Sponsors and organizers (2019)
We rely on our sponsors to hold this event. If you or your company would like to be a recognized sponsor for this year’s event, complete the sponsor form (Word document.) It includes information on how to send it to us and payment options, as well as information on what levels of sponsor ship are available.
You can also donate through PayPal without officially sponsoring:
Event Host
Gold Sponsors
INDEX, Eunice Kennedy Shriver Center, UMass Medical School
INDEX provides information to the public about doctors, dentists, programs, and services for people with disabilities in Massachusetts (See DisabilityInfo.org); develops accessible Websites and online courses (See INDEX Technical Services.); and conducts research in artificial-intelligence driven Web text simplification for people with cognitive disabilities.
Vision-Aid
Silver Sponsors
Open Access Technologies (OAT)
Open Access Technologies is a cloud-based SaaS enterprise solution company with a core focus in digital document accessibility. Our services and solutions include: Remediation-as-a-Service; simply send your documents and get them back accessible! DocMDTM; crawls websites, identifies all documents and assesses accessibility. EnableAccessTM; a workflow platform that remediates any size or volume of documents and can transform them, in kind, or convert to alternate formats such as PDF, MS Office, HTML, or EPUB. EnableXpressTM; a portal that allows staff to submit documents remotely. For more information, please visit the Open Access website.Oracle
For many reasons—legal, business, and ethical—Oracle recognizes the need for our applications, and our customers’ and partners’ products built with our tools, to be usable by the disabled community. The Oracle Accessibility Program Office, reporting to the office of the Chief Corporate Architect, is responsible for defining the corporate standards for accessibility, and developing materials to train all employees so that they can successfully create products that meet those standards.
“Oracle is committed to creating accessible technologies and products that enhance the overall workplace environment and contribute to the productivity of our employees, our customers, and our customers’ customers.”
—Safra Catz, Chief Executive Officer, Oracle
3Play Media
We provide premium closed captioning, transcription, audio description, and subtitling solutions at very competitive prices. Our goal is to simplify the process by providing a user-friendly account system, fast turnaround, flexible API’s, and integrations with a multitude of video players, platforms, and lecture capture systems. We create closed captions and subtitles in many different formats and languages. We also develop video search plugins and a range of tools that save time and cut costs. Our commitment to innovation has led to 7 patents (granted and pending)–all of which focus on making the captioning, subtitling, and transcription process more efficient and less expensive. More about 3Play MediaBronze Sponsors
Bentley University User Experience Center
Bentley University User Experience Center is a global user experience consulting group. Since our founding in 1999, we have provided hundreds of clients around the world with user experience research, design, and strategy services. The UXC provides clients with rich actionable insights that drive design innovation and maximize impact. https://www.bentley.edu/centers/user-experience-center
Cantina Consulting
Cantina Consulting is a strategic design and development agency in Boston, MA that helps organizations harness the power of design and technology to create experiences that matter. With expertise in product and service design, experience strategy, mobile and web development, and delivery enablement, Cantina will help you find opportunities for innovation and growth, as well as design, develop, and deliver digital products and services that improve people’s lives and enhance the human experience.
Uplift Accelerator
Uplift Accelerator is an initiative to create sustainable, meaningful, quality of life changes for individuals on the Autism spectrum by enabling technology entrepreneurs to create value faster and with less risk. The unique focus is to augment current service-based approaches with effective technology-based solutions that can affect meaningful change at greater scale, at higher velocity and with reduced cost.
Event Organizers
John Rochford
John Rochford is the Director of the INDEX Program of the Eunice Kennedy Shriver Center at the The University of Massachusetts Medical School. Through its DisabilityInfo.org Website, INDEX provides thousands of resources (doctors, dentists, programs, etc.) serving people with disabilities living in Massachusetts. Among other activities, John teaches in the medical school’s graduate program, “Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental & Related Disabilities (LEND)” and teaches medical school students how to interview patients with disabilities. See John’s faculty profile.
John has worked with children and adults with intellectual disabilities and/or autism since the 1980s. John has provided behavior-modification services, and specializes in skills acquisition. John has a Master of Science in Applied Behavior Analysis from Northeastern University and is a Licensed Applied Behavior Analyst.
John has led teams of information-technology professionals to build accessible Websites and online courses since the mid-1990s for state and nonprofit agencies serving people with disabilities throughout the United States.
John’s passion is Web accessibility for people with cognitive disabilities. With partners IBM, UMass Boston, and Worcester Polytechnic Institute, John conducts related research, such as artificial-intelligence based automatic text simplification.
John is an Invited Expert of the World Wide Web Consortium‘s Web Content Accessibility Guidelines Working Group; Cognitive and Learning Disabilities Accessibility Task Force, Low Vision Task Force, and Silver Community Group.
Connect with John on LinkedIn and follow John on Twitter @ClearHelper.
Peter Fay
Peter Fay most recently worked at IBM Accessibility, Aging, and Design group in Cambridge, MA. He is a collaborative problem solver with diverse experience in the field of accessibility and digital inclusion and possesses a comprehensive understanding of assistive technology including: web, mobile, and AI. He strongly believes in a balanced approach to working with partners, universities, and other stakeholders to deliver optimal value for clients. Expertise includes:
Business Development | Operations | Project Management | Partner & Account Management
Connect with Peter on LinkedIn.
Follow Peter on Twitter @PeterFay79.
Sarah Bourne
Sarah E. Bourne is the Director of IT Accessibility for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, where she works on accessibility policy, standards, and guidance for development and procurement for internal and public systems. These efforts started with creating accessibility guidelines in 1998 as the Commonwealth’s first webmaster. You can find Sarah on Twitter as @sarahebourne
Margy Bergel, Fidelity
Marguerite “Margy” Bergel is Director of Digital Accessibility at Fidelity Investments where she is part of Fidelity’s User Experience Design team. Fidelity’s Digital Accessibility program involves training and empowering teams to design and develop with Accessibility in mind, creating and maintaining Accessibility testing tools, auditing products, working with vendors, informing policy, handling customer complaints, and conducting user research with people of all disabilities. Margy presents on usability, accessibility and design topics at conferences like CSUN, CHI, HCII, UXPA, and World Usability Day. She taught for many years at the John Slatin AccessU Conference organized by Knowbility, has taught at Bentley University, and is thrilled to be hosting the Boston Accessibility Conference this year.
