SmartJob is a global company dedicated to closing the disability wealth gap by catalyzing employment through innovation.
Opening the Door to the Innovation Economy to Disability Sector Entrepreneurs
We scout, coordinate, source, advise, and support social entrepreneurs and early-stage companies that are committed to and focused on profound disability impact.
We do this through our relationship with a like-minded global community of disability tech accelerators, thought leaders, and innovators.
There’s a nearly 2 trillion dollar hole in global GDP
due to the absence of people with disabilities in the labor market.
Of working-age Americans with a disability, less than one third participate in the workforce.
Disability underemployment and unemployment have remained persistently high worldwide for decades and people with disabilities experience crisis level unemployment.
Plus, people with disabilities are less likely than their non- disabled peers to have access to technology, limiting access to employment, to attaining better jobs, and to working in sectors that are adaptable when economic crises hit.
We can change this. And not by relying on employers or government programs to tackle these problems alone. But by galvanizing innovation and cooperation to interrupt poverty in a sustainable way and to contribute meaningfully to a new era of employment.
By unleashing the power of capital markets for impact, together we can build smart jobs, the kind that are future proof, flexible, accessible, and designed to improve the employment experience from the start.
Leveraging a market-based approach, SmartJob advises, coaches, and consults to build the global disability entrepreneurial ecosystem in order to:
— Break through persistent barriers that have trapped people with disabilities in joblessness and are deepening a poverty crisis.
— Place resources in the hands of entrepreneurs with disabilities and entrepreneurial support organizations focused on the disability tech sector.
— And empower early-stage companies with viable solutions to the unemployment and underemployment of people with disabilities.
Our Services
SmartJob provides ecosystem coordination and customized advisory services to early-stage companies and entrepreneurial support organizations in the disability market throughout the world, to build a global ecosystem for inclusive innovation, design and accessibility.
Through our extensive networks, we search for the most innovative, early-stage companies in the world led by people with disabilities, or with connections to the disability market, and guided by principles of inclusive and universal design. Then, we help connect them with strategic capital, networks, and support.
Global Mission
In 2015, world leaders agreed to 17 Global Goals known as the Sustainable Development Goals or SDGs to create a better world by 2030, by ending poverty, fighting inequality, and addressing the urgency of climate change.
The goals are meant to guide governments, businesses, civil society, and the general public to work together toward driving impact. In addition to other impact criteria, the goals guide SmartJob’s strategy and approach to its relationships with partners.
Human capital is a rich asset that needs to be unlocked and harnessed for good to tackle the existential challenges of the next century, to meet the UN SDGs head on, and to rectify previous market failures.
Human capital, that’s people, have always been challenged to solve hard problems. And when they do, it’s mostly because they have had access to the very tools they need to confront those challenges head on. SmartJob, and its partners, are helping to build a world where tools are built with everyone in mind, affordable, available, and will drive lasting impact at scale.