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All 40 people working on Think Autism Melbourne were paid, Kyriakos Gold said
In short
Closing the 2026 conference, Kyriakos Gold set out the rule behind it, that the event runs only if every worker and speaker can be paid, and asked the audience for connection in place of money.
Read it instead, 4 minutesThe transcript
The story
“Everything I know about autism, I haven’t learned through books or journals or TikTok,” Kyriakos Gold, who gave the closing remarks, told the audience as the 2026 Think Autism Melbourne conference closed. He said he had learned it from being in the room with them. By understanding the diversity of everyone’s brain and how those patterns interact, he said, he now understood what he does to neurotypical people.
That was the reason he gave for gathering in person at all. People can only have that mirror, he said, if they gather and get out of the digital spaces our era is built around. He asked people to keep showing up in every space that was accessible and affirming and allowed them to be themselves.
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Sources the story draws on
- Paid Participation Policy (opens in a new tab), National Mental Health Commission
- Good Practice Guidelines for Engaging with People with Disability (opens in a new tab), Department of Social Services
- Pay participants (opens in a new tab), Disability Gateway (Good Practice Guidelines for Engaging with People with Disability)
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