Innovative Leader Spotlight: Chris Soukup’s Vision for Communication Equity
Innovative leadership is more critical than ever in today’s highly evolving environment. It involves being a leader willing to take risks, think creatively, and embrace change. Such leaders are not afraid to challenge the status quo and are always ready to try new things. They constantly look for ways to improve processes, products, and services.
Likewise, many innovative leaders are driven by a desire to make a positive social impact. They use their skills and resources to address societal challenges, develop sustainable solutions, and create a better future for all. One such leader is Chris Soukup, CEO of Communication Service for the Deaf.
Chris Soukup’s company has been pioneering accessible communication technologies for the deaf community for 50 years. With his innovative skills and abilities, he aims to create a better world for deaf and hard-of-hearing people.
Recently, we spoke with Soukup about his many years of innovative work in the space. During the conversation, Chris shared his exciting new initiative and vision of creating equitable and inclusive opportunities for deaf communities in an increasingly automated world.
This is the most comprehensive take on leadership, and I hope you find it useful. This article is close to my heart, and I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed interviewing and writing it.
Q. To get started, let’s take a step back. We would love to hear about your career journey. What key moments led you to become the CEO of Communication Service for the Deaf (CSD)? Likewise, can you give a small introduction about CSD to our readers?
Soukup: Communication Service for the Deaf was founded in 1975 with a $15,000 grant from the State of South Dakota. Our formation was the result of a grassroots effort to advance access to communication for deaf and hard-of-hearing populations. In the decades that followed, CSD evolved into a large, diverse organization dedicated to advancing the quality of life for deaf and disability communities worldwide.
Delivering its mission has been fueled by a relentless commitment to challenging convention through innovation. Over the years, CSD has pioneered generations of solutions that enhance access to communication, information, and opportunities.
My journey with the organization began in the mid-1990s as an adult basic education program coordinator. Over the past three decades, CSD has given me the opportunity to learn from numerous deaf and disability luminaries.
It has been the privilege of a lifetime for me to serve CSD in progressively responsible capacities, culminating with my appointment as CEO by the CSD Board of Directors in 2014.
Q. In 2022, CSD was named to Fast Company’s “Most Innovative Companies” list. This is great, Congratulations! On this note, can you highlight a few innovative technologies and solutions by CSD?
Soukup: From our inception, CSD has been committed to leveraging technology and innovative design to transform how deaf people interact with the world.
In the latter half of the 20th century, most deaf people made phone calls using a device called a teletype machine (TTY).
CSD was among the first to integrate TTY into a call center environment, enabling real-time facilitation between TTY users and voice (telephone) callers. This allowed deaf and non-deaf people to call each other for the first time in the 1980s. This technology proliferated after the Americans with Disabilities Act was passed in 1990, and telecommunication relay services became a national mandate.
CSD was scaffolded on the success of TTY services to create the first nationwide video relay service, which allowed deaf people to leverage video technology. They could use sign language interpreters to communicate with voice (telephone) callers, providing a faster and more natural communication experience for most deaf communities.
Over the past fifteen years, CSD has advocated for expanding direct video calling (DVC) in government and corporate spaces to improve customer service accessibility.
The idea is to completely eliminate facilitators when possible and allow deaf signers to communicate directly with customer service representatives who are fluent in sign language.
In recent years, we have been fortunate to partner with great companies like Comcast and Google to expand the availability and access to direct video calling.
Q. What are AI-Powered Assistive Technologies? How is it helping people with disabilities?
Soukup: Automated speech recognition (ASR) is an example of an AI-powered assistive technology. Over the past several years, ASR has been integrated into many platforms to enable automated captioning. This has enhanced accessibility, particularly in situations where a sign language interpreter may not be present.
Tens of millions of people identify as hard of hearing and are not fluent in sign language. However, they greatly benefit from captions. The promulgation of ASR has made communications much more accessible to this growing population of consumers.
Q. Would you like to share why human-centric design is essential in today’s tech revolution? And how does CSD apply human-centered design solutions?
Soukup: We build better products when we are intentionally inclusive from the beginning. Innovations that benefit everyone have the greatest potential for adoption and long-range success. Patching accessibility features into the products we build after the fact is costly and cumbersome. CSD understands that 50% of the deaf population has additional disabilities.
We are cognizant of how the solutions we design will be accessed and used by individuals with different abilities and lived experiences. We seek feedback and continuously search for ways to make our solutions more universally inclusive.
Q. Do you think AI is the best thing that has happened to disabled individuals (deaf and hard-of-hearing individuals)? Does it come with any challenges or drawbacks?
Soukup: AI is what we choose to make of it. AI has the potential to uplift and unlock human capability. Applications of AI can also break accessibility and be inadvertently exclusive. Chatbots, for example, pose challenges for people with cognitive differences or limited written language abilities.
Forcing individuals to engage with your business through chatbots can quickly sour perception of a brand, particularly from the disability community. Companies need to be aware of how AI is applied and the discrimination that it can unintentionally create.
Q. What is your vision for the future of accessibility? Are there any upcoming innovations in assistive tech that you look forward to?
Soukup: We are seeing great advancements in the development and application of AI technology that supports gesture recognition. Someday soon, deaf people will be able to navigate the world autonomously using new software that converts sign language to speech and text. The possibilities are vast and exciting.
We are also seeing innovations in the development of sign language avatars, which will eventually allow for automated translation of speech and text into sign language. These emerging technologies will empower our community by reducing reliance on facilitated communication.
Q. As a leader, how do you effectively lead through uncertain times?
Soukup: Among the most critical responsibilities we have as leaders is recognizing when the ground is shifting. We have to ask ourselves what is changing and what has not changed. We must talk to the people around us and challenge our inner monologue.
Periods of change or challenge can be a powerful source of renewal, galvanizing our commitment to purpose and an opportunity to sharpen direction and priorities to achieve what is most important to us.
Importantly, we must always remember that we accomplish nothing alone and that our most valuable assets are the people we support. Engaging our teams in a shared vision of the future we want to create is paramount to success.
Q. How do you envision yourself as an innovative leader in the next 5 years?
Soukup: It is often said that necessity is the mother of invention. As a deaf person, I wake up every day thinking about how to create a better world for my family and community. For me, innovation is purposeful. Is this making life better?
How can we achieve more and go further as a result? What is required to get from where we are today to where we want to be? What is emerging in our environment that could potentially help us get there?
I believe that leaders who are grounded in the impact of their work are best positioned to change the world meaningfully.
