Disability and Access Ambassador – Technology and Websites

I am delighted to be taking on the role of UK Government Disability and Access Ambassador for Technology and Web, as announced by the Minister for Disabled People today.

Throughout my career I have been employed by, and worked with, leaders in the technology industry with disabilities, developing and delivering assistive and inclusive technology that, over time, has become mainstream benefiting everyone in society. I have been privileged to work with the earliest adopters of text-to-speech, speech control, touchscreen, home automation, image recognition and eye control technologies. Accessible technology is usable and inclusive technology.

 Most recently, at Microsoft, we have made great progress scaling our accessibility program, driving skills and confidence on the topic, innovating with new technology, measuring our own capabilities and supporting our customers and partners to build and deliver digitally inclusive and accessible solutions.

However, we have more work to do, to create an expectation of routinely accessible technology that empowers disabled people to succeed and deliver equitable experience in the digital society we are building. As Webaim research tell us, over 97% of the top million homepages have structural accessibility errors. Everyday technologies in education, at work and in the home are designed without the input of disabled people.

In this role, I look forward to bringing the full range of stakeholders together to drive progress. Our industry needs to set a baseline understanding of the requirements of disabled people, an inbuilt empathy, driven by representation. Accessibility is a digital skill, and its impact can only be understood through proximity to, and feedback from, employees, customers, disabled people’s organisations and citizens with disabilities. The innovators in assistive technology must be supported. Disabled people’s organisations must demand more from us with the last knowledge of what is possible.

Accessible technology supports disability inclusion. I believe our industry must grow in its understanding of the impact we have, when we get it wrong, but we must also celebrate the progress we are making, particularly as the toolkit of technology expands. In this era of cloud connectivity and AI, we have an opportunity to innovate through the lens of disability inclusion. If we are successful, we will increase productivity, remove unnecessary costs of adaptation and remediation, and create resilient expectation that sustains inclusion.

Technology impacts every industry, and I am particularly looking forward to partnering with the 18 other Disability and Access Ambassadors. Digital transformation is happening all around us, accelerated by the COVID pandemic.  With almost 3 million jobs in the digital economy in health tech, fintech and more, I look forward to working with the technology industry to create more careers in accessibility, recruit more people with disabilities and build more tech for good.