What is the name of your organization?
Making Space
What is the name of your solution?
Making Space
Provide a one-line summary or tagline for your solution.
Making Space is a talent and learning platform connecting Disabled people with upskilling, resources and quality employment opportunities
In what city, town, or region is your solution team headquartered?
Los Angeles, CA, USA
In what country is your solution team headquartered?
USA
What type of organization is your solution team?
Hybrid of for-profit and nonprofit
Film your elevator pitch.
What specific problem are you solving?
Disabled people are twice as likely to be unemployed as non-Disabled people. Despite laws, pledges, and performative inclusion, most systems, from hiring to education, are not built to include Disabled people from the start. Companies often see disability inclusion as compliance instead of opportunity, and Disabled people are rarely included in decision-making or equipped with the support to thrive in careers.
Many employers don’t know how to engage, hire, and retain Disabled talent confidently. Meanwhile, Disabled job seekers face inaccessible job descriptions, a lack of accommodations, unclear paths to advancement, and few chances to showcase their lived experience as an asset. Students and career changers, particularly those who are Chronically Ill or Neurodivergent, are left out of traditional training pipelines. Globally, there’s a growing awareness of this inequity, but no scalable, affordable, and impactful solution bridges education, employment, and lived experience.
There’s a gap between potential and opportunity, and that’s where Making Space comes in.
What is your solution?
Making Space is a talent acquisition and learning platform that enables companies to train, access, and retain Disabled talent. We democratize free, accessible, and high-quality job-specific education while providing employers with a pipeline of pre-qualified candidates, AI-driven tools to reframe disability as strength, and training to increase disability confidence across the workforce.
We go beyond compliance to rewire how companies think about talent and how Disabled people see their value in the workforce.
Who does your solution serve, and in what ways will the solution impact their lives?
Step 1: Talent joins the Making Space platform.
Disabled job seekers, students, and career changers access free, accessible skill-building courses and career navigation tools. These courses range from workplace basics to advanced, role-specific knowledge co-created with companies like NBC, Indeed, and Grammarly.
Step 2: Lived experience is turned into transferable skills.
Our AI tools help users translate their lived experience, like managing a chronic illness or navigating the government benefits system, into transferable professional skills, such as project management, logistics, or creative problem-solving.
Step 3: Employers integrate education into their hiring process.
Employers choose courses from our content library to build a pipeline of pre-qualified talent. Once candidates complete these courses, they are marked as “pre-qualified” and matched to relevant roles via direct integrations with applicant tracking systems.
Step 4: Disability Confidence Training and inclusive design support.
Making Space provides on-demand training for HR, recruiters, and managers to build long-term inclusion from day one. We offer consulting to help integrate accessibility across hiring, onboarding, and retention processes, as well as real-time feedback from Disabled users.