In this episode of Building AI Boston, we sit down with Raquel Ronzone, Associate Director of Strategy & Partnerships at the Howe Innovation Center at Perkins School for the Blind. Raquel shares her powerful story of being born four months premature with Retinopathy of Prematurity and how that experience fuels her work connecting the disability community with the innovation community. We talk about why accessibility is everyone’s business, why disability is the only group anyone can join at any time, and how many of the “everyday” technologies we rely on—from touchscreens to audiobooks—actually began as disability tech. Raquel also explains the $40B opportunity in disability innovation, the gap between what people with disabilities truly need and what the market builds, and how Perkins is mapping more than 2,500 disability tech solutions worldwide. It’s a hopeful, practical conversation about designing for real people—not edge cases. Building AI Boston – https://BuildingAIBoston.com Perkins School for the Blind – https://www.perkins.org Howe Innovation Center – https://www.perkins.org/howe-innovation-center Raquel Ranzone (LinkedIn) – https://www.linkedin.com/in/raquelronzone/ Apple Podcasts – https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/building-ai-boston/id Spotify – https://open.spotify.com/show/building-ai-boston YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/@BuildingAIBoston

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“What did the council decide on item 42?” — answered with the speaker and the moment.