“We looked at what the [technology] industry is already doing in philanthropy, and we realized that there were two growing yet often overlooked populations that was older adults and people with disabilities,” explains Stephen Ewell, executive director of the Consumer Technology Association Foundation.
The CTA Foundation is the philanthropic arm of the Consumer Technology Association (CTA) which produces CES.
Ewell joined WorkingNation’s editor-in-chief Ramona Schindelheim for WorkingNation Overheard at CES 2024 in Las Vegas to share his thoughts on how technology is improving the lives of older adults and people with disabilities.
He says the organization supports the mission through three pillars – convening, innovation, and grantmaking.
Ewell says he sees the “promise” technology holds to improve lives. “There’s so much incredible innovation out there. There are challenges. I will absolutely agree with that.
He notes a variety of programs are helping people, “One is looking at the types of technologies that can create social connections, looking at the types of technologies that can help people stay in the workforce longer if they choose to and if they want to. In many cases, some people need to stay in the workforce longer. So, helping to enable that, getting people connected with the skills that they need.
Ewell continues, “A lot of the programs we support are around technology, training, and education. We see that there’s a real gap in awareness, both from consumers knowing what technologies are out there that they could need or could use, but also from companies being aware of the needs of older adults and people with disabilities.
“That’s once again why we try to really advance these conversations because we can see the way that just addressing this and including older adults in these discussions makes a massive difference in the opportunity for those technologies to help people.”
Ewell is positive about the role tech is playing, “When I meet these founders and look at the types of ideas that they’re creating, the problems that they’re trying to solve, I’m really a technology optimist for the opportunities that this technology can provide across work, home, and out at play.”
Learn more about the Consumer Technology Association Foundation.
Learn more about CES 2024.
Funding for WorkingNation Overheard at CES 2024 was provided, in part, by Walmart.
© Copyright 2024 by Structural Unemployment, LLC dba WorkingNation
Dana Beth Ardi, PhD, Executive Committee, is a thought leader and expert in the fields of executive search, talent management, organizational design, assessment, leadership and coaching. As an innovator in the human capital movement, Ardi creates enhanced value in companies by matching the most sought after talent with the best opportunities. Ardi coaches boards and investors on the art and science of building high caliber management teams. She provides them with the necessary skills to seek out and attract top-level management, to design the ideal organizational architectures and to deploy people against strategy. Ardi unearths the way a business works and the most effective way for people to work in them.
Ardi is an experienced business executive and senior consultant who leverages business organizational transformation through talent strategies. She uses her knowledge and experience to develop talent strategies to enhance revenue and profit contributions. She has a deep expertise in change management and organizational effectiveness and has designed and built high performance cultures. Ardi has significant experience in mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, IPO’s and turnarounds.
Ardi is an expert on the multi-generational workforce. She understands the four intersecting generations of workers coming together in contemporary companies, each with their own mindsets, leadership and communications styles, values and motivations. Ardi is sought after to assist companies manage and thrive by bringing the generations together. Her book, Fall of the Alphas: How Beta Leaders Win Through Connection, Collaboration and Influence, will be published by St. Martin’s Press. The book reflects Ardi’s deep expertise in understanding organizations and our changing society. It focuses on building a winning culture, how companies must grow and evolve, and how talent influences and shapes communities of work. This is what she has coined “Corporate Anthropology.” It is a playbook on how modern companies must meet challenges – culturally, globally, digitally, across genders and generations.
Ardi is currently the Managing Director and Founder of Corporate Anthropology Advisors, LLC, a consulting company that provides human capital advisory and innovative solutions to companies building value through people. Corporate Anthropology works with organizations, their cultures, the way they grow and develop, and the people who are responsible for forming their communities of work.
Prior to her position at Corporate Anthropology Advisors, Ardi served as a Partner/Managing Director at the private equity firms CCMP Capital and JPMorgan Partners. She was a partner at Flatiron Partners, a venture capital firm working with early state companies where she pioneered the human capital role within an investment portfolio.
Ardi holds a BS from the State University of New York at Buffalo as well as a Masters degree and PhD from Boston College. She started her career as professor at the Graduate Center at Fordham University in New York.
