Panel
We will start the day with an open panel discussion. We invited 3 experts with experience from various government levels (federal, Ontario and Quebec) to share their experience on creating and implementing web accessibility standards. The invited panalists are:
Denis Boudreau
Denis is a senior Web Accessibility consultant working for Deque Systems and an invited expert of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) in various working groups, including Education and Outreach (EOWG) and Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). He has been advocating social inclusion on the Web since 2001 and has been running the annual a11yMTL conference in Montreal, Canada since 2010. He actively tweets about Web accessibility and digital inclusion at @dboudreau.
Darren Cooney
Darren is the manager of public education & partnerships with the Accessibility Directorate of Ontario. In that role, he leads a team dedicated to helping make the province a better place for people with disabilities.
As a regular volunteer in his community, Darren is the vice-chair of the board of a newly amalgamated agency combining Mid-Toronto Community Services and Dixon Hall.
During his free time, you’ll find Darren sampling Toronto’s Thai cuisine and competing in duathlons, a sport that combines running and cycling into one race.
Laurent Goderre
Laurent Goderre is the lead for the Standard on Web Accessibility and lead developer for the Web Experience Toolkit. He is very active in the open source community, contributing to several projects such as Sass and Assemble. Laurent is also a self-proclaimed GitHub guru, often helping new developers get started with contributing for the toolkit.
Laurent’s background is in computer animation and he really enjoys craft beer.
The panel will be moderated by David Berman
David Berman has 30 years of experience in design and communications and has worked extensively in the adaptation of printed materials for electronic distribution, including accessible Web and PDF design and software interface development.
As an author (Do Good Design [Peachpit/Pearson, 2009]), expert speaker, designer, communications strategist, and consultant, his professional work has brought him to over 50 countries.
In 2012, David was appointed as chair of the Carleton Access Network, a new committee on accessible information technology by Carleton University’s READ Research, Education, Accessibility and Design Initiative.
In 2009, David was appointed a high-level advisor to the United Nations on how accessible Web design thinking can help fulfill the Millennium Development Goals.