Speakers

Sarah Higley is a web developer who works on accessibility at Microsoft. She has been convincing people to give her money in exchange for code since 2011 and is happiest when working on weird web components. She is always up for listening to or participating in rants about accessibility, the importance of front-end skills, and diversity in tech.

Manuel is a front-end developer from Vienna, specialized in HTML, CSS, accessibility, and performance. He likes to write about these topics and talk at meetups and conferences. He’s organizer of the webclerks conference in Vienna, and he maintains htmhell.dev and frontendbookmarks.com.

Tolu is a product designer, developer and accessibility specialist based in Toronto. She’s passionate about social justice and creating inclusive spaces on- and offline. In her free time, she runs an accessibility blog, and offers mentorship to tech professionals from underrepresented groups, especially Black women. She also loves plants 🌿 and the occasional emoji 🙂.

Rian Rietveld is a web accessibility specialist at the full-service WordPress agency Level Level and a trainer at the A11Y Collective. Accessibility is important to her, everyone should be able to use the web. Her mission is to educate everyone involved in a web project to create a web that works for all. She lives in a pretty little town near The Hague in the Netherlands. When not reviewing, teaching or coding, you can find her working in her garden.

Juan Olarte is an IT and Accessibility Specialist with over 18 years of working experience. Juan has worked withthe government of Ontario, Scotiabank, BMO, CIBC, NTT DATA, George Brown College, Ryerson University, Deloitte and Allianz Global Assistance. Juan has taught the Inclusive Design Certificate at Humber College, and the "Creating Accessible Websites" class at Sheridan College. Juan is also the founder of Digita11y Accessible, where he helps organizations meet their accessibility needs. Being visually impaired himself, Juan has first-hand experience facing challenges for people with disabilities on the web.

Donna is a user experience, interaction, and visual designer committed to inclusive design. Donna supports products, projects, and cross-functional teams as a champion for best practices and accessibility. And most of all, she’s passionate about design systems, design tools and processes as the means to express inclusive design at scale. Donna helps to build accessible products at TELUS Digital, by improving tools and processes through collaboration and communication. Donna is also the Content and Social Media Manager for the Design Systems Community.

Jules Kuehn is an accessibility specialist at Accommodation and Adaptive Computer Technology (AAACT) and is part of the Shared Services Canada (SSC) interdisciplinary Accessibility Triage Team, which integrates accessibility into enterprise procurements.

Alex Tait is a developer, consultant and educator whose passion lies in the intersection of accessibility and modern JavaScript within interface architecture and design systems. As a developer, she believes that inclusion driven development practices with accessibility at the forefront lead to better products for everyone. As a consultant and strategist, she believes that less is more and that new feature scope creep cannot be prioritized over core feature parity for disabled users. As an educator, she believes in removing barriers to information so that tech can become a more diverse, equitable and inclusive industry.

Sarah Horton focuses on ways to improve quality of life through good design. Sarah is an independent consultant, helping organizations create “born accessible” technology. She is also an author of books, articles, and papers on designing technology to improve quality of life. Sarah spent 20 years working in technology and higher education. In 2013, Sarah joined The Paciello Group as Director of User Experience and Design, leading efforts to build the consultancy’s user research and user experience design services. She transitioned to the role of Strategy Lead, guiding organizations on their digital accessibility journey. Sarah represented the company in improvement initiatives such as Teach Access and the Silver Taskforce.

Daniel is a passionate developer with a wide variety of experiences developing iOS apps. While at uni, Daniel cofounded Desfici, a mobile development company, and hasn't stopped developing iOS apps since. Daniel worked in start-ups and largerorganizations like the BBC, Skyscanner, and Spotify. Always trying to embed accessibility in the team’s culture. Daniel shares a love for accessibility, at conferences like AppDevCon in Amsterdam, AltConf in San Jose, SwiftFest in Boston, and MobileConf in Bangkok. Daniel is the author of "Developing Accessible iOS Apps" published with Apress.

Eyra Abraham is a Founder/CEO of Lisnen, a Toronto-based startup, Lisnen, which develops technology for the d/Deaf and hard of hearing. Eyra graduated from McGill University with a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science. She pivoted her career into marketing and communications, but her love for technology and innovation drew her back to founding her company, which has a mission to empower people to overcome challenges.

Kate Kalcevich has championed accessibility since the launch of the Ontarians with Disabilities Act in 2001. In the last decade, she redesigned Ontario.ca, led the Ontario Government’s first User Experience team, developed the Inclusive Design Toolkit, created Ontario’s design guide with an emphasis on accessible web components, and built two role-based digital accessibility training and resource guides.Kate Kalcevich In Kate's current role, she is leading Canada Post in making their websites and applications accessible while building capacity within the digital team to embed accessibility into their daily work. Kate also likes CrossFit, reading about biology (especially immunology, longevity and nutrition science), and spoiling her two cats. She is hearing impaired and is a certified Web Accessibility Specialist.

Matthew is a senior accessibility engineer at The Paciello Group, and enjoys exploring accessibility through clients and colleagues. He maintains open-source projects in areas of web and game accessibility. Through TPG, he's a member of the W3C's Accessible Platform Architectures group—the opportunities to learn and contribute are super-rewarding. Matthew's background is in academia, having worked on accessibility research projects as well as teaching and presenting at conferences. When not tapping on a keyboard, he loves swimming, attending gigs, sci-fi and the magic of karaoke (some of which have been possible to enjoy virtually).

Rachel is a UX researcher and Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) in Computing at the University of Dundee. She co-directs the UX’d research group with the aim to understand how people use technology and develop new solutions to improve accessibility. Her mission is to help her students learn to be socially aware developers who create accessible solutions by default.

Crystal has over a decade of experience working with online media and software companies throughout North America. Crystal started in journalism and transitioned into web development in 2010 as an front-end developer, before moving into quality assurance. Crystal's passion for accessibility testing took off when joining Aetna as design QA then as an accessibility engineer supporting and advising engineer teams. Currently, Crystal is a quality engineer focused on accessibility at Salesforce.org.

David Sloan is User Research Lead at The Paciello Group (TPG). His main role is to help clients in their accessibility and inclusive design efforts by designing and delivering usability studies and user research projects that involve people with disabilities. Before joining TPG in 2013, he spent nearly 14 years as a researcher, teacher and consultant in inclusive design at the University of Dundee in Scotland. And long before discovering accessibility, he was a digital cartographer with Collins Bartholomew. Outside of work, his Covid-era hobby list has shrunk to running, hiking and movie watching.

I'm a software developer & designer working on apps, operating systems, and websites since 2011. I got my start with digital accessibility testing Microsoft Word with JAWS. For the past year and a half, I've been working on a tool called Assistiv Labs to make it easier for software developers, designers, and testers to try their products with assistive technologies.

Ashley Bischoff is an accessibility wonk and copy editor for The Paciello Group. She has a knack for taming technical and business writing, and she’s a heartfelt advocate for plain language—she relishes any chance to comb corporate-speak into everyday language. Ashley lives in Dallas, and she likes listening to metal and drinking tea.

Makoto has contributed to the JIS (Japanese Industrial Standard) Working Group and W3C WCAG Working Group as a web accessibility expert. He was the chairman of the Web accessibility Committee in Japan (WAIC) between 2012 and 2019. Makoto is now participating in W3C's Silver task force and contributing to WCAG 3.0.

I work at Scotiabank and am the Director of Global Digital Accessibility. My team and I ensure that accessible design and development are at the foundation of digital banking. I have a passion for creating accessible digital spaces and for the inclusion of people with disabilities in society. I've been doing this since before the internet and back when Commodore 64's and single switch morse code were a gateway for communication for people with disabilities. I am a Professional Engineer and have a Master’s Degree in Critical Disability Studies from York University. For 20 years, I was the co-owner of a company specializing in workplace accommodation supporting employees and employers in creating inclusive workplaces. Advocating for the rights of people with disabilities is at the core of my career and I've been fortunate to have opportunities to do this work with ARCH Disability Law Centre in Canada and with Disability Rights Promotion International in India, Nepal, and Bangladesh.

Reginé Gilbert is an Industry Assistant Professor of Technology, Culture, and Society at NYU Tandon, where she teaches in the Integrated Digital Media (IDM) program. Reginé is a user experience designer, educator, and international public speaker with over 10 years of experience working in the technology arena. She has a strong belief in making the world a more accessible place—one that starts and ends with the user. Her book, Inclusive Design for a Digital World: Designing with Accessibility in Mind, was published in 2019. Reginé worked at such well-known companies as Disney, JP Morgan, Four Seasons Hotel and Resorts, Ralph Lauren, and Vitamin Shoppe. She has spoken at such events as the International User Experience Professional Association conference and the Design and Diversity conference.

Toufic is an Ottawa-based Web Accessibility professional. He has been in the web development field for over 15 years and active in the web accessibility Community since 2010. Toufic is the manager of the web team at Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada. He is the co-organizer of #a11yyow Accessibility Camp Ottawa.