Inclusive Tech Lab at Microsoft: Minding the Gap Between People with Disabilities and Those Without

“If we solve for the most extreme disability scenario, it will automatically benefit everyone else” – Microsoft Inclusive Lab

The Office for Nursing Research moved and remodeled their lab then moved and is remodeling office space. Our director visited the Microsoft Inclusive Tech lab about a year ago, as it offers public and individual tours. Below are some videos that have been posted to the internet that describe the Microsoft Inclusive Lab and the work they do there.

An inside look at Microsoft’s Inclusive Tech Lab | Microsoft campus tour

Inclusive design is innovative design is beautiful design. Welcome to Microsoft’s Inclusive Tech Lab, a state-of-the-art facility dedicated to advancing inclusive design. Located on Microsoft’s Redmond Campus, the Inclusive Tech Lab is a space dedicated to inclusive modern life and education, accessible productivity, and gaming for people with disabilities. The facility is crafted so people with disabilities can explore assistive and adaptive technologies, inclusively designed products, and sensory experiences – it’s a space for people with disabilities, not about people with disabilities.

2022 article on Edgaget, Inside Microsoft’s new Inclusive Tech Lab, refers to it as “An embassy for people with disabilities.”

2022 PBS interview with Microsoft Chief Disability Officer: Inclusive Tech Lab at Microsoft: Minding the Gap Between People with Disabilities and Those Without

Seattle Times | April 2025

U.S. Health, Education and Welfare Secretary Joseph L. Califano is helped onto a table to speak on April 5, 1977, at HEW in Washington, D.C. Demonstrators staged a historic sit-in for weeks at the office to demand enforcement of civil rights laws for people with disabilities. (AP Photo)

“One in five people reading this has a disability. Some try to avoid that label at all costs; for others, it provides a right to participation in the community and success at school and in the workforce. Now these rights, like so many others, are at risk.”

UW Professor at the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering and CREATE Director, Jennifer ManKoff shares insights & advocacy ideas in her article.

ManKoff talks about how the rollback of DEI programs by the Trump Administration is creating an “orchestrated attack by conservatives to dismantle the rights of people with disabilities,” with a special focus on any DEIA (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility) initiatives. By targetting any DEI and DEIA, disability inclusion efforts may now be called into question.

If these proposed changes become a reality, they will negateively afftect the rights of people with disabilities.

“Disability accommodations made it possible for me to become a professor and are vital to the success of many of my disabled students and colleagues.”