28/01/2021
Access Israel’s 7th International took place on the 26th of January with over 850 people registered from 79 countries!
Since the beginning of the COIVD-19 pandemic Access Israel organizes monthly international webinars to discuss various issues people with disabilities face due to COVID-19. In the last months, these webinars covered topics such as inclusive remote education, inclusive remote employment, creating trends for accessibility and more.
Photo: Access Israel’s 7th International Webinar was a great success
This webinar focused on “Innovation in Web & App accessibility”. The webinar was a huge success with over 850 people registering from 79 countries. During the three and half long event the participants heard from leading experts in the field and learned about the newest and most innovative solutions for accessibility in websites and applications. For this webinar Access Israel partnered with IAAP, who are leaders in the field of web accessibility.
The webinar was moderated by Michal Rimon, the CEO of Access Israel and began with opening remarks by Christopher Lee, the General Director of IAAP, and was followed by Alison Brown, the Cultural Attache of the American Embassy in Israel and Martin Essl, the Founder of the Essl Foundation.
Yuval Wagner, the founder of Access Israel, was the first speaker and gave a presentation on “Setting the Expectations Straight” which was a great way to evaluate where we stand on the path to accessibility in websites and applications. Gian Wild, who spoke all the way from Australia, and is the Founder, Owner & CEO of AccessibilityOz spoke about “the world’s first accessible video player”. Following her lecture Thomas Brunet, the Head of Accessibility Technology & Innovation of IBM spoke gave a lecture on “The IBM Equal Access Toolkit: Guidance and Tools from Plan to Launch” .Then, Tamar Schapira, the CEO & Co-Founder of SenseIT from Israel spoke about “Testing client flows: the new accessibility testing method”.
Samantha Evans, who is the Certification Manager of the IAAP, spoke about “The Role of Professional Certified IAAP Consultants”. In between the different speakers, the audience heard different tips by IAAP certification holders. Amber Knabl, the Customer Success Manager of Fable gave an interesting lecture on “How to Include People with Disabilities in the Product Development Lifecycle”. This was followed by Ty D’Amore, the Vice President of Strategic Partnerships at AudioEyes, who presented “AudioEyes: New Technology for Website Accessibility”. Thomas Logan, who is the Owner of Equal Entry and lives in Japan sent in a recording on “Native App Accessibility Basics on iOS and Android”. Following his insightful presentation, Rory Preddy, the Senior Cloud Advocate for Java at Microsoft and lives in South Africa, gave a very interesting presentation on “Programming for Accessibility with Accessibility Insights”.
Adam Spencer, the President of AbleDocs, who are Access Israel partner’s, spoke about “The next generation of accessible documents”. Then the audience heard from George Tschare, the CEO, of SignTime, who developed an innovative avatar for sign languages. All these speakers gave the audience a great insight into the field of web & app accessibility. The presentation by Irene Mbari-Kirika, who is the Founder and Executive Director of InAble, an organization in Kenya gave an important lecture on “The challenge of making websites and mobile apps accessible in Africa”. Shadi Abou Zahra, the Accessibility Strategy and Technology Specialist of the W3C Web Accessibility Initiative, spoke about “What’s next on W3C Web Accessibility WCAG”. Following his presentation, Ajit Narayanan, a Software Engineer from Google gave an interesting presentation about “Accessibility for Cognitive Disabilities”. At the end of the webinar, Jonathan Hassel, the CEO & Founder of the Hassel Inclusion gave the final remarks of the webinar.
It was very interesting to hear from leaders in the field of web and app accessibility, who joined virtually from around the world.
We would like to thank the IAAP for the partnership in this webinar.
Thank you to all the speakers for their time and effort they put into their interesting lectures!
Thank you to Verbit for providing the captioning. Thank you for Language People for providing the sign language translation.
Thank you to our sponsors Google, Abledocs and the American Embassy in Israel.
Thank you to everyone that joined this webinar.
