Jessica McKay, Anthony Vasquez, Erica Braverman –  19th of October 2021, 8 pm GMTBefore becoming Knowbility’s Director of Community programs, Jay started her journey in education. First as a music therapist and then as an assistive technology specialist, with the goal of building inclusive learning environments for all. She serves as an advisory member for the National Center for Accessible Educational Materials, the Center on Inclusive Technology & Educational Systems and the State Leaders of Assistive Technology in Education.With experience in community organizing, Jay understands the value of people power, building relationships and holding each other accountable to create more equitable and inclusive spaces. She will graduate from California State University Northridge with a Master of Science in Assistive Technology and Human Services in December 2021Erica is from Michigan and moved to Austin to serve in AmeriCorps. She has a Bachelor’s degree in Spanish from the University of Michigan, a Master of Arts in Teaching from Wayne State University and a certificate in UX Design from UC San Diego.Erica started as a volunteer with Knowbility and competed in AIR in 2019 before joining the team. Prior to this she was a teacher working primarily with English learners. One of her first experiences with internet accessibility involved learning about the types of barriers that her students experienced when they interacted with English language mobile apps.

AXSChat Podcast

AXSChat Podcast with Jessica McKay, Anthony Vasquez and Erica Braverman

Gavin Neate Founder and CEO of Neatbox18 years working directly with disabled people in the charity sector combined with his determination to address the challenges his clients were facing on a daily basis led Gavin start his own solution led company. His unique skills and passion for positive change make him a superb evangelist for equality, diversity and inclusion.

AXSChat Podcast with Gavin Neate Founder and CEO of Neatbox

 Genius Within CIC is a social enterprise established by Dr Nancy Doyle in 2011 to help neurominorities unlock their talents, whilst acknowledging and celebrating that this diversity forms part of the rich tapestry of human experience. Genius Within is aware that many Neurominority children and their families remain unsupported. For this reason, they created Blooming Genius, an independently run subsidiary of Genius Within CIC. The team behind Blooming Genius come from various backgrounds and experience, but they all share the hope and passion to support neurodiverse / neurodivergent youth in the UK. Blooming Genius wish to support neurodiverse / neurodivergent youth to reach their full potential at any level of education, and to lead healthy, successful lives. Blooming Genius also aim to help parents/carers and professionals create a secure and inclusive network of support for every child or young adult. Before Blooming Genius begin supporting the community, they are asking those who are neurodiverse / neurodivergent and under 21 years old, or their parents/carers/guardians/SENCos/advocates, to complete a short survey that will highlight the priorities for Blooming Genius to include in their work.  

AXSChat Podcast with Naz Senoglu​, Executive Director of Blooming Genius and Nancy Doyle founder of Genius Within.

 Kate Nicholson, JD, is a health policy and civil rights attorney and a nationally-recognized expert on the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). She served in the U.S. Department of Justice’s civil rights division for 18 years, where she litigated and managed cases, coordinated federal disability policy, and drafted the current ADA regulations.Kate developed intractable pain after a surgical mishap left her unable to sit or stand and severely limited in walking for many years. During those years, she used opioid pain medication integrated with adjunctive therapies in order to continue to work and function. She gave the TEDx talk, What We Lose When We Undertreat Pain, and speaks widely at universities and conferences and to physicians groups.Kate has published pieces on this topic in The Washington Post, the LA Times, The Chicago Tribune, the Miami Herald, the Hill, and STATnews, among others, and is writing a book. She has appeared on public radio, Stand Up with Pete Dominick, and The Roy Green Show, and has given interviews to Fox News, Vice, BBC, and others.She is Co-Chair of the Chronic Pain/Opioid Task Force for the National Council on Independent Living (NCIL) and was recently appointed to the Opioid Workgroup of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. She regularly collaborates with drug policy, civil rights, disability rights and pain awareness organizations. She is also a 2019-20 Mayday Pain & Society Fellow.Kate was a Senior Fellow at Dartmouth College and is a graduate of Harvard Law School. Dawn Gibson is a health writer and disability activist best known for her work with arthritis patients, chronic pain, less evident disabilities, and eldercare. Dawn live tweets her advocacy trips and vacations to normalize chronic pain, disability travel accommodations, and highlight disabled folks moving freely through society.She founded the Spoonie Chat Twitter community in 2013 and remains active in various disability communities. Some of her favorite things include Detroit Tigers baseball on the radio, hand raising butterflies, and Christmas trees and faux gingerbread houses. Dawn dyslexia, spondyloarthritis, and serious food allergies. Charis Hill is an award-winning queer disabled chronic disease advocate, writer, speaker, and model living with Axial Spondyloarthritis (formerly Ankylosing Spondilitis), autism, major depressive disorder, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder. Charis’ story has been featured in dozens of publications and media outlets including Arthritis Today magazine, Mother Jones, CNBC, the Associated Press, and in the documentary film Becoming Incurable. Charis has also been instrumental in creating spondyloarthritis disease treatment guidelines; designing and conducting patient-centered rheumatological research; forming international criteria for disease treatment outcomes; and creating research guidelines. They are involved in national/international advocacy, and are the co-founder of #HighRiskCovid19. 

AXSChat Podcast with Kate Nicholson, Dawn Gibson and Charis Hill

 Felipe Betancur, inventor, social innovator, passionate about technology, innovation, entrepreneurship. Postgraduate in Accessibility and Design for all. Rebel against social inequality, I constantly seek to creatively help people with disabilities, the elderly and those who may need a boost in their ideas and projects to improve their quality of life. 

AXSChat with Felipe Betancur, inventor, social innovator, passionate about technology.

 June Lowery is Head of Unit and Deputy to the Director at the European Commission’s Directorate General for Communications Networks, Content & Technology (DG CNECT). She has worked for the EU institutions in Luxembourg for the past 25 years in a wide variety of fields including publications, finance, logistics, and digital inclusion. Her current responsibilities include web accessibility, language technology and online safety for children. She is also the CNECT equality coordinator. She is passionate about her job, and about making the digital world safer for children, and more accessible, inclusive and multilingual for all. 

AXSChat Podcast with June Lowery, Head of Unit and Deputy to the Director at the European Commission’s Directorate General for Communications Networks, Content & Technology

  Antonio Santos is a Social Media Business Evangelist and Senior Data Intelligence Expert, at Atos, focusing on Digital Inclusion, Social Media Engagement, and Social Business. He is a Sociologist with expertise on Applied Research; he previously worked in the Media, Military, Public Sector and Telecom before joining Siemens IT in 2006 in Cork and Atos in 2011. According to Onalytica who measures online presence and influence, Antonio is the 3rd most influential employee in the world, in Consulting based on data from Twitter and LinkedIn and number one on Sustainability amongst employees of the 48 most important consulting companies globally.In 2014 with Debra Ruh and Neil Milliken he creates axschat. A weekly Twitter chat on diversity and inclusion, who become the most popular twitter conversation on that topic over the last six years. AXSChat was chosen by Valuable 500 CEO Caroline Casey to become one of their primary media partners and to support their efforts to create a community to revolutionise disability inclusion through business leadership and opportunity.  Debra Ruh is a seasoned entrepreneur that focuses on Global Disability Inclusion, ICT Accessibility, EmployAbility, Marketing and Communications Strategies and Digital Media.  She has provided global leadership to governments, corporations, NGOs and DPO’s (Disability Persons Organizations) all over the world supporting research, outreach, marketing strategies, policy and standards initiatives with public- and private-sector.  Policy, Legislative and Technical Experience includes the United Nations Convention of Rights for People with Disabilities (CRPD), Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), Section 503, 504 and 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, W3C, WCAG 2.0 and ISO.  Debra is also a seasoned Entrepreneur (founder of three firms): Ruh Global Communications, TecAccess, Strategic Performance Solutions.  Neil currently works for Atos as Head of Accessibility & Inclusion where his role is to help make the world a better place by delivering better technology for our customers and staff, embedding inclusive practice into the Business As Usual Processes of organisations with thousands of employees and turnovers numbering in billions.He created the Atos Centre of Competence encompassing Accessibility, Inclusive Design and Assistive Technology Services. This team now services multiple accounts and delivers best practice, support and consultancy for the organisation. www.atos.net/iux 

AXSChat Podcast with Debra, Ruh, Neil Milliken and Antonio Santos

Gregg Vanderheiden is Professor and Director of Trace R&D Center at the University of Maryland. He has been in the field of technology and disability for 50 years, authored the first computer and the first web accessibility guidelines, was an author and chair of the WCAG guidelines working group, and his accessibility techniques and technologies are built into every copy of Windows, macOS, and iOS. His accessibility work is also found in kiosks, voting machines, airline terminals, ticket machines, and automated postal machines across the country. 

#AXSChat Podcast with Gregg Vanderheiden, Professor and Director of Trace R&D Center at the University of Maryland

Christine is the Founder and Managing Director of Open Inclusion. She’s an economist by trade, a disability inclusive researcher, designer and innovator by practice, and practical problem solver by nature. She helps organizations better understand and improve experiences across all brand touchpoints (digital, physical, customer service and communications) through a deeper understanding of the needs of consumers or employees who sense, move, think or feel differently. This is provided by conducting high quality inclusive user research engaging Open’s diverse insight community. Christine has been leveraging digital capabilities, specifically including emerging technologies for over two decades to solve unmet consumer needs, solve them better, or more efficiently. She leads the global Inclusive Design for XR community for XRAccess, is an advisor for a number of innovative digital startups in fintech, health tech and robotic mobility, and is an advisor to the British Standards Institute committee for wayfinding. Open Inclusion is a proud partner to the Valuable 500 and for pan-disability research for the RNIB. Christine has a BEc/BA (Asian Studies), from the Australian National University and MBA from the Australian Gradate School of Management. She is an active member of the Market Research Society (MRS) and is involved in building the inclusive research skills development capability at Unlimited, the new disability inclusive community there. She holds a CPACC from the International Association fo Accessibility Professionals. 

AXSChat Podcast with Christine Hemphill, Founder and Managing Director of Open Inclusion

 Matt Gibson & Ramon Lapenta –  17th of July 2021, 8 pm GMT Matt Gibson is a Director at Cyber-Duck, a user-centric digital transformation agency based out of the UK.He helps oversee all aspects of the production lifecycle, including research, design, and delivery of products and services, for organisations like Sport England, Compare the Market, and the Bank of England. As a BIMA Hot 100 top creative in the UK, he is a champion for inclusive design, and accessibility best practices, levelling up Cyber-Duck’s team and clients’ awareness and knowledge. He truly believes in the universality of the web, and the power that inclusive design has in creating better experiences for everyone.Ramon Lapenta, also  works at Cyber-Duck, and he is a technical lead and senior front-end engineer. He spent the best part of the last 20 years building things for the web, and most of his life involved in the design industry. Working at Cyber-Duck allows him to interact with people from very different backgrounds, and  to learn to adapt is work to cater for many different needs, which eventually turned me to working with Accessibility.As a champion for Accessibility in his company, with Matt, they get to help their team to understand those needs and to work with an open mind for inclusive design, and building a web that’s helpful for everyone. 

AXSChat Podcast with Matt Gibson & Ramon Lapenta from Cyber-Duck, a user-centred digital transformation agency

 Meghan McLean is the Senior Vice President of Sports for the 2022 Special Olympics USA Games. She is responsible for planning and executing a sport competition in 19 Olympic type sports for 4300 Special Olympics participants across North America. Meghan is leading the charge to increase participation by 50% regard to both the number of participants and the number of sports offered at USA Games. With a specific focus on increasing the athlete experience Meghan has identified and negotiated 10 sport venue contracts at state-of-the- art sport facilities across central Florida. Meghan and her team are responsible for planning and executing every aspect of the athletes’ competition experience to ensure athletes have the platform to compete and succeed. Prior to joining the 2022 USA Games Organizing Committee, she served as Senior Director of Sports and Programs for Special Olympics Florida. Her accomplishments while at SOFL include increasing Special Olympics athlete participation 120% by growing the program from 26,533 to 58,466 athletes served Meghan’s ability to not only handle, but enhance and expand, important programs for Special Olympics made her made her a vital team member of the 2022 Special Olympics USA Games bid team that won the bid to host the 2022 USA Games. She is an experienced non-profit executive with a demonstrated history of working in the sport management industry with a particular focus on event management and operations. Meghan also has experience as a consultant for Special Olympics North America where she advised Special Olympics programs across North America on best practices in coach education and event execution. Meghan is driven by the belief that sport can change lives and looks forward to using the 2022 USA Games as a platform to transform the lives of people with disabilities across North America. 

AXSChat Podcast with Meghan McLean, Senior VP of Sports for the 2022 Special Olympics USA Games.

Richard is Head of Accessibility at CDDO (Central Digital and Data Office). He focuses on building accessibility capability and culture in central government and the wider public sector through Accessibility Empathy Lab sessions, clinics, training, talks and webinars, and manages the cross government accessibility communities.Until April 2021 the accessibility monitoring and capability functions were within GDS (Government Digital Service), and this work now continues through CDDO. 

AXSChat Podcast with Richard Morton, Head of Accessibility at the UK Central Digital and Data Office.

 Debra Ruh is a seasoned entrepreneur that focuses on Global Disability Inclusion, ICT Accessibility, EmployAbility, Marketing and Communications Strategies and Digital Media.  She has provided global leadership to governments, corporations, NGOs and DPO’s (Disability Persons Organizations) all over the world supporting research, outreach, marketing strategies, policy and standards initiatives with public- and private-sector.  Policy, Legislative and Technical Experience includes the United Nations Convention of Rights for People with Disabilities (CRPD), Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), Section 503, 504 and 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, W3C, WCAG 2.0 and ISO.  Debra is also a seasoned Entrepreneur (founder of three firms): Ruh Global Communications, TecAccess, Strategic Performance Solutions.  Debra is passionate about Social Media and a Thought Leader and Blogger on ICT Accessibility and Disability Inclusion on social media channels with over  130,000 followers.  Social media mediums include Twitter, Linked-In, Facebook, Pinterest, Tumblr, G+ and other platforms. Work featured in major mediums including CBS, CNN, PBS, ABC, NBC, NPR, INC, Publishers Weekly, Fortune Magazine, US News & World Report, America’s Best, Washington Technology, and Bloomberg Business Week.  Debra has published many white papers, is a newsletter editor for IAAP and a Published Author of two books: Neil currently works for Atos as Head of Accessibility & Inclusion where his role is to help make the world a better place by delivering better technology for our customers and staff, embedding inclusive practice into the Business As Usual Processes of organisations with thousands of employees and turnovers numbering in billions.  He created the Atos Centre of Competence encompassing Accessibility, Inclusive Design and Assistive Technology Services. This team now services multiple accounts and delivers best practice, support and consultancy for the organisation. www.atos.net/iux  He delivers strategy and services working with a wide range of clients internally and externally helping them to develop policies, processes and technology solutions to meet the needs of their staff and customers. These clients include: BBC, Department of Health, Ministry of Justice, Insolvency Service, and NHS.  He is the Atos representative on the Business Disability Forum Technology Task Force and has successfully instigated the adoption of and implemented the Accessible Technology charter.  Neil is also an invited expert and contributor to theW3C Cognitive Accessibility Taskforce. Antonio Santos is a Social Media Business Evangelist and Senior Data Intelligence Expert, at Atos, focusing on Digital Inclusion, Social Media Engagement, and Social Business. He is a Sociologist with expertise on Applied Research; he previously worked in the Media, Military, Public Sector and Telecom before joining Siemens IT in 2006 in Cork and Atos in 2011. According to Onalytica who measures online presence and influence, Antonio is the 3rd most influential employee in the world, in Consulting based on data from Twitter and LinkedIn and number one on Sustainability amongst employees of the 48 most important consulting companies globally. In 2014 with Debra Ruh and Neil Milliken he creates axschat. A weekly Twitter chat on diversity and inclusion, who become the most popular twitter conversation on that topic over the last six years. AXSChat was chosen by Valuable 500 CEO Caroline Casey to become one of their primary media partners and to support their efforts to create a community to revolutionise disability inclusion through business leadership 

AXSChat Podcast with Debra Ruh, Neil Milliken and Antonio Santos

 Jourdan Saunders, MS, CCC-SLP, has been a Speech Language Pathologist (SLP) for over 10 years using her expertise  as the CEO & Founder of The Resource Key which focuses on Inclusive Branding to ensure People with Disabilities are included, and making meaningful connections with brands. Jourdan was awarded LinkedIn Top Voices 2020: Equity in the Workplace, established one of the first resource websites for students interested in the field of Speech Language Pathology (www.futureslps.com) which has received recognition worldwide, owner of one of the largest SLP resources groups on LinkedIn with over 18,000 members. Her work has been featured in USA Gymnastics, American Speech Language Hearing Association (ASHA), MarketWatch, Fast Company, PopSugar, Association of University Centers on Disability, and Kennedy Center.Jourdan has developed inclusive gymnastics programs, reading literacy programs, and is the author of Our Reading Literacy Kitchen: Fresh Approaches to Target Reading Literacy Skills. Her creativity, leadership, and diverse skillset is evident from her work as an advisor to companies and organizations ranging from digital speech therapy, gymnastics, international reading literacy initiatives, culinary industry technology platform, and many more.  

AXSChat Podcast with Jourdan Saunders, Speech Language Pathologist and CEO & Founder of The Resource Key

 Mark Wilcock is an Accessibility Specialist at Atos, CPWA Certified, an ex-contributing member of the W3C WCAG Working Group for WCAG 2.1 in the W3C Cognitive Accessibility Taskforce and an Atos Expert for Immersive Experiences.He is the co-chair for the development of the Digital Accessibility Specialist Apprenticeship standard, the first apprenticeship standard globally solely for Accessibility.

AXSChat Podcast with Mark Wilcock, Accessibility Specialist at Atos

Podcast by Antonio Santos, Debra Ruh, Neil Milliken

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AXSChat Podcast

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