This year’s speakers
Keynote speaker: Amar Latif
Founder and Director, Traveleyes
Amar Latif (39) is a blind world traveller, entrepreneur, TV actor and director whose entrepreneurial achievements and international media profile were built against a background of 95% sight loss by the age of 20. Awards include: ‘The Outstanding Young Person’ world award, (Business Entrepreneur category, Chamber of Commerce International JCI) and the ‘Stelios Disabled Entrepreneur Award’.
He is the founder and director of ‘Traveleyes’, the world’s first commercial air tour operator to specialise in serving blind as well as sighted travellers, an international company with a world-wide customer base. Key speaking engagements, to The United Nations (Ethiopia), World Travel Market, Royal College of Art, University of Monaco, RNIB, LCD and the BBC, have been on various themes: entrepreneurial, motivational, inclusive design, world travel, equality and diversity. He directs documentary films (Channel 4), and has appeared in TV productions including the ground-breaking “Beyond Boundaries”, series 1, (BBC/Discovery) Central American jungle endurance expedition.
Other speakers, in alphabetical surname order:
Graham Armfield
Web Accessibility Consultant, Coolfields Consulting
Graham Armfield is a Web Accessibility Consultant with Coolfields Consulting. He works with organisations to improve the accessibility of their websites – auditing and recommending solutions to designers and developers.
Graham is also a web developer – building accessible websites for clients using WordPress. He has contributed to the development of the WordPress CMS framework, and is an active member of the Make WordPress Accessible team.
Lidia Best
Chairman, National Association of Deafened People
Lidia is the new Chairman of National Association of Deafened People ( NADP) and a passionate Londoner working towards accessibility for those who experience barriers due to a hearing loss.
She became deafened in 2008. The experience has prompted her to get involved in active advocacy and lobbying.
Lidia is a member of DTG Accessibility Group and UK Council on Deafness Trustee. Additionally she holds the position of vice- President of the European Federation of Hard of Hearing People ( EFHOH) where she is responsible for lobbying and public engagement. She was responsible for the federation’s “State of subtitling in Europe 2011 Report” together with EFHOH President.
Kevin Carey
Chair, Royal National Institute of Blind People and Chair, Digital Accessibility Alliance
Kevin Carey is the Chair of the Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB) and the Chair of the Government-sponsored Digital Accessibility Alliance (DAA) which brings together the government, business and the third sector to provide a strong lead on eInclusion issues.
Kevin was the Founder Director of eInclusion charity humanITy from 1996-2014, a NESTA Fellow in accessible broadcasting (2004-06) and the winner of a Royal Television Society engineering award for accessible broadcasting in 2003. He was a regular contributor for Managing Information (1999-2014) and still contributes regularly to Ability Magazine.
Kevin has worked on accessibility for the EU and a number of UK government departments and major corporates spanning the whole sector from strategy to the user testing of emerging systems. He has written more than 250 major papers and presentations on eInclusion, specialising in emerging technologies and the impact of convergence.
Kathleen Egan
Programmes Manager, Age UK London
Kathleen has worked in the voluntary sector for more than 30 years. This has included managing pan-London programmes for social enterprises to become sustainable, including ecommerce initiatives. Kathleen currently manages the ‘Fit 4 Purpose’ programme funded by London Councils working with more than 400 older people’s organisations across London.
Key elements of this work are a range of Digital inclusion activities for older people including workshops on:
* Introduction to social media;
* Free resources online;
* Digital democracy – accessing public services and being an active citizen.
Notable projects include OU Media Player and Accessify Wiki.
He has also collaborated with Headstar on accessibilty audits for government and local government.
Nick Freear
Educational Technology Developer, Open University
Nick Freear is an Educational Technology and Web Developer in the Institute of Educational Technology at The Open University.
Nick contributes his accessibility know-how, advice and software fixes to strategic and research projects at the University. He spent a number of years as part of the University’s online learning environment team collaborating on accessibility and general contributions to the free/open-source Moodle e-learning software platform.
He contributes accessibility and other enhancements to various open-source projects including MediaElement.js, SlickQuiz and AccessifyHTML5.js.
Notable projects include OU Media Player and Accessify Wiki.
He has also collaborated with Headstar on accessibilty audits for government and local government.
Professor Jonathan Hassell
Director, Hassell Inclusion
Professor Jonathan Hassell is one of the foremost thought-leaders in enabling organisations to ensure their websites and mobile apps include all audiences, including older and disabled people, with more than 13 years experience of embedding accessibility within digital production teams.
He is lead author of BS 8878 – the British Standards for Web Accessibility – and author of the forthcoming book “Including your missing 20%: How to make great digital experiences for everyone”.
Through Hassell Inclusion he provides digital inclusion training and consultancy to organisations worldwide. He is the former Head of Usability & Accessibility for BBC Future Media where he combined usability and accessibility disciplines to support user-centred-design across web, mobile and IPTV.
He has won awards for managing accessibility on projects including the video-on-demand service BBC iPlayer; the personalisation tool MyDisplay; the accessibility information site My Web My Way; and the sign-language recognition game uKinect Boris Games.
Co-chair: Dan Jellinek
Editor, E-Access Bulletin and Founder, Headstar
Dan Jellinek is Director and co-founder of Headstar, a digital publishing company specialising in technology and social issues. Headstar’s publications include E-Access Bulletin, the world’s leading email newsletter on access to technology by people with disabilities.
Dan is former chair of the Sussex Community Internet Project, a non-profit body helping community groups use the internet; and a member of the Society of IT Management’s ‘Better Connected’ team which reviews every UK council web site annually. He has worked as a freelance journalist for a range of national publications including The Guardian and BBC Online. Dan holds an MA in English Literature from Cambridge University.
Tina Lannin
Founder and Managing Director, 121 Captions
Tina Lannin is deaf with two cochlear implants, and is a passionate advocate of subtitles and live captioning. She owns a captioning and subtitling company, 121 Captions, with offices in London, Dubai and Qatar. Tina is very keen to make events and services more accessible to deaf and hard of hearing people through providing high quality captions and subtitles in over 16 languages.
121 Captions is the first company to bring the following services to the UK, EU and Middle East: remote live captioning, live steno captioning to Google Glass, and audio description via an app.
Co-chair: Nigel Lewis
Chief Executive, AbilityNet
Nigel Lewis is currently CEO of AbilityNet the UK’s leading charity on accessibility. AbilityNet has a over 25 years experience in providing advice, guidance, assessment and consultancy in accessible ICT to all those in need whether at work, in education or at home. Nigel has successfully led the organisation for over 3 years during a period of great change as well as the current economic downturn. Nigel is also Chair of the One Voice for Accessible ICT Coalition and Vice Chair of the British Assistive Technology Association.
Prior to joining AbilityNet Nigel worked for over 25 years in the IT services sector starting his career in software development, then progressing to customer support, project management, presales and sales culminating in managing various public sector business units responsible for all areas of sales, delivery and support. Through his career Nigel has gained a comprehensive knowledge of IT and the implementation of major IT systems but also the management of business.
In his current role Nigel’s main function is to manage the Charity, provide strategic direction and leadership and be an advocate for the Charity and the benefits of accessibility. Nigel is married with two children, one of whom is severely disabled. He is a qualified life coach and provides coaching to a number of businesses and individuals. He is also a volunteer for the National Society for Epilepsy.
Trevor Mobbs
Lead Assistive Technologist, Beaumont College
Trevor Mobbs is Lead Assistive Technologist at Scope’s Beaumont College in Lancaster where he has worked for the past five years. His role involves assessment, provision, training and support of assistive technology as part of a cross-disciplinary team aiming to increase independence for students with complex needs. He has been involved with the delivery of the BT-funded Wheeltop and Connect to Control projects and the JISC DART project.
Trevor is keen to see mainstream technology used and made accessible to disabled people, and has worked on projects with the BBC and YouView with this aim. He is a qualified teacher and is currently studying for an MSc in Assistive Technology at Coventry University.
Richard Moreton
Business Development & Industrial Affairs, Samsung Electronics Research Institute UK
Richard has more than 16 years in the digital television industry and has been part of the Samsung R&D Business Development and Industrial Affairs Team since 2013. Within Samsung Richard has responsibility for strategic partnerships and relationships across Europe and one area of focus is Samsung’s TV Accessibility Programme. Richard is a contributor to EU Standardisation in Accessibility and is actively engaged with industry stakeholders and experts to optimise Samsung solutions in this important field.
Cam Nicholl
Sales and Services Director, Digital Accessibility Centre
Cam has worked in the accessibility field for nine years and her passion for accessibility is widely respected in the field. Cam has built solid working relationships with many large organisations in both the corporate and public sectors in the UK, as well as servicing sales from the United States, Australia, France and Belgium.
Cam has a good practical knowledge of assistive software and their application to the Web in addition to sound knowledge of relevant legislation, Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 and other international legislation surrounding accessibility. She is a member of the International Guild of Accessible Web Designers (www.gawds.org).
Ted Page
Director, DIG Inclusion
Ted Page is a director of DIG Inclusion. He is a former BBC web producer and member of the Corporation’s web accessibility working group. He now regularly trains public sector bodies (UK and overseas), graphic designers/typesetters, corporates, charities and others in accessible PDF production.
Ted runs the UK’s only advanced level PDF accessibility course. He also regularly makes accessible a range of documents for corporates and government departments, from annual reports to forms. This year’s biggest challenge has seen Ted make accessible the PDFs of 180 GCSE exam papers.
Mary-Anne Rankin
Specialist in inclusive customer service
Mary-Anne works with businesses advising them on how to attract and keep more customers by delivering more inclusive services
Through her work as a disability consultant for 17 years, her panel of 400 disabled people, and the experiences gained as a result of meeting the needs of her own disabled family members, she has gained a deep understanding of the issues faced by disabled people in the areas of customer service and life in general.
Mary-Anne works with businesses assessing their customer journey both internally and externally, to identify and remove any barriers that might exclude older as well as disabled consumers. Within this she also looks at the concept design and procurement stages too – getting it right at the beginning is cost effective.
Paul Smyth
Head of IT Accessibility, Barclays
Paul Smyth is Head of IT Accessibility at Barclays, tasked with identifying and addressing the technological barriers that disabled or elderly customers and staff face in accessing the bank’s products, services and systems. Being severely sight impaired, Paul is acutely aware of the physical, technological and attitudinal barriers people with disabilities experience on a daily basis.
Paul has been in Barclays for 10 years since joining as a graduate and has worked in a range of finance, risk and treasury roles prior to his current position. Paul’s role is to establish a centralised IT Accessibility team to own and drive a programme of activities that bake accessibility and inclusive design into the DNA of the organisation, and in doing so making it easier for individuals with disabilities to do business with us and to be employed by us.
Paul has a degree in Management Sciences, as well as being a Chartered Accountant and Corporate Treasurer. He is a martial arts enthusiast and gadget geek and is married with two children.
Robert Wemyss
Head of Accessibility, Post Office Ltd
Robert is responsible for the Post Office end-to-end accessible technology strategy. This includes consideration of the needs of people with disabilities and the ageing workforce as both customers and employees.
Ensuring the group exceeds ongoing legal requirements and creating business growth across all products and services by shaping accessible technology excellence and makes Post Office an easier organisation to do business with.
Fran Welland
Founder, Access Subtitling
Fran Welland has been a broadcast subtitler for 20 years, having training at the BBC in 1994. She spent seven years working on pre-recorded and live news programmes, as well as training new subtitlers in both disciplines. In 2002, she decided to go it alone and has enjoyed a satisfying career as a busy freelance subtitler for TV and DVD ever since.
An enthusiastic advocate for online accessibility, Fran founded Access Subtitling a year ago after trying to watch a video using YouTube’s incomprehensible automatic subtitles. The service is aimed at providing affordable and hassle-free professional subtitling for YouTube and all online videos.
Gill Whitney
Head, Design for All Research Group, Middlesex University
Gill is the program leader for the Middlesex University MSc Digital Inclusion and lead the module on Design for All Regulation, Legislation and Standardisation.
The Design for All Research Group of which Gill is head is the UK National Contact Centre (NCC) for The European Design for All e-Accessibility Network (EDeAN) and this year heads the Secretariat of EDeaN. EDeAN has members in 24 European countries and was established to raise awareness of the importance in achieving greater e-Accessibility.
Roger Wilson-Hinds
Founder, Screenreader.net
Roger Wilson-Hinds is a retired Head Teacher of a special needs school and a long-time disability computer advocate. His company, Screenreader.net, distributed the first free screenreader software for blind and visually disabled people, Thunder. This award-winning software has since gained a huge user base across the globe. More recently, Roger has turned his attention to an easy-to-use family of Android apps marketed as GeorgiePhone. With very little sight himself, Roger retains a passion for those like him to be able to read, write and not miss out in the information age. Georgiephone has a part to play in mitigating isolation and positively encouraging independent travel for seniors as well as providing fun and entertainment.