The Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg who became the face of the global movement on climate change credits her autism for having played a fascinating role in her journey- “I have Asperger’s and that means I’m sometimes a bit different from the norm. And – given the right circumstances – being different is a superpower.”
Others suspected of having had Asperger’s include Albert Einstein, Abraham Lincoln, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Edison, Marilyn Monroe, Isaac Newton, Beethoven and Mozart, to name just a few. Personally, from Asha Sreedhar‘s session at AzConf Dev – “Me, My Autism and Tech” a couple of months back to Dennie Declercq‘s session today at Microsoft Reactor on “Putting Accessibility into Practice: Autism in Tech”- the stories of perseverance never cease to amaze me.
So, what does it take to build inclusion? This-
Can we have place on our tech teams for stress, anxiety..fear?
For those afraid to change the tool stack
Afraid to ask questions in forums
Afraid of making eye contact or being in the public eye
Afraid of OSS contribution and code reviews for the fear of criticism, of having different ways
Can we have a place on our tech teams for the autistic?
Liji Thomas 
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