Attended two events during Neurodiversity Celebration Week

Firstly attended VentreFest, the business and enterprise expo. The event was organised by the West Midlands Combined Authority and it took place at The Eastside Rooms

Naidex
The second year I attended the disability expo event naidex. The two-day event takes place at the NEC near Birmingham and includes exhibitions, live presentation talks, and interviews focusing on accessibility, diversity, and inclusivity of disabilities.

During my attendance, I have networked with my awareness projects and developments to organisations and businesses such as Lloyds Banking group ITV plc and Virgin Media O2. Using my awareness projects I communicated in how
my insight and context awareness initiative can benefit their organizations along with their customers and audiences

I also attended the National Rail stand focusing on accessibility, where I caught up with James Foxtall, the accessibility manager at West Midlands Trains, to update them on my transport awareness development and to talk about future awareness development with James related to the train services linked with West Midlands Railway and London North Western services.

I watched a small number of presentation talks on their Insight.

During this event, I met with Lucy Edwards, Disability Activist & Broadcaster and Amy Pohl, Disability Activist & Content Creator and watched their presentation conversation, which was interviewed by Dr. Shani Dhanda, Broadcaster, social entrepreneur & expert in accessibility and disability inclusion.

My Qustions to Lucy Edwards & Amy Pohl

It was an honour to ask both guests a question about their pursuit towards happiness as it was on the same day as the International Day of Happiness. Both guests were glad I asked that question because there's a difference between external happiness and internal happiness inside. Some examples that are mentioned are about their life goals such as raising the family
and I've been in their own space, including having a break on occasions from the cyber world, including social media.

Posing with Lucy Edwards & Amy Pohl



Just like last year when I had a brief with Roman Kemp from last year's event, this year, both Lucy & Amy did not know about the International Day of Happiness.

Summary
I also caught up with some great people who I met from previous events. Because of overlapping events, which were going on at the same time, my time spent with this year's event was reduced compared to last year.

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Keith Mckenzie
Keith is an awareness campaigner, a creative designer (Graphic design and digital art) and a salsa dancing participant

With a background in Art & Design (including Graphic Design & Digital art) and a participant in music-related film documentaries, events & record label project King Of the Beats including filming and behind the scene preparations.

Keith was educated at Hereford College of the Arts, the University of Northampton, Birmingham City University and Google's Digital Garage. Since 2000, he has developed over twenty years in providing awareness projects, campaigns and activities with the Awareness brand Plus Value Awareness along with Differences Originals. Also are involved with salsa classes in the local community as an assistant. Also have participated in major dancing conventions twice a year at Birmingham's NEC for Birmingham Latinmotion and London's ManboCity.

In 2022, Keith become a featured community participant for Birmingham who became part of special projects and campaigns to promote a positive legacy beyond hosting the commonwealth games