This AI startup is powered by people with disabilities

The way 31-year-old Punnaphoj Aeuepalisa was recruited for his job sounds like something out of a heist film. But instead of putting together a team to pull off a robbery, his recruiter was looking for something a bit different.

"He reached out to me saying, 'I see you write code. I want to create a team of developers made up entirely of people with disabilities (PWDs). Are you interested?'" Punnaphoj told DW.

Punnaphoj has been a software engineer at the Vulcan Coalition, a startup in Bangkok, Thailand, since 2021. He's also blind. But at Vulcan, this is nothing out of the ordinary. More than 90% of the company's employees have visual or mobility impairments. The artificial intelligence startup was founded in 2017 and today employs around 500 people with disabilities located around Thailand.

"We're a startup powered by people with disabilities," CEO Methawee Thatsanasateankit told DW.

Recruiters pass on capable workers due to disability

People with disabilities are much less likely to hold a job, in Thailand and elsewhere. In developing countries, 80 to 90% of people with disabilities who are of working age don't have a job, according to UN data. In industrialized countries, the figure is between 50 and 70%, only a modest improvement.

"Many of my friends applied for jobs [and] got a call back [...]," said Punnaphoj. "But once they say they have disabilities, they're rejected before they even get a chance to show whether they're capable."

It's no surprise, then, that this group struggles more financially than people without disabilities. According to OECD data, one in four people with disabilities live in low-income households, compared to one in seven people without disabilities.

Methawee says her company makes it possible for this group to be part of something meaningful while supporting themselves and their families financially.

Vulcan provides business clients with AI-powered services, such as a customer support chatbot and software that detects signs of depression in employees. They also do data labeling. That's the process of annotating data to be used for machine learning and AI algorithms. Moreover, the firm's employees with disabilities also work as team leads, trainers and engineers.

Leveraging AI to meet hiring quotas

Workers with disabilities often need special accommodations to compensate for their disability, something that can scare away potential employers.

To combat this problem, many countries have introduced hiring quotas. Thai law requires companies to hire one person with disabilities for every 100 employees on the payroll.

But employers can also choose to pay a fee and opt out.

"These two options have the exact same incentive," said Punnaphoj. "Some people choose to pay the money because hiring people with disabilities seems more tiring," he said.

But Vulcan has turned this loophole into a special hiring model. Because there's also a third option: Companies can also contract a third party to hire these employees.

This is where Vulcan comes in. The startup asks companies to contract them to hire workers with disabilities, who Vulcan then puts to work on its AI projects. In turn, Vulcan provides these business partners with access to Vulcan applications, to encourage them to outsource the hiring to Vulcan rather than just pay the fee to the government. 

This has allowed the startup to become a specialist in working with people with disabilities, while at the same time allowing other Thai companies to meet their hiring quotas. 

"We want to be a role model," said learning and development coordinator Natthaphat Thaweekarn, 29. "We want to show that no matter if you have a disability or not, everyone can find work that corresponds to their ability."

Ratita Nantananate, 28, runs MissRental, a formal dress rental service in Bangkok. Before working with Vulcan, she'd never hired a person with a disability. "I wouldn't even know where to find them if I had wanted to," she told DW. 

Today she employs six workers through Vulcan and says she'd encourage others to try it out. 

Most accommodations cost nothing

Advocates for this demographic's right to work point out that the majority of necessary adjustments can be made with little or no cost to the employer. This includes things like allowing the employee flexible hours or to work from home. For those who work in an office setting, reserving a parking spot or a desk on the ground floor can also meet their requirements.

For Vulcan, working with employees with impaired vision has meant a greater reliance on audio. As for workers with impaired hearing, Vulcan employs a group of deaf college students and said they talk with the students' caregiver, who passes the information on to them.

Location is also something to consider. Workers living with a disability may need a wheelchair ramp or an accessible bathroom, or maybe even the location of the workplace could be difficult for them to access.

PWDs are a valuable, untapped labor market

This is why Vulcan has embraced working from home, a policy that they — and many other employers — have said gives them a larger pool of talent than if workers were required to come to the office.

When financial investment is required, it's often a minor, one-time cost, and one that could well be worth making: according to estimates from the International Labour Organization, a UN agency, raising the employment level of persons with disabilities to the level of persons without disabilities could boost a country's GDP by 3 to 7%.

"It's not just people with disabilities," said CEO Methawee. "Even those without have differentiation limitations. If we understand these limitations and believe that everyone can work, we can design how they can work."

Edited by: Ashutosh Pandey