Autistic son sparks business plan for job-training
Chicago Tribune
Several days before Keita Suzuki started classes at the Kellogg School of Management, his 3-year-old son was diagnosed with autism. Suzuki began poring through medical journals but found the most inspiring research in the Harvard Business Review.
Thorkil Sonne, a Danish entrepreneur who also has an autistic son, had succeeded at building a firm employing high-functioning autistic adults who perform repetitive software tests and data entry. Suzuki began writing a business plan.
“Because my son is such a nice, nice kid, I could not believe that people like him couldn’t get a job,” he said.
Relying on donations from classmates and professors and a personal loan, he deferred a job offer and upon graduation last year launched Kaien, a for-profit business modeled after Specialisterne, Sonne’s company.
In a phone interview from Tokyo, where he lives, Suzuki said he was optimistic but unsure the venture would succeed.
Due to restrictions on laying off Japanese workers, Suzuki, 32, has temporarily abandoned the idea of direct employment in favor of a training program, which places autistic adults at companies trying to meet national quotas. (Under Japanese law, 1.8 percent of employees at companies with 56 or more workers are supposed to be disabled, but loopholes have weakened the effort.)
via Matt Moog’s Viewpoints Network snags another client – chicagotribune.com.
Posted on May 24, 2010 | No Comments | Category: Autism | Tags: Autism, employment
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