I've lived in the city my entire life, and I've been a Google now for 12 going on 13 years summer of 2009 July 29th.

I was taking my usual morning walk through Central Park, but that day I never got to work.

As I was walking through the park, a dead limb fell at the exact moment that I was walking underneath that tree onto my head.

After being more or less in a coma for a month and having a number of surgeries and and many things to bring me back from the brink, nobody knows what they're gonna debt.

Nobody can see what's inside.

But I I knew I was in there that I felt the same.

The body certainly felt awfully different.

But what I what I came to see.

What I came to learn about was that there's a whole hidden world out there in this very city that I grew up in.

That's very excluding and endangering to people with disabilities.

And I came to realize, Oh, snap this place that I was already working and slowly was able to get back to Google maps, Google maps that a lot of people use to get around.

It doesn't work for people like me, so I can look up directions.

I could look up a restaurant to go to, but it didn't say, Is it wheelchair accessible?

Can I get in the door?

Can I go to the bathroom?

So So we started to assemble.

What I lovingly still refers to is my rag tag team of 20 percenters Urabe along along that way with that that ragtag committed group to put together things that that weren't just barely a demo.

But we're really features that could go on maps.

And I'm proud have been part of that.

The idea that I always try to raise when I position to talk to people on getting their consciousnesses curb cut effect curb cuts are those is the technical name for those little ramps at the edge of curbs cities on sidewalk that you know that those little things that you use when you're rolling your luggage or your stroller or your wheelchair were delivery cart.

When you build things to protect and enabled the most vulnerable people, it helps a lot more putting wheelchair accessibility on maps is a curb cut.

The concept is also known more as universal design build in the way that enables the maximum number of people to benefit, build, build thoughtfully, plenty more work to do.

No doubt about that.

We're still after we're at The barricades were out there and we're making our voices heard.

And it makes all the difference to know that you're not in alone and to perform those groups and find those allies at Google around New York, in the world, in the legal world and to know that is indescribably enormously empowering.

And whether we get there tomorrow, the next day, the next year, to know you're making progress on that.

You have allies, people who got your back makes all the difference, and it makes me want to keep after it.