Events & Activities

From the advancement of AI and automation to new laws like the European Accessibility Act (EAA), the digital accessibility landscape continues to evolve. So how can organizations keep pace? In this live webinar, Level Access’s Founder and CEO Tim Springer will unpack the key regulatory, market, and technology trends impacting digital accessibility today, and provide actionable guidance for program leaders to effectively navigate these changes for sustainable progress.

Join us for a webinar on the latest enhancements to Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2 AA, tailored for developers and designers who are passionate about accessibility. This webinar will cover: -The latest requirements of WCAG 2.2 AA -How to integrate the new requirements to ensure conformance. -The core objectives behind the new requirements and whom they serve.

Web archives are digital repositories that use autonomous web crawlers to collect various types of web content, such as web pages, videos, pictures, books, and social media data, for long-term preservation. Web archives such as the Wayback Machine store ‘snapshots’ of web pages at different time intervals, enabling users to access prior versions of web pages that may have been altered or even removed from the corresponding websites. Therefore, web archives serve as an important resource for researchers, analysts, and the general public for a variety of tasks, including fact-checking, searching historical information, tracking public opinion changes, tracking the spread of false narratives, understanding patterns of misinformation propagation, and ultimately promoting information accuracy and credibility on the internet. Given the importance of web archives, it is essential that they are equally accessible to people who are blind. However, little is known about how accessible and usable these web archives are for blind people. In this presentation, we will shed light on this topic by discussing the accessibility and usability of some of the popular web archives. Join Zoom Meeting https://odu.zoom.us/j/93921610804

To celebrate GAAD, A11yTalks is hosting a two-day talk event on Wednesday, May 15th with Blake Bertuccelli and Thursday, May 16th with Sheri Byrne-Haber. On Wednesday, Blake will talk about how Open Source means nothing to the larger accessibility community. That is a problem. Proprietary solutions limit access to vital accessibility tools. This presentation outlines existing Open Source accessibility solutions while asking the question “Why aren’t there more Open Source a11y tools?” The presentation is meant to be both a survey of existing solutions and a call to action for new Open Source solutions. Web Accessibility stagnates without more Open Source A11y tools.

Whether your organization currently does business in the European Union (EU), or plans on tapping into the EU market, you’ll need to comply with the European Accessibility Act (EAA). And with enforcement beginning in June 2025, the clock is ticking. Join Level Access’s Chief Accessibility Officer Jon Avila and Vice President of Legal Affairs Shira Grossman as they discuss the EAA’s application to digital experiences and outline a path to compliance.

In celebration of GAAD, join us for an all-day workshop, Stem to Stern Accessibility. Whether you work in a large or small organization, follow an agile or waterfall process, are experienced or just starting out, this workshop will guide you toward reliably developing accessible and usable products. This workshop is structured to be inclusive and engaging to all skill sets and levels. Through a mix of lecture and highly interactive group work, this workshop covers everything from the beginning to the end in developing a high quality, accessible product. This includes product requirements, procurement, design, development, release, maintenance, and support.

We are excited to announce that Perkins School for the Blind will host Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD) on May 16, 2024. This will be our first time organizing the event, and it promises to be a day full of insightful activities focused on promoting digital accessibility and inclusion for the more than 1 billion people with disabilities across the world. The day will kick off with the “Put Down Your Mouse” challenge, inviting all of us to relinquish our computer mouse and navigate websites and applications using keyboard shortcuts alone. This exercise aims to simulate the user experience of individuals who rely solely on a keyboard to access digital content, and to emphasize the necessity of accessible web design. We encourage everyone to participate and share their experiences to foster a greater understanding of accessibility challenges and solutions. Try it for all or any part of the day! 10 minutes, 1 hour, all day! Gain a greater understanding of accessibility challenges and solutions

You are invited to register for UMN Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD) on May 16, 2024. In coordination with people and institutions around the globe, join us for an online event based on the theme of Built Without Barriers. UMN GAAD 2024 will include a keynote presentation from Ashley Shew, Associate Professor at Virginia Tech and author of the book Against Technoableism. There will also be several breakout sessions in 4 broad tracks: Digital Content, Organizational Success, Community & Partners, and Teaching & Learning. Visit the GAAD event website to register and for more information about the day’s events.

In honor of Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD), join us for a conversation about how different WordPress plugins and theme developers are working to improve and promote accessibility in their products. Representatives from Accessibility Checker, CivicPress, Elementor, Gravity Forms, My Calendar, Popup Maker, and WP Accessibility will share how they are working on accessibility, what they’ve learned along the way, their future goals for accessibility, and resources if you want to learn more about building accessible sites with their products. Following the panel discussion, there will be time for open Q&A. Whether you use these tools on your websites or are a WordPress product owner who wants to make your products more accessible, this is a GAAD event you don’t want to miss. These meetups take place via Zoom and are live captioned. You must register to attend via Zoom.

UC tech leaders will share highlights of their locations’ accessibility projects during a short panel. Then, UC staff will host lightning talks to share practical accessibility skills, explain the importance of digital accessibility and answer audience questions. Finally, we’ll demonstrate how everyone can have a fun-filled life when technology is accessible. Don’t miss this amazing opportunity to have a great time while learning about digital accessibility and connecting with peers throughout UC.