It’s been a wild ride — from the time I had the fortune of adopting my children until today.

As many of you know, the world of families that have neurodiverse children can be full of pure joy — but also of discoveries and challenges. Unfortunately, we still live in a world where neurodiversity is not well understood nor addressed. I often think about Stephen Hawking, the renowned astrophysicist, who would not be able to achieve what he did — despite his brilliant mind — without the technological innovations developed over the past 150 years that helped him move and convey his thoughts and desires.

As I learn from Stephen, it seems that the people who have issues with a physiological disability are relatively easier to address; although much more still needs to be done. Such limitations can be more readily understood, evaluated, and potential solutions developed, from neural implants to exoskeletons to a plethora of mobility and communication devices. Fortunately, brilliant and compassionate scientists, engineers, designers and entrepreneurs are working on this.

However, to navigate the world of minds that are uniquely different from each other and from neurotypical minds is much more complicated. As a result, addressing the diverse needs, limitations, and aspirations of the neurodiverse, their families, educators, and caregivers have been given short shrift.

We need to change this paradox!

When I started @Intelligence++, the Foundation for Augmented Intelligence, 8 years ago, I did so with the realization that neurodiversity is a mountain of issues. Through my children and my children’s friends, their families, educators and therapists, I discovered that neurodiversity is not one thing.

To address the complexity surrounding neurodiversity, we need first of all to understand the issues. Once better understood, we need to realize that some are areas of strength that should be both celebrated and leveraged to make their lives and our world better. We need to also realize that there are many issues that neurodiverse individuals face that make life more difficult. We need to discover and develop ways to at least buffer, if not totally overcome, those areas of difficulty — to allow the neurodiverse to connect to a neurotypical world in a more natural way.

At Continuum, we had a fundamental philosophy which was that we would not address an issue through the supposition that we knew what the issue was all about. Rather, we would first explore the issue from multiple points of view and with diverse sensibilities. We needed to develop deep empathy into a world that we may not understand — or maybe that we would understand only from our perspective, rather than other perspectives. We would integrate and assess the input of experts, while also realizing the potential limits of professional silos or mental constructs that may limit the expert's ability to see from other points of view.

When I started the Intelligence++ course at Syracuse University, it was for two reasons.

The first was that it was my Alma Mater; I loved my five years of the industrial design program, which exposed me to multidisciplinary courses from Plato, to physics, to psychology.

The second was because I had recently learned of the university’s InclusiveU program, which provides neurodiverse students a university experience. It meant that Syracuse University could be a tremendous launchpad for my foundation’s initiatives. Individuals in the InclusiveU program could be contributors to understanding the needs, limitations, and areas of strength to groups of interdisciplinary people that coming from different departments in the university as well as creative contributors.

Together, they might initially uncover unmet needs and then address those needs with real potential solutions.

The results from the course include sensory-sensitive fashion innovations to non-verbal communication devices to neurodiverse inclusive requirements for public projects. There is so much more that needs to be done.

So, I was very heartened to read this article by Professor Stefano Vicari, an Italian Psychiatrist who writes eloquently in the Corriere della Sera about neurodiversity — both as a strength and as an area to be buffered to improve the quality of life, which is absolutely coherent with what we believe at our foundation and in the Intelligence++ Course.

"We are led to believe that there is only one right way to be intelligent: rational, quick, orderly, adherent to the demands of daily life. Instead, we should remember that the norm is first and foremost a statistical concept and that variability is a fundamental characteristic of our species. We are all different, but diversity, in itself, is not a disease, nor a deviation to be corrected. It becomes a disorder when it compromises daily functioning in a persistent and significant way, when it produces suffering and negatively affects relationships, learning, sociability, and autonomy."

—Stefano Vicari MD, Head of Neuropsychiatry of Childhood and Adolescence, Catholic University of the Sacred Heart

I was also pleased by all the entries, and last year’s winners of the Intelligence++ Prize for Neurodiversity in Italy, including this year's first prize interdisciplinary team — who developed clinically-validated video games that allow young children to be diagnosed at an early age with different forms of neurodiversity, so that families and therapists can better understand the strengths and weaknesses of the children. Furthermore, the team has developed video games that allow young children to buffer areas of difficulty when their brains are still young and malleable.

I believe that there are many more innovations. In fact, we awarded three second prize winners and another six honorable mentions in many different areas, which you can pursue here. This awards highlights the fact that neurodiversity is a worldwide issue and can best be addressed globally.

I would like to challenge anyone who reads this article to join us in this endeavor because it's a very complicated field with a lot of differences and nuance. We are just starting to scratch the surface.

Please jump in and take this wild ride with us!