Some gaps show up in numbers. Others show up in missed opportunities. In Spain, the employment rate for people with disabilities stands at 28.5%, more than 40 points below the rate for people without disabilities. At the same time, 74% of Spanish executives are looking to bring specialized AI talent onto their teams.
Between those two numbers sits a huge opportunity to act. That’s why, on February 17, we presented an accessible AI training program in Madrid together with Fundación ONCE and Microsoft, designed to help people with disabilities develop skills that are now key to the job market.
What the program involves and how it works
The program is part of Por Talento Digital, Fundación ONCE’s initiative to improve employability for people with disabilities through technology training. It’s designed to take participants from zero AI knowledge to applying it in their day-to-day work within a matter of weeks.
The training runs on a microlearning format: short modules that fit into a flexible schedule. With just 15 to 20 minutes a day, participants work through hands-on exercises built around real-world situations.
All the content lives on our platform, which includes a virtual campus built to support collaborative learning. Exercises are shared among participants, and the campus includes the FounderzFellows, virtual AI mentors who guide each student in real time throughout their entire learning process.
At the end of the program, participants receive a joint Founderz and Microsoft credential certifying that they’ve completed the program and are ready to apply AI in professional settings.
Training that translates into employability
The program’s official launch in Madrid took the form of an employability workshop led by Gadesoft, a Microsoft technology partner, for the participants of Por Talento Digital.
During the session, participants worked on skills they could put to use right away: how to strengthen their professional profile on LinkedIn by highlighting AI skills, how to tailor their resume to match job postings looking for these profiles, and how to prepare for interviews in increasingly digital hiring processes.
The workshop’s goal was to turn what participants learned in the program into concrete steps for their job search. AI training has to go beyond understanding the basic concepts behind the technology: it has to help people think more creatively, process information more efficiently, automate repetitive tasks, and make better decisions, whatever their field.
As Anna Cejudo, co-founder of Founderz, puts it: “We tend to talk about AI in terms of technological progress, but the real challenge is making sure the opportunities reach everyone. This collaboration lets us drive an inclusive program built around learning by doing, helping people gain the confidence to apply AI at work.”
Our mission continues
Over the past six years, Founderz has trained more than 400,000 people and worked with 1,500 companies around the world. That experience has taught us what actually works in AI training: programs built around short modules that fit a flexible schedule, hands-on exercises centered on real use cases, and an educational model that supports collaborative learning.
This project with Fundación ONCE and Microsoft applies those same principles, with universal accessibility built in from the start, not as an afterthought, but as a requirement from the very first line of code.
According to data from the Observatory on Disability and the Labor Market (ODISMET), training is essential to the labor-market integration of people with disabilities. But that training needs to be practical: it has to build AI skills that translate directly into professional settings, prepare candidates for the profiles companies are actually looking for, and let them demonstrate those skills in ways employers can verify.
Digital transformation can’t leave anyone behind. This alliance with Fundación ONCE and Microsoft is a concrete step in that direction.
