Diego Mariscal - Using Your Disability to Find Entrepreneurial Success

Diego Mariscal, Founder and CEO of 2Gether-International, discusses his trailblazing efforts to help 5000 disabled entrepreneurs by the year 2030. A compelling conversation you cannot miss.

BIO

DIEGO MARISCAL is Disabled and Proud! A trailblazer at the intersection of disability advocacy and entrepreneurship, Diego is the Founder, CEO, and Chief Disabled Officer of 2Gether-International, a 501c3 nonprofit and the leading startup accelerator run by and for disabled entrepreneurs. He has dedicated his career to creating a sustainable impact through business ventures led by and for Disabled Founders and currently serves on the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission's Small Business Capital Formation Advisory Committee, among many other boards.

Since his teenage years, Diego has been a catalyst for change. At just 18, he founded "Limitless Prepa Tec," an educational program that tackles disability awareness in his hometown of Monterrey, Mexico. Over four years, Limitless expanded to more than seven high schools and educated over 3,000 students, solidifying its reputation as one of Monterrey's largest youth-led initiatives.

In 2012, Diego took his advocacy to the next level with the establishment of 2Gether-International (2GI), a nonprofit accelerator empowering entrepreneurs with disabilities. Under his leadership, 2GI has supported more than 700 startups, helping them secure approximately $84 million in outside investments, acquisitions, and revenue. His role has positioned 2GI as a leading resource for disabled entrepreneurs and has also enabled strategic collaborations with international organizations such as the U.S. Department of State, Organization of American States, and Inter-American Development Bank, as well as corporate partnerships with Comcast NBCUniversal, JPMorganChase and others.

Diego’s work has garnered international acclaim, earning him accolades like the Architect of the Future Award from the Waldzell Institute in Vienna and the Global Changemaker title from the British Council. His influence has been recognized by multiple international bodies; he was a Youth in International Development and Affairs Fellow for the U.S. International Council on Disabilities in 2014, and in 2016, he attended the inaugural United Nations World Humanitarian Summit in Istanbul.

In 2017, Diego marked another milestone by becoming the first entrepreneur with a disability to represent the U.S. delegation at the Global Entrepreneurship Summit in Hyderabad, India. That same year, he received the Global Leadership in Equitable Development Award at the World Trade Credit & Risk Summit in Washington, DC.

Recently, in 2022 and 2023, Diego engaged in high-level dialogues on disability and entrepreneurship with President Clinton and President Biden. He was featured as a panelist in a discussion moderated by Hillary Clinton at the Clinton Global Initiative University annual meeting. Additionally, Diego was appointed to the Advisory Board of the 2024 SXSW Pitch and took part as a panelist at the 2025 SXSW.

Born with Cerebral Palsy in New Orleans but raised in Monterrey, Diego is not just an advocate but also an athlete, representing the state of Nuevo León in the Mexican National Paralympics from 2004-2009.

LINKS

https://www.2gether-international.org/

2gi.org

www.innovatinginclusion.org

Transcript

Upbeat theme song fades in.

ANGIE CASTRO

Welcome to the Innovating Inclusion Podcast today, a conversation with Trailblazer Diego Mariscal, who works at the intersection of disability advocacy and entrepreneurship.

STEVEN McCOY

Diego is the Founder and CEO of 2Gether International. A leading start-up accelerator run by and for disabled entrepreneurs. He has dedicated his career to creating a sustainable impact through business ventures led by and for disabled founders.

KATIE CORBETT 

He has also been a part of high level dialogues on disability and entrepreneurship with Presidents Clinton and Biden, and was mentored by disability rights Advocate, Judy Heumann.

ANGIE

His story is complex and compelling, and he views and speaks about disability in a way we wish we could all learn to do. 

STEVEN

He had simply put one of the most Kick-A$$ leaders out there on a mission to support 5,000 entrepreneurs by 2030.

KATIE

Enjoy today's conversation everybody.

Music fades

Welcome Diego Mariscal. We are so excited to talk to you today. 

DIEGO MARISCAL

Thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here.

STEVEN 

So great to have you. 

KATIE

So I'll jump right into our first question here. What does inclusion mean to you? 

DIEGO

Loaded question. You know, I think that in the context of what I do and in the context of my journey, inclusion really means not just leveling the playing field so that everybody has the same opportunities, but also having the high level of both expectations and opportunities for context.

The fact that I work on supporting entrepreneurs with disabilities really highlights that. As a person with cerebral palsy myself, I've fallen literally thousands of times and thousands of times I've gotten back up. And using that framework of resiliency, creativity, tenacity, we've been able to inspire thousands of disabled people to also be entrepreneurs.

Through my work, I've noticed that inclusion often means, yes, the same opportunities, but also the same level of expectations. At its highest mark. And that's what I hope to create with 2Gether International. 

STEVEN

And when you say the same amount or level of expectation, what exactly do you mean by that?

DIEGO 

I'll give you an example from my childhood. My brother, who's only 10 months-and-a-half younger than I am, doesn't have a disability, and so he wasn't as lucky as me. When I was growing up, my parents did a really good job of having the same level of expectations for both of us. So, for example, he had to make his bed in the morning, and so did I. He had to help set the table and so did I. And oftentimes that would mean that I needed to wake up earlier to make the bed or that I needed to help with plastic silverware and plastic plates and cups. But the fact that we both had the same level of expectations actually allowed for a much more inclusive environment. And it worked on the flip side as well.

I was raised in Mexico and so because not all schools accepted kids with cerebral palsy, we got put into a Montessori school. And so because I was put into a Montessori school, so was he, right? The same level of expectations, same level of opportunities. And that Montessori school, if you're familiar, it's a very non-traditional way, entrepreneurial way of learning, and that really set up the foundation for us being very innovative, very sort of self deductive learners that actually benefited both me and my brother equally in the same way. And so there's this yin yang of yes, the fact that they had high expectations for my brother allowed them to have high expectations for myself as well. I. Also because they had high expectations for me for getting a high quality education, my brother was able to get a high quality education that was also inclusive and modern, et cetera, et cetera. Hopefully that paints a picture of what I mean when I say high level of expectations. 

STEVEN

Yeah. Thank you so much for elaborating that. I'm a little inquisitive because your parent obviously had done a great job, and I know you've mentioned your relationship with your parents wasn't always the best.

So if they've done such a great job at making sure that the high level of expectations with at its highest, what their emotion behind them pushing you that the relationship wasn't always the best as someone with a disability. 

DIEGO

When I talk about the fact that my parents and I didn't have the best relationships, it usually pair with this story of their high level of expectations.

And now as an adult, I recognize that the challenge is my parents really didn't have any role models. They could look at of anybody that was a socioeconomic background in Mexico and that had the same philosophy of sort of independence that we did growing up. And so they were trailblazing on their own, really not finding resources of other parents or other networks to turn to. 

And oftentimes that would lead to very intense discussions. Granted, I've always had a very strong and stubborn personality, and so that also was part of the equation. But they would, for example, force me to have physical therapy every day. I'm grateful for that now, but when you're a kid and all your friends are playing soccer and having even on Friday nights having a good time, and I can't because I have to go to fricking physical therapy every single day of the week.

It's one of those things that it's really, really frustrating and the fact that I didn't see other disabled people like myself was also very isolating and so it was both a blessing and a curse. Fortunately. Now both my parents and I have a really good relationship, and I'm really grateful for everything they did.

But there was definitely some disagreements along the way as many parents and teenagers...

STEVEN

Many, many, 

KATIE

I can relate to a lot of that as well. I mean, I am the only blind child in my family, and so it's one of those situations where your parents pushing you, definitely pushes you to push yourself, and at the time you really hate it.

But then growing up and as an adult, it can really be an amazing thing. And I saw in your story too that this physical therapy, I mean you turned it into an opportunity to compete in swimming. Can you share a little bit about how you came to represent Nuevo Leone in the Mexican National Paralympics? 

DIEGO

Yes, absolutely. I mean, you said it right, exactly right. It was this sort of desire to make physical therapy more fun and engaging. And my physical therapist at the time saw that I had an aptitude for swimming and a passion for swimming. And he said, you know, why not compete? And it turned out the very first competition that he signed me up for was in a week, and it was one of the national competitions for swimming.

So we had a week to prepare and we won, and I was very confident. And what was interesting was like when we started the race, there was a big gap between me and the other person. But by the time we finished the race, I was very tired. And so it was very, very little difference between me and the other person.

But we won and I didn't realize the time how big of a deal that was. It was the first National Paralympic medal in my state for the Association of Athletes with Cerebral Palsy. And so it allowed for the Association to be put on the map. And I remember being on TV and getting all these accolades and attention, and I love the attention, but I didn't realize the magnitude of what that represented.

From there, I continued a formal career for about five years of being a professional athlete. What most people don't know is that while that was a really important part of my life, and it really showed me discipline and comradery with teammates and traveling nationwide, it stemmed from a place of ableism.

My thinking when I got in the pool and when I swam was I am not as disabled as they are, and so I'm gonna prove them wrong and I'm gonna beat them. I mean, I did very well professionally, but it would stem from a place of not being really proud of my disability or sort of embracing my disability in any way.

That's why when I moved to DC that was such a big shift in perspective and in my life. 

STEVEN

Wow. Would you say that development of ableism on yourself, that's pretty major. I don't know if we really touched on that on this show yet and we touch on so many different topics or it's just really wow to hear that you practiced that among yourself. Was that ableism or was it of hate a little bit of both?

DIEGO

I mean, I think internal ableism is almost safe self hate, right. When I think about my younger self, I don't blame myself for thinking that way. I think it's just a social construct, right? You don't see people succeeding at that level. So it's a natural, and frankly, sports are also very competitive, right?

At that level, right?  

STEVEN

And it comes from a desire of wanting to belong. I'm sure Katie knows how that feels. We all tend empathize on that. How did this sport actually translate to you being resilient and having and developing that entrepreneurial mindset? 

DIEGO

The thing that sports at that level will teach you in a very rigorous way is discipline.

I mean, you know, having to train every day at 6:00 AM, having to do two sessions sometimes of training a day, having to have a really rigorous diet. It was physical therapy on steroids. I am really grateful for that because it at a very early age, gave me a sense of discipline. It also gave me a sense of duty that I was doing this for something bigger than myself, and it gave me, in a weird way, a sense of belonging. Also a sense of purpose. What I'm doing is bigger than myself, which I think was very important at the time.

KATIE

You founded Limitless Prep Tech, which to this day is Monterrey's largest youth-led initiative. Can you talk a little more about that and how your sense of self, or maybe even the drive to succeed, helped you build that initiative so that other people could learn to experience things that they hadn't experienced before?

DIEGO When I grew up in Monterrey, Mexico, I started to, as a person with CP in his, I was probably 10 or 11 at that time. I started to have growing spurts, right? And my bones would grow, and my muscles would grow as well. And because of CP. My bones were growing at a faster rate than my muscles, and so that would cause for some deformity, which is normal on people with CP. And I started to have a lot of trouble walking. More trouble than I used to. And so my parents started to notice that and they took me to several specialists and they recommended that I move to Minnesota to have surgery with a specialist on kids with CP to reverse or deal with that. Those issues.

So my parents who are both Mexicans were shopping, and I was born six months and a half into my mom's pregnancy in New Orleans. They were supposed to go shopping for three days, and it turned into a three months stay. So my mom has actually developed some minor PTSD to New Orleans and has never gone back. 

KATIE

Oh no. 

DIEGO

Well, because I was a US citizen living in Mexico. My parents' thought it would be a good idea. Let's move there three months, let's have the insurance kick in. Then that's gonna help the recovery and all that. And originally we were only intending to stay in Minnesota for three months, but we ended up staying for two years, which was an incredible turning experience for me because Minnesota, I didn't know this at the time, but Minnesota is one of the states with the best healthcare and accommodations, especially for children.

And so I went from a world where my disability was seen as a problem as something to be fixed or cured to a world where disability was just another part of diversity. To the extent of, for example, my parents had always fought for me not to use a wheelchair as a way for me to maintain my independence.

And when we moved to Minnesota, they said I needed to have a wheelchair at least on site because if there was a fire, they needed to take me out quickly, and so they needed to have a wheelchair on site so that I could get out. Right. Those type of conversations, which never even occurred in Mexico. Right?

And like how I was gonna participate in afterschool programs and this and that and the other. When I was in Minnesota, I flourished. I joined every single afterschool program. I was involved in theater and science, in politics and debate in every single extracurricular activity. I was practically living in this school.

And so when I moved back to Mexico to finish high school, I didn't wanna move back. But when we moved back, I really wanted to teach other students what it was like. What I had experienced in Minnesota and what it was like to have a disability in the hopes to inspire them to wanna be actors of change.

And so that was the emphasis for trying to build Limitless. And yeah, it grew very rapidly, and I still see pictures on them on social media, and I'm very, very proud of that work. 

STEVEN

I love that so much. And you know, with you moving to Minnesota, when did you get the chance to work with other individuals with disabilities?

Because with you moving back and then suddenly you had that resilience to be able to pay it forward, where did that come from? 

DIEGO

Yeah, that's a great question. No, honestly, no. I think that what you're doing is so great guys, right, of promoting young people coming together because the only other disabled people I saw even in Minnesota were the special education kids.

The staff would joke and say, oh my God, Diego, he does not wanna hang out with us. And that came from that internalized ableism of, no, no, I do not belong in this classroom. And it goes back to right, the expectations of many special education classrooms are actually lower than non-disabled classrooms. And so when I saw that, I was like, I do not belong in a place like this in many ways.

I was again isolated and actually I gave you the proper formal answer for why I started Limitless. But it also stemmed from the fact that I wanted to make friends, and I figured my hometown was very entrepreneurial. So it wasn't uncommon for people to start businesses or organizations, things like that.

And so I saw how organizations, school groups, had the power to bring students together and form friendships and relationships. And so I remember thinking to myself, well, if I can't have any friends, the quote, unquote normal way, if we organize to make this group, then they'll be quote, unquote, forced to hang out with me.

And that was. In some ways a good, not necessarily the healthiest way, but a way to make friends and to have relationships, and it was clearly a very defining moment in my life. 

STEVEN

I love your courage. Love your courage. 

KATIE

That's so insightful and I really appreciate your honesty. I watched your TED Talk, and one of the things that I really loved is you're dividing your story into two parts.

Like here's the parts that everyone would call an inspiration, and then here are my true motives behind what I did what I did. It can be so easy for us to even when we're talking to each other or talking about ourselves, to only pull out those awesome, inspirational things that we've done and neglect the idea of how we talk about disability.

So I'm really curious, how should people be talking about disability? 

DIEGO

That's insightful question. Like any part of diversity in any part of all different facets of life, we all have a yin and yang. We often at 2Gether International talk about disability as a competitive advantage for business and how it can be a driver for innovation, creativity, resiliency.

And it can also make things challenging and it can make people more isolated, and they can make work harder because people are not afforded the same experiences. Or they're not afforded the same opportunities and so therefore they don't have the experience of what it's like to work in a job environment, et cetera, et cetera.

So I think to your question, how do we recognize or how should we be talking about disability really as this unique aspect of diversity that has both positive and negative aspects of it. I talked about it in my TED Talk. I don't think we should be referring to disabled people as heroes or villains.

It's really understanding that sometimes a disability requires a heroic experience, and sometimes it's going to come with more negative connotations, and it's just part of human diversity and part of the human experience that everybody will go through at some point in their lives. We can get bugged in the little details and sometimes that can distract us from making real meaningful progress.

To give you an example, one of my mentors who I'm sure you all know and look up to, her name was Judy Heumann. When people would start to talk about language and whether we should use first person language or people first language, she would share that she herself preferred identity first language because she identified as disabled and and disabled was an experience.

But she would often caveat this by saying, let's not get distracted by the language and not focus on quote, unquote, more substantive issues like employment, healthcare. Because the problem is that when you start to feel like you're making progress on those areas, which they're important areas to tackle with proportionality, then the other issues which are employment, which are institutionalization in many different countries, which is access to higher education or high expectations, get pushed down the sidelines in the name of making progress for this little initiative. So all that to say that I think as disabled people, we need to make sure that we're aware of what our spoons are and what our different levels of energies are and where is it worth us really sticking and picking a fight.

And where is it more important to use it as a learning opportunity to teach other people later on. 

KATIE

I love that approach. And speaking of establishing initiatives, could you share what inspired you to establish 2Gether International and how your personal experience shaped the organization's mission?

DIEGO

Absolutely. Absolutely. So I love that I just shared an anecdote about Judy Heumann 'cause she was a very, very close friend of mine and she was like my second mom. And the reason why it's so prevalent today, I got a Facebook notification saying that 11 years ago today was when we met at the UN. It's very special today for me in particular, But I remember meeting her and I think I met her the second year I went to this convention on the rights of persons with disabilities at the UN.

That was my first time ever meeting other disabled people that were unapologetically proud of their disability and thriving in their fields, really being at the top of their game. I mean, I remember this feeling of like, these are my people. This is where I belong. Yeah. And going back after the week at the UN and thinking, how do I replicate this?

How do we make sure that not just the elite that get the amazing opportunity to go to the UN, have this chance to be connected with these people and to do all these things? That was really the motivating factor in building 2Gether International. Building this community of people that were proud of their disability, that were unapologetic about having a disability.

What's interesting, and I don't think a lot of people realize now, we focus on supporting entrepreneurs with disabilities. We are the largest accelerator for founders with disabilities, but we didn't start out that way. We started in 2012. It was doing workshops in schools, much like I had done in Mexico with Limitless.

That didn't work for a variety of reasons. And then we focused on the advocacy campaigns and that didn't really work, and it wasn't on our third iteration that we really nailed down that we wanted to focus on entrepreneurship. What's interesting about the journey is that the mission never waivered, meaning the mission of being proud and unapologetically disabled and celebrating disability as a competitive advantage never really shifted. The means in which we went about doing that did certainly right from workshops in schools to advocacy campaigns, to now supporting entrepreneurs. But the mission never waivered. And I think that's one of our signature secret sauces. 

STEVEN

Well, we love that so much. And what is one of the most exciting entrepreneurial ideas that 2Gether International, actually supported?

DIEGO

Oh my God, so many. We have more than 700 entrepreneurs that we've supported, but Eric Ingram does satellite inspection in space, which is really exciting. Keely Cadwell had a top tier talent agency for disabled artists that she ended up selling. It was one of the major acquisitions by a disabled entrepreneur, which has been amazing.

We just had a cohort that ended last week. The winner of that cohort is doing solar powered hearing aids for people who are deaf and hard of hearing in Africa. So super interesting and diverse businesses and perspective. 

STEVEN 

I would love to know what is the best advice you have given or can give entrepreneurs out there?

DIEGO

The best advice I would give to people is, well, I'm gonna cheat and I'm gonna say three things. One would be to trust yourself and trust your gut.. I had the fortune of having many wonderful mentors throughout my life, many of which, including Judy Human. We would have long discussions about why she didn't agree with an approach that we were doing, and we would talk almost every single day.

It was an amazing experience. And I would listen to her and I would really take in what she had to say, but ultimately I chose to go a different path or chose to continue to do what I was doing. And I think that ability that I've had, and that was because I was, we can go in there if you want, but that was because at the time I was working with a therapist.

My parents were getting divorced and so I started working with a therapist and that really taught me the value of trusting my own voice and learning to believe in my own perspective and my own experiences. So that would be advice number one. Number two would be to really, while it is important to trust yourself and to trust your instincts, it's also very important to learn how to listen.

That is the number one thing that I think entrepreneurs and advocates and people need to do. To listen, really listen to people. That doesn't mean that you always have to agree. That doesn't mean that you always have to be on their side, but it does mean that you have to try to be empathic because I think that will give you a lot of insight, not just into your business, but also into a different perspective.

And then the third would be to recognize that if you're going to start a business or an entrepreneurship journey, it is likely going to be harder than you thought, but you're going to succeed in many ways. Not in spite of your disability, but because of it, because of the resiliency, because of the tenacity, because of the creativity that has required you to live a life with a disability, that same resiliency, creativity, tenacity, is going to drive you through and help you be successful. And so leaning into that is critical. 

KATIE

Thank you so much for sharing all of those really insightful ideas and practices. Could you share a pivotal moment in your journey that reinforced your commitment to integrating disability as a competitive advantage in your business? 

DIEGO

Yes. I was about to give up at one point, I think it was, 2014, maybe 2016. And I was really seriously looking at other jobs and just other opportunities because it wasn't panning out. And then my parents got divorced and I started seeing this therapist and I remember me saying something like, I'm really angry or I'm really upset. And him saying, okay, that makes sense.

Or me saying like, I have this idea, or I think that this way, and him saying, that's a great idea, validating a lot of what I was experiencing. And I think as disabled people, even within our own community, we can often invalidate ourselves right in the language of trying to be helpful in the name of trying to make the world a better place.

We can, not on purpose, but trying to be helpful. We can invalidate each other's ideas or perspectives. So that was a turning point in my life because when he started to do that to me and I started to feel like, wait, what I have to say does have value and does have merit and does have a different perspective?

Then I started to believe in myself, and as soon as I started to believe in myself, I started making really significant progress. And then the rest is history. 

STEVEN

And history you did for sure. Now, I know back in the day you used to do the student group that you've developed. Do you still do those sessions?

DIEGO

No, no, I don't. Those sessions were, it was a really interesting approach, so we would do things like eating without being able to see or using public transportation in a wheelchair or communicating without speaking. And I think in the context of Mexico, it was really well received because there wasn't a lot of progress in the disability space.

When I tried to translate that here in the States, people started comparing it to blackface, right? And sort of experiencing what it's like to, how are you really gonna know what it feels like if you experience this for a day? And so I got a lot of criticism. This is what I was saying, of sometimes we invalidate or criticize each other in the name of progress.

And I'm not saying that the criticism wasn't valid, but I do think that to hear it from other disabled people at the time was certainly very difficult. I was very stubborn. I tried for two years to launch that and we did. We did a workshop in schools. There weren't a lot of disabled leaders. In the organization, and I felt like as I was getting older and more sophisticated in my advocacy, I also realized the importance of nothing about us without us, right?

And having disabled people at the helm. Students were excited to participate. They were interested in engaging. But disabled people were not super thrilled. I mean, we had like maybe one other disabled person, maybe two in positions of leadership, and I really didn't see a sustainable path to maintaining the interest of the disability community long term.

And so where as, when you flip it and when we were focusing on entrepreneurship, immediately we have five or six disabled volunteers really wanting to get their hands dirty. Even in volunteers, right before we had any money, really trying to solve the issue around disability and entrepreneurship. So the community itself responded in various different ways to simulations in schools versus business ownership.

KATIE

Can you share more about the impact of 2Gether International's accelerator programs on both the entrepreneurs with disabilities and also on the broader entrepreneurial ecosystem itself? 

DIEGO

Absolutely. On the entrepreneurs with disability side, I think it's really one of the more positive pieces of feedback that we received is for many of them, it's the first accelerator that they've been a part of where their disability is acknowledge and recognized.

I mean, one of our first interview questions when we're even selecting people is do you have any accommodation needs? Is there anything that we can do to make this process more inclusive for you? Just that right off the bat is disarming and allows people to show up as their authentic self. That from the entrepreneurship perspective and being in a community of disabled entrepreneurs that have similar experiences, I think can also be very fulfilling.

From the larger entrepreneurship ecosystem perspective, they recognize that most of the time they're not engaging with entrepreneurs with disabilities because they don't have the know-how, the skillset, et cetera. I'll give you an example. Because of the work that we've done and because I had intern, didn't know that this was gonna lead to anything specific, but when I was billing together, I had interned at the Inter-American Development Bank, which is sort of the think of the World Bank, but specifically for Latin America.

Built good relationships there. Realized that it wasn't really for me build together to a certain size, and then we reconnected and now we're launching the largest ecosystem project in the region, focusing on entrepreneurs with disabilities and entrepreneurs working in the disability space for 26 countries.

In the region supporting more than 600 entrepreneurs. And so their biggest and first ecosystem project in the region, it is because of the work that we've done. And so, as much as the success of Together lies in the success of the entrepreneurs, it's also about changing policy, about changing pathways, about changing minds, perceptions of disabled people across the world, and the fact that we've been able to do that at a pretty high level makes me really proud and and excited for what's to come.

Sometimes I sit in the bus and I think if 22-year-old me would've known where I would be, how proud am I now? Right? And so it does give me a lot of satisfaction and gratitude. And at the same time, I also recognize that we're only getting started. I mean, you talk about we've supported 700 entrepreneurs, we're about to support 600 more. Our goal by 2030 is to support 5,000 entrepreneurs. And established the first ever fund for founders with disabilities at a five to $10 million fund. And so those are big scale goals. We're right now in two major regions in the world. By 2030, we're hoping to be in four or five different major regions in the world.

So strap on, 'cause we're just getting started. And this is only the beginning. But beyond that, beyond 2030, really our vision is a world where disability is recognized as a competitive advantage for business and celebrated in that way, and that's seen through employment, that's seen through support for entrepreneurs, through schools as well, et cetera, et cetera.

KATIE

Awesome. What is your call to action or how can people get involved in the amazing work you're doing? 

DIEGO

Yeah, so check us out on our website 2gether-international.org, , or you can also type in 2gi.org and it'll take you to the website and in there you can see all our programs that can support many different entrepreneurs depending on what stage of business they're at. I would love to, to meet you and to hear more about the amazing work that you all are working on. 

NARRATOR

Innovating Inclusion is a production of the Fox Family Foundation, whose mission is to break the link between poverty and disability. Our goal is to teach students to innovate with universal design and inclusivity in mind, where young entrepreneurs of all abilities create side-by-side. So as they become the next generation of leaders and hiring managers. Any stigma is gone and the world is accessible to everyone. 

Our theme song was written by Alex Kat, with Incidental Music by Travis, a King, and Bruce McGinnis. Our hosts today were Steven McCoy and Katie Corbett with Angie Castro. 

This episode was also co-produced by Angie Castro. Our producer is Akira Nakano. 

Please visit our website innovating inclusion.org.