Attending the American Foundation for the Blind Leadership Conference and Helen Keller Achievement Awards Ceremony

My wife Kathy and I had an enjoyable time attending the American Foundation for the Blind Leadership Conference and Helen Keller Achievement Award ceremony and Gala in Oakland California this April.

 

You can read about the last time we attended the Helen Keller Achievement Awards ceremony in New York City in my blog post I did “Helen Keller Achievement Awards & Exploring NYC without Eyesight”.

I enjoyed attending the sessions and due to my accessibility experience having the opportunity to talk with others in person I otherwise know virtually and seldom get to meet in person. One example is having the opportunity to talk in person with Jennison Asuncion, Engineering Manager, Accessibility at LinkedIn. Attending this event also gave me the opportunity to meet people I have never met before who are as passionate as I am about accessibility for products and services. These people also share the same enthusiasm as I for increasing accessibility in the work place. These shared goals include sponsoring inclusion for people with disabilities also with hiring, retaining and promotional opportunities. It was refreshing to be around people who understand the technical and business reasons for insuring people with disabilities are included in the work place to enhance the diverse conversations that lead to better project outcomes.

I especially enjoyed the General Sessions” How Leading Tech Companies Are Raising the Bar for Blind and Visually Impaired Users” on Thursday and “Empowering a Future of No Limits: Employment panel” on Friday. In Fridays’ general session some speakers discussed why leading companies value the unique skillsets people with disabilities have to offer. I also definitely enjoyed listening to some of the speakers explain how their companies have established partnerships between product accessibility, HR, Diversity & Inclusion to promote internal accessibility goals to assist current employees with disabilities along with the goals of attracting new talented employees.

After the Helen Keller Achievement Award ceremony I was very excited and fortunate to meet a longtime, mostly virtual friend Jenny Lay-Flurrie , Chief Accessibility Officer from Microsoft. She was honored and awarded one of the three Helen Keller Achievement Awards for Microsoft’s significant strides in developing inclusive technologies to empower people with disabilities.

Read about this prestigious award and the other 2018 Helen Keller Achievement Award Winners that include Facebook and Haben Girma who I was also fortunate enough to meet and congratulate virtually after the event.

You can read some of the highlights from The 2018 American Foundation for the Blind Leadership Conference in the April 2018 AccessWorld®. Also you can find some of the pictures of this event at American Foundation for the Blind Leadership Conference and Helen Keller Achievement Awards (Facebook) Photos.

Has anyone else attended events where you learned the value of accessibility and the benefits of demonstrating inclusion of all people equally?  If yes, what did you learn? Do you plan to incorporate anything you learned?  If yes, what do you think might be your largest obstacle you may have to overcome in order to promote any change if needed?

We all look forward to hearing your valuable comments.

Bill Tipton

Contributing Author,

Global Dialogue Center

http://www.globaldialoguecenter.com/

LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/wdtipton

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bill.tipton.39

Twitter: http://twitter.com/wdtipton 

 

Comments

[Debbe Kennedy]

Hi Bill,
Another exciting place to share your joy!
Thanks for sharing this story!
Debbe