Lenovo’s Post

Transcript

I'd love to be included. And I love having the job. It makes me feel like I am on top of the world. Like I can be an amazing adult. I love my three ton family. That inclusion means a lot to me. And I want the world to see how great we are. I consider myself really lucky to do what we get to do every day, especially since developing the partnership that we've had with Lenovo. Lindsey and I met at NC State our freshman year and we were 18 years old. We had no savings account, no business experience. Neither of us drink coffee at the time, so we didn't even have that going for us. It's true. But we have this shared excitement for using business to make a social impact. Partners like Lenovo join forces to help us keep growing. What we found so quickly was this community that really did start to form around what we were doing and more importantly, why we were doing it. 321 Coffees mission is to create meaningful employment opportunities for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities. To the groundwork of 321 Coffee having a permanent presence in the community. When you're drinking your coffee in the morning, you probably aren't thinking about all of the technology and the people in the hands that went into getting that coffee into your hands. So right now we're on this step because that's what you're doing right here. I've had the incredible experience of getting to watch Sophie develop her skills as a roaster, and so much of that has been aided through the technology that she's able to interact with. To learn those skills. Lenovo is always receptive to dreaming big. Through this partnership, we have been able to set our people up to be independent in their work. When we sought out to build our roasting facility, we really wanted to make sure that accessibility was at the forefront. We've been able to utilize Lenovo tablets to create modules that will walk through that process and help give our staff that next step. But then structions that shows on the tablet, I feel like I can accomplish new skills. Giving people with disabilities access to learning how to leverage computers and tablets and monitors sets them up to be successful. I'm disappointed myself. The wire request, we did that. CO2 and nitrogen, we're able to take a lot of that same technology that we have on the tablets and apply it to all parts of our business. When the Roosters running, it's giving off a lot of heat, it's giving off a lot of dust. And so we really need a computer that is built tough. Lenovo helped us build out our edge computing to be ruggedized in order to withstand these conditions and continue to operate normally. As we continue to grow as a business, technology will play an even bigger role in our operations. Representation matters. It is so important for people to see other people who look like them and talk like them to give those individuals or reason to believe in themselves. Are you ready? The confidence that Sophie has is beautiful. Lenovo technology has been such a vital part of that because we've been able to help our people learn in different ways that works best for them. With love being who I am, I feel like I could be a role model to other people out there with disabilities. And it feels good to help people. Lenovo.