When inclusivity-focused employment platform Enabled Talent launched last year to make every job disability-inclusive, that didn’t really include self-employment. Now it does.
This year, the Brampton-founded, now Sudbury-based company will launch the Canada Disability Entrepreneurs Network (CDEN), an accelerator-like program meant to help disabled Canadians become entrepreneurs by providing community and mentorship, as well as assistance with finding funding pathways and business growth opportunities.
“In the entirety of Canada, there isn’t even a single institution supporting self-employment or entrepreneurship for people with disabilities.”
Amandipp Singh,
Enabled Talent
Enabled Talent founder and CEO Amandipp Singh, who will lead the new initiative separate from his company, told BetaKit in an interview on Tuesday that Canada has “extensive” but fragmented resources that CDEN can help prospective disabled entrepreneurs navigate, on top of a community of people just like them that have done it before.
“Let’s say someone is a wheelchair user working in some competitive industry, which might need a lot of travelling; being able to get assistance from someone who has been on that path could be a very big game changer,” Singh said.
Singh said the idea grew out of community groups he’s been part of where disabled businesspeople supported each other and met up through platforms like WhatsApp and meetup.com. It was further developed with the Enabled Talent Fellowship Program, which Singh described as the “seed that turned out to be a good idea,” and will be replaced by the more fulsome CDEN.
“Community, especially for people with disabilities, plays a very key role,” Singh, who was born with partial vision, said. “In the entirety of Canada, there isn’t even a single institution supporting self-employment or entrepreneurship for people with disabilities.”
The CDEN is an extension of Singh’s desire to help disabled people find their place in the job market. He started Enabled Talent to help organizations hire disabled people by matchmaking them with jobs that fit their abilities, as well as providing tools that make those jobs and the hiring process more accessible.
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The platform recently launched PowerSpeak, a new free tool designed to help those with speech and communication-related disabilities. It provides a soundboard-like interface for iOS devices, similar to other Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) platforms, but it doesn’t cost hundreds of dollars.
“Being a company building into accessibility, people would say that if you want to build something, we can’t afford this $600 app, this is something you could do,” Singh said, noting there’s high demand for an Android version. “They were like ‘employment is [secondary], when this is out, they [can] start looking for employment.’”
Singh said some of Enabled Talent’s infrastructure and tools, such as its talent matchmaking, will be an underlying part of CDEN despite being a separate entity. The new organization will be based out of a Sudbury office with chapters across Canada, including New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland, and Nova Scotia, with Alberta and Saskatchewan “in progress.” Singh said he has brought in some people to help run individual chapters, but the program itself is remote and won’t require relocating.
Singh added that CDEN is getting off the ground thanks to in-kind support by its team members, and will be looking for external funding in the near future. Registration for CDEN is set to open this week, with its “hard launch” coming this fall.
Feature image courtesy Enabled Talent.