#disability and inclusive technology summit
By Larry Goldberg, Director of Accessible Media
Teach Access, the industry-academia collaboration founded by Yahoo, Facebook and two dozen other industry and higher ed organizations, has been busy. We’ve been on the road spreading the word about the need to make accessible design and development fundamental to college students in computer science, design and related fields. The mission of making technology pervasively accessible starts with making sure all college students in tech-related fields understand, at a minimum, the fundamental concepts of making tech work for people of all abilities.
Above photo: Larry Goldberg of Yahoo, Ted Drake of Intuit, Amy Chen of Adobe, Mike Shebanek of Yahoo, Laura Palmaro of Google, and Jeff Wieland of Facebook representing Teach Access during a panel session at the Tech Inclusion conference.
On October 26, we hosted a panel at the Tech Inclusion conference in San Francisco. I moderated the panel and our friends from Facebook, Adobe, Google and Intuit joined our own Mike Shebanek for a deep dive into the why and how of Teach Access for an audience of start-ups, long-standing companies, students and hiring managers, all gathered to learn how the diversity movement needs to be inclusive of people with disabilities.
Above photo: Larry Goldberg of Yahoo, Matt Huenerfauth of RIT, Bruce Walker of Georgia Tech leading a panel session at the Disability and Inclusive Technology summit at the White House.
Then, on November 7, the White House hosted the Disability and Inclusive Technology Summit where Teach Access was presented by RIT’s Matt Huenerfauth and Georgia Tech’s Bruce Walker with me as the moderator. Many in the audience of policymakers, major corporations and advocates for people with disabilities responded in agreement that Teach Access’ mission was the best way forward to assure that future technologies are “born accessible” rather than retro-fitted for accessibility after release. Shadi Abou-Zahra from the W3C attended and filed this report.
Above photo: Prof. Dave Chesney of the University of Michigan and Larry Goldberg of Yahoo at the Accessing Higher Ground Conference
On November 16 and 17, Teach Access continued spreading the word at the Accessing Higher Ground Conference near Denver, Colorado. Professor Dave Chesney form the University of Michigan and I sat down to discuss Teach Access with a gathering of 500 university-based accessibility professionals, campus leaders and solution providers in the field. Dave’s presentation, “Building Accessibility into a Computer Science Capstone Course,” was a highlight of the week, demonstrating practical methods of teaching accessibility in a mainstream computer science course at a major university. I also had the opportunity to present the project at a lunch time plenary session entitled, “Sorting Out Certifications for Accessibility Professionals, Application Designers & Developers.” I couldn’t be more excited by the positive response to Teach Access and the commitment of its members.
Stay tuned to this space for continued updates throughout this and the upcoming year.
