Q&A With Heather Burns, Accessibility Consultant, Equal Entry

Mar 15, 2022

Heather Burns is a program manager at heart, passionately curious, always looking for ways to improve anything she can. After a 20-plus-year career at Microsoft, she’s excited to work in the field she loves — accessibility! Heather provides training, project management, as well as software and hardware testing to improve the ability of individuals with […]

Accessible Multimodal Input in Augmented Reality Training Applications | Accessibility VR Meetup Recap

Mar 7, 2022

In this talk, Ashley Coffey shares PEAT research on making immersive hybrid workplaces more inclusive and accessible. She reflects on themes explored in an “Inclusive XR in the Workplace” white paper co-authored with the XR Association. Tim Stutts shares his design experience with multi-modal inputs and sensory feedback for augmented reality head-mounted displays, touching briefly […]

Google Project Relate: A Communication Tool | Accessibility NYC Meetup Recap

Feb 22, 2022

For millions of people, being able to speak and be understood can be difficult as a result of conditions that can impact speech, including stroke, ALS, Cerebral Palsy, traumatic brain injury, or Parkinson’s disease. At a previous A11yNYC meetup, Pan-Pan Jiang introduced an Android app called Project Relate, which aims to help people with speech […]

A Voice For Virtual Reality: The Advocate’s Role | Accessibility VR Meetup Recap

Feb 16, 2022

How anyone can advocate for virtual reality use in healthcare? How can they go about doing it in simple ways? In this presentation, Heather Bucalos covered how the advocate of VR for healthcare can do the following: Identify uses for VR in different healthcare settings. Find solutions by identifying barriers to use. How to increase […]

Q&A With Lori Samuels, Senior Director of Accessibility, NBCUniversal

Feb 2, 2022

Lori Samuels is the Senior Director of Accessibility at NBCUniversal. She leads strategic accessibility programs to institute best practices in inclusive design, provide training for software development teams, drive cultural maturity in disability inclusion, and fortify executive sponsorship. Lori has had career roles in software engineering, engineering management, technical program management, and accessibility consulting — […]

Broke with Accessible Taste: Understanding the Economics of Digital Access in America | Accessibility NYC Meetup Recap

Jan 24, 2022

Conversations about digital accessibility are predominantly centered on the technical and monetary expenses of implementation in products and applications. Missing from these conversations are socioeconomic factors faced by people with disabilities that can be significant blockers to digital access more than any design or technical inaccessibility. In this talk, Crystal Preston-Watson discussed the economic realities […]

Accessible Tourism: How Travel Can Be Accessible for All | Accessibility NYC Meetup Recap

Dec 10, 2021

TourismForAll is a travel agency and tour operator that specializes in accessible tourism. Its mission is to provide quality services and accommodations to anyone with a disability who travels to Portugal. It has customized packages and trips to meet customer needs and expectations. A team of specialized professionals will ensure travelers receive the help and […]

Q&A With Alycia Anderson, TEDx speaker and Corporate Inclusion Consultant

Dec 7, 2021

Alycia Anderson is an accomplished TEDx motivational speaker, published writer, corporate inclusion consultant, and founder of The Alycia Anderson Company. Alycia’s authenticity and charisma draw others to her and she naturally connects them to inspire, mentor and support. Alycia holds a European Masters Degree in Adapted Physical Activity emphasizing the benefits, practices, and principles of […]

Paradigm Shifts in Interacting With Virtual Environments: A Focus on Deaf People | Accessibility VR Meetup Recap

Nov 23, 2021

Zoom has thrived since March 2020. Obviously, COVID-19 prompted an interesting fundamental change in how to socialize and network with people remotely. But what about the 3D virtual space? Professor Wendy Dannels will point to some challenges and opportunities deaf individuals using American Sign Language as their primary language have faced when navigating and interacting […]