AccessibilityPlus

Jonathan is one of the world's top digital usability & accessibility thought leaders. He has over 20 years’ experience in identifying new directions and challenges in digital accessibility, finding efficient process and technology solutions, authoring international standards and presenting best practices to conference audiences across the world. He is passionate about digital accessibility and just recently delivered the new International accessibility Standard ISO 30071-1, which is based on the British Accessibility Standards BS 8878 that he led in 2010. He leads Hassell Inclusion’s team of accessibility experts providing strategic accessibility transformation services to organisations worldwide.

Lori Samuels is the Accessibility Director at NBCUniversal. She leads strategic accessibility programs to institute best practices in inclusive design, provide training for software development teams, drive cultural maturity in disability inclusion, and fortify executive sponsorship.Lori has had career roles in Software Engineering, Engineering Management, Technical Program Management and Accessibility Consulting - mostly for consumer and educational markets. Her passion for making technology work for people of all abilities started in 1993 when she was Director of Engineering at Broderbund Software. She went on to start Intuit's enterprise accessibility program and deliver the first-ever accessible version of QuickBooks. Prior to joining NBC, Lori led accessibility programs and initiatives at Microsoft, impacting products such as Bing, Cortana, Visual Studio, Microsoft Store, Azure, and Dynamics.Lori grew up in Boston and moved to San Francisco just in time for the big earthquake in 1989. She and her family now live in northern Utah, where they enjoy skiing, camping, hiking and boating in the beautiful mountains.

Abid is the Chief Operating Officer of Fable, an accessibility platform that companies use to engage people with disabilities in product development. Abid holds a Master's Degree in Inclusive Design and enjoys engaging the disability community in research, design, and QA.

At a young age, Lukas was driven to serve his country. He joined the United States Army and graduated from the Army Airborne school at the age of 17. After being wounded in Afghanistan and earning a Purple Heart Medal, Lukas exited the Army and found his way back home to Nebraska. Once back in Nebraska, Lukas graduated with a BSN from the University of Nebraska Medical Center. Lukas then found his way to the great state of Texas. Because of the abundance of software industry leaders in Austin, Lukas pursued software engineering through the University of Texas at Austin. Inspired by his blind step-father, Lukas quickly found a niche for himself within the software space. He hit his stride within this niche while working for an international insurance company saving the company money through innovative engineering and the hiring of blind engineers. Lukas capitalized on the success he had and started Clusiv. Lukas believes in The American Dream, and by leveraging his abilities with software engineering coupled with the inspiration from his family, he was able to build something that helps blind and visually-impaired people have the same chance to chase that dream. Today, Clusiv’s SkillSet has a 100% placement with current clients achieving an average of 1.8x the clients’ previous salary