👉 What: Event: Can We Talk: Adaptation Ventures and Dr. Kirk Adams
📍 Where: World Trade Center Seattle
📅 When: January 22, 2026 from 7:30 AM PST to 10:30 AM PST
✏️ Register: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/can-we-talk-adaptation-ventures-and-dr-kirk-adams-tickets-1976959531176
There’s a sentence I’ve learned to trust, because it keeps showing up in boardrooms, in product roadmaps, and in the quiet, frustrated moments when a smart person can’t access the tool everyone else takes for granted:
We are leaving an extraordinary amount of money, and human potential, on the table.
Not $18 million. Not $18 billion.
$18 trillion.
That number represents the annual purchasing power connected to disability, people with disabilities and the family members, friends, and supporters who make purchasing decisions alongside them. Adaptation Ventures puts the point plainly: $18T in disposable income in a market that most investors still treat like a niche category instead of what it is, a global economic force.
So when World Trade Center Seattle invited me to join Brittany Palmer and Rich Palmer of Adaptation Ventures for their next Can We Talk breakfast conversation, I didn’t hesitate.
This is exactly the conversation we should be having in Seattle, right now.
Thesis
Disability, neurodivergence, and aging are not side markets. They are the world’s largest overlooked market, and the next decade of breakthrough innovation will be shaped by the leaders who stop treating accessibility as compliance and start treating it as strategy.
World Trade Center Seattle is hosting this session on January 22, 2026, from 7:30-10:30 AM, and the framing is direct: “Don’t Leave $18T on the Table!”
What I Hope This Article Accomplishes
In the spirit of my own work, “rainbows and concrete,” aspiration and execution, here’s what I want to do in the next few minutes:
- Translate the $18T headline into a business reality you can act on.
- Introduce Adaptation Ventures, and why their model matters for founders and investors alike.
- Explain why I’m showing up for this conversation in Seattle, and why I hope you will too.
The $18T Reality: This Market Is Already Here
The first mistake we make is thinking disability is a small population.
It isn’t.
Adaptation Ventures anchors its thesis in numbers most investors rarely put on a slide:
- 1.85B+ people with disabilities globally
- $18T in disposable income connected to people with disabilities and supporters
- 9x ROI per $1 spent on assistive technology
- <2% of VC capital going to disability/accessible tech (a striking mismatch between need and investment)
Now add the most human line on the World Trade Center Seattle event page:
“Nearly everyone will experience some form of disability in their lifetime.”
So if we’re still treating disability as “other,” we’re not just excluding people, we’re misunderstanding reality. Disability is not a distant category. It is the human condition, unfolding over time.
Why Investors Have Missed It
TechCrunch captured what Brittany Palmer told them during the early days of raising capital: many venture firms simply didn’t understand the disability community, how big it is, and what it means to sell into it.
That lack of understanding becomes self-fulfilling:
- Founders struggle to raise early capital.
- Products stall at prototype.
- Markets remain underserved.
- Investors point to “lack of traction” as proof the market is small.
But the market isn’t small.
The capital is.
And The Macro Trend Is Not Slowing Down
The PR Newswire announcement for Adaptation Ventures notes that the global assistive technology market is projected to reach $31.22B by 2030, driven by AI, digital infrastructure, and rising demand for accessible products and services.
This is not a “maybe someday” story. This is a “right now” story.
Why Adaptation Ventures Matters: First Money In Changes Everything
I’ve spent much of my adult life at the intersection of inclusion and systems change. And if there’s one lesson I want every investor, founder, and executive to hear, it’s this:
Early capital shapes what becomes possible.
Adaptation Ventures launched as the nation’s first angel group exclusively focused on early-stage disability and accessible tech startups. That is not a branding flourish. That is a structural correction in an ecosystem that has ignored this category for decades.
On its own site, Adaptation describes itself as a “pioneering pre-seed fund” dedicated to disability, neurodivergence, and accessibility, backing venture-scalable solutions for nearly 2 billion people.
On the investor side, their model is refreshingly practical:
- 16+ curated investment opportunities per year
- A collaborative diligence process
- Quarterly meetings and active member engagement
- A community layer: speaker series, office hours, virtual and in-person gatherings
This matters because founders don’t just need money. They need:
- fast feedback,
- informed diligence,
- distribution pathways,
- and a community that understands the “why” and the “how.”
TechCrunch captured Rich Palmer’s point in a way that made me nod hard:
There were no angel groups in this space, no “first money in” helping companies get from point A to point B.
Adaptation Ventures exists to be that first money in.
Brittany And Rich Palmer: Why Their Leadership Is Credible, And Different
Some people build funds.
Some people build movements.
What Brittany and Rich are doing is closer to movement-building, because it’s grounded in two things that are rarely combined at this level:
- lived experience, and
- proven startup and investing track records.
Brittany Palmer: Founder + Disability Advocate + Investor
On Adaptation’s team page, Brittany shares the straightforward fact that she was born as a bilateral, below-elbow amputee, and that lifelong adaptation informs her investment thesis.
She also brings deep operator experience:
- Founder & CEO of Beeyonder, a live, interactive virtual travel startup aimed at equal access to travel, serving people with disabilities, seniors, corporations, schools, and more.
- Advisory Group Member for the Howe Innovation Center at Perkins School for the Blind and on the AAPD Innovation Steering Committee.
- Recognized with awards including an AccessABILITY Award at CES and a Big Innovation Award (as listed by Adaptation Ventures).
She understands founders because she is one. She understands disability markets because she lives in them. And she understands what early capital can unlock because she has lived through what happens when it’s missing.
Rich Palmer: AI Entrepreneur + Early-Stage Investing Leader + Survivor
Rich’s background is similarly multifaceted:
- Former Managing Director of Launchpad Venture Group and Board Director of the Angel Capital Association
- Co-founder of Gravyty, an AI company for social good (PR Newswire notes it successfully exited).
- A brain aneurysm rupture survivor, which reframed his relationship with healthcare, risk, and human vulnerability.
If you’ve ever wondered what it looks like when a high-performing tech investor really internalizes the fragility of the human body, and builds a business thesis from that insight, Rich is an example.
The Leadership Advantage: The Market Is Finally In The Room
There is an old, damaging pattern in accessibility work: decisions get made about disabled people without disabled people.
Adaptation Ventures flips that.
Their website says it plainly: they offer personal insight as disability advocates with lived experience spanning limb difference, traumatic brain injury, and neurodivergence.
That matters because inclusion isn’t just a value statement. It is a design requirement. A diligence lens. A product advantage.
Why I’m Joining Them At World Trade Center Seattle
I’m a Seattle guy.
I’ve also lived as a blind person since early childhood. I have been a frustrated job seeker, a working professional, a nonprofit CEO, and an employer of hundreds of blind and DeafBlind people. I’ve watched what happens when systems are built for only one kind of human, and I’ve watched what happens when leaders decide to build better.
So when World Trade Center Seattle, an organization founded by the Port of Seattle to bring leaders together and foster regional economic growth, creates space for this conversation, it makes sense to show up.
WTC Seattle describes itself as a partnership that convenes the Port, trade community, corporations, and nonprofits, essentially a “connector” institution. That’s exactly the kind of platform where we can accelerate disability innovation, because disability innovation is not a single-sector issue.
It requires:
- capital,
- talent,
- corporate procurement,
- policy support,
- community trust,
- and products built with real users in mind.
This is also why the Can We Talk format matters. The series is described (in WTC Seattle’s public communications) as being presented by the Port of Seattle and encouraging open, honest conversations, even difficult ones.
And we need honest conversations about why disability has been excluded from mainstream investment logic for so long.
What We’ll Explore At “Can We Talk: Don’t Leave $18T On The Table!”
The WTC Seattle event page sets the stage:
This event invites you to meet innovators, learn from technology experts, and explore investment opportunities in accessibility, neurodivergence, and aging, one of the world’s largest underserved markets.
Here’s what I expect we’ll dig into, in concrete terms:
1) What does “disability innovation” actually look like in 2026?
Not just wheelchairs. Not just screen readers.
Disability innovation is also:
- AI-driven captioning and communication tools
- hands-free computing and navigation
- accessible fintech and healthcare interfaces
- neurodivergent-friendly workflow platforms
- aging-in-place technologies
- inclusive travel, education, and employment systems
2) How do investors evaluate “accessible tech” as venture-scale?
A serious conversation about investment means we talk about:
- distribution channels,
- customer acquisition cost,
- procurement pathways (including enterprise and government),
- regulatory environments,
- and how inclusive design can expand TAM rather than constrain it.
3) How do corporate leaders become accelerators, not spectators?
If you lead a company, you have levers beyond writing a check:
- procurement,
- pilots,
- partnerships,
- hiring,
- supplier diversity,
- and internal product accountability.
Who Should Be In The Room?
If you’re any of the following, I believe this event is for you:
- Investors who want returns and relevance
- Founders building disability, neurodivergence, or aging solutions
- Corporate leaders responsible for innovation, DEI, product, or talent
- Nonprofit and public-sector leaders shaping services, access, and policy
- Anyone who understands that the next decade of market growth will reward inclusion
Nuance And Counterarguments (Because Smart People Will Ask)
I’m not interested in hype. I’m interested in durable change.
So let’s name a few questions I expect thoughtful readers to ask, and answer them honestly.
“Is the $18T figure real, or marketing?”
It depends on what’s included.
Some analyses focus on disability-only purchasing power. Others include the broader ecosystem of family members and supporters who influence buying decisions. Adaptation Ventures explicitly frames the $18T as disposable income of “people with disabilities and supporters.”
Whether you model it as $8T, $18T, or something in between, the directional truth stands:
This is a massive market that has been systematically undervalued.
“Is accessibility too expensive to build into products?”
Here’s the thing: accessibility is expensive when you bolt it on at the end.
It’s cheaper when it’s part of design from the beginning.
Adaptation Ventures points to a 9x ROI per $1 spent on assistive technology.
The real cost isn’t accessibility.
The real cost is exclusion:
- lost customers,
- lost talent,
- lost loyalty,
- reputational damage,
- and the long tail of retrofits.
“Is disability tech too niche to scale?”
That question assumes disability is niche.
But “nearly everyone will experience some form of disability in their lifetime.”
Disability isn’t niche. It’s universal, just unevenly distributed over time.
And innovations built for the margins often end up in the mainstream. If you want a simple example: curb cuts were built for wheelchair users, and now they benefit parents with strollers, travelers with luggage, delivery workers, cyclists, everyone.
Accessible design scales because humans share constraints.
Three Takeaways, And One Invitation
If you remember nothing else, remember these three points:
- The disability economy is not a charitable footnote, it’s a market reality.
- Adaptation Ventures exists to fix the “first money in” gap that keeps accessible innovation from scaling.
- Seattle is exactly the kind of place where this conversation should become action, because we have capital, talent, tech, and a culture of invention.
My Invitation To You
Join me at World Trade Center Seattle on January 22, 2026 (7:30-10:30 AM PT) for Can We Talk: Don’t Leave $18T on the Table!
Come meet Brittany and Rich Palmer. Come meet the innovators and leaders in the room. Come with your questions, your skepticism, your curiosity, and your willingness to see what’s possible when inclusion becomes an investment strategy.
And if you can’t attend, you can still participate:
- Share this article with one investor and one founder.
- Ask your leadership team where accessibility shows up (or doesn’t) in your strategy.
- If you invest, start looking at accessible tech as an intentional thesis, not a one-off exception.
- If you build products, invite disabled users into the room early and often.
Because inclusion isn’t just the right thing to do, it’s a strategic advantage.
” Inclusion isn’t just the right thing to do — it’s a strategic advantage. “
Dr. Kirk Adams, Ph.D.
Advocate, Leader and Keynote Speaker on Disability Inclusion & Leadership
Leading the Way to Accessible Innovation
Institute for Sustainable Diversity and Inclusion (ISDI)
Executive Director
Strengthening individual and organizational capability for creating diverse, inclusive and equitable workplaces.
Innovative Impact, LLC Consulting
Managing Director
Impactful Workforce Inclusion Starts Here
American Foundation for the Blind
Immediate Past President & CEO
To create a world of no limits for people who are blind or visually impaired.
Connect With Me:
🌍 Website: https://drkirkadams.com
📧 Email: kirkadams@drkirkadams.com
📞 Phone: +1 (206) 660-1363
📃 Dissertation: https://drkirkadams.com/dissertation
🎙️ Podcasts: https://drkirkadams.com/podcasts
🎙️ Apple Podcasts: https://drkirkadams.com/podcasts-apple
🎙️ Amazon Music: https://drkirkadams.com/podcasts-amazon
🎙️ Spotify: https://drkirkadams.com/podcasts-spotify
🎙️ iHeart Radio: https://drkirkadams.com/podcasts-iheart-radio
📧 Subscribe: https://drkirkadams.com/subscribe
💬 Facebook: https://drkirkadams.com/facebook
💬 LinkedIn (Individual): https://drkirkadams.com/linkedin
💬 LinkedIn (Company): https://drkirkadams.com/linkedinpage
💬 Mastodon: https://drkirkadams.com/mastodon
✏️ Medium: https://drkirkadams.com/medium
🛜 RSS: https://drkirkadams.com/feed
💬 X (Formerly Twitter): https://drkirkadams.com/x
📽️ YouTube: https://drkirkadams.com/youtube
📍 Address: 140 Lakeside Avenue, Suite A, Seattle, Washington 98122-6538