Allied

This month, we’re excited to share a conversation with Sam Sepah, Lead Accessibility Research Product Manager at Google. In this conversation, which was recorded live in September 2023, Sam takes us on a journey through his experiences at Google and beyond, showcasing how innovation in accessibility technologies has transformed product experiences for users with disabilities. Additionally, Sam sha...

This month, we’re excited to share a presentation by Albert Kim, which was recorded live during 3Play Media’s ACCESS 2023 conference. Albert is an award-winning accessibility subject matter expert and public speaker who previously worked with Doordash, Intuit, ServiceNow, Korn Ferry, Siteimprove, and Fable. He is also the founder of Global Accessibility NextGen Initiative, a global community of fu...

Joe Baker is the Senior Product Manager for Accessibility for the Design System at Atlassian and has previously worked on several digital accessibility teams, including at Amazon and Microsoft. He is passionate about building sustainable accessibility programs and design systems to ensure all customers are considered when building products and services. Utilizing his background in front-end develo...

Derek Throldahl entered the media accessibility industry in 2007 as a live closed captioner for news, sports, education, and corporate events. He now heads the live captioning department at 3Play Media Minneapolis, where he oversees workflows, meets with existing and prospective clients, and pushes industry advancement to provide high-quality captioning and language accessibility for live events....

At the end of every year, 3Play Media co-founders and co-CEOs Josh Miller and Chris Antunes propose media accessibility predictions for the year ahead. This month, Elisa chatted with them about their predictions for 2023, trends from this last year, and where the future of media accessibility is headed. The conversation revolves around five predictions: 1. Audio description will become a media acc...

Cheryl Rayburn was 16 years old when she was diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa, a genetic disorder that involves the loss of cells in the retina, the light-sensitive tissue that lines the back of the eye. She finished high school, graduated from Missouri State University, and began a career in the mortgage industry. After 10 years, she stopped working because of her vision loss. In 2015, Cheryl...

This month, we're excited to share a fireside chat with lifelong disability rights advocate Judy Heumann. Judy has been instrumental in the development and implementation of legislation such as Section 504, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Rehabilitation Act, and the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Judy has 20 years...

Jacquelyn Sawyer and Liz Vacchiano play different roles in the guide dog process. Hear from both of them about how a puppy becomes a guide dog. Jacquie Sawyer is an expert in influencer marketing strategy and joined The Dogist as The Director of Partnerships in the Spring of 2020. A renowned marketer, she has run campaigns for Google, Sephora, Converse, and many others. A vet tech in college and a...

Charlotte Dales is the Co-Founder and CEO of Inclusively, a workforce inclusion platform that connects job seekers with employers who are committed to attracting and retaining people with disabilities. Charlotte’s cousin Cameron became the first licensed aesthetician in the state of Florida with Down syndrome, and after witnessing Cameron’s career fulfillment, Charlotte became passionate about rep...

Today, we’re joined by Dr. Joel Snyder, who is known internationally as one of the world’s first “audio describers.” He is a pioneer in the field of Audio Description, a translation of visual images to vivid language for the primary benefit of people who are blind or have a vision impairment. Since 1981, he has introduced audio description techniques in over 40 states and 64 countries and has made...

We're excited to share an exclusive bonus episode with 3Play Media co-founders and co-CEOs Chris Antunes and Josh Miller. Chris and Josh met at MIT’s Sloan School of Management, where they launched 3Play Media in 2007. In 2022, 3Play serves more than 10,000 customers across multiple industries, helping them increase the value of their online video by making it accessible, usable, searchable, and S...

Alan Hejl is the Accessibility Strategy Manager at General Motors and a disability justice advocate. Alan has a passion for bringing people together and connecting different skill teams to ensure people with disabilities are included in the automotive design process, and promoting the accessibility of autonomous vehicles, electric vehicles, and beyond to be inclusive for all. He brings his work in...

A developer in the mid-’90s, Nic Steenhoutwas approached by clients facing issues not yet part of the public consciousness. On the emerging web, accessibility hurdles kept people with disabilities from engaging in a technological revolution. Confronted by this gap within the digital landscape, Nic began championing web accessibility. He transitioned into the non-profit sector, where he collaborate...

Tori Clark is a digital accessibility consultant at Airbnb. Tori has worked in the accessibility field for a decade, bringing her lifelong passion for disability rights to the worldwide web. Raised by public school teachers, Tori believes that accessibility education and awareness can be seeded at every stage of the product development lifecycle and loves to help that learning blossom. She special...

Lori Samuels is the Senior Director of Accessibility at NBCUniversal. Lori 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,...

Jill Brooks is a captioning expert and all-around accessibility trailblazer. Jill worked at the National Captioning Institute for more than two decades, beginning her career in various production roles and working her way up to serve as the President & Chief Operating Officer. The arc of her career cemented her expertise in steno captioning, voice writing, and live caption creation. Jill now a...

Brice Christianson is a professional sports sign language interpreter and founder of Play-By-Play Sports Interpreting. Brice was born to two Deaf parents and grew up surrounded by Deaf culture. Growing up, Brice attended sporting events with his father and interpreted for him so he could have access to the game. Twenty-five years later, Brice proposed to the Milwaukee Bucks to become the first pro...

Michele Landis is an expert on digital inclusivity and Section 508. She is the co-founder and Chief Revenue Officer of Accessible360, a court-certified digital accessibility auditing firm dedicated to creating practical solutions for equitable access. Accessible360 offers comprehensive user testing, code development, and project management to ensure compliance continues. Michele thinks the best pa...

Nat Lyckowski is the Neurodiversity@IBM Global Business Resource Group Co-Chair. She is proudly neurodivergent and the parent of an autistic IT Professional. With more than 10 years of experience coaching and mentoring neurodivergent individuals and their caregivers, Nat empowers acceptance culture by designing safe spaces to self-identify, and by developing education and initiatives that improve...

Joseph has served as LineSync’s Principal Architect since its founding, and went on to create Wheel Pad alongside Julie Lineberger, after their godson experienced an accident resulting in quadriplegia. After witnessing his godson’s struggle to find an accessible apartment (and his resulting nine-month residency in an accessible hotel room), Joseph realized his own expertise could be the solution t...

Kathy Martinez is an internationally recognized disability rights leader and the President/CEO of Disability Rights Advocates (DRA). Martinez speaks and publishes on a wide array of topics related to disability employment, including the emergence of disability as an essential component of workplace diversity and inclusion and the importance of expectation in ensuring youth with disabilities grow u...

Often referred to as the ‘David Suzuki of design,’ David Berman’s career has been influenced by many different industries – but design has always remained at the center of it all.  David has over 30 years of experience in design and communications and has worked extensively in the adaptation of content for electronic distribution, including accessible web and software interface development. D...

Miranda Hoffner has been working for Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts for the past seven years as an accessibility expert, creating sustainable systems to ensure accessibility is infused at all levels of the organization, for staff, guests, and artists. Miranda has reshaped Lincoln Center's commitment to inclusion through policy, innovative programming, and internal consensus building. She a...

Belén always felt passionate about video games and learning languages. She also knew she wanted to do something in the gaming industry. She entered the language industry as soon as she graduated from college and started to work in a game localization company as a linguist and project manager. But that wasn't enough, so she decided to obtain an MA in Audiovisual Translation. But that chapter of her...

Derek Mei is a Senior UX/UI Designer at 3Play Media who is passionate about understanding interactions between people and the technologies we use. He has an eye for aesthetics and a knack for the functional, and wants to fuse together his knowledge of both code and design to create digital products that excite users and simplify their interactions with digital products. In addition, he wants to he...