Love of Voice: COVID-19 and Building for Every Community

By Theodora Lau and Bradley Leimer of Unconventional Ventures

How do you measure the wealth of a society? By physical and tangible assets? Or by how we care for one another in our community? Since when is the stock market or the wealth and comfort of the few more important than the whole? And when does what is important to you become equal to what is important to people you don’t know?

When we think about the people and the things and the values that are important to our lives, how often do they mirror the society around us? Chances are we all care about similar things — being safe and secure, having our basic needs met, having a family and community that grows and improves upon its lot across every generation, one that has better opportunity at every turn, one that is as equal as it is just.

There is nothing like a pandemic for us to step back and reflect upon our actions, upon our history, and upon each other.

From paid work to caregiving to volunteering, older adults are a pillar of our society. Calls for them to simply “sacrifice themselves” so our economy can stay open are simply appalling. Undervaluing one’s contribution using an arbitrary assumption based on biological age is ageism at best and barbaric at worst.

Long-term care facilities account for less than one percent of the U.S. population, but more than forty percent of deaths related to COVID-19. 80 percent of people who have died of COVID-19 in the U.S. to date were age 65 or older, according to the CDC.

Deaths that could have been prevented.

Lives cut short.

Needless suffering that could have been avoided.

Our country has much to learn from other nations and other cultures when it comes to both respect and care for older adults. It also has much to learn about treating all people equally, with dignity, and with indiscriminate care.

This virus discriminates further across other vulnerable segments of our communities. The poor are being impacted more than the rich, those that can afford better health care versus those who cannot. And compared to white Americans, People of Color are impacted significantly more.

Systemic racism extends into our healthcare, and across the technologies designed for wellness.

Where is the outrage?

Have we become too numb to care?

Have we become too complacent to raise our voices? To use them to defend those whose voices are often less heard.

How can what we need and what we want in life intersect when it comes to taking care of each one of us within our community?

Lives of older adults are not expendable. The lives of the poor are not expendable. The lives of People of Color are not expendable.

No one’s life should be ignored.

No one should be left behind.

And there lies the irony. As it turns out, inequality in our lives is the silent killer that has been lurking around the corner.

And for far too long.

This pandemic has only uncovered what was always there.

Where you were born matters. What race and gender you are matters. Where you live matters. What you do matters.

Access to technology (or lack thereof) matters.

How we ensure no one is left behind in the digital era speaks volumes about our values.

COVID-19 did not create the racial inequalities in health. It merely underscores them.

Building bridges to the future

Technology — when implemented thoughtfully — can unite rather than divide, can enable aspirations rather than trigger divides, and can deliver upon dreams rather than dash them.

Purpose should not be an afterthought — it should, and must be — part of every individual’s, every company’s, and every community’s DNA.

It is about valuing people — regardless of their age, gender, ethnicity, education, sexual orientation, abilities, and socioeconomic background.

It is about recognizing longevity — not as a disease, but as a legacy of our humanity.

It is about embracing our differences — not using them as an excuse for ignorance or source of fear, but as a way to appreciate every community.

If we want to build a better future, then we need to pay attention to voices that do not reflect our own. We must listen to the stories of others that have walked at times a very different path, that may have come to hold similar values but from very different journeys.

If we want to build back better, then we need to build on our ability to empathize with others, to include voices that don’t echo our own, to understand that there is much more than us.

If we want to build a more hopeful tomorrow, then we need to raise a collective voice — one that represents all of us — to ensure that the future includes all of our dreams, and all of our aspirations.

“May God give you the grace never to sell yourself short, grace to do something big for something good, grace to remember that the world is too dangerous now for anything but truth, and too small for anything but love.” William Sloane Coffin, Protestant minister and peace activist

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In this episode of One Vision, Theo and Bradley chat with Heidi Culbertson, CEO/Founder of Marvee, and a leader in Voice technology on the importance of inclusive design and how you can do well while doing good. You can find this episode on iTunes and Spotify. We thank you for listening and please consider subscribing.

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Unconventional Ventures helps drive innovation to improve systematic financial wellness. We connect founders to funders, provide mentorship to entrepreneurs, strategic advisory services to a broad set of corporates, and broaden opportunities for diversity within the ecosystem. Our belief is that anyone with great ideas should have a chance to succeed and every voice should be heard. Visit unconventionalventures.com to learn how you can partner with us today.

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