Accessibility Achievement Day speakers.

Dr Howard Leicester

Despite genetic deterioration of eyes and ears, apparent only midway through his first degree, Howard has a PhD and various Fellowships at City and Edinburgh universities as well as the Royal Society of Arts. He is currently Head of R&D in the Faculty of Health Informatics, Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh.

Now totally dependent on technology to read, write and hear, he describes himself as 'a blind visionary and deaf listener'. Perhaps that's why he's also: BCS' representative on the web accessibility committee, British Standards Institute; and member of the development team for Inclusive Education Policy, NHS Education for Scotland.

Students with sight, hearing and memory difficulties have joined Howard on work placements in a fruitful and continuing relationship with Edinburgh's Royal Blind School. Keen to learn and contribute more, he launched CACHE in 2008 - Collaboration for Accessibility and Communications in Health and Education. This multi-disciplinary forum of charities, academics, ICT companies and NHS agencies works across sectors in society. Health is a logical starting point for some of the key and common issues of communication where IT may help: scale and characteristics of affected groups; truly integrated technologies and systems; automated alternative format production.

Robin Christopherson

After a degree in Engineering at Cambridge and working as an IT instructor for the Royal National Institute for the Blind (RNIB), Robin helped found AbilityNet in 1998.

Robin now manages AbilityNet's accessibility and usability consultancy services - heading a team that is globally acclaimed as experts in auditing, disabled user testing and designing software and websites that are attractive, accessible, and easy to use by all.

Despite being blind, Robin uses a computer very effectively by relying on speech output to access the full range of mainstream software including email and the internet. He has a first-hand appreciation of the importance of good practice to accessibility.

A member of the Guild of Accessible Web Designers, Robin's current projects include raising awareness through a busy public speaking schedule in Europe and the US and AbilityNet’s regular ‘Tech for All’ podcast, as well as managing AbilityNet’s on-going ‘State of the eNation’ reports and delivery of consultancy services by his team.

Robin also has courtroom experience as an expert technical witness in the area of assistive technology and in software, systems and website accessibility.  He also advises companies on their legal obligations, including the evaluation of case specific reasonable adjustment.

Derek Mills

Derek Mills joined BCS, the Chartered Institute for IT in 2002.  His background is in education, teaching Science in Leicestershire and the West Midlands.

His involvement in Accessibility goes back to 2003 when his role included processing disability enquiries for BCS IT User qualifications, notably the European Computer Driving Licence (ECDL). In the intervening years, the role has expanded.  Key developments have included a major readability revision of test papers, the creation of an online request form for access to assessment applications and the development of alternative format materials for the ECDL manual test bank. He is a member of the working party on access to assessment for the Federation of Awarding Bodies (FAB).  He has made presentations at a number of events including Techshare 2009.

Since 2008, he has worked as Social Inclusion Specialist for BCS Qualifications. As well as advising on disability enquiries related to BCS Qualifications products, he acts as a stakeholder in product development projects to ensure that new products include accessibility provision; develops, publishes and maintains a range of policies related to social inclusion and liaises with external bodies on accessibility and inclusion issues.

At the moment, he is focussing on the accessibility of eAssessment and eLearning. He is working with AbilityNet on an exciting and challenging update to the BCS Quality Marks for Accessibility.

Nick Weldin

Nick Weldin has worked in various capacities with people with various disabilities for over 20 years. He ran a project in the London borough of Westminster for 10 years developing a multimedia project for people with learning disabilities.

At the Rix Centre, he works on a number of fronts, particularly looking at ways to use standard, low cost technology to enable people to access computers and the information and media they hold.

Debbie Brixey

Debbie Brixey has worked for UCanDoIT since 2001 and specialises in teaching visually impaired learners. She was involved with the EqualSkills project to create a screen reader accessible version for the ECDL and BCS. She also teaches assistive technology such as Dragon, and Read & Write to learners with dyslexia or mobility requirements.

UCanDoIT is a charity providing computer training to blind, deaf and disabled people on a one-to-one basis in their own homes. The charity aims to promote independent living and believes that being able to use a computer is a big step towards this. The service includes teaching specialist software such as screen readers or screen magnifiers as well as other assistive technology.

By visiting a learner in their own home tutors can work at a pace that suits the individual’s needs. At the moment the charity has about 80 CRB checked tutors mainly in and around the Greater London area but also some as far away as Scotland, Wales, Liverpool and Devon. David Brown, one of their blind tutors, won the 2008 BCS IT Trainer of the Year Award.

UCanDoIT has won a contract to deliver Level 1 or Level 2 ITQ accredited qualifications to 100 visually impaired/blind or hearing impaired/deaf learners, over 2 years, across London as part of a Transition to Work project, part funded by the European Union through the European Social Fund and co-financed by the Learning & Skills Council.

Suzette Keith

Suzette Keith, MSc, FErgS, is a Research Fellow at Middlesex University with special interests in the design and use of information systems by older and disabled people. In her research she is a member of the NDA funded project SUS-IT which is about sustaining autonomy of older people through the use of ICT. Previous research projects have included working with older car drivers on the design and evaluation of advanced driver advisory systems, and assessing the challenges to web accessibility faced by the small businesses. She was invited to work with the W3C working group WAI-AGE on web accessibility and older people. She is also working on education and training, developing a new MSc Digital Inclusion (See www.mdx.ac.uk/digitalinclusion) as part of a European project on Design for All in ICT.

She is a Fellow of the Ergonomics Society and member of the HCI (Human Computer Interaction) and Disability groups of the BCS.