what they want live their lives, not worry about accessibility if they need it.
And if they don't need it to contribute to the movement, which is really what we're focused on doing, building a worldwide active community of people who want to contribute in whatever capacity, if they want to add a review to our platform, send something online to someone advocate, whatever.
It's for us as really it's a global mission and we're a hundred percent just focused on, raising awareness in and creating real impact. That makes a difference every day
Eva Hartling: well said. So we'll make sure to support your work and follow AccessNow and amplify all the work that you're putting into it.
And then my last question, which is also my favorite to ask guests on the podcast. What do you wish? And I do need to rephrase it, but talking about women and nonbinary people specifically, what do you wish women and nonbinary people would do less of
Maayan Ziv: apologizing.
Eva Hartling: It's funny because I just, I had an interview right before this and the person gave the same answer.
Maayan Ziv: yeah. Yeah. I there's, this comes up a lot. And it's similar to what I was saying earlier. If you know something, you feel like something should change and you want to make a difference. Don't wait. Yeah. And don't apologize for your perspective, for your opinion, just because it's not the status quo or what people see every day doesn't mean that what today is what should be.
And just, yeah. Be bold and be comfortable with that. Yeah, I think, yeah.
Eva Hartling: Thank you so much, Maayan, it's been a pleasure hearing about your work and congratulations, and thank you for everything that you're doing. We'll add all the links to to, to follow you and support AccessNow. There will be a transcript of this interview.
This is something we should have been doing earlier at the Brand is Female, but we now have the resources in place to do that. So at fully written transcript for people who can not listen to the interview, they'll be able to read the interview. So thank you so much and best of luck with everything that's coming up in, within the next few months and year.
Thank you.
Maayan Ziv: Thank you. Thanks so much.
Eva Hartling: I really hope you enjoy today's conversation. And if you did, as always, don't forget to subscribe, rate and give us a review wherever that is possible. Thank you to TD bank group women entrepreneurs, further support of the Brand is Female. You've got it in you to succeed.
Let TD help guide you. Visit the brandisfemale.com/podcast and click on the TD logo. Thank you for listening. I'll be back in a week with a new guest.