Episode 4

A Huge Potential for Artificial Intelligence to Assist with Accessibility

Ryan Shugart, Microsoft, Senior Program Manager

Rich works as a an accessibility subject matter expert with the cloud and AI teams at Microsoft. He shares his experience being born visually impaired and how that affected his early use of a home computer and technology. Graduating from college in IT, he began his work as a system administrator. As a blind person, he experienced many challenges. Rich talks about some of what is involved in the process of reviewing products for accessibility - from design through to release. He also talks about artificial intelligence, the interaction of applications and assistive technologies, and the limitations of standards.

Mentioned in this episode:

Info about Accessibility at Blink

About the Podcast

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Digital Accessibility
The People Behind the Progress

About your host

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Joe Welinske

Serving as Accessibility Director at Blink is Joe's main activity. Blink is devoted to helping ensure that digital products and services can be used by everyone. As Director, Joe is responsible for helping Blink's practitioners to build accessibility into everything they do. He also evangelizes the need for accessibility with Blink's clients and partners.
Joe is a co-organizer of the Seattle Inclusive Design and Accessibility meetup group and he serves as the Secretary of the King County Metro Paratransit Advisory Committee.