704. How Special Olympics is Using AI + Technology to Scale Belonging - Nathan Cook

Summary

We Are For Good Podcast - Ep. 704

How Special Olympics is Using AI + Technology to Scale Belonging
Guest: Nathan Cook, Chief Information and Technology Officer, Special Olympics International
Date: April 29, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode features Nathan Cook, the Chief Information and Technology Officer at Special Olympics International, in a deep-dive conversation about the organization’s innovative use of AI and technology. The discussion centers on how digital transformation is scaling inclusion and belonging for millions of athletes with intellectual and developmental disabilities. With fresh insights and practical stories, Nathan unpacks the strategy, challenges, and philosophy behind building a more accessible and empowering global movement.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Nathan Cook’s Journey & Philosophy

• Intersection of Technology and Humanity:
  • Nathan describes his lifelong fascination with how technology can enrich human lives, starting with childhood memories of programming robots ([03:04]).
  • Quote:

    "I've spent my entire career focused on how we can use technology to improve the human experience...what I'm doing now, which is way more important and valuable than any of that, transforming the lives of people with disabilities." (Nathan Cook, [03:04])

• Personal Reflection:
  • Nathan has worked across sectors, finding the most meaning in empowering people with disabilities.

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2. Fragmentation & Digital Transformation at Special Olympics

• The Challenge:
  • Special Olympics serves over 5 million athletes across 172 countries, but their systems were historically fragmented and not user-friendly for athletes ([01:29]).
• Vision for Inclusion:
  • Only 3% of the global community of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities are reached—they aspire to reach all 200 million.
• Role of Technology:
  • Digital transformation is crucial for scaling impact, creating efficiency, and empowering athletes to manage their own information ([05:04]).
  • Result:
    • Transition to new registration systems now allows roughly 50% of athletes (2.5 million people) to self-register—dramatically reducing volunteer workload and increasing agency ([06:42]).
    • Quote:

      "That's 2.5 million individuals who are now able to own their own information, be empowered, be enabled..." (Nathan Cook, [06:42])

• Scaling Coaches & Community:
  • Recognizes the exponential need for scaling coaches and resources with AI recruitment tools ([08:05]).

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3. The Power of Universal Design & Inclusive Co-Creation

• "Nothing About Us Without Us":
  • Design starts by involving those served in every step: athletes guide tech solutions from conception ([09:04]).
  • Simple, iterative feedback shapes products.
• Universal Design Example:
  • Changed registration from a complex form to step-by-step online questions, based on direct athlete feedback ([09:04]-[11:54]).
  • This led to record engagement and challenged assumptions about what athletes can do independently.
  • Quote:

    "They inform design in a way that is universal. It's called universal design. They help you build a better platform for everybody." (Nathan Cook, [09:04])

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4. MedBuddy: AI-Powered Healthcare Assistant (Pilot Phase)

• Purpose:
  • MedBuddy is an AI application (currently in pilot) that assists athletes with intellectual disabilities during healthcare visits by translating complex medical language into simpler terms, tracking care instructions, and providing feedback ([14:41]).
• Translating Complexity:
  • AI is used to translate not just between languages, but to adjust the complexity of communication within the same language—crucial for a population with average reading levels at fourth or fifth grade.
• Impact Goals:
  • Improve patient confidence, agency, and healthcare outcomes.
  • The tool also provides clinicians with real-time and follow-up feedback to avoid patronizing behaviors ([14:41]-[18:12]).
  • Quote:

    "MedBuddy is designed to...improve both the quality of care and outcomes in real time, but then also in terms of follow through and continually improving the ability of the clinician to provide care for the audiences we serve." (Nathan Cook, [14:41])

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5. Navigating AI Adoption & Ethical Implications

• Advice for Getting Started:
  • "Just go." Rapidly evolving landscape means waiting hinders adaptation—learn by doing ([19:12]).
  • Use AI to help accelerate AI adoption (writing policy, governance).
• Start with Strengths:
  • Identify use cases where AI already excels; build small wins before attempting broader integration ([19:12]-[22:06]).
    • Quote:

      "If you get behind with technology like this, it's very hard to catch up...someone else is already so far ahead and you are always playing catch up." (Nathan Cook, [19:12])

• Risks & Biases:
  • Recent research shows AI large language models (LLMs) harbor ableism, echoing biases present in society and the unfiltered internet corpus ([23:10]).
  • Example: AI output about people with disabilities tends to be more patronizing and less empowering, which can have dangerous implications in hiring, opportunity, and automation.
    • Quote:

      "...as we have done this research and identified that there are these biases present in AI, there's a need for us to come up with solutions to ensure that those ableistic viewpoints do not become automations..." (Nathan Cook, [25:40])

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6. Human Impact & the Heart of the Work

• Personal Story:
  • Nathan shares a moving story from the Microsoft Accessibility Lab where a mother, using assistive technology, communicates with her nonverbal son for the first time ([26:13]).
• Memorable Quote:

  "She was crying while she's telling me this because she thought she was never going to be able to have a conversation with her own son...technology bridged that gap, enabled them to have a conversation..." (Nathan Cook, [27:27])

• Why Technology Matters:
  • The goal is not just efficiency but life-changing connections and increased agency.

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7. Closing Wisdom: "Eat the Water Beetle"

• Nathan’s One Good Thing:
  • A Thai saying meaning, “Just do it.” Don't overthink or wait for perfection—take action even if it’s daunting or new ([29:08]).
  • Analogy:
    • Water beetles seem unappetizing, but are delicious if you try. Overthinking creates barriers; action breaks them down.
    • Quote:

      "The more time we spend thinking about it, the bigger it gets and the harder it becomes to actually do and overcome. So I say eat the water beetle is a way to say just do it. Just go..." (Nathan Cook, [29:08])

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Notable Quotes

• On Building with Community:

  "We were building with athletes at the table, not just for them." (John, [01:48])

• On AI Misapplication:

  "It's like you're trying to hammer in a nail with a screwdriver. You're going to think a screwdriver is a bad tool." (Nathan Cook, [00:02] & [22:06])

• On Universal Impact:

  "These design changes have resulted in 50% being able to self register, which I love sharing that fact because we were told repeatedly the communities you serve won't be able to self register. And I love it when our athletes prove people wrong and they've proved people wrong." (Nathan Cook, [11:54])

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:02 – Intro: AI Fit & Organizational Challenges
• 03:04 – Nathan’s Background & Tech Philosophy
• 05:04 – The Challenge of Scaling for Inclusion
• 09:04 – Universal Design: Co-creation with Athletes
• 14:41 – MedBuddy: AI for Healthcare Accessibility
• 19:12 – Advice for Nonprofits Starting with AI
• 23:10 – AI, Ableism and Ethical Concerns
• 26:13 – Story: Tech Transforms Family Communication
• 29:08 – Nathan’s One Good Thing: "Eat the Water Beetle"

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Tone & Language

The tone is warm, hopeful, and practical, with earnest advocacy for inclusion and direct, actionable advice. Guest Nathan Cook mixes humor (“eat the water beetle”), technical clarity, and deep empathy, keeping the discussion accessible, motivational, and relevant for listeners across the nonprofit sector.

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Connect with Special Olympics & Nathan Cook

• specialolympics.org
• Social: Special Olympics on all major platforms
• Nathan Cook: Find and connect on LinkedIn (especially for tech, disability, nonprofit, or video game discussions)

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This episode is essential listening for anyone interested in how technology, when thoughtfully designed, can foster true inclusion and transform lives—reminding us to co-create, act boldly, and keep the human element at the heart of innovation.

Transcript

[Nathan Cook]

When organizations don't identify those places where AI fits, naturally they start trying to shoehorn it in. That has significant cost and actually changes the perception of AI from being value added to being net loss because you're not using it in the right ways. It's like you're trying to hammer in a nail with a screwdriver. You're going to think a screwdriver is a bad tool.

[John]

Hey, I'm John.

[Becky]

And I'm Becky.

[John]

And this is the We Here for Good podcast.

[Becky]

Let's get started.

[John]

Hey, Becky, what's. You know.

[Becky]

Oh, I'm so geeked out. We get to talk to this incredible organization and human today. What an honor.

[John]

I know. Like, we love the Special Olympics. You listening? Probably love the Special Olympics too. And this conversation, we're going to talk about AI today, we're going to talk about tech, but we're talking about it in really accessible terms. We're talking about the power of building not around efficiency only, but around belonging. You know, this is a conversation that we are so excited to have on the podcast. So it's an honor to have Nathan Cook. He's the Chief Information and Technology Officer at Special Olympics International. So we are really delighted to dig into this mission that all of us know, probably all of us have been adjacent to at some point in our life. But let me give you some context if this is new to you. They serve more than 5 million athletes across 172 countries.

[Becky]

Wow.

[John]

And for years, the systems underneath that movement, they were really fragmented. And I think this is something we can all relate to. You know, every program runs on its own processes and all the ways of engaging athletes, the volunteers, the families involved. And then Nathan joins the building. I feel like this is like such a sliding door moment.

[Becky]

Yes.

[John]

Nathan has joined the chat. And so today the Special Olympics is building a digital center of excellence that unifies all these pieces. Not just how athletes register, but how volunteers engage, how the whole movement scales around inclusion globally. And so alongside that, they also co created MedBuddy, which is this AI powered healthcare assistant that helps athletes with intellectual disabilities navigate medical visits. This was built, you know, we say this line all the time that we were building with community, not for community. Well, they're building with athletes at the table, not just for them. So there's such a synergy here. And so we're so excited, especially with Global Accessibility Awareness Month right around the corner of this conversation is is so dang timely. Nathan, welcome to We Are For Good. We're just a little excited to have you here today.

[Nathan Cook]

Thanks so much for having me. I am excited to be here. It's such a pleasure to be able to talk to everybody about the great work we're doing and the impacts we're making using technology to transform the lives of people with disabilities. So thank you so much for having me.

[John]

Yeah, I mean, it's definitely a cause that it's easy to get excited about and want to support. But before we dive into all the cool things y' all are doing, we'd love to get to know you, Nathan, the human behind this work. Like, catch us up to some of your. Your formative moments of maybe growing up and what led you into this work.

[Nathan Cook]

Yeah. You know, interestingly, I would say technology has been a part of my life since I was a child. One of the first memories I have about technology was in grade school, programming a little robot to follow a line on the floor. And as a result, I've really indexed my entire career and most of my life on that intersection of technology and people, on how technology can bring the same joy I felt programming that little car to follow a line around the floor to others, whether that be through improving their daily lives, creating better processes and work. You know, we spend half of our waking time, a third of our lived life working. And if we can make that just a little better and easier through technology, we can really make some pretty significant improvements in the quality of the lives of the people we work with. So that intersection of technology and humanity is really cool to me. And I've spent my entire career focused on how we can use technology to improve the human experience. That includes from for profit E commerce to manufacturing to what I'm doing now, which is way more important and valuable than any of that, transforming the lives of people with disabilities.

[Becky]

We've got Nathan over here, like, programming cars to go along the line, and I'm getting dysentery in Oregon Trail. You know, as I'm starting to do technology as a kid, so always goes

[John]

back to Oregon Trail.

[Becky]

Yes. I just think about how important this is for connection to be accessible. And I. And I want to, like, talk about. You joined Special Olympics. The technology was really fragmented, and you have literally hundreds of programs worldwide. It just seems like such a big challenge. Nathan, why did that present challenges for the movement? That's. That's my first question. And my second one is, what did you see that made you believe technology could actually unify a movement this big rather than keep it as disparate and disconnected as it was?

[Nathan Cook]

Yeah, there's a. There's a lot behind that, and I will probably only unpack so much of it in this conversation. But at a high level, when we look at our organization, you mentioned that we're serve over 5 million athletes today. There's an estimated 200 million people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. So we're serving about 3% of the total addressable population of the communities we want to serve. We would like to have all 200 million people with intellectual and developmental disabilities be part of our movement, to have that sense of membership, to have that opportunity for inclusion to get there. It is exponential growth. Right? We're talking about going from 3% to 100%. We are talking about needing to recruit hundreds of thousands of coaches. It's a massive growth curve, and that barrier is huge. Right. And it's something that we need to overcome in order to accomplish our goals. And technology is one of the ways we can do that. Right. Technology creates efficiency of scale. It creates the opportunity to change where work is being done and who is doing the work. And in fact, that's one of the most important innovations here, is specifically that we've empowered and enabled our athletes to own their own information. So historically, for those 5 million athletes, every single one of them who wanted to participate needed to work with a volunteer, with a coach, or with a staff member to get registered. Took about 10 minutes. With the new platform, we're seeing about 50% of them able to self register.

[John]

Wow.

[Nathan Cook]

Doesn't sound like a lot, but when you take that to scale, that's 2.5 million individuals who are now able to own their own information, be empowered, be enabled, and that's 2.5 million individuals that aren't requiring a volunteer or staff time to support. That's massive. And that story that I can tell to our programs about the ability to overcome that barrier that is preventing them from being able to accomplish their goals of serving the entire community they want to serve. Gets buying, gets them invested, gets them interested. So part of the solution here was understanding what these problems facing our organization at scale were, because scale is where technology becomes really powerful. If you can save 10 seconds or 10 minutes, 2.5 million times the savings are extreme. And really, that was a big part of understanding both what those challenges, those obstacles to our growth were, and then seeing where technology could ameliorate those obstacles. So how can we use AI to recruit more coaches so that we can address that gap between the 16,000 coaches we have today and the 160,000 coaches we need tomorrow?

[John]

Lots of things that I want to talk to you about, because I think it was interesting when you talk about this like big dreamy goal of like, of, of how many people you could serve. I think you, you mentioned the word like being part of this, like membership. And it made me think of like how Seth Godin influenced my thought about this, of just how important status and affiliation is and being part of something. And I feel like that's what it comes down to. And you're threading agency, like the ability to like feel empowered that I can do this on my own. But also using the power to connect us to people, humans, coaches. Like you're playing in both sandboxes at the same time, which I think is brillian, does lead to more connection and more efficiency on some level too. It's like, it's a beautiful thing. So can you break this down for us? Because I think everybody listening wants to design for more accessibility. Even though it probably looks different across different domains. What does that look like in practice and how can we like think about that?

[Nathan Cook]

Well, interestingly, the practice is going to look very similar across domains. So while the design, the outputs might look different, how you go about arriving at those outputs is going to be, should be very similar at the core. And this is one of our athletes favorite mottos, is nothing about us without us. We include the people we're designing for from day zero, before we even start building a thing, we go and talk to them and ask them what works for you, what do you need, what doesn't work for you? What's your favorite website? Honestly, that was one of the best questions we could ask. Yeah, because our athletes could use technology. They are on YouTube, they're on Amazon. They can tell you what works for them on those sites and what doesn't. And you can learn from their experiences with other systems. You can ask them about what's working with your systems that you previously had or what their experiences are. And those experiences inform design. And what's even cooler is they inform design in a way that is universal. It's called universal design. They help you build a better platform for everybody. One of the things we learned early on in talking with athletes we serve is that the previous registration process they went through was difficult. They would lose track, they would get lost partway through. We ask about 100 or so questions during registration to understand who they are, health conditions, to make sure they can participate safely. And previously that was all on one piece of paper, digital or analog. And they just had to kind of work down the sheet, question by question by question. So one of the things we did is broke that question in there down into single steps. It asked one question at a time online. Kind of similar to how you do your taxes, right? You don't get all of the questions up in front of you at once when you're an HR block. We broke the questions up into small steps that did two things. It meant that our athletes could very easily track the questions. They could understand them, they could, they could focus, they could answer the question at hand and not worry about the previous question or the next question and they could save their progress as they went. So as they answered questions, they could come back and this improved their ability to complete registration. These were design elements that came about from listening to them to talking to them, to hearing about the challenges, what was working, what wasn't. And these design changes have resulted in 50% being able to self register, which I love sharing that fact because we were told repeatedly the communities you serve won't be able to self register. And I love it when our athletes prove people wrong and they've proved people wrong. But part of that is designing for them, designing for their needs and meeting those needs. Long story short, sorry I kind of went off into the weeds, but obsessed

[Becky]

with all of that.

[Nathan Cook]

Take the time to talk to those you serve and understand what those needs are, build those needs and continually put the product in front of them and get input and feedback because what we first felt we needed to iterate on. They'll tell you what you need to iterate on. So really have the dialogue, listen and learn. Do discovery with them.

[John]

Taking a quick pause from today's episode because we wanted to tell you about some amazing upcoming events that we don't want you to miss. So first up, on April 29th we've got our monthly working session live and we are excited to have Dana Snyder back in the house to walk us through forecasting our monthly giving growth in 2026. So you're going to walk away with a growth forecast for the year and all the pathways to get you there. Really excited about that session. Then in May you can join us for our next Impact up gathering. You know, four times a year, Impact up brings the we are for Good community together around ideas that really matter most. This quarter we are going deep on the most powerful tool that you already have and probably aren't fully using. Story ImpactUp is also met with local meetups happening around the world so you can find one popping up somewhere near you. Head to weareforgood.com or go to this episode's description for the direct links and you can save your free seat today.

[Becky]

I just think this intentionality makes so much of a difference when you are trying to build buy in, when you're trying to build community and connection. And and I have said this multiple times on the podcast. Back when I was doing marketing and pr, we used to run focus groups and every single time I would walk in thinking I knew our target audience, thinking I knew what they wanted and I was humbled and every dang time. And I think when you build with community, you also save so much time guessing and piloting and trying things when you directly ask people who are going to be in the work alongside you. And so this is efficiency for you, this is efficiency for them and allows us to get back to the mission. So I'm really obsessed with all of this and I want to transition a little bit because John mentioned in the intro that the organization had co created MedBuddy. I'm just really excited about how the intersection of technology and accessibility is meeting your target audience. Talk to us a little bit about medbuddy. What is it? How did it come to life? And I really want to know what the impact is that you have seen to the mission on the front line.

[Nathan Cook]

So. Well, we haven't seen impact yet. Medbody's in pilot and we're really starting to do in situations, situation testing this year in hospitals to continue to validate the design with our athletes and make sure we're building the right solution for them. So we're still in that discovery design phase. That said, MedBuddy is one of the more exciting projects we're doing right now. One of the things we identified very early on is that AI is very good at translating language. Right? That's one of the core use cases. And when you hear that, you think translating between English and Spanish, Spanish, it's great at that. But that's not what we're actually talking about. We're talking about translating within complexity of the same language. So to give a little bit of background, our athletes on average have a reading level of about fifth grade. We need to think about how we portray information to them, how we present it to them. And I can take what I've said at a fairly high level of comprehension and translate it to that fourth or fifth grade reading level and retain the information. This is something that we've historically called easy read. And this was actually the first use case that I sold AI on within my organization was being able to take the content that we generate that is not necessarily easy to comprehend and make it easier to comprehend. So MedBuddy is taking that same concept. And the goal is to create shared understanding at the point of care in a healthcare setting. And this is really important for a couple reasons. Our communities tend to have a significant disparity in outcomes when they go get healthcare. There's a variety of reasons for this. Healthcare providers index on their disability as opposed to their current symptoms, and they may chalk up what they are experiencing to their disability. So they overfit to the disability as opposed to the actual symptoms. They may be patronizing, they may be dismissive. They may not even understand what the individual is attempting to communicate. We need to try and address those quality outcomes that the individuals we serve are encountering when they pursue healthcare. And MedBuddy is designed to do that. So it sits in the room and it listens to the athlete and it translates for the athlete to the physician. This is actually an interesting and an important note. A lot of our athletes have fine motor skills issues and that can result in difficulty communicating well. One of the things AI does really good is predicts what you're trying to say. So first off, it can actually improve the physician's understanding of the individual with disabilities. It can also bring a history to the table so it can actually have additional context about what they previously have encountered or endured in previous conversations. And then when the doctor's talking, it listens and it translates it to plain language. So the athlete can understand as well, can translate care instructions, can act as a memory for those care instructions. And finally, at the end of the visit, it will follow back up with the caregiver and say, hey, you used patronizing language. Or you could have listened a little bit more carefully to some of what the individual was saying. So our goal is to improve both the quality of care and outcomes in real time, but then also in terms of follow through and continually improving the ability of the clinician to provide care for the audiences we serve. We're really excited about it. We're going to have more info a little later this year, but I think it's one of the cooler AI uses I've seen.

[Becky]

I agree.

[John]

I mean, I, I'm looking in the future and I'm like, the impact will be great with this tool. I love how you're thinking about it. I think being around people that are using tech to more deeply accomplish the mission is what this moment's calling for, because I think it's easy to get overwhelmed. But it's also like this massive opening for our missions where we Felt like we couldn't step into something that's so dang ambitious of what y' all are tackling is now on the precipice of possible because of this technology. And so I want to talk about, for those listening that are like, maybe you're feeling a little hesitant with AI, you're just hearing this story and there's reasons to feel hesitancy. There's a ton of, like, ethical concerns. There's totally normal removing the human element. There's a lot of, you know, probably HIPAA implications with what you're talking about and things like that. But what's your advice for someone that wants to use AI to better serve their communities and not lose that human element? How should they, you know, step into this moment and step into a project like this?

[Nathan Cook]

You know, I, I get asked this question a lot, and I think a lot about it. Part of my, my immediate response is to tell people to just go. We get so hung up on fear and perfection. And you're never going to get it perfect. And you aren't going to learn on the sidelines. You're going to learn by doing it, by getting your hands in it and going. And in particular, we are at a watershed moment around technology. This is a transitional time. AI is new. There is no best practice around AI. It has been around for just a couple years now, and everybody is flying by the seat of their pants trying to make it work. And in fact, the policy and governance documents I wrote two years ago probably need to be completely rewrote today because of how much has changed in the last two years. And so I, I, I jokingly say, just go and do it. But I actually also kind of mean that because if you get behind with technology like this, it's very hard to catch up. It's very hard to figure out and learn because someone else is already so far ahead and you are always playing catch up and you haven't built the muscle and understanding. And so my inclination and use AI to help you accelerate this, this is actually part of how we did it. I hopped into Copilot and I said, hey, copilot, help me write a governance document for AI. Help me write some policies for AI. So I actually used AI to accelerate the adoption of AI, which kind of aligns with my statement, just do it, just go. I think the other thing is start by understanding what AI does and does well. This is actually pretty important. And I think I've historically understated this when I said just go. One of the things we run into in my organization is people want to apply AI to everything, which is great. We would love to apply AI to everything. It's not strong at everything today. There are things it's really, really good at. So what are those? Use cases where AI today, as it exists right now, can create value for your organization. Index on those, identify those early, and focus there. Build small wins and then continue building on those small wins. I say this because one of the things I've seen happen is when organizations don't identify those places where AI fits naturally, they start trying to shoehorn it in. That has significant cost and actually changes the perception of AI from being value added to being net loss because you're not using it in the right ways. It's like you're trying to hammer in a nail with a screwdriver. You're going to think a screwdriver is a bad tool.

[Becky]

I just think everything you're saying is so smart. One of our trends shifts for the year was that we want people to go beyond the prompt. We want AI fluency for nonprofit. This doesn't mean what we are substituting human behaviors for, you know, robotic behaviors. It means that we are using this to find patterns to reduce, you know, behaviors that are taking up a lot of time, and we're automating things to give us more time to do those human behaviors. So I love that you are pushing us in that way. But I do want to go back to some of those hesitations people have because it's real and because AI is moving and learning at a speed that even if you're in it, it's hard to feel like you're keeping up. So you've talk, you've talked a lot about how AI and data can really help the communities we serve. But I want to know if you have concerns in this day about what AI means for those same communities that you would lift here.

[Nathan Cook]

Yeah, I do, actually. Our organization has conducted some research recently on biases within the large language models underlying most of the AI we're using today. That includes ChatGPT, Claude, Anthropic, etc. What the research has indicated is that there is bias. There's ableism present within these models, and it's somewhat predictable that there would be. These large language models are predominantly trained on information found on the Internet. The Internet is a place where people are anonymous and they share their unfiltered thoughts and opinions. And so the ableism that is present in society but concealed out of politeness, out of social constructs, is not concealed in that corpus. Of information that these LLMs are trained on. And as a result they tend to have those biases present. What I mean by that is we took some time to ask these models to tell us stories about individuals with and without disabilities, and we had another tool analyze those stories. And the language that was used by the AI in the context of people with disabilities tended to be patronizing, tended to assume inability, tended to focus on things like cooking and cleaning versus how to be successful in an office or to use spreadsheets or output. As AI gets applied more and more to make decisions for organizations, think hiring AI is already reviewing resumes. That ableism, that perception of inability in people with disabilities, intellectual and developmental disabilities in particular, would result in the AI making different decisions potentially. And automating that ableism in a way that is pretty risky for the population we serve. If they begin to lose opportunities for employment because of their disabilities, that is a problem. And so as we have done this research and identified that there are these biases present in AI, there's a need for us to come up with solutions to ensure that those ableistic viewpoints do not become automations as AI gets folded into more and more of organizational decision making. Whoa.

[John]

Yeah, I mean, I just appreciate you pouring into this, the way that you're approaching it and thinking about it. I think this conversation's been challenging and eye opening in so many different ways. But you know, we always come back to just like, like the heart center of this work and it comes back to story a lot for us of the moments of generosity that happen in life that really stick with us. And I'd like to ask you for one of those of like take us back to a moment when you got to witness philanthropy or generosity in a way that really felt personal to you.

[Nathan Cook]

You know, it always feels pretty personal to me. Recently however, just just one example, I was at the Microsoft Accessibility Lab with a number of family members talking about accessibility technology and how it can support communication and interactions even within a family. And this mother had a son who was autistic, had autism and he was non verbal, he could not communicate verbally, he couldn't tell her what he wanted or what he needed. And they got him essentially a speak to spell right, something where he could type in what he wanted to say and it would say it for him. You know, like the little type and text toys from childhood. And he started using that device to communicate with her and tell her what he needed, what he wanted, what he was happy with, what he wasn't happy with. And it was in. She. She was crying while she's telling me this because she thought she was never going to be able to have a conversation with her own son.

[John]

Oh.

[Nathan Cook]

And technology bridged that gap, enabled them to have a conversation. And she shared with me that now he's constantly asking for candy and video games. But. But that ability. And that speaks to that intersection of technology and humanity, right? Where because he had a device in his hands, he could now communicate with his mom and she could talk to him and. And they could have shared language and experiences and understanding. That was the most recent, extremely powerful experience that I had. But there are so many, I couldn't. I couldn't really pick one that just is the most recent one. That's beautiful.

[Becky]

I just think, Nathan, stories like that are the why. They are why we get up in the morning. It's why we continue to keep learning. It's why we power forward. And it was never about getting the tech online. It was always about making sure that a mom could. I mean, that makes me so emotional. Like, could have her first conversation with her child. Like, that is the why. That is why we are powering forward. So I thank you for pouring this incredible skill set that you have into something that is changing lives, that is bridging gaps, that is reframing what technology can do for us when we work with it. So we're wrapping up. We close out all of our conversations with a one good thing. It could be a secret to your success. It could be a quote or a good habit. What's something that you would like to leave as a one good thing to this audience?

[Nathan Cook]

Nathan, Eat the water beetle. So this is actually very similar to when you asked. Well, I probably need to give some context there, please. It's similar to what you asked about how you get started with AI. So Thai water beetles. It's a delicacy in Thailand. They are served. They look like a water beetle. I mean, they're. They're big. They're about the size of your thumb, probably gross. They're very hard mentally to eat. They taste like green apple Jolly Ranchers and What? Right? Exactly. It's crazy. But if you look at it and you think about it, you're never going to put it in your mouth. You're never going to eat the water beetle. You have to just do it. And if you do it, the reward. I mean, if you like green apple Jolly Ranchers, you'll like it. And if not, you won't. The point is, a lot of us spend a lot of time thinking about what we're going to do. And the more time we spend thinking about it, the bigger it gets and the harder it becomes to actually do and overcome. So I say eat the water beetle is a way to say just do it. Just go figure out what you need to do and start. Don't wait. Don't turn it into such a big thing that you can't overcome it.

[John]

Nathan Cook, what an analogy.

[Becky]

John. You didn't do that when you were in Thailand.

[John]

That was a missed opportunity on the Jolly Rancher. Joyce, that's amazing.

[Nathan Cook]

Well, you know, John, they actually there's a restaurant in Seattle that sells them, so.

[Becky]

Oh, my God.

[Nathan Cook]

You can always go get a war

[Becky]

or it didn't happen.

[John]

Get some of those beetles. That'd be awesome. Wow, my friend. I mean, what a rich combo. I know folks listening are going to follow along on yalls journey and potentially connect with you as well. Where do you hang out online? How can we track with the Special Olympics International and all of yalls work? What's the best way to connect with y'?

[Nathan Cook]

All? You can find information about the organization on special olympics.org that's where we tend to publish our upcoming events and games, like the USA Games coming up in Minneapolis this year. You can find information about us on just about every social media platform. In particular, you can find me on LinkedIn. I am always looking to hear from from anybody about technology, Special Olympics, disability or video games. Anything you want to talk to me about. So please feel free to reach out. Other than that, those are really the best places to find us currently.

[Becky]

You're a treasure to this sector. You're a treasure clearly to Special Olympics. I think what you're doing is a massive force multiplier to put more good humans in community with each other, building a more generous world. So thank you for everything that you're doing. It takes each of us doing our parts. Nathan, keep going. We're rooting for you every step of the way.

[John]

Y great.

[Nathan Cook]

Thank you guys so much.

[John]

Hey, friend. Thank you so much for joining us today. If you find yourself looking for a place to stay connected and keep learning between episodes, I hope you'll come and join us inside the we are for good community. Yeah, it is free. It's full of incredible nonprofit leaders like yourself. And it's now an app and the Apple App Store and Google Play Store. So you can take this community with you wherever you go. Head over to weareforgoodcommunity.com to find us. We cannot wait to see you inside.