For more information:
Program Committee Coordination:
- Francesca Cesa Bianchi
VP, Institutional Relations & Advocacy, G3ict
fcesabianchi@g3ict.org
Axel Leblois, President, G3ict
Being Safe & Accessible! Greetings by Jeanne Hahne, CEO, FaceView Mask™
Jeanne Hahne first thought of the idea for the FaceView Mask™ while working as a Registered Nurse (RN) in a burn unit because she was having trouble connecting with her patients which led to her vision for a clear surgical face mask which allows for lip reading. Faceview Mask has generously donated their masks for conference attendees so all can feel comfortable communicating safely.
Keynote Leadership Discussion:
We gather each year at M-Enabling to learn about new ways that technology can make daily life more accessible and enable people with disabilities. But two significant barriers – one technical and the other cultural – still exist that prevent this. The COVID-19 pandemic brought the worsening issue of the digital divide to the forefront. Advocacy organizations across every community are now motivated to press Congress on getting every American online and access to connected technologies. From a cultural perspective, when people with disabilities are uncomfortable disclosing, it’s impossible to accommodate and enable them. While these issues may seem unrelated, they are equally impactful to our work to make the world more accessible to people with disabilities.
Susan Diegelman, Chair of the Board, American Association of People with Disabilities (AAPD) & Director of Federal Public Affairs, AT&T
Moderated by Maria Town, President and CEO, AAPD
The acceleration of digital transformations during the COVID-19 pandemic created unprecedented accessibility challenges and opportunities for Persons with Disabilities to transact in everyday life activities, work and learn. This panel will examine new solutions and benefits gained during the pandemic that should perdure and which barriers remain to be addressed from the perspective of large service providers and Persons with Disabilities.
Session Chair: Mike May, Chief Evangelist, GoodMaps
Panelists:
The 2021 State of Accessibility report, jointly conducted by Level Access, G3ict and IAAP among more than 1,200 participating organizations reveals major shifts in organizational trends in the implementation of digital inclusion in all sectors. After a highlight on those trends, executives from leaders in digital inclusion will share their recent experiences in leveraging digital transformation in support of inclusion strategies.
Session Chair: Suzanne Montgomery, VP, Compliance & Chief Accessibility Officer, AT&T
Panelists:
Presented by:
Emcee: Francesca Cesa Bianchi, VP, Institutional Relations and Advocacy, G3ict
Innovation drivers such as AI, Near-Field-Communication, micro-electronics performances and miniaturization, speech recognition, wearable technologies, brain computer interfaces are all driving accessibility innovation and breakthroughs at a rapid pace. This panel will examine latest examples of innovations that are transforming the field of digital accessibility and further breakthroughs to expect.
Session Chair: Sarah Leggin, Director, Regulatory Affairs, CTIA
Lightning Talk Presented by Facebook (Virtual)
Monica Shah Desai, Global Head, Connectivity and Access Policy, Facebook
Panelists:
Following the panel on innovation drivers, participants will be invited to submit one idea for an accessibility application enabled by new technologies that is not available today in the marketplace. The most intriguing ideas will be shared by their authors during a closing plenary session panel.
Kevin Custer, President, ARC Capital Development
Keynote Speaker: Dr. Sachin Dev Pavithran, Executive Director, U.S. Access Board
On perspectives on digital inclusion and the directions set by President’s Biden Executive Order on Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, Accessibility (DEIA).
Dr. Pavithran was appointed to the Access Board as a public member in 2012 and reappointed to a second term four years later. During his tenure, he served terms as Chair and as Vice Chair of the Board. In addition, he was active in the Board’s update of its Section 508 Standards for information and communication technology in the federal sector. Dr. Pavithran has served as Program Director of the Utah Assistive Technology Program and as the Director of Policy for the Center for Persons with Disabilities at Utah State University since 2011. He has over twenty years of experience developing and testing assistive technology and has lectured and trained extensively on the subject. He is President of the Association of University Centers on Disabilities’ national board and is a member of the National Federation of the Blind where he chairs the Committee on Autonomous Vehicles and Innovations in Transportation. He was appointed to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights Utah Advisory Committee and has represented the Access Board on the U.S. Elections Assistance Commission’s Board of Advisors
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is progressively transforming the field of digital accessibility, by enabling new levels of performance in assistive solutions for end users, allowing organizations to better monitor and manage accessibility or allowing for breakthroughs in digital interfaces. This panel will review examples of AI applications for digital inclusion and discuss future directions.
Session Chair: Liberty Vittert, Professor of Data Science, Washington University in St. Louis & Feature Editor of the Harvard Data Science Review
Panelists:
Few areas of accessibility technologies have generated as much publicity as web site accessibility overlays. This discussion will present key issues, concerns and challenges facing both the accessibility industry and people with disabilities as a result of web overlays. The session will further explore the business value proposition of web overlays in today’s digital economy.
Session Chair: Mike Paciello, Founder, WebABLE
Speakers:
The session will be followed by a live electronic survey by the audience to better understand consumer usage and market implementation of web overlays.
The acceleration of R&D investments and innovations in immersive technologies raise the question of how Extended Reality (XR) applications may benefit Persons with Disabilities for work, education and inclusive entertainment and which accessibility challenges should be considered. This panel will examine the rapid expansion of those solutions and hear perspectives from XR leaders on what to expect.
Session Chair: Larry Goldberg, Head of Accessibility, Yahoo
Panelists:
Co-Hosted by: U.S. Department of Labor and U.S. Access Board
Following Dr. Sachin Pavithran’s keynote, this open forum will allow participants to interact and further discuss, in a break-out session format, the many aspects of President Biden’s Executive Order on Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility in the Federal Workforce that are related to digital accessibility. The session will be opened with an overview of how the Executive Order relates to the activities of the Office of Disability Employment Policy (ODEP) of the U.S. Department of Labor. An open dialogue with the audience will ensue covering U.S. Access Board and ODEP’s perspectives on the evolution of digital accessibility in the federal workforce.
With its motto “Anyone, anywhere” Waymap promotes the notion that anyone can explore their environment anywhere – indoor or outdoor – simply, quickly, and independently with a navigation app accurate up to 3-feet, with no signals required – if a map is available. This panel will examine benefits for users, mapping options, stakeholders’ involvement and the security and privacy issues that will arise from this new technology.
Session Chair: Zack Bastian, Manager Strategic Alliances, Verizon
Panelists:
Presented by
Crawford Technologies works with enterprises to deliver automated accessibility services, expertise and solutions through the AccessibilityNow® platform. In working with high profile clients across financial services, healthcare, government and telecommunications, we believe the challenge in making content accessible can be distilled into this simple model: Find, Test and Fix.
It’s critical to be able to Find content whether it be PDFs, MS Office files, or video and audio content on websites and file shares. This involves creating scheduled monitoring of such content and it results in locating the files in question. Then, you need to Test whether the content complies with WCAG. Testing may be as simple as automated testing against success criteria which generates a pass/fail grade, or it may involve both automated and manual review of content and include a formal compliance report. Testing may involve single pieces of content, or large samplings of documents, and reporting over time on your program’s success. At the end, however, it’s critical to be able to Fix the content by using the most automated and intelligent methods available, and this involves UI’s that pack low-level control of the automation plus ease of use. Our overview will cover common use cases we’ve seen of Find/Test/Fix, how we’ve seen this model shift from on-premise to the cloud, and how top organizations are meeting very demanding accessibility requirements and moving the needle for people who want all content to be accessible and usable.
Presenters:
Taryn Mackenzie Williams, Assistant Secretary for Disability Employment, U.S. Department of Labor
Taryn Mackenzie Williams is the newly appointed Assistant Secretary of Labor for Disability Employment Policy. In this position, she advises the Secretary of Labor on how the Department’s policies and programs impact the employment of people with disabilities and leads the Office of Disability Employment Policy (ODEP), which works with employers and all levels of government to promote evidence-based policy that improves employment opportunities and outcomes for people with disabilities.
Moderated by Rachel Nemeth, Senior Director of Regulatory Affairs, CTA
Setting a clear roadmap towards the workplaces of the future is an increasing challenge for many organizations, especially after the rapid shift to virtual environments and remote working triggered by the pandemic. This panel will examine key data on workplace transformations, technology drivers that are likely to accelerate and how they may be best leveraged by organizations in various sectors and workplaces configurations.
Session Chair: Sandy Hanebrink, Executive Director, Touch the Future, Inc.
Panelists:
Digital inclusion and accessibility have long been equity and compliance topics discussed and focused on by governments and big businesses. With the shift in technology capabilities and social expectations, startups have a growing interest in disrupting the existing market and creating new, innovative tech solutions. In this session, you will hear from three startup CEOs on why they created their disability/accessibility focused companies, how they view the topics of disability and accessibility, and what they have learned in their journeys to change the world.
Session Chair: Frances West, Author, Founder, FrancesWestCo
Panelists:
Neurotechnologies have emerged as an exciting new field, promising novel and innovative assistive solutions that can transform the lives of persons with many types of disabilities. While these neurotechnologies, including brain-computer interfaces, have been under development for some time, major players have recently entered the field, accelerating research and development, increasing investments and competition, and showing definite progress towards marketable solutions. This rapid growth has serious implications, which require increased interactions between all members of the field, including persons with disabilities. Presented by NeuroAbilities, G3ict’s latest think tank program, this session will explore some of the most potentially impactful types of solutions that are emerging from labs.
Introductory Remarks: Theresa Vaughan, Research Scientist, National Center for Adaptive Neurotechnologies (NCAN), and G3ict-NeuroAbilities Advisory Council Chair
User Demographics: Cassandra Sperow, Program Manager, G3ict-NeuroAbilities
Session Chair: Mohammed A. Loutfy, Ph.D., Executive Director, Disabled People’s International, and Senior Advisor, Capacity Building and Advocacy, G3ict and Member of the G3ict-NeuroAbilities Advisory Council
Panelists:
Mainstreaming accessibility accommodations in an organization requires adopting and deploying a variety of individual assistive technologies as well as organization wide solutions. This panel will discuss expanding opportunities for digital solutions that can help streamline accommodation processes and make organizations more inclusive.
Session Chair: Kevin A. Grogg, Assistive Technologies Service Owner, Ernst & Young
Panelists:
According to the 2020 DARE Index produced by G3ict and covering 137 countries, Digital Accessibility policies, legislations, regulations, and programs are progressing around the world. This session will provide a global assessment of digital accessibility around the world and provide live perspectives on implementation success factors from leading regional and national experts. Session staged with live virtual international speakers’ participation.
Introductory Remarks: Vianna Maino, Minister of Telecommunications and Information, Republic of Ecuador
Session Chair: Axel Leblois, President, G3ict
Panelists:
Launch of the DARE Academy – Dr Mohammed Loutfy, Executive Director, Disabled People’s International, Senior Advisor, Capacity Building and Advocacy, G3ict
A global capacity building program in cooperation with CBM Global Disability Inclusion, European Federation of Hard of Hearing People (EFHOH), IAAP, International Disability Alliance (IDA), DAISY Consortium, Disabled Peoples’ International (DPI) Leonard Cheshire Disability and the World Blind Union (WBU).
The considerable expansion of virtual environments during the pandemic in business, education, public services and in just about every social and economic activity raises the question of whether current digital accessibility legal and regulatory dispositions are still adequate. Experts with in-depth knowledge of the issues at stake will share their perspectives on what is likely to emerge as a leading topic for accessibility advocates in the near future.
Session Chair: Karen Peltz Strauss, Founder, KPS Collaborative Solutions
Panelists:
Presented by
The rapid rise in digital transformation, adoption of online commerce, and digital accessibility lawsuits is driving constant change in the legal landscape. Legal complaints can focus on specific experiences with or without reference to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). How organizations respond and handle these complaints is critical to risk mitigation and the adoption of digital accessibility. In this session, we’ll examine the grey areas in litigation, technical standards and actual use cases of people with disabilities.
Presenters:
The mainstreaming of digital inclusion priorities among leading organizations requires to build appropriate skills among professionals responsible to deploy accessibility across their organization. This session will present latest 2021 demographics describing the considerable momentum of the Accessibility Profession globally, the role of professional development and certification in its development and the profiles of executives, engineers and experts that are part of it.
Session Chair: Kyle Shachmut, Assistant Director, Digital Accessibility Services, Harvard University
Panelists:
Presented by
The Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) and hearing industry companies are collaborating to ensure Bluetooth® technology better meets the needs of people with hearing loss and makes good on the promise of audio accessibility for everyone.
In this session, Chuck Sabin, Senior Director of Market Development at the Bluetooth SIG, along with Linda Kozma-Spytek, Senior Research Audiologist in the Technology Access Program, and co-director of the Deaf and Hard of Hearing Technology Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center at Gallaudet University, will discuss the current assistive listening system technologies and infrastructure, the challenges inhibiting their wide-scale deployment, and how the upcoming release of Bluetooth® Audio Sharing will help drive broad adoption of assistive listening technology at all types of venues, and expand the concept of assistive listening beyond hearing aids and cochlear implants to include consumer audio products such as headphones and earbuds. Find out how Bluetooth Audio Sharing will enable the next generation of assistive listening systems and the development of broadcasting devices that will propel new opportunities for hearing accessibility and enhanced audio experiences for all.
Mystery Session: Selected speakers sharing their ideas for Next Accessibility “Killer Apps”. This session will feature five ideas selected among submissions made by participants the previous day for an accessibility application enabled by new technologies that is not available today in the marketplace.
Session Chair: Kevin Custer, President, ARC Capital Development
Session Chair: Susan Mazrui, Director, Global Public Policy, AT&T
Panelists:
Hosted by: Organizers E.J. Krause & Associates and G3ict
Enjoy cocktails and hors-d’oeuvres on the outdoor terrace
M-Enabling Summit will offer four thought leadership sessions presented by IAAP on October 6th. The day will be co-hosted by The Valuable 500, The Partnership on Employment & Accessible Technology (PEAT), and SB4All Disability Advocacy Steering Committee, and SB4All Taskforce.
Emcee: Kisiah Timmons, Principal Product Designer, Mobile App Accessibility, Yahoo
Keynote conversation with Ronan Dunne, CEO of Verizon Consumer and Rodney O. Martin, Jr., CEO of Voya Financial
Moderated by Caroline Casey, Founder of The Valuable 500
In this session hear from Valuable 500 member CEOs on:
Co-Hosted by The Valuable 500 and G3ict/IAAP SLiA11y Taskforce
Session Chair: Jay Wyant, Chief Information Accessibility Officer, State of Minnesota and IAAP SLiA11y Taskforce
Panelists:
This panel discussion will cover:
Organizations are increasingly using AI to screen job candidates, streamline the application process, monitor employee actions, and provide employee training. When not designed and implemented to consider diverse users, AI technologies can increase the risk of workplace discrimination, including for people with disabilities. Led by the Partnership on Employment & Accessible Technology (PEAT), this session will explore best practices and resources to help organizations implement policies to make AI workplace implementations more equitable.
Co-Hosted by: Partnership on Employment & Accessible Technology (PEAT)
Welcome & Overview
AI for Disability Inclusion: Enabling Change with Advanced Technology
AAPD Start Access – A Call to Action / Verizon Forward for Good
Design + Build More Inclusive AI for Employment
The PEAT Equitable AI Playbook
11:50 AM – Questions & Answers
12:00 PM – Adjourn
Co-Hosted by: Smart Business 4 All Steering Committee
Session Chair: Dan Goldstein, Esq., SB4All
Panelists:
The panel and roundtable will highlight the Small Business for All (SB4All) coalition of disability advocacy groups who have joined forces to provide guidance for companies to enhance the accessibility of their products and services for employees and customers. Speakers will review the features of Maturity Models and of the SB4All Benchmarking Tool and share their experience in implementing them. Participating accessibility consultants using those models as well as accessibility executives who have implemented them will contribute to the discussion.
Session designed for executives overseeing Accessibility, Diversity and Inclusion, Compliance and Legal Affairs, and Corporate Social Responsibility.
M-Enabling Summit 2022 Registration is now open