🎙️ Remarkable World Commentary Episode #116: Interview with Jerry Nicholson, Co-Founder, Accessible Data https://donnajodhan.com/rwc-10-13-2026/ In this inspiring episode of Remarkable World Commentary, Donna J. Jodhan welcomes Jerry Nicholson, co-founder of Accessible Data, from the UK. Jerry traces his path from studying geography at the University of Edinburgh and qualifying as a chartered accountant to moving to Bangladesh with his wife, Fiona, after the two of them read Muhammad Yunus's Banker to the Poor. There they set up Tindercapital to bring early stage venture capital to businesses that could scale, invested in the eco-friendly manufacturer Oasis Coffins, and ran Open Accelerator for rural entrepreneurs. Jerry speaks openly about how hard that first investment was, including a breakdown just before COVID that he says he has fully recovered from. Jerry then explains how the platform he and his business partner, Christophe Geiser, built under the name Preignition became an accessible survey tool after the International Disability Alliance found that many of its members could not fill in its global survey and put out an open call. Jerry describes the barriers people face with online forms, from keyboard navigation to sign language and Easy Read needs, and why forms that shut disabled people out leave them unheard and leave organizations with biased data. Donna presses the point that organizations too often collect lived experience for free, Jerry says a paid panel of disabled respondents could be a future product, and Donna closes by inviting him to write an article for https://barrierfreecanada.org. TRANSCRIPT Podcast Commentator: [upbeat music] Greetings. Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, and MBA invites you to listen to her bi-weekly podcast, Remarkable World Commentary. Here, Donna shares some of her innermost thoughts, insights, perspectives, and more with her listeners. Donna focuses on topics that directly affect the future of kids, especially kids with disabilities. Donna is a blind advocate, author, sight loss coach, dinner mystery producer, writer, entrepreneur, law graduate, and podcast commentator. She has decades of lived experiences, knowledge, skills, and expertise in access technology and information. As someone who has been internationally recognized for her work and roles, she just wants to make things better than possible. Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Hello, everyone, and welcome to another episode of the Remarkable World Commentary. I'm Donna J. Jodhan, a lifelong disability advocate and one who sees the world mainly through sound, touch, and amongst other things, stubborn optimism. I am a law graduate, an accessibility consultant, author, lifelong barrier buster, who also happens to be blind. You may know me from a few headline moments, as in November 2010, I won the landmark Charter case that forced the Canadian government to make its websites accessible to every Canadian, not just to sighted ones. And in July of 2019, I co-led the Accessible Canada Act with more than two dozen disability groups to turn equal access into federal law. And most recently, on June the 3rd, 2022, I was greatly humbled by Her Late Majesty's Platinum Jubilee Award for tireless commitment to removing barriers. When I'm not in a courtroom or in a committee room or in a pottery studio, you'll find me coaching kids with vision loss, producing audio mysteries, or helping tech companies to make their gadgets talk back in plain language. Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Everything I do circles one goal, and that is to turn accessibility from an afterthought into everyday practice. I invite you to think of this show as our shared workbench, where policy meets lived experience and lived experience sparks fresh ideas. Now, before we jump into today's conversation, let me shine a quick spotlight on today's guest, a change maker whose work is as every bit as remarkable as the world that we are trying to build. I am pleased and privileged to welcome Jerry Nicholson all the way across the pond in the UK. Hello, Jerry, and welcome to my podcast. Jerry Nicholson: Hi, Donna, and it's a pleasure to be speaking with you today. Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Great. So what's the weather like in the UK at the present time? Jerry Nicholson: Well, the weather in the UK constantly changes, so— Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: [laughs] Jerry Nicholson: It was rainy this morning, but it's now beautiful outside. Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Good. Jerry Nicholson: Big blue skies with a few fluffy white clouds. Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Oh, nice. Nice. So Jerry, welcome to the Remarkable World Commentary. I always like to begin at the very beginning. So tell us about your early path from studying geography at the University of Edinburgh to qualifying as a chartered accountant with the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland. Back then, what did you imagine that your life's work would be? Jerry Nicholson: Oh, that's a good question, Donna. Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: [laughs] Jerry Nicholson: [laughs] Yeah, I think I left university with just, I suppose, a desire to do something meaningful with my work. So more than just make money and live comfortably. But to actually do something that had purpose at the center of it. But I've also always been quite interested in business and making things commercial. So I suppose that's what drove me to study accountancy. Not as an end in itself, but just feeling that that would be a useful thing to learn a bit about finance and how businesses worked, to see what would then open up at the end of that. So in many, many respects, my time training as an accountant was a bit like a continuation of my education. So I would say that I really started pursuing my work journey when I was 30. So after qualifying as a chartered accountant and spending times with PwC and Ernst & Young— Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: [instrumental music] Now, at around 2010, you and your wife, Fiona, moved from the United Kingdom to Dhaka, Bangladesh. A move in, I understand, was sparked by... Sorry, it was sparked by reading Muhammad Yunus on microfinance. What drew you there, and what did those users teach you about who gets included and who gets left out when important decisions are made? Jerry Nicholson: Yeah. Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: A loaded question, so I— Jerry Nicholson: Yeah, no, it's a good question. Yeah, so I suppose I first went to Bangladesh with Fiona shortly after we got married, and I had qualified as a chartered accountant. And a bit like I was saying previously, Donna, I'd always gone into accountancy as a means to an end. So we're really just asking those questions, "Well, what are we gonna do with our lives?" And particularly, "How's our work gonna fit into that?" So in 2000 and... I think it was probably 2004, 2005, Fi and I, we spent a year traveling, and we spent a bit of time in a country called Tajikistan in Central Asia. Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Oh, okay. Jerry Nicholson: And then we did a big trip starting in Cambodia and working— Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Oh. Jerry Nicholson: Our way over land back to the UK. Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Ooh. Jerry Nicholson: And we were meeting up with lots of different people who were doing interesting things and using business and finance to create opportunities. And as part of that trip, we passed through Bangladesh. We'd both read Muhammad Yunus's book, Banker to the Poor, and had read about microfinance and this idea of financial institutions lending people with very limited means really quite small amounts of money, so maybe $50 or $100, which would enable them to— Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Yeah. Jerry Nicholson: Maybe buy a sewing machine or buy a cow, some sort of small income-generating asset, and then that would then provide some additional revenue for the family. And this was an idea that seemed quite interesting to us. So we actually spent about three weeks in Bangladesh and had the pleasure of meeting Professor Muhammad Yunus, who is incredible, a incredibly humble man and a great leader. And that was a wonderful time. But as part of that trip, one of the things we thought was, well, microfinance has a role. It also has its critics, which I agree with some of the criticism of the microfinance model, but I think it definitely has a part to play. But Fi and I then started thinking, well, really microfinance is very widely provided, particularly in a country like Bangladesh, so it doesn't need more microfinance. But what Bangladesh and I think many countries like it do need are venture capital or risk capital— Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Right. Jerry Nicholson: To help businesses which have the potential to scale. So not sort of microfinance to finance a cottage industry, but, yeah, venture capital to really grow enterprises. So that's really what Fi and I then started thinking about. And ultimately, we went back to Bangladesh about four years later, four or five years later in 2010, and we set up an organization called Tindercapital to try and get— Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Oh. Jerry Nicholson: That type of venture capital going to those early stage scalable businesses. Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: The name Tindercapital, I'm just curious, how did the name come about? What went into giving this name to your venture? Jerry Nicholson: Yeah, that's a good question. Well, we actually named it... I mean, there's now the very famous dating app Tinder, but we actually named Tindercapital before Tinder came about, or certainly we didn't know about it. So the idea is this, tinder being the small bits of wood or material that you would— Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, MBA: Yeah. Jerry Nicholson: Start a fire with, which would then lead to a much bigger fire. So it's the idea of providing that sort of quite strategic early stage c
