11th Annual Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD)
Celebrate GAAD 2022 with DA
At Digita11y Accessible, our objective is to ensure inclusivity — and digital engagement — for all accessible users while raising visibility for the accessibility community.
We welcome you to Join Us for a free digital event featuring expert Accessibility Speakers: to gain valuable industry knowledge, learn from decades of applied experience, and help raise awareness in support of GAAD’s 11th Anniversary.
What does GAAD stand for?
GAAD stands for Global Accessibility Awareness Day, and it is celebrated every year on the third Thursday in May. The day of celebration is created in order to help raise awareness of the accessibility community, as well as to educate the world about accessibility and its significance.
What is accessibility?
Accessibility is the inclusive practice of making digital assets user-friendly for people with and without disabilities, in order to provide all users equal access to digital content. The main idea is that all people deserve inclusive first-rate digital experiences, no matter how digital content is shared or consumed.
Our Expert Speakers
Our Accessibility Speakers are industry experts from for-profit and not-for-profit organizations, representing a wide array of valuable experience across industries, sectors, and types of accessibility implementation. These experts will share valuable information based on deep experience, applied knowledge, lived experience and user empathy; enabling viewers to both understand and better implement accessibility.
Join Us on May 19th from 10 AM to 2 PM EST for an engaging and informative event!
Speakers
Jennison Asuncion
Topic
Keynote Introduction
We are delighted to have Jennison Asuncion, one of the original co-founders of GAAD, introduce and open this 11th Annual Celebration Event. Jennison will hold a brief discussion of the meaning and intentions behind GAAD, the importance of global accessibility, and an open Q/A with the attendees.
Speaker Bio
Jennison is extremely passionate about digital accessibility and inclusion, striving to enable engagement for over one billion people, globally, who have disabilities/impairments. Having began his digital accessibility career in 2006 at RBC’s IT Accessibility Team, he joined LinkedIn in 2013, where today he is Head of Accessibility Engineering Evangelism, as part of Accessibility Leadership.
In addition, Jennison is a co-founder of the annual Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD), as well as various global camps, unconferences and events, including Accessibility Camp Toronto in 2011, Accessibility Camp Bay Area in 2014, the Boston Accessibility Unconference in 2010, and more.
Notably, he was honoured with a 2012 Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal, the 2018 Stephen Garff Marriott Award; and in 2020 was named “1 of 30 power players helping new CEO Ryan Roslansky run LinkedIn” by Business Insider, and by Diversability to their D-30 Disability Impact List.
Phil Yatvin
Topic
Inclusive Design: Why Utilizing Users with Disabilities Creates Better Digital Experiences
Speaker Bio
Combining past career experiences in innovation consulting and special education, it’s no surprise Phil came in and immediately spurred growth in the social enterprise businesses of the nonprofit, The Chicago Lighthouse. The Chicago Lighthouse is a world-renowned social service organization serving the blind, visually impaired, disabled and Veteran communities through 35 programs and services in the areas of vision rehabilitation, education, employment, assistive technology, independent living and social enterprise.
Their social enterprise model creates career opportunities for professionals of their mission in revenue-generating businesses that fund a majority of the social service programs provided at The Lighthouse. Phil created and runs the Digital Accessible Experience (DAX) Consulting group that has developed partnerships across industries with high-profile partners such as Google and Epic Systems. The DAX team is comprised of native assistive technology users who are Certified Professionals in Accessibility Core Competencies (CPACC) by the International Association of Accessibility Professionals (IAAP).
As Senior Director of Business Development, Phil is an expert at conversing about digital inclusion and accessibility to technical teams and executives alike. He helps organizations build strategies to uncover areas of improvement in their digital spaces to make sure that EVERY potential customer has a positive experience making a purchase or using a service. His ability to break down digital inclusion into consumable pieces allows partners to build the empathy and understanding needed to feel empowered to push forward initiatives that impact their bottom line and the community, simultaneously, at their own companies.
Phil graduated with a degree in Business Management from the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University
Ben Chargot
Topic
Inclusive Design: Why Utilizing Users with Disabilities Creates Better Digital Experiences
Speaker Bio
Ben Chargot, a disability inclusion advocate, has worn many hats professionally while part of the Chicago Lighthouse team. During his time at the nonprofit, Ben has worked as a Team Lead for their integrated University of Illinois Health System medical scheduling contact center, a producer at CRIS Radio, and most recently, Project Coordinator of The Lighthouse’s Digital Accessible Experience (DAX) Consulting team.
Ben’s relationship building, communication and leadership capabilities made him the perfect fit to manage projects for the growing disability inclusion consulting group. Being a native JAWS user and braille reader, Ben does a great job using his own life experiences to act as the bridge between DAX’s technical specialists and their partners. He helps partners understand the value of inclusive design practices that help them partner with DAX to build sustainable digital inclusion within their digital spaces such as websites, mobile apps and other software platforms.
Ben holds a bachelor’s degree from McNally Smith College of Music and is still an avid musician. He and his seeing-eye dog, Sammie, are excited to be on a team at the forefront of the surge of interest in digital accessibility and inclusion.
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Beth Somerfield
Topic
Accessibility and Usability Work Together to Make Things Better
Speaker Bio
Beth Somerfield, CPWA is a Digital Accessibility Specialist at Anthro-Tech. She is passionate about breaking down complexity to make digital services accessible, concise, understandable, and polished. Beth works to make it easier for people to share, connect, and get the things they need. She achieves this by creating UX and accessibility roadmaps, reviewing website and app accessibility, supporting inclusive usability studies, annotating designs for accessibility, and supporting good UX and accessibility throughout the product lifecycle.
Andrew Skinner
Topic
Accessibility and Usability Work Together to Make Things Better
Speaker Bio
Andrew Skinner is a Digital Accessibility Specialist at Anthro-Tech. He is passionate about championing accessibility, inclusion, and equitable access to sites, services, experiences, content, and everything in-between.
At Anthro-Tech, Andrew supports accessibility audits, accessibility design, research, and promoting accessibility and inclusive design. He helps teams understand the importance of accessibility and inclusive design and sharing knowledge.
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Kara Zirkle
Topic
Accessible Procurement
Speaker Bio
Kara has worked in the field of accessibility for 20 years. Her career started in assistive technology, home health, and rehabilitation and has advanced to digital accessibility for government, non-profits, financial, education, corporate, and accessibility service companies. As an accessibility subject matter expert, she’s worked on various topics including but not limited to: assistive technology, automated, manual and user testing, product and project managing, lifecycle development, enterprise integration, multimedia, and document accessibility as well as policy, risk analysis, and procurement.
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Bob Dodd
Topic
Accessibility ‘Silver Bullets’
Speaker Bio
Bob is an Information Technology veteran with over 30 years’ experience. He is deeply knowledgeable and experienced in the design and implementation of accessible websites, especially for users who are blind or have physical disabilities. This has led him to his current role of Director of Delivery at Digita11y Accessible.
Bob previously worked for the Canadian National Institute for the Blind (CNIB) for over 10 years. First, as the Library Web Developer where he developed and maintained the websites for CNIB and CELA. Both websites were designed specifically with blind, low vision, and generally print disabled clients in mind. Then, he was the Digital Accessibility Manager for Frontier Accessibility, the commercial division CNIB.
Bob is a PhD candidate, studying self-adapting user interfaces as assistive technology. He has a Masters of Science (MSc) in Multimedia Applications, with a thesis on mobile accessibility for people with Multiple Sclerosis. Bob has also published peer-reviewed research on this subject, which is available through the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)’s Digital Library.
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