What happens when you blend cutting-edge technology, actionable insights, and lived experiences? Watch and see!

Are you looking for a speaker with a deep understanding of accessible hardware and software, and an inspirational lived experience? A speaker who can educate, inspire, and transform your audience. A speaker with a powerful message who is enjoyable to work with. Then please consider booking Chad Bouton.

Imagine if you never had to feel limited due to your loss of vision. Imagine feeling empowered regardless of your disability. Imagine transforming your disadvantage into your advantage and your disability into capability. Don’t you want the applicable skills to access the world around you? Would you like the confidence and independence that accessibility grants you?

My name is Chad Bouton, and I am a credited accessibility consultant, quality assurance tester, and talk show host. I am an assistive technology specialist and self-proclaimed warrior for change with a knack for explaining complex technologies and machine learning into easily digestible concepts. Ultimately my goal is to empower people to tear down the barriers to access by teaching them transferrable skills they can use in both their personal and professional lives.

My speaking experiences are designed to.

1.  Capture and hold your audience’s attention from the first word to the last.

2.  Inspire your audience to live confident and independent lives.

3.  Impart practical skills to make real lasting changes.

4.  Make information technology and assistive technology interesting, actionable, and easy to 

understand.

Your audience members will walk away with.

1.  New powerful insights about themselves and how to make the world around them accessible.

2.  The power to maximize alternative thinking when solving problems.

3.  Practical skills that they can start utilizing instantly.

4.  Confidence and independence.

Looking for an engaging and informative in person or virtual speaker to inspire and educate children, teens, and young adults. Attendees will walk away with valuable new perspectives and practical skills they can start utilizing instantly.

I was born with an inherited retinal disease known as Retinitis Pigmentosa, which makes me legally and increasingly blind. I would not be officially diagnosed with my condition until I was eleven years old. I guess ignorance is bliss! I would not understand the impact my genetic disorder would have on my life until I was in my early twenties.

I was born and raised in Northwest Florida, but my family moved around a lot due to my father serving in the U.S. Air Force. I was a shy and reserved boy who found it better to have a few close friends I could trust rather than a large group of friends. I was always nervous and quick to worry. Even with all the memories I have, I cannot remember a time when I was not already wearing glasses.  My mother and father always had the feeling that there was something wrong with my vision. However, no matter how many specialists examined my eyes no one ever had a definitive answer for my poor vision until I was eleven years old.

My visual acuity remained stable long after my initial diagnosis, but I began noticing changes in my vision when I turned fifteen. It started off small with me starting to have problems seeing the whiteboard in class. Additionally, I began to find it increasingly difficult to walk outside during the evening. I did not know it at the time, but I was already starting to lose my vision at only fifteen years old.  The worse my vision got the more I tried to hide the fact I was going blind. I desperately tried to retain my independence and confidence by masking my disability. I started a toxic relationship with myself, because I wanted so much to be normal like everyone else. Ultimately, I created a persona for myself, which I used to hide just how much I was destroying myself on the inside. I continued living this charade for nearly six years, but eventually a shift occurred, and I was no longer capable of keeping up my mask.

I was twenty at the time, and I was finishing up my sophomore year in college. Up to this point, I had been managing to maintain my persona. However, the time when my mask would crumble was fast approaching. As part of my college degree, I was required to complete a biology lab for non-majors. I did not have any reservations about enrolling in this course. However, I was unaware at the time that this course would take place during daylight saving time. As someone living with Retinitis Pigmentosa I suffer from nyctalopia also known as night blindness. Midway through the semester the time would change, and now I was walking back from class in the middle of the dark. I will never forget walking back to my dorm by myself in the middle of the night. All alone with no one to help me if I were to fall and hurt myself. However, no matter how much I prayed for protection and safety I could not keep myself safe forever. One evening I fell down a flight of seven steps. I can still hear the rustling of leaves and feel the cold dirt on my face to this very day. I will never forget the overwhelming sense of dread and lack of power I felt that night. Lying on a dirt road all alone I finally let go of my persona. I realized now more than ever that something had to change and that something was me.

After my accident I realized I could no longer keep myself safe. I made the tough decision to take a year-long break from college. I had a lot of work I needed to do to improve my mental, emotional, and physical well-being. First, I invested in a great therapist who could help me sort out my anxiety and depression. I had been carrying a lot of internalized ablism relating to my disability, which I had been ignoring for all these years. Next, I started working on my physical health by starting to eat healthier and exercising regularly. At the time, I weighed close to 300 pounds and had an unhealthy obsession with food. By the time I was ready to make the final step towards confidence and independence I weighed roughly 230 pounds. I still had a lot more work to do, but at long last I was ready to enroll in Southeastern Guide Dogs. Attending Southeastern Guide Dogs in May of 2014, and being matched to my guide Andros changed my life forever. Prior to meeting Andros, I did not believe I could be happy while living with a disability. Additionally, I did not believe I could ever be successful while continuing to lose my vision. I thought that having a disability was the end of my confidence and independence. However, Andros helped me begin transforming my disadvantage into my advantage. I owe every bit of success in my life to my amazing forever friend.

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I left Southeastern Guide Dogs feeling confident and independent. Thanks to Andros and his companionship, I was able to return to college and finish my degree. I became the first and only person in my family to graduate college. Not long after graduation, I accepted my first ever job at Southeastern Guide Dogs. I started 2018 in a new city living by myself and working for the organization that transformed my life. Up until the 2020 pandemic, I enjoyed my life as a corporate fundraiser who helped host public events for Southeastern Guide Dogs.

Unfortunately, I along with so many others saw my position terminated during the height of the COVID pandemic. In the blink of an eye the life I had built for myself was yanked away from me. Honestly, I did feel a bit betrayed when I first lost my job. However, I knew that nothing good would come from me holding onto such feelings. I did not know where my life was heading. Starting in 2021 I worked as a janitor just to make enough money to pay my bills. However, I was extremely dissatisfied with my way of life. No matter how many jobs I applied for I never got any closer to finding employment. However, I did not surrender, instead I adapted to my circumstances and sought out my own career. I could have never known how much investing in myself would change my life.

I have always been a fan of video games since I was a young boy. Some of my fondest childhood memories are playing games with my friends. I would always joke about how I wish I could play video games for my career. It is this lifelong passion for gaming that has helped me cope with my anxiety and depression. After losing my job in 2020 this hobby of mine helped me escape from all the troubles of my life. I will always remember August of 2021. One day in August my sister said something to me that started another shift in my life. My sister asked me why someone who is blind like myself still wants to play video games. I remember telling her about all the positive effects gaming has on my life. Alexa (my sister) says to me that I need to catalog these positive effects and inquire with a publication about sharing my lived experience as a disabled gamer. I spent so many hours messaging one publication after the other. I am forever thankful to Nintendo Life for saying yes to me sharing my lived experience. It is thanks to the article Nintendo Life allowed me to publish that put me into contact with the Royal National Institute for Blind People. Discovering that my voice has power, and my lived experience has meaning was eye opening (no pun intended). However, it is thanks to RNIB that I discovered what I wanted to spend the rest of my life doing, I wanted to start my own podcast and become an advocate.

I started my podcast in March of 2022 and since then I have had so many once in a life-time opportunities come my way. Nowadays I work as an accessibility consultant for the game industry, in addition to performing play tests for games that include accessibility features. Additionally, I get to travel the world as a motivational speaker sharing my lived experience with audiences. It is crazy to think how all of this started with me playing games after losing my philanthropy job. Once upon a time, I believed you had to go to college and get a degree. After achieving your degree, you would then work the usual nine-to-five job. However, I reject that standard norm, because I would have never found my calling in life had I continued looking for my career in a call center. All the failures and hardships along the way have been worth it. If you ask me how I am living? My answer will be amazing and something I will never trade for all the money in the world.