How Toyota & Remarkable Are Powering the Future of Disability Tech With Pete Horsley

In this episode, Pete Horsley, Founder of Remarkable, the disability-tech accelerator powered by Cerebral Palsy Alliance, joins Peta to explore how technology, innovation, and lived experience are reshaping the future of accessibility.

Over the past decade, Pete and his team have supported more than 160 startups developing technologies that change disabled people’s everyday lives. Through Remarkable’s partnership with Toyota Australia, the program now contributes over 2,000 hours of engineering and design expertise each year; proving what’s possible when big business and disability innovation truly collaborate.

Pete and Peta discuss how inclusive design benefits everyone, and why disability should never be seen as a niche market. They also unpack how government policy could help stimulate demand for disability-led products and share what to expect from the upcoming Disability Tech Summit 2025.

Connect:

Remarkable:

Disability Tech Summit 2025:  https://www.remarkable.org/disability-tech-summit-2025

Website: remarkable.org

Instagram: @remarkable_tech

https://www.toyota.com.au

Peta Hooke:

Instagram: @petahooke

Website: www.icantstandpodcast.com

Email: icantstandpodcast@gmail.com

You might enjoy: Autism, Advocacy, and Finding Love with Ronan Soussa

---

Transcript:

00:00:03

Peta: Hello, and welcome to the I Can't Stand Podcast, the show that explores what it's like to live with a disability. My name is Peta Hooke, I had cerebral palsy, and I'm your host. Every week I sit down with remarkable people who's lived experiences and perspectives are reshaping how disability is understood, not just within our community, but by non disabled people too. This week, I'm joined by Pete Horsley, the founder of Remarkable, a disability tech accelerator powered by the Cerebral Palsy Alliance. Over the past ten years, Remarkable has helped turn innovative ideas into products and services that genuinely change people's lives. Right now, Remarkable is in partnership with Toyota Australia, who is contributing financially but also more than two thousand hours of engineering and design expertise to help disability focus startups refine their prototypes. Together, they're showing what's possible when big business and disability innovation truly collaborates. With the Disability Tech Summit this year, just around the corner on the eleventh of November, Pete shares how this partnership is shaping the future of inclusive innovation and why listening to disabled voices isn't just the right thing to do, it's the smart thing to do. Let's get into it.

00:01:52

Pete: Hi, Peta, my name is Peter as well, and I am from Remarkable, part of Cerebral Palsy Alliance.

00:01:58

Peta: I think of Remarkable for many many years now and it's a thrill to have you on the podcast. But for those of you who may not have heard about Remarkable before, can you explain what Remarkable is and what you do?

00:02:14

Pete: Certainly can yes. So Remarkable is a division of Cerebral Palsy Alliance. We started Remarkable ten years ago really recognizing the fact that while technology is incredibly meaningful for creating greater access, creating ability to learn and move and interact in the world, lots of technology wasn't necessarily advancing as quickly as we would have liked to have seen it, and we were hearing that from people with disability as well. So Remarkable supports early stage companies developing that technology to try and accelerate their development get those products into market so that they can have the intended impact that they hope to have. We put it out as part of World cerebral Palsy Day and asking people to tell us one thing that would really impact their world, and we heard from people all over the world. One of those was a man by the name of Alpa who was living in a small country town called Bursa in Turkey, and he said, the thing that would change his world is if someone could create a solar powered wheelchair. And we then asked a worldwide maker community if they could make a prototype of that to work with Alpa to be able to see that come to life, and they did. They made it, ship the prototype over to Alpera, and that gave him the ability to access new parts of the city that he hadn't been to before.

00:03:37

Peta: It's one of those things I think there are so many amazing people out there trying to support disabled people, but in the end, where the best experts that can help inform and work with you. The solar powered wheelchair is a prime example of that, right, I mean even he myself's in here as a person of serebral palsy who use an electric wheelchair completely and my whole life is determined by it. You know, probably through my own privilege, I wouldn't realize how important a solar powered wheelchair can be for other people, particularly in third world countries. And I know the example you mentioned before, it allowed him to go and worship, which of course is so important to somebody's identity and being part of the community. And that's the real impact that I think people don't fully understand how one product can define a disabled person's life. What are the areas that you're most excited by, Like, is there some cutting edge technologies that you just think, oh, this will change so many people's lives, or you know what, it will profoundly impact one person's.

00:04:53

Pete: Life, absolutely, And I think it's like asking a parent to choose a favorite child. You know. I love every single product that has come through the accelerator, and not all of them have worked, and that is a reality of startup life for one thing. But it's also it means that they're accelerated towards a decision that says, actually, now might not be the right time, or it might not be quite the right solution. But I think certainly of the things that we've seen get to market, there are things around around mobility that I've seen that have enabled more people to have access to lower cost wheelchairs. For instance, in other parts of the world where previously children will be carried, now they get access to low cost wheelchairs, which is incredible, made in country usually in accessible factories that people with disability are actually constructing those wheelchairs as well. Some of the newer areas that we're working in or around brain computer interface, something that allows a child with significant disability of cerebral palsy to have control of devices and things around them just using the power of their thoughts. This device that we've been working with a headband that can be worn, and I see that as being opening up a really really exciting area of control of devices that perhaps while it starts in this place of disability, actually extends to the rest of humanity as well. And again disability is at the forefront leading that innovation.

00:06:36

Peta: So tell me about your very exciting partnership between Remarkable and Toyota Australia. How did it first come about.

00:06:45

Pete: We've had a long relationship with Toyota over a number of years and it has been mostly in the donation space of corporate social responsibility, where Toyota has been giving some support philanthropically to us as a charity within Australia, a way that remarkable and Toyota are working together now both couples the donation of money but also access to their engineers and time with their engineers so that they're actually helping support some of the early stage innovations. Toyota has an incredible mission globally around mobility for all and happiness for all, and we can see the direct relationship with the work that we're doing in the disability technology space with mobility for all, and so we're incredibly proud of this partnership. It's such an exciting partnership that we have with them.

00:07:43

Peta: It's amazing and it's fantastic to see that. It's I mean, money is important, cash is king, particularly when you're talking about running a business and small business. Cash is so important that I don't want to diminish that at all. But it's so fain fantastic to hear that they are putting in that experience and that expertise that Toyota does have to help people see that innovations come to life, particularly with engineering and design. What does it actually look like in practice. I understand that they've donated two thousand hours.

00:08:20

Pete: Two thousand engineering hours per year, so it is quite extensive. In terms of the amount of time we get access to incredible engineers, and you know, we have engineers with many, many years of experience that are bringing their their own expertise and experience to this. But the way that we work with them is that we have what we call our immersion days, which are hands on sessions. We take startups from Australia and sometimes other parts of the world as well that are focused on mobility and we bring them along that have some problems that they want to solve, either with their product or maybe there's an engineering issue that they're trying to really develop. We work alongside the engineers and the startup founders so that they can develop solutions to those problems. And then post those two days of working together intensely, they get to work remotely on some of these solutions with the engineers. They are incredible to work with. They have so much fun because they're learning about new, interesting solutions in the mobility space. And actually, as a result of some of this, Toyota are starting to develop some of their own products that are meeting some greater needs around accessibility, and some of that has been driven by engineers within Toyota who have family members loved ones that have disability, and they've seen firsthand at some of the challenges that they have in interacting even with Toyota cars, and so that's opened up a whole new area of of potential solutions that can become products that Toyota then sells to those markets as well. So we really see this as a mutually beneficial partnership.

00:10:10

Peta: It's quite incredible, and I also understand there's an aspect of mentoring as well.

00:10:17

Pete: That's exactly right. So we have engineers that have been working in the Formula one for Formula one teams. We have people that have been in the car industry for decades. We have people that have real experience in car design that are bringing that to product design to make sure that we have products that don't just look very hospital like, but they actually look really welcoming and things that look really amazing. So we're bringing this experience into this disability tech space and seeing the benefit that that can have to founders who perhaps this is either the first or the second time that they've done something like this. They're really getting exposure to incredible experience.

00:11:05

Peta: As you said before, Toyota has also gone away and started to create other products, which is fantastic to see because clearly they understand the value of disabled people as customers, which is a really big step forward. Have you seen with your partnership over time? Have you seen that that understanding with the organization has improved?

00:11:28

Pete: Absolutely? And I think that that was one of the things that we talked about early on, is that opportunity for not just one way. You know, the power doesn't all sit with the industry partner because they're giving the money, they're giving the time that there is this mutual benefit of learning. So engineers learning about the problems that have been identified, they're learning about the approaches to market for some of these solutions. They're learning about incorporating a wider design profile and perhaps the kind of middle fiftieth percentile of kind of human experience, and so they're really getting to benefit from this interaction as well.

00:12:10

Peta: If you could waive a magic wand and have another organization come on board that provides a completely different expertise to maybe what Toyota currently does. Is there any that come to mind.

00:12:23

Pete: It would be great to have a Boeing on board so that we can do something about plane travel. My understanding is that The time between when you identify a problem and when that actually gets put into a plane is about ten years, so we're right behind, you know, in terms of that. I'd love to work with them bosh around some of the kind of instruments and things that we use around the home. How do we make those more accessible? How do we kind of create a better customer experience with some of those products. There are so many companies we'd love to work with. We've identified five impact areas that we really want to work on over the next five years. They are mobility, our communication, learning, work, and then health and well being living well and so across each of those there are differently industry partners that we want to be talking to and working with so that it's a mutually beneficial partnership.

00:13:26

Peta: I could talk to you until the cows come home about the issues with aviation and the tourism industry. I have a master's degree in tourism and my thesis was on accessible tourism. So that's really a big passion of mine, and it is so frustrating to see the inaccessibility in that whole system. But I'm going to leave that to one side because that's not my way here.

00:13:52

Pete: I'll take that conversation offline. I would love to have another conversation with you.

00:13:58

Peta: I want to talk about the elephant in the because I really interview someone on this podcast that doesn't identify as having a disability. Now, I know you do have some lived experience because your sister has a disability. But you know, I really value the perspective that you can bring in the sort of expertise that you have that can help the disability community. How do you make sure that you're not speaking for disabled people. I'd really love to hear how you've come to sort of make sure that you feel comfortable and confident in your position within the community.

00:14:38

Pete: Yeah, and I think it's one that we certainly, I have to be honest about and say that I have some understanding. As you mentioned my sister Joe, I grew up with her. She's older than me, so I've known her my whole life and that has given me certain experiences in life, but it hasn't given me every experience. And certainly every time I meet someone with different disability, it's meeting a new person with disability. They are unique individuals and they have so much to give to this world. And I'm on a journey of learning. Yes, I've learned some things, but I have lots more to learn, and sometimes I don't get it right all the time as well, and so I need to be honest about that, and then I need to seek out opportunities where I can continue to learn, I can continue to understand. And I think that's opening up, that's being someone who listens actively. I think it's also try and seeing ways that we can bring more diverse voices into our work, into our projects, into our designs, into our leadership. And I think it's also important that we don't always be the go to person for speaking about disability that we say, well, can I invite someone to actually share the stage with me, or can I interview someone as part of my talk that does have lived experience so that there are opportunities for them to lead, for them to speak, for them to thrive and have that perspective communicated as well.

00:16:18

Peta: You mentioned that one of your main objectives for Remarkable is around employment, and it's such an important area that needs so much work. I don't think you're going to run out of work anytime soon, Pete. What are the areas you think that you can create space for disabled people to succeed in that area. What are you seeing in your work are the big barriers that you think that you can help solve.

00:16:47

Pete: I think it has to start at the beginning. We have to look at it. As you said, there are so many problems. There have been lots of really great programs that have been trying to tackle this space, and yet we haven't seen significant movements in unemployment or underemployment for people with disability over the last two decades. Let's be honest. I think we need to start right back at the beginning and look at the job application process. The job application process is a very social process and if that is not an area that you are comfortable in, then you aren't putting your best self forward. And so we have this very old way of thinking about how we actually interview someone, and we don't actually tend to focus on the capabilities of someone. We tend to focus on what is that social interaction like. And so we have a couple of companies that are working on those sorts of areas. Company in the UK called Clue and a company here in Australia called Exceptional. They're really trying to look at what does it take to understand the components of the actual success of that job, so that it's not just down to this very social experience of the interview. But then I think it comes down to onboarding, having a look at that process, how accessible and inclusive is that. Are there things that we could do better there around ensuring that our organizations are informed and trained about what inclusion looks like in the workplace. I think it's down to the tools that we use within the workplace as well. How many people do we have sitting on our leadership teams, our boards that have lived experience of disability. I think that's a really important thing that we have to have. We're working with another great partner of the Impotter Foundation, to really try and go upstream and say what are the things that we can solve upstream that perhaps has that impact on technology going forward.

00:18:47

Peta: How many people in Remarkable identify themselves as having a disability that work within your organization.

00:18:55

Pete: Over a third. It's just under quad. We've only got a very small team, so we have a number of people in our team that do identify as living with disability.

00:19:07

Peta: When we think about other organizations and them being willing to employ disabled people. From your perspective, how do we help them? I mean, I would love to push them, but let's be a little bit more polite. How do we help them in understanding the potential of disabled people and doing it in a way that isn't politically correct, but actually seeing the value in the disabled person.

00:19:38

Pete: I think we have to start with a bit of a rebrand. I actually think around disability. I have come to see that disability is the largest driver of innovation that we have ever seen. It is an engine room for innovation. When you have had a segment of our working population that have constantly been challenged to problem solve every single day because the world isn't built to suit their needs, they come with a particular well developed muscle in innovation, in problem solving, in thinking differently, in thinking around problems. And also it's probably helped in a massive way in customer relations as well, because they're having to also advocate and talk their way through situations as well. And so we often think about disability in the form of charity. We often think about it in it would be nice if But I think we need to rebrand it and go what are we missing out on when we're not employing, what are we not seeing in our workplaces? What customer segments aren't we reaching because we're not thinking about it from the perspective of someone with a diverse, lived experience of disability. So I think that we've got to kind of try and reorientate around that and build from there. I think the charity approach, and I'm part of a charity, so you know we are we are in there as well, but we're trying to see what are the ways that we as an organization can do ourselves out of a job so that we don't have to exist anymore. And I think that you know that that requires a different mindset or a different way of thinking about disability.

00:21:36

Peta: I'm in a small group of disabled business owners and one of the common conversation topics that we speak about is the perception that the business world still sees disability as a niche market. I have friends that are going to pitch meanings to get funding and they say that the idea is great, the product's great, but we see this as a niche market is too small. We're not going to invest in, you know, disability based products. And I would just love to hear how you are personally trying to change that mindset.

00:22:14

Pete: It is a big beef of mine, Peter this particular question, because I hear that a lot. I feel like people kind of pat me on the head and say, oh, good on you for doing this work. That must be very rewarding, and I feel like perhaps getting a bit violent. Actually, disability isn't about some of us. Disability is about all of us. Whether it is that we're born with disability, or we acquire a disability, or we have a temporary disability, or whether we have age related disability. It's not about some of us. It is about all of us. The spending power of people with disability their family friends is said to be north of thirteen trillion dollars per year, and if we ignore that, we're leaving money on the table. But I do want to address that sometimes solutions in the disability market have to be niche. There are certain products that do have to have accommodations that aren't going to meet every person's needs, and I think that that needs to be acknowledged as well. What we do have as a result of that is we have kind of market forces within there that mean those products have to go through multiple suppliers hands before they actually get to the person who requires that product, and every time it goes through that pair of hands, there is a markup of that and that does cost money. So that's where I think some people have all of their focus and attention set is on those areas where we do have to have smaller, more bespoke for individual's needs. But we've seen throughout eternity products and services that have actually been been innovated on the basis of necessity. All of the technology that is in our mobile phone. I'm holding up a mobile phone right now for those who aren't able to see that, all of the technology that is in there has been heavily influenced by accessibility, accommodations, speech to text and ocr optical character recognition, thinking about touch screens, thinking about audiobooks and podcasts, what we're doing right now. All of these were actually accessibility solutions first and foremost, but they've become universally available and loved by so many people. And so I think that there is a couple of categories within that. But when I think of niche, I think it is the biggest. It is the largest niche in the world because it's about everyone, and.

00:24:54

Peta: Not to constantly say the same phrase over and over that disabled people have money, and we want to spend our money, and we want good products please.

00:25:06

Pete: Percent and they shouldn't be medical looking products just because they're a product for disability.

00:25:13

Peta: We speak the same language. Keep that is for sure. I think often people who are in business automatically go to the private sector to get capital and stimulation for their organization. But you've said quite rightly that the government has to play a big role in shaping disability innovation so it can grow. From your perspective, what sort of government policy could stimulate demand for disability led or disability inclusive products and services.

00:25:47

Pete: So I think that the government has obviously areas of focus for industry, and they're trying to look at what are the things that help us remain competitive in a global market. What are the things they're going to create jobs in this country, What are the things that have longevity that will continue to support our economy to grow. Our current government has focused on areas like transport, agriculture, medical, science, defense. We've also got this other bucket of government spending that happens around the care economy. So it is things like disability, aging, even health, and when we separate those two areas, I think we're actually missing a massive opportunity when we think about this kind of cost base of NDIS, of age care, even thinking about the health market as well, and if we're not thinking about innovation in that layer, we have an opportunity to lead the world in that. Given our well developed policy around NDIS, it is the envy of the world. Yes it's got some problems, Yes it's got things to be fixed. But when you we have forty nine to fifty five billion dollars of government money going into that per year, extend that out to disability, aging and health, it's over one hundred billion dollars a year going into that. We should have this innovation layer, thinking about product services, R and D, research and development for that. And I think that we coupled with that really incredible policy in Australia could be leading the world around that. It could provide an incredible competitive advantage to lots of different economies around the world. So I think there just needs to be some levers pulled around that for us not just to think about it as the care economy, but for us to think about what are the other areas that we can remain competitive around the world as a result of this well developed policy that we do have that still needs.

00:27:53

Peta: Some work, it does very well. Said now, I'm going to try for the listeners to peek behind the curtain very quickly. I'm going to try and push this episode out as quickly as I can because I know that Remarkable has a summit coming up, and I want to give the listeners the opportunity to go if they have the ability. Now I believe it's on the eleventh of November. Is that correct, Pete?

00:28:21

Pete: That is correct, eleventh of November in Sydney at Sydney Town Hall.

00:28:27

Peta: Amazing. Can you tell me about what the Disability Tech Summit is and what people can expect?

00:28:33

Pete: I certainly can. So. The Disability Tech Summit is a one day summit and we have a half day leaders forum the day before where we're bringing people together from around the world. The summit is called Rewire the Future, Disability AI and the Next Frontier of Innovation. It's really trying to challenge us to go beyond small incremental improvements and to really reimagine the foundations of how technology is designed, developed and integrated into Society. Toyota is a major sponsor of our remarkable Global Tech Summit, and we'll have about three hundred people from across the world at the summit. And this is our third global summit, but the first one first time that we're running it in Australia, so we're really excited and we'd love more people from the disability community to be there with us as well.

00:29:28

Peta: As you said, the summit is so exciting and I'm so jealous of people that have the ability to go. What do you hope will come from the summit and the conversations that will occur for the disability community but also for the industry's watching.

00:29:45

Pete: I think ultimately we want to see this field of disability tech to be seen as one of excitement and possibility, where disability isn't seen as an impediment or a deficit, but instead it's actually seen as a competitive advantage that drives innovation. I think I hope that industry and government see the opportunity we have right now to be leading the world in technology that's more human, especially in this AI space. I think AI is one of the largest changes to technology that we've seen in decades, and we have the opportunity right now to make sure that it is more human than what the current indications of that AI are. And then I hope that there are things that come off the back of this that we haven't even dreamt of yet, when we see new partnerships and new interactions, new relationships being formed. That is the genius of innovation, is that parts coming together and new things kind of flourishing from that. We hope that just in the bringing together of amazing people from different parts of the world will result in that as well.

00:30:57

Peta: For people who have listened to this episode and never know what remarkable is or maybe heard of it or didn't really understand what you did. And for those who are sitting here thinking, you know what, have got an amazing business idea, but I really don't know where to start. Are you able to help them and what does that process look like?

00:31:18

Pete: Definitely. So we have a range of kind of programs and supports. We have early stage programs that are really around what we call validating a product. So how do you validate that there's a the right solution for this this problem that I'm trying to tackle. How do you determine that there is a big enough market to sell this product too. So that is what's called our Launcher program. It's a pre accelerated program. It will happen over a number of weeks. We are just lengthening it out a little bit for next year, but previously has been eight weeks after work hours and each startup allocated or each project is allocated a startup coach that works personally with you on that is available to access online and we try to make that as accessible as we possibly can. Then we have our Accelerator program that really works with companies that already have a product of sorts that are trying to then get that out to the world. And it's really about how do you get that product out to as many people that it can have an impact on. That again is predominantly online experience. We do have a couple of get togethers at the beginning and the end of that in Sydney and there is an application process for that on our website. We also have the Toyota Tech Immersions, so for those that are purely focused on mobility solutions then they can apply for the Toyeter Tech Immersions, put in an expression of interest around that will notify you when applications are open for that, and then we have later stage investment as well, So we invest in companies that have products in market that are trying to get through a bit of a term in the space called the valley of death when it comes to startup startups, and they can apply for some investment from us, and that's called Scala. All of that can be available. You can have a look on our website a remarkable dot org.

00:33:25

Peta: Finally, at the end of every episode, Pete I asked my guests the same question, and the reason is because I started this podcast because I was so frustrated being asked silly questions by strangers in the streets. So for me, it's what happened to you? Now, I'm very lucky there's no trauma connected to my disability, but I know that's not the case for everyone that really irritated me. Would people ask that and still ask me that today? In your work? Is there one question you wish you never got asked again?

00:34:00

Pete: Yeah, definitely. I think we do get asked a lot, and as I said, it sort of comes from a space of really non understanding, but they do ask the question a lot of what does innovation in the disability market actually mean? Are you talking about a new form of wheelchair? And I think it speaks to kind of the perhaps slightly narrow thinking that some people might have instead of thinking about the expansive nature of the human condition and thinking about disability being this engine of innovation that has always been and will always be. So I think that would be my question that I'd love not to be asked anymore. What does innovation in the disability market actually mean?

00:34:50

Peta: Not all of us use wheelchairs, and guess what, you know, there's more problems in our lives than just having wheelchairs. So I totally agree with you.

00:35:00

Peta: Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the I Can't Stand Podcast. If you enjoyed today's conversation, the best way you can support the show is by sharing it with a friend or posting about.

00:35:15

Peta: It on social media. And if you have a moment, leaving a rating and review helps more people find these stories. Don't forget. You can always send me an email I Can't Stand Podcast at gmail dot com, or you can follow me over on Instagram at Peterhook. I'll see you next week. I would like to respectfully acknowledge the wondery and Bunner wrong. People of the Call and Nation of which I record the podcast today, and I pay my respects to both elders past and present, along with and especially to those in the First Nation's communities who are disabled themselves