The HeX team will be appearing on the Atos Webinar for Global Accessibility Awareness Day 2020
As accessibility advocates, it’s a pleasure to be taking part in Global Accessibility Awareness Day, along with some industry leaders and experts in the field.
What is Global Accessibility Awareness Day?
Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD) is an awareness day focusing on digital access and inclusion for people with disabilities across the world. Marked annually on the third Thursday of May, 2020’s event will be taking place on 21st May.
Usually, the day is celebrated by hundreds of in-person and virtual events around the world, bringing together a huge community of inclusion advocates. And whilst there aren’t any in-person events this year, there are an abundance of organisations hosting all-day virtual webinars featuring hundreds of accessibility experts and disabled users.
Atos accessibility webinar
One of the organisations hosting a webinar on the 21st May 2020 is Atos, a leading international IT services company who serves a huge client base of blue-chip companies across many different sectors.
Usually, a full-day event would be hosted at the Atos HQ in London, and this will be 6th year that Atos has hosted a GAAD event.
This year will be the first year that it will be hosted virtually. The webinar is a 12 hour accessibility marathon from 9 AM to 9 PM UK British Summer Time (BST), being cast around the world, catering for different time zones.
HeX’s involvement in Atos’ GAAD webinar
As keen inclusion advocates, the HeX team have been working on creating a more inclusive digital world for a number of years. We’ve had the opportunity to speak at a number of events around the world on the topic of digital accessibility.
We are excited to reveal that three of the HeX team will be talking at the Atos Global Accessibility Awareness Day webinar, alongside some of the world’s top experts.
Accessible communication – Discussion panel
First up in the day at 10AM (BST), Ben Leach, our digital marketer and content writer. Ben will be part of a discussion panel on how to communicate in an accessible way with clients and users.
Members of the panel:
- Ben Leach, Accessible Digital Marketing and Content Specialist, HeX Productions
- Paul Smyth, Head of Accessibility, Barclays
- Janice Valentine, CEO of Hack Access Dublin
- Lisa Seeman, contributor of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) and author of the Accessibility Rich Internet Application standards (WAI-ARIA).
Growing accessibility expertise – Discussion panel
At 4PM (BST) our Accessibility Director, Zara, will be talking about growing accessibility expertise as part of a discussion panel. The panel will be sharing how to upskill people on accessibility.
Members of the panel:
- Zara Gemmell, Accessibility Director, HeX Productions
- Mark Wilcock, Accessibility Specialist at Atos, UK&I Accessibility and Digital Inclusion team
- Christopher Lee, Managing Director of the International Association of Accessibility Professionals (IAAP)
Accessible user experience in higher education
Finally, at 6:40PM our Creative Director, James Hall, will be delivering a talk on accessibility in higher education, with practical considerations of making higher education digital estates accessible.
James had planned to tour with his next talk this year, demonstrating the use of ARIA, and is still available for webinar appearances around the world.
How to watch the Atos GAAD webinar
If you’d like to tune into the webinar at any point throughout the day, you can do so via Zoom, the video sharing platform.
