128: Diversability Founder Tiffany Yu

Uninvisible Pod with Lauren Freedman

Tiffany Yu is the CEO & Founder of Diversability, an award-winning social enterprise to amplify disabled voices; the Founder of the Awesome Foundation Disability Chapter, a monthly micro-grant that has awarded $49.5k to 50 disability projects in 8 countries; and the host of TIFFANY & YU, the podcast. She serves on the San Francisco Mayor’s Disability Council and was a 2020 Co-Chair of the World Economic Forum Sustainable Development Impact Summit. At the age of 9, Tiffany became disabled as a result of a car accident that also took the life of her father. She started her career in investment banking at Goldman Sachs and has also worked at Bloomberg and Sean Diddy Combs' REVOLT Media & TV. She is a 3x TEDx speaker and spoke on 5 sessions at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos. She has been featured in Marie Claire, the Guardian, and Forbes. Most recently, Tiffany was named one of TikTok's 15 API Trailblazers. It is through this platform that she posts amazing educational content, including the "Anti-Ableism Daily". Go check her out!

Tune in as Tiffany shares:

• her “disability origin story”, which left her permanently disabled — and also took her father’s life
• that she was most recently diagnosed with PTSD related to the accident that caused her disability
• her take on “toxic positivity”, and how it manifested in her life akin to internalized ableism
• how her identity as the daughter of Asian immigrants has shaped her experience: “the nail that sticks out is the first to get hammered down”
• visibility and invisibility in the disability experience
• what disability inclusion really look like
• why TikTok has been such an important space for her to occupy in anti-ablest allyship
• what an ableist micro-aggression is — how to spot them and feedback mindfully
• how she taught herself to own her disability — and how this realization was the foundation of Diversability
• four tips for being an ally to the disabled community

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