Speakers

Learn a little bit about some of the experts presenting sessions this year.

Keynotes

Glenn Pearson

Glenn Pearson is the Head of Aboriginal Research, leads the Kulunga Aboriginal Research Development Unit (KARDU), and is a member of the Institute Leadership Team at the Telethon Kids Institute. Glenn has a state-wide mandate to ensure that the Institute’s research reflects the needs of Aboriginal families and that research is conducted in accord with Aboriginal community ethical and cultural protocols. A trained primary school teacher, he has 15 years of experience in senior positions within the Australian and State Governments in a range of areas including health, education and child protection including almost 10 years with the now, Department of Child Protection and Family Support. He is also completing a Doctorate at the University of Western Australia (UWA) and his research project has explored delivery of child protection, child health and educational services to Aboriginal families in the Perth Metropolitan and Geraldton Regions.

Find them online at Glenn Pearson: Deputy Director, Aboriginal Health.

Karen Myers

Karen Myers is the Business Development Lead for the W3C’s Americas and Australia team and also works in Media and Analyst Relations for the region. She is uniquely placed to comment on the role of Web Standards in ensuring the implementation of digital accessibility.

Find them online at W3C.

Tatiana Mac

Tatiana Mac is an independent American designer who works directly with organisations to build clear and coherent products and design systems. She believes the trifecta of accessibility, performance, and inclusion can work symbiotically to improve our social landscape digitally and physically. When ethically-minded, she thinks technologists can dismantle exclusionary systems in favour of community-focused, inclusive ones. Never totally pleased with design tools, she designs in browser to bring performant, semantic, and accessible visual narratives into the web. Her current obsessions are optimising variable fonts, converting raster images into to SVGs, and recreating modernist paintings in CSS grid. When she can successfully :q vim, she finds new countries to explore (36 and counting). Follow on Twitter @tatianatmac.

Find them online at Tatianamac.com.

Speakers

Adem Cifcioglu

Adem Cifcioglu (Co-Founder and Director of Accessible Technologies, Intopia) has over 12 years of hands-on, professional experience working on the web, including web development, training and consulting. Adem has worked with accessibility in organisations both large and small, on websites for companies ranging from not for profits to large corporates. Throughout 2012 Adem lead the development of the technology section of the National Australia Bank (NAB)’s Accessibility Action Plan, and from 2014 to mid- 2019 was responsible for the development and execution of NAB’s digital accessibility agenda. Adem has provided accessibility advice and run accessible development workshops, as well as organizing community accessibility events in Melbourne. Adem organises the Melbourne Web Accessibility and Inclusive Design Meet-Up and is a co-organiser of the A11y Bytes Global Accessibility Awareness Day initiative, and the A11y Camp Conference. Follow on Twitter @ademcifci.

Find them online at LinkedIn.

Allison Ravenhall

Allison Ravenhall has worked in enough IT roles to fill a bakery: tester, web dev, team lead, tech architect, usability and UX consultant, tech writer, training facilitator, speaker, and accessibility consultant. That depth and breadth of experience is all brought into play in Allison’s current role as Digital Accessibility Sensei at leading Australian accessibility consultancy Intopia, helping organisations create inclusive websites and apps. Follow on Twitter @RavenAlly.

Find them online at LinkedIn.

Amanda Mace

Amanda Mace is the Operations Manager at Web Key IT, a Digital Accessibility firm. Her role at Web Key IT includes providing accessibility consultation, training, website and document auditing, document remediation and project management. Amanda has presented at several conferences and events on both the practical implications and technical solutions for accessible digital products. She has served as a judge in the Accessibility category for the Australian Web Awards as well as judging in the Australian Access Awards. As an active member of two W3C working groups, the Accessibility Guidelines Working Group and the Education and Outreach Working Group as well as the Silver Taskforce, Amanda continues to contribute standards and guidelines to ensure a more accessible future for all. Follow on Twitter @webkey_it and @BluesChick5.

Find them online at LinkedIn.

Andrew Normand

Andrew is the Web Accessibility Lead at the University of Melbourne. He assesses the broader impact of new IT initiatives on prospective customers, current students and staff. He also provides training for students and staff on assistive technologies. Andrew has established an industry leading user testing program which has employed over 40 students with hearing, vision, mobility and cognitive impairments. Together, they ensure that learning management systems, research management platforms, CRM, authentication, web apps and physical infrastructure (e.g. hearing loops) can be accessed by as many users as possible. As both a lawyer and software developer, Andrew enjoys working with project teams regarding international best practice on procurement, legal responsibilities, vendor management, design, branding and defect management. He also loves providing and discussing alternative code solutions. Follow on Twitter @Andrew_Normand.

Find them online at LinkedIn.

Ben Long

After completing his PhD in computer science, Ben worked as a research scientist for the Department of Defence, where he designed security systems using set theory and logic. His regular train ride to the office was a long one; the onset of boredom eventually drove him to pass the time by writing quirky rhyming stories for kids, with four of them now published as picture books. With a passion for both science and storytelling, the intersection of these interests has played a pivotal role in Ben’s career, first taking him to Red Hat where he managed a team of technical writers, and now to Tiny Technologies as the company’s first ever developer advocate. At Tiny, he manages the content and community strategies, and is editor and contributing author of the company’s blog - Blueprint. Follow on Twitter @benlongdev.

Find them online at LinkedIn.

Brad Elborough

Brad is a principal project manager for the Department of Education’s intranet transformation project. For 25 years, Brad has been creating content for different audiences, through news agencies (print and online), websites and, more recently, the Government. A lot of that time has been spent showing people that 30 well-written words can often say the same thing as 250 not-so-well-written words; that plain English is an appropriate language and that even those who went to university can read content that targets a year 7 audience. Brad spent a decade training and assisting Department staff to create content that focussed on what they thought their audiences needed to know. Now, as content lead for the project, Brad is enjoying showing those same people, through content design concepts and user journey maps, that much improvement can be made on those “old ways”. It’s best not to use the term FAQs in front of him.

Bri Norton

Brigitta Norton is the UX Lead of Synergy and has previously been the Digital Transformation Agency’s Accessibility and Inclusivity Lead. She is a digital strategist with 16-years experience enabling organisations to achieve a competitive digital presence, creating a user friendly and accessible experience for optimal stakeholder engagement; providing effective and efficient service delivery. She turns disengaged end users into enthusiastic contributors and understands that digital services need to be searchable, accessible and user-friendly for all visitors to find and access using all kinds of devices from anywhere around the world. Follow on Twitter: @algazel.

Find them online at LinkedIn.

Chris Leighton

Now leading an Australian Group of Eight University in their web accessibility journey (Go8 – research intensive Universities in Australia) Chris has two decades of digital publishing and communications experience. As an Information Architect in education Chris has led colleagues in creating many modern, focussed and responsive websites and digital experiences. Achieving accessibility was a keystone within the specialised teams forming these sites. Site editors also received ongoing support and training in accessible technique as part of handover of these sites. Some of these sites continue to function and deliver benefit many years later. Prior to education Chris applied his ‘user-centric’ expertise in the fields of desktop publishing, music distribution and sales and in IT sales and support. Chris intends to have many more happy years with his Hotmail account and hopes to take it to the grave.

Find them online at LinkedIn.

Christos Petrou

Christos spent over 15 years in internal accessibility advisory roles at IBM Australia. He has a strong focus on improving the accessibility and usability of digital solutions in order to improve the user experience and efficiency for all users. Christos is an expert in the application of WCAG guidelines and brings inclusive design thinking to move beyond compliance to create widely useful solutions with clients. Follow on Twitter @christosptr.

Find them online at LinkedIn.

Cliff Edwards

Before joining the online field, Cliff’s background was in human services. Spanning Europe, the US and South Australia, fields included community support and outreach, secure environments, hospitals, custodial corrections, homelessness and high need housing and deinstitutionalisation. In his 17th year working for South Australian Government, Cliff is the Digital Product Manager for Websites and Inclusion for Office for Digital Government (a team that sits with the Department for Premier and Cabinet). Over the last 24 months, in support South Australia’s Disability Inclusion Act 2018, Cliff has worked with leading industry experts, people with lived experience of a disability, members of the community, all levels of government here in Australia and representatives from the US, UK and Canadian Governments to co-design South Australian Government’s new Online Accessibility Policy and Online Accessibility Toolkit accessibility.sa.gov.au. A dual category winner at the first Australian Access Awards 2019 and finalist at the Australian Human Rights Awards 2019, accessibility.sa.gov.au is designed to be a community driven resource helping everyone build better digital products and services by making digital platforms more accessible.

David Vosnacos

David is an Occupational Therapist and Access Consultant at VisAbility with over 18 years experience of the use of assistive technologies that make a difference in the lives of people with a vision impairment. His specialities are in the areas of access consultancy, print access, web access, access to premises, accessible media, assistive technology, project management, augmentative / virtual and mixed reality technologies.

Find them online at LinkedIn.

Dr Scott Hollier

Dr Scott Hollier specialises in the field of digital accessibility and is the author of the book ‘Outrunning the Night: a life journey of disability, determination and joy’. With a Ph.D. in Internet Studies and project management experience across the not-for-profit, corporate and government sectors, Scott is an internationally-recognised researcher and speaker. Consultancy areas include consumer-based support for service organisations, developer-based support for ICT professionals for web and app-related work and support across different organisational roles to achieve compliance with digital accessibility standards such as WCAG 2.0. Services include direct consultancy, project management, accessibility training and resource development. Scott also lectures at Edith Cowan University and the University of South Australia in the areas of information management and web accessibility. Follow on Twitter: @scotthollier

Find them online at LinkedIn.

Eloise Cleary

Eloise is an inclusive interaction designer with a focus on user-experience who graduated from the University of Technology Sydney with a Bachelor in Integrated Product Design (Honours). Eloise has a strong commitment to inclusive design principles and developing user- empowerment by uniting emotional and functional design practices. Eloise believes human-centered design research methods lead to the best innovations and result in creating holistic design solutions. Follow on Twitter @EloiseCleary.

Find them online at LinkedIn.

Gian Wild

Gian Wild is the CEO of AccessibilityOz. She has worked in accessibility industry since 1998. Her major achievements include: the very first Australian accessible web site; the accessibility compliance of the Melbourne 2006 and Gold Coast 2018 Commonwealth Games; her six years’ active membership in the W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines Working Group; and her speech on the importance of web accessibility at the United Nations Conference of State Parties in June last year. Gian has spoken at conferences in Australia, US, Canada, South America and Europe. Follow on Twitter @AccessibilityOz.

Find them online at LinkedIn.

Gisele Mesnage

Gisele’s father had a profound influence in her conviction that digitalisation makes accessibility possible. She fondly recalls her father, an electronics engineer who created a robotic arm even before the CanadaArm was deployed, taking her arm an telling her, “it’s all about coding: if I want my robot to do this; I program it to do this”. But even though coding and universal design principles are the technical fundamentals of accessible websites and other digital products , Gisele believes legislation and other systemic measures are the social fundamentals to create an inclusive digital society. After years attempting to bring about change through lodging complaints with the Australian Human Rights Commission, direct approaches to various organisations and ultimately litigation, Gisele founded The Digital Gap Initiative. Gisele explains: “I was shocked when I became aware that, in this digital age, there was no legislation comparable to the ‘Access to Premises’ Act for access to digital technologies and services. I felt something had to be done about that”. Follow on Twitter @egap_project.

Find them online at Digital Gap.

Jason McKee

Jason drives the marketing and branding for Accessibility Shield. A former journalist and advertising executive, he writes frequently about web accessibility for publications such as Wired Magazine and The Philadelphia Inquirer. He is a regular speaker at industry conferences and an advocate for the disabled. Follow on Twitter @A11yShield.

Find them online at LinkedIn.

Julie Grundy

Julie Grundy is an accessibility expert who works for Intopia, a digital accessibility consultancy. She has 6 years experience as a consultant, and before that a decade spent as a front-end web developer in the health and education sectors. She believes in the democratic web and aims to unlock digital worlds for as many people as possible. Follow on Twitter @stringy.

Find them online at LinkedIn.

Liddy Nevile

Liddy’s particular interests in recent years have been the accessibility to all of digital resources and the use of metadata. She has been working as an author and editor for accessibility and accessibility metadata specifications with W3C, the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative, the European Committee for Standardization and the IMS Global Learning Project. She was metadata and accessibility developer for several major portals prior to this work. Her lifelong interest has been in new technologies and how they can be used to serve human purposes, what she calls ‘convivial’ technologies. This interest has led to on-going work with the goal of finding ways to enable a remote Aboriginal community to repatriate its culture. It also has involved a significant amount of work with young people and prototype computer environments.

Find them online at LinkedIn.

Matheus Ferreira

Matheus Ferreira is a Brazilian journalist, who is pursuing his master’s degree in Communication at the São Paulo State University. He currently holds a scholarship granted by the São Paulo Research Foundation to research the regulation of digital accessibility in cyberjournalism in Brazil and Australia. The researcher is a Visiting Research Associate at the Centre for Culture and Technology (Curtin University), under the supervision of the director of the Centre, professor Katie Ellis. Follow on Twitter @bentheus.

Find them online at LinkedIn.

Matt Putland

A passionate accessible HTML and semantics expert and Perth local, Matt has over 4 years’ experience working with digital accessibility as his core focus. As a Digital Accessibility Consultant at Vision Australia, he works with clients to offer technical and remediation advice on how to make their websites or mobile applications accessible for all. Matt is the lead facilitator of Vision Australia’s highly popular Web Accessibility Techniques and Testing course, and has delivered this training and other services to large corporations, banks, universities and also smaller organisations including not-for-profits. Matthew has a Double major in I.T and is an accredited Web Accessibility Specialist from the International Association of Accessibility Professionals. Follow on Twitter @Mattcessability.

Find them online at LinkedIn.

Natalie Collins

Natalie has over 20 years of experience working in the not-for-profit and social enterprise sectors. A specialist in inclusive design, Natalie’s unique expertise has helped many organisations realise the value of edge-user insights to transform culture, improve customer experience, and; innovate the creation of products and services appealing to a broader market audience. She is passionate about inclusion and creating a more digitally inclusive society, recognising the value individuality brings to it and creating a society where everyone can thrive. Natalie is a member of the ADIA governance and strategy committee and inclusive access program lead. Follow on Twitter @nataliejcollins.

Find them online at LinkedIn.

Scott Sumner

Scott has a background in marketing and communications with a special interest in consumer behaviour and insight. His work experience covers start-ups, financial services, professional services and multinational companies. Scott focuses on empowering others to design with inclusion in mind by embedding capability within business and providing insight to organisations. Follow on Twitter @fakescottsumner.

Find them online at LinkedIn.

Sharon Maloney

Sharon is the manager of the Department of Education WA’s intranet transformation project. A passionate communications professional, Sharon is challenging the status quo by instilling the mantra, ‘It’s not dumbing down, it’s opening up’. Having spent the past 25 years in corporate communications across government and the private sector, Sharon is relishing the opportunity to make the new platform quick, simple and user-centric. No small feat when considering our ‘users’ include around 50 000 staff to keep in focus. A self-confessed digital beginner (there’s a copy of Scrum for Dummies on her desk!) Sharon prides herself on her ability to building a strong team of experts who together are creating change and making magic happen! Last year Sharon was elevated to Fellow of the Public Relations Institute of Australia.

Troy Waller

Troy is a Learning Delivery Specialist & Accessibility Lead for Microsoft Education Australia. He works directly with teachers and school leaders to better reach learning outcomes and transform classroom time through technology. He helps schools plan and implement long to medium-term professional development strategies around the use of educational technologies. He leads both virtual and face-to-face sessions inspiring teachers towards the digital transformation of education. Troy is passionate about how technology can be used to make classrooms more equitable and inclusive and worked with numerous schools around the country to achieve this. He taught in Asia for over a decade, working for both government and International Schools before returning to Australia in 2012. His knowledge extends from the Australian Curriculum to the International Baccalaureate. Follow on Twitter @hojusaram.

Find them online at LinkedIn.

Vaughn McGuire

I am the youngest of seven siblings of Walter and May McGuire, born in Kellerberrin, Balladong country. My family ties initiates from Kings Park. All my life I have received teachings from my Grandmothers, Grandfathers, Uncles and Aunties, on significant cultural issues. My biggest influence and educator was my Father who spoke 5 different Aboriginal dialect. As a values member of the Whadjuk Nation, I have ties with the Balladong, Yued and Bindjareb Nations and most of the Aboriginal communities throughout the Pilbara and Kimberley region and extended families

Vithya Vijayakumare

Vithya is the Digital Accessibility Consultant at VisAbility. Part of Vithya’s role is to ensure websites, social media, videos, documents and audio materials are accessible to all users, including people with disabilities. Vithya provides various accessibility training and consultation which includes providing standards and guidelines on how to create accessible videos/podcast, social media, websites and document auditing/remediation (PDF/Word/EPUB3). She has presented at several disability conferences and events on various digital accessibility topics (OzeWAI, PWAC, National Disability Service (NDS) WA Conference, GAAD). With a Professional Certification in Web Accessibility, Masters of Innovation Technologies from ECU, specialising in multimedia, sound design and 3D Surround Sound, Vithya has developed a great passion for digital accessibility and inclusive publishing. She is working towards ensuring that all products and information will be “Born Digital, Born Accessible” in the near future. Follow on Twitter @vithyavv and @visabilityAU.

Find them online at LinkedIn.

Yuma Decaux

Accessibility is a concept often associated to text, alternate structures emanating from web standardisations, and the result of creating efficient contextual information in a simple and intelligible way. However, this form of accessibility will remain sequential, non-dynamic and often does not give more layered and multi-dimensional understanding of what is being presented. Yuma Antoine Decaux is a student from the University of Queensland, recipient of multiple local and international awards. His constant research in a field he calls “Spatial awareness”, in the fields of mobility, education, work and entertainment, has chosen the topic of space exploration to apply his work.

Find them online at OSeyeris.

Zel Iscel

Zel Iscel completed her Bachelor of Arts Degree in Politics and Government at Edith Cowan University in 2003. Since her graduation, Zel has built her career in disability working in state, national and international roles. In 2016 Zel began working with Web Key IT as a Usability Analyst specialising in assistive technology for people who are blind or vision impaired. Zel also runs her own disability consultancy, ‘Inclusive World’, is Chair of Blind Citizens Western Australia, is a Director of Rights International Australia and on the board of DADAA. – a disability arts organisation. Technology plays a vital role in Zel’s work, study and social life and allows her to choose the kind of work she wants to do. She believes that the present time is the best era for people with disability provided they have access to the technology, services and supports they need.

Find them online at LinkedIn.