IAAP and Vendor Responsibility to Digital Accessibility

Welcome to Disability Matters with your host Joyce Bender. All comments, views, and opinions expressed on the show are solely those of the host, guest, and callers. Now the host of Disability Matters, here's Joyce Bender.

Hi everyone, welcome to the show, and I have to start by saying tomorrow is International Day of Persons with Disabilities. And I am so honored to recently join the board of the World Institute on Disability. So that means I have to have a special shout out to my friends at the State Department in Japan. Hello, Richard Roberts, you know how I love you. In South Korea, hello, Gang Young Cho, you know how I love You, oh my goodness, how could I forget? Veniamin in Kazakhstan, one of my favorites. I love you. And my new friend, Cheryl Harris, who is in Tunisia, and she is just a superstar. So since it is International Day of Persons with Disabilities, I just had to have a special shout out tomorrow. December 3rd is the day. And hello, Jessica Dart, how are you today? Special shout out to you. You know, I have customers, all countries all over the world that listen to this show. No matter what country you're in, even if you're one person, there's power in one person. I'm going to give you an example. 65 years ago today, Rosa Parks said, "Yes, I am sitting down in this bus." 65 years ago today, the power of one, the power of one. Hey, thank you, Highmark, Peoples, Wells Fargo, and the Employment Options for being sponsors of this show. So I was so excited about this show today because it is with members of the International Association of Accessibility Professionals. We have with us today Sam Evans, Certification Manager, Chris Lee, who is the Managing Director, and Jay Wyant, from the Global Leadership Council member, a strategic leader in the Accessibility Task Force. Wow, you know what, we got some really smart people with us today. And you know what I always say, You can't hire people if you don't have digital accessibility. So welcome to the show, the trio of triumph. Let's start here with Chris. Chris, how about if you share with us the mission of IAAP and what role you serve?

Hey, Joyce Bender, thank you for having us. We're very excited about being a part of the show today. A big day tomorrow, pretty exciting. —So I'm managing director, as you mentioned, of the International Association of Accessibility Professionals. We call it IAAP for short. We are part of the Global Initiative for Inclusive ICT, Information Communication Technologies, and it's known as G3ICT. It's been around since 2006. It really started off with the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. They promote and offer technical assistance around policy advocacy globally. Regarding digital accessibility, as well as the built environment. IWP actually focuses on defining, promoting, and improving the diversity of accessibility through certification being number one, education being number two, and networking being number three. And the whole goal of that is to make sure that we have the products and content and services, as well as in all environments, are accessible to persons with disabilities. So, that's a little bit about us.

Okay. And you work on a global basis?

That's correct. That's correct. We have— well, the main office is in the US based out of Atlanta, Georgia, which is where Sam's at actually. I'm in North Carolina, but we have chapters that are international chapters that represent and feed us information globally so we can actually continue to serve our organizational members as well as our individual professional members. The information they need in order to be successful and be more inclusive.

If I may ask, how did this all come to be, this organization?

Okay. So, I'm glad you did ask, actually. It started 6 years ago. Actually, it was around July 6 years ago, so about 6 and a half years ago. A group of individuals actually came out of the ATIA, which is a group down in Orlando that has a big assistive technology conference, but several groups came together— private industry, nonprofit organizations, advocacy organizations for persons with disabilities— came together and said, you know, we need to come up with something. We don't know what it is exactly that would actually, you know, provide companies trying to hire people with knowledge around digital accessibility that there would be some information out there, some professional education. And what happened These organizations are founding members of IWP. They did a lot of research, several focus groups, and what came out of that was the certification piece of it, the education, and the networking. So, the goal was to create and launch an international accessibility professional association, professional association. Hence, IWP came out of that about 6 and a half years ago.

Wow. See, it's amazing how things happen with a small group of people. That is awesome. Sam, yeah, Sam, it's great to have you with us. How about if you share with our listeners around the world the role you play with IAAP and also what impact your area has had on the accessibility front?

So this is Sam Evans, and I'm the certification manager at IAAP, and I have the great pleasure of working with subject matter experts around the world as they build content, concepts, and ideas for certification programs. So we build the certification programs built on public feedback with surveys to, to make sure that what we believe to be the important elements of accessibility roles and technical expertise are what the public holds true as well. Then we build the certification and programs, but the programs don't just— they're not created once. They're actually living, breathing content pieces. So we revisit the content several times a year. We write new items and create new content for the exams as well as for the bodies of knowledge along the way. And out of our communities of practice from shared interest areas where there is a call and a need for something, which Jay will speak to in a moment, we are able to develop new content areas for certification programs. So we started with CPACC being a core competencies of accessibility as our first certified professional in accessibility core competencies role. Then we developed the Web Accessibility Specialist, which is an intermediate technical exam and certification for people who work in the technical side of web accessibility. We have a built environment program for the physical space that our bodies engage with for buildings and spaces that has 3 levels of expertise. And we're launching accessible document specialists, so people who create documents. And strategic leadership is a new role. So these are all pieces of import that have come to the fore from accessibility professionals around the world. So what's really exciting for me is, number one, I get to learn about all of this work as we do our work together, and we get to see the creation of these benchmarks of standards and knowledge that the community and industry and the world at large and the business community are starting to recognize. So I think that impact area is really that we're starting to see, and I like to think it's for the good reasons, why accessibility has become— a topic, an element of business, and is of importance to businesses around the world. So what we're seeing is that businesses are looking for ways to identify, because some companies and hiring managers don't know what they need to have in these roles, in these skills, in these persons that they're hoping to bring to their teams. But our accessibility certification programs establish a benchmark and a set of standards and knowledge that people can utilize in hiring or in professional development in their own teams, as well as for individuals to illustrate their commitment to accessibility and inclusion.

Now, just so our listeners, as some of them may not understand this, would you explain two things? What is CPACC, number one, and number two, who do you certify? Like, what does that mean when you certify someone?

So CPACC is our acronym of C-P-A-C-C, the Certified Professional in Accessibility Core Competencies. And this is our core foundational certification that represents broad cross-disciplinary knowledge about disabilities, assistive technology, accessibility, universal design, some web accessibility, accessibility and disability-related laws, standards around the world, and management strategies. So somebody who has this kind of a background and set of knowledge can think strategically and inclusively about accessibility and inclusion across all components of, of the business world. So, um, but as far as who we certify, we certify individuals, and so each of our certifications is a credential that's issued to a person. They are required to pass an exam and then also to continue professional development, continuing education, or sharing their knowledge in the industry or in the community as well to be able to renew and maintain their certification. So they're not tied to a course because it's not a course completion. It's a professional certification that is an assessment of knowledge and understanding and concepts. So our certifications are valid for 3 years, and if their continuing education works and is attained, then those certifications can be renewed.

And what do you have to do to receive the cert— to apply to take that test? What do you have to do?

So we do have an application and we ask people to consider having either some hands-on work experience and professional expertise behind them, or is part of their goals for professional growth and development. There is an application that is reviewed. We want to make sure that the people that are sitting for the exam for CPAC at least have a background and interest in accessibility and are working in the field or have an interest in, in research or development. With the application, we do encourage people to spend a minimum of 6 to 8 weeks studying and preparing to become familiar with the content and the body of knowledge that's provided. And then the exam is 100 questions, multiple choice, and those are available at test centers, online remote, or with private proctors in person or remote by webcam and telecommunications.

You know, I love that. I'm sorry, go ahead.

And the requirement is 45 hours of continuing education across 3 years to maintain the CPAC.

What I was going to say is when you explained this, I love the professionalism and I love the credibility. That is really awesome. Sam, how you have that in place. Very good. Jay, how about you, Jay? How about if you share with our listeners what do you do in your day job as well as the important role you serve in as a member of WOW, Developing the Strategic Leader in Accessibility Certification? That's a big job there. So you have two big jobs, Jay. What's the day job?

Hi Joyce, thank you very much for having us here. So again, my name is Jay Wyant and I have the privilege of being— this is a great title— the Chief Information Accessibility Officer for the state of Minnesota. And the acronym is CIO. So you could call me the CIO for the state of Minnesota.

Wow, that is still great. That's great they have, that's great they have that.

Yes, it's a great title and it's a privilege to be able to have and serve in that role for the state. So I work with all of the state agencies. We have over 75 state agencies, boards, and commissions, and somewhere around 35,000 or more employees., and our role is to help the state be accessible, digital accessibility for both its employees internally and for everyone it serves. In other words, for just Maryland state citizens. And so that's my day job, and one of the reasons why I really appreciate the opportunity to be in the global Leadership Council of IAEP. You heard earlier that Chris was talking about how IAEP came out of a need to find people who are qualified, and Sam talked about the fact that this is an individual certification so the employee can know who they're hiring and so forth. Well, at the state, one of our biggest challenges is finding accessible technology and validating that the vendor we We buy from know anything about accessibility. So it's been very important for us to try to increase the level of professionalism and the level of knowledge about accessibility among vendors as well as in state government. So that's why we've been very eager to support IEP's process and helping making sure that there is something that we can point to for vendors and say, hey, are the vendors— do you know anything about accessibility? Do you hire people who know about accessibility? What can you show us about that? Well, that's what we do with IAP. And so I think Sam alluded to all the people that she works with are volunteers. So the certification is from volunteer subject matter experts, and it's been a privilege for me to work with those volunteers. To work on the strategic leader in accessibility certification, which we can talk more about in a minute, but I know I'm talking a lot.

No, no, that's okay. I actually have a follow-up question, and that is, how did you get involved in this industry of accessibility?

Well, this is Jay. First of all, I am congenitally deaf, born deaf, and I have bilateral cochlear implants. And so early on in my career, both a college student and then later working, I was always trying to figure out how do I make it— how do I get to do things? There was no captioning when I was growing up. There was no CART when I was going to school. There were none of these resources. So I was always working with people to figure out how to make technology work for us. But it grew into the role of accessibility as a sideline. I wrote columns for several national publications on how to make digital technology work for people who are deaf and hard of hearing. And so my day job and my life, my career kind of went in one direction while I built the expertise in different directions. Then when this job came up, all my past background plus my personal knowledge about accessibility kind of culminated in doing this work.

That is very good, very good. Well, Chris, this has been a big deal to me that this year is the 30th anniversary of the signing of the Americans with Disabilities Act. And we have made great progress in, you know, different areas over the past 30 years, like braille elevators, closed caption. Access to buildings, curb cuts, not, you know, transportation, not able to ask someone in interview what is their disability. But there are two areas that I think we have a lot to do. One is employment, and that's the area that I work in at Bender Consulting Services, which is a company that focuses on the employment of people with disabilities. But the other area, and we do work in this area, is digital accessibility. So I wanted to ask you, what do you believe will be the imperatives for the next 30 years?

Wow, it's a great question, Joyce Bender. So many answers you could go, so many directions I could go with this. But, you know, and listening to all members, and again, you know, a large part of them is all tied to the U.S., but they're also global members. So, I'm kind of putting it from that standpoint. So, not just the ADA standpoint, even though there's been a lot done, like in employment and transportation and public accommodations and communications, all of that. So much work has been done with that. But what I really think we need is— what our members are saying is that we really need to actually go deeper than just reasonable accommodations, right? And this ties right into what you were saying about digital accessibility and employment. We need to ensure that we have people that know what accessibility is internally to work with their internal employees, as well as externally with their customers. And so, about 18 months ago, we started working with Dan Goldstein, who used to be with the NFB, the National Federation for the Blind, and developed somewhat of a checklist on how he would go to companies and actually say, you know, do you have an internal accessibility process in place, policies, procedures? A statement on your website, HR, procurement, and so on. We started working with him and pulling together advocacy groups coming together to get feedback, accessibility vendors like your group, for example, to see how we could flesh out a benchmarking tool for organizations. You know, there's a lot of maturity models out there that have been built, and that's great, and they're That's wonderful and you need that. But what we were hearing from our members is we need to go a little bit deeper beyond just the maturity model. So we're engaged in really working on benchmarking tool, collaborating with advocacy groups, with different partners throughout the globe to make this happen. And I think that's really where we need to go. I mean, we've done a lot, right? We've hit the surface of reasonable accommodations, built environment, some digital accessibility accommodations in there with the help of assistive technology. But I think universal design is too important, and we need to give these organizations, as I'm sure you know, we need to give them the tools to be able to make sure that they can make their environments fully inclusive for people with disabilities.

Do you think that we will have enforcement with the federal government? And also, why do so many companies that I talk to, yeah, they want to do this, but they don't really see it as something they have to do? Why do you think that is?

Well, the enforcement question is a huge question mark, right? The ADA, as great as it is, doesn't have the teeth behind it to truly, you make a difference. We've seen some strong movement. You know, you look at Section 503 of the Rehabilitation Act regarding employment that hasn't really gone where we want it to go. So, I mean, I think we've got a long way to go regarding the federal government getting behind all of this. And I think it really is more what we're seeing with the organizations that we're serving as members, that they're looking for their own path. You know, and it is not all of them. It is a small percentage of them. But I do think it is, you know, slowly happening. You know, but yeah, I think that is what I am seeing right now from our organizational members.

Oh, that is good. Well, I hope to see it enforced also. We were talking about sort of— Me too. Yeah, right. We were talking about certification. I wanted to ask you, Sam, how does the global work that you do impact the certification process? You know, developing, getting input, marketing, supporting, training, and educating, and facilitating the test and review. This seems like, wow, such a huge task and so daunting. So how does that work?

So, you know, the great— Joyce, thanks for asking and for having us to talk about this. The great part about the global teams that I get to work with in the certification process is that everyone shares the same vision and the same mission and the same purpose. So all of our energies are going towards accessibility, universal design, and inclusion. So the challenge we have in some arenas, aside from time zones and ensuring that our technology works for everyone, is to make sure that we are able to represent content that is reflective of best practices that are uniform and universal. And if we do call out things that are regional in nature or or geographic-specific to make sure that we do that representative of lots of places around the world and not have it be U.S.-specific. We started 3 years ago implementing an internationalization review of all of our content, and that is going to be part of all of our programs so that we are— we do our best work to make sure that we represent laws, regulations, standards, and practices around the world. We— there are some areas in procurement where processes are very different. In Europe, the laws around procurement, or tenders as they're called in some parts of the world, are different than they are in the process in the US and Canada and other parts of the world. So we do recognize some differences there. I would love to have the benefits of each reach all, but Facilitating often just takes some time and effort, but we have subject matter experts and accessibility professionals who come to consensus very quickly, and I think Jay could confirm that. He's worked on several groups, and that's really a different dynamic than it is in other— than in other dynamics, I think, for development, because everyone does have the same goal. We're not trying to solve that challenge. Yeah, that—

you know what's great about that? When you said about everyone working together focused on the same goal, oh, that is so much more productive and you can get so much more done. So that, that is really a good thing. Now, something I was really interested in, Jay, that you're doing is exploring this strategic leader and accessibility certification that's going to have different parts to it. That's really exciting. Yeah, that is really exciting. Would you speak to the development to date, you know, the completed job task analysis survey and confirmation of the roles drama domains established in the community practice? Also on the work currently building out a dedicated body of knowledge and coordinating a 4 webinar series. Oh my God, when are you going to do all of this? First you have the day job, and now this seems like a very, very big project that you're working on and that you're leading. I can't possibly know how you have time to do this, but you share with us how you have time to do it and what it's going to be.

Thank you, Joyce Bender. That's a big question. So, I'll try to address it in bite-sized chunks. But first, I'd like to take a minute to reference back to your question with Chris about the next 30 years after the ADA and so forth. And not only is it the ADA, like Chris pointed out, we're talking about international scope. So, there are many countries that don't really have an ADA. And so, what we're trying to do here at IAAP— to create, to basically, if I can make up a word, professionalize the field of accessibility. You asked me how I got into it, and I got into the field organically because it didn't really exist. I developed these skills, wrote about it, became known about this and that, and kind of grew into it. And that's what most people like me, or what most people in the field are. Most people in this field are self-taught. They kind of slid into it from whatever they were doing, and that's great. These people are dedicated, motivated, interested, but we need to find pathways for people to actually build it as a profession, so take classes in college, incorporate accessibility into what they do as a job, and that's kind of what we're starting with right now, and I think that could be a key to growing awareness of accessibility, so I wanted to answer that. So now, about your— to answer your question regarding the— we've been working for almost a year on the Strategic Leader in Accessibility, or SLIA, certification. We divided this into 4 areas or domains of competency. That's a popular word in certification, domain. So the 4 domains are strategic leadership, accessibility expertise, partnership excellence, and resource engagement. We made these established 4 domains based on feedback of what we call a job analysis survey. Basically, we said, we have an idea of a job type, strategic leader accessibility, that's a role, a job, and we need to say, what do you think should be in that? How would that— how should that job work? What kind of skills should that job have? And we sent that survey out to as many people in as many fields in as many countries as we could find, and it was based on their feedback that we created these 4 domains. This certification is also different from our previous IEP certificate in that in addition to requiring technical knowledge, You know, Sam talked about the CPAC. The CPAC is about accessibility, the technology of accessibility, and there's others like web accessibility specialists that we have. But this is different in that while requiring technical knowledge, you have to know what accessibility is and so forth, you also have to— we also ask the candidate to look at how the successful practice of accessibility in an organization integrates with other organizational goals. So you are an employee in a large organization which makes stuff or delivers stuff or creates or thinks of stuff. How does accessibility work with those goals? How do you make that work? We want them to think about it that way in a broader sense. It also requires a candidate to understand how both internal and external factors impact and are impacted by your organization approach to accessibility. So instead of just a job on accessibility, we're asking this certificate to talk about how do you correlate it with other things, and that's a very important question for what you do at Joyce Bender. And then as Sam would tell you, the core of any certificate certification is the body of knowledge, or BOK. We're using the data from our job analysis survey as well as the diverse knowledge of our committee members. To frame out what needs to be in the BOK and then fleshing out the content with best practices from those relevant disciplines. Because there are many disciplines, you know, the strategic management, the strategic planning, all these other things. How do we meet that part of this? We've been hosting live discussions with the IAEP Community of Practice, the Strategic Leadership in Accessibility Community of Practice, with all all the people who are interested in this in our field. That's been a webinar series that is basically a series of conversations about the certificate. It's a more informal but great way to track how we're developing the program. Then we're supplementing this with a more formal 4-part webinar series this coming year that dives into each of the domains, okay? And you ask, how am I doing all of this? Why not? I'm just one of many volunteers. Sam and Tracy Shipman, who also work with IAEP, and Chris and other people are herding us. We're the cats, and they're herding us cats who are working a full-time job to make sure that we pull off some time to make this happen. So it wouldn't be without all that herding that we could do all this work. Finally, I'd like to remind you that while IAEP develops a certificate and the body of knowledge. We rely on third-party vendors to create and provide the training opportunity for folks who want to prepare for the certificate. So we're not doing it just by ourselves. We create the framework and the body of knowledge and then invite people to build courses on it. Hopefully that answered all of those questions you had.

Yes, it did. Thank you very much. When do you think this big project will be completed? Jay, what do you think? This is Jay.

Our goal is— and this is what Sam at Concordia is doing— our goal is to try to have the body of knowledge completed really early next year and then back up and complete the body of knowledge and then the full webinar through the winter and early spring. We kind of lay out the basics of what this program is, what the knowledge what's required to do it and how it will work. Then we'll start rolling out the certificate itself, I believe late summer, early fall.

Am I right, Sam? This is Sam. Yeah, we'd like to see this come together probably in fall of 2021 to make sure that we've got enough time to do the build and development process.

Oh, that will be so— you'll have to keep us up to date on that because we have many listeners that are very interested in digital accessibility. Plus, businesses need to know about this. So you'll have to keep us tuned in so we know what will be going on. And speaking of businesses that listen to this show, Chris, Sam, and Jay, this is a strategic role. How are you going to market the credibility and the value of this to C-level executives? Because this— and encourage their team, you know, to move forward with this. I've noticed, you know, a lot of people at the C-suite level, it's just they're not aware of all of this. They aren't as knowledgeable of all of this. Nothing wrong with them, they just, this is not their area. So, what do you think you're going to do to change that? We'll start with you, Chris.

Well, I think it's a good question, Joyce. And, you know, one of the things that we've been trying to do over the last, you know, really 2 years now is get the pulse on what Fortune 500 companies or organizations that are part of our membership base, what they need, as I talked about earlier with the benchmarking tool. So, we've aligned ourselves now with a few partners, I guess you could say, to do surveys. And we recently this year, we did two surveys. One of them was focused on the state of digital accessibility. We partnered with Level Access, which is one of our accessibility vendors members, and we sent out kind of a survey that looked at, you know, what is the state of accessibility programs? What are the risks? What are the challenges? What are the motivations towards these organizations? What product development, design, and testing? We talked— some of the questions focused on content creation. What we're trying to do is, from that survey, strip out the information that we need when we go to the C-level executives to say, you know, this is what we're seeing globally is happening and need— the needs are. So we're talking at their level, not just as an association standpoint, you know, coming back from, you know, governmental nonprofit standpoint, but when we talk about, you know, these private corporations. Corporations are trying to approach it a little bit differently. I think that's going to be, you know, it's going to be crucial. And I think what you've heard today already from Jay with the strategic leadership, I mean, that came from us, from Barclays out of the UK, Barclays Bank, as well as Shell Oil and Atos. These were companies that came to us that said, you know, we really feel like we need, you know, something regarding strategic leadership.

And that kind of fits there.

So we know there's something that's happening. And then the benchmarking tool also has kind of bubbled up to the top. So we're seeing all the services that we need to put together holistically, partnering with groups to do that, not doing it alone. We can't, we couldn't do that. There's too much work to be done. So I think that's really where we're going about it. It's really listening to the professionals in these organizations telling us what we need to do in order to brand it the right way and move forward.

Yeah, and it's a tough thing, but with the right presentation, when they see one thing, return on investment, it isn't a charity, it's a business imperative. How about you, Sam, what's your opinion?

So I think that, you know, One of the great groups of people I get to work with are these senior members of the accessibility community as far as they've been leading and mentoring and developing all of these great works for many years, but there's nothing in place to reflect what that happens when you are the expert, the leader. So I think that this is an opportunity to establish and to separate to elevate these experts and leaders in strategic accessibility, which is different than just leading an accessibility initiative. So I think that this will be an opportunity to highlight these great leaders and people who want to be that accessibility champion in their organization and establish a way that many other professional groups have what they call fellows or, you know, they have some other designation for people that are making the change in the world that's going to remove the need for litigation to make the change, but inclusive by design to be the change, by intention, and for all the right reasons. And I think that if we have the opportunity to highlight these people and that unique set of skills, as— it just doesn't exist right now. And I think it will be a great way to recognize and establish the goals and a pathway for people who aren't there yet, but give them a pathway of skills and challenges and understanding that will let them become that strategic leader in accessibility for their organization and for organizations to set that goal for somebody within their teams as well. As well.

Well, you know, a question I have, Sam, when you go to these different companies, what percentage would you say have a chief accessibility officer? You know, because for a long time, if you would say chief accessibility officer, I would say Jenny Lay-Flurry at Microsoft. So that's what I would say. Now, as you have gone to these different companies, percentage-wise, how many have you seen that have a chief accessibility officer? Not, not many.

Large organizations that have a real commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion may have an accessibility officer, but fewer accessibility officers in more DI, diversity and inclusion officers. So I'd say, I don't— Jay, Christopher, maybe 2 to 5% at the most? Yeah, Sam, this is Christopher.

I would agree with you. We actually did a study recently where we looked at the Fortune 500 companies out there, and we looked at the titles tied to accessibility or could be as close, and it was always D&I. It wasn't so much cheap accessibility offers. There were a handful of them, so I think you're right on track, maybe 2%.

Yeah, I say that because—

I'm sorry, go ahead. Oh, sorry. I don't want to interrupt or waste my time.

No, go ahead.

Go ahead. Okay, well, I just want to say it's a great question about cheap accessibility offers.. And if you look back even as recent as 10 years ago, there were a lot of companies that were not even having a chief information security officer, or CISO. Those were relatively rare. Now everybody's got to have a CISO because they've seen— the top leadership have seen how important security is for their organization. And I think we're in the same kind of— very similar situation now with the accessibility. More and more companies are realizing diversity and inclusion is important, but they don't know what that means. They're still trying to learn what diversity is, and people with disabilities are a key part of that diversity and inclusion, and that's becoming more apparent today. So I see what— to answer your question about how do we share different— we Personally, I talk about how we're very much like security. We are risk mitigation enterprise. We help people understand what the risk level is with accessibility or lack thereof. And then just like a chief information security officer, the chief accessibility officer helps your whole organization embed accessibility to what they do, just like a CISO teaches people How to watch out for phishing, how to— and then all the different rules about accessibility, about employee security. Same thing with accessibility. So, we kind of follow the same track or same trajectory that security was 10 or 15 years ago.

Yeah, you know, I say that because of when Sam and Chris were talking. You know, if you have a chief accessibility officer, that makes this so much easier. Easier. And so, you know, that's something I hope we see happen. Greg Pollack, my friend, does that at PNC. But just as you said, there are some, but it's, it's in the lower percentage. So, and if you're listening to this show and you're a business, you need to change that. So Sam, Jay, Christopher, we'll start with you, Sam. What would you characterize as your most significant accomplishment so far?

Wow, that's tough. This is Sam Evans. I think, I think watching our certification programs come together with a pattern that it's repeatable, that's sustainable, that's crossing different roles is really a tremendous accomplishment for an organization as young as IAAP is. But I think that's simply because we are the keepers of a passion and mission of many decades of people's drive towards accessibility. Granted, my role is certification, but I work with other certification professionals around the world, and none of my colleagues have developed what we have to the depth and acceptance in a shorter time period. So I think it's really a credit to these volunteers and professionals in accessibility that they've identified a need and a role that's valued and respected, and I'm proud to be able to support that work.

Well, I mean, that's something you should be proud of. That is all— remember what I said, the power of one. Chris, how about you?

You know, it is a tough question, and we have done so many, so many great things over the last 6 years. But kind of on the flip side of what Sam just said, you know, it's also the power of many, right? Also, and, you know, I think about all the volunteers that, like Jay and others, have come together that believes organically that association is needed. They need to have a centralized voice that comes together and helps promote the accessibility field. It's something I'm very, very proud to be a part of. I was somewhat humbled. This was actually Sam's idea back in May for the Global Accessibility Awareness Day. We put out a request for members to send in short videos about why they are part of IAAP and why they are part of the accessibility profession. And all these are on our YouTube channel, by the way. But what came back was so— it was such a wonderful insight into why people need a place to come together to talk about accessibility and the need of diversity and the need of inclusion. And I'm very proud that we're building that network. Work with a lot of partners out there. I would have to say that has really humbled me.

Well, you know what? This show today is very educational and very important for people interested in digital accessibility. I just want to take one minute and say, if you go to Apple or Spotify, you can subscribe to this show. And that way, when you're talking to someone that you think would love to hear about this, you can tell them where to go to hear this show. Because I really think this is so educational that, you know, like, first of all, Chris, Sam J., you need to put this on your website, this podcast, so people can continue hearing this, you know, what you're saying. But seriously, if you're— oh my God, this would be so important for this company or this person— tell them Apple, Spotify, Disability Matters with Joyce Bender, or voiceamerica.com, and you can hear this show and share that with others that you're talking to. How about you, Jay? What would you characterize as your most significant accomplishment?

Oh, this is Jay. That's a tough question because first of all, I would prefer to answer that question after we launch the certificate. But until then, I would say that being Most— I feel it's a great accomplishment just to have the opportunity to work with all of these fantastic accomplished people. As Sam said, they're all volunteers from all over the world, and they're all experts in so many different ways. So I learn so much from them, and I feel privileged to have the opportunity to feel like I can share and contribute to that group as well.

Well, I am so impressed. By the humility of each of you. And that just shows me what kind of people you are, how passionate you are, and how successful this organization is going to be. And that is something I forgot to ask. Two questions. Number one, uh, Chris, what is the website for IAAP?

Yeah, so the IAAP website is is kind of long, but it's accessibilityassociation.org. Accessibilityassociation.org, and it's all together.

And can people see upcoming events or papers that you get out or news events? What can they see at that site?

Yes, so it's— we've got a variety of informational tabs on the site. Obviously, information about membership, and then we have resources, and some of the resources we have are resources that we've talked about today, as well as others. We have obviously our webinars tied to that. We have a connection, a membership connection community, which is, you know, behind-the-scenes subject matter experts. Platform that you can ask questions and get answers. We have information, a lot of information about the certification as it continues to grow, information about our global chapters, and then we also have events in addition to that.

Okay, listen, uh, can people make a donation to this organization?

You know, we don't have a donation component built into the website. We do have a kind of a fund that helps support people that can't afford to take the certification, could be in a developing country and so on. And they can contact us directly for that information. A lot of the speakers that we bring in for our webinars, there's a small webinar speaker honorarium that we give them. And a lot of they donate that to this fund. So if you are interested in providing resources to help support people that can't afford certification or professional education, we'll be happy to put that—

to talk to you about that. Yeah, and when that gets more developed on your site, if you just call and let me know, I'll make sure I tell everyone. One more time, what is the website? Accessibilityassociation.org. Okay, everyone, I just want to tell you before I ask this last question to Chris, Sam, Jay, and Chris, it has truly been a pleasure to have you on the show today. I just feel you've had a plethora of information and that this has been very educational and can be used by so many people. Um, it was so gracious with your time. Thank you all for being on the show today.

Thank you for having us, Joyce Bender.

So, Chris, last question: what message would you like to leave with our listeners to build the brand of IAAP and to encourage certification at all levels? What is your message?

Well, you know, I always think when I get asked similar questions like this, I think about a quote that's one of my favorite quotes. It's by Nelson Mandela, and he said, you know, "Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world." And I really believe that, and that's what we're all about, is educating and transferring that knowledge and IWP's tagline is United in Accessibility, United in Accessibility, and we are working towards building more of an inclusive, diverse world, and certification has a lot of power behind it. You know, it increases efficiency, it expands knowledge and skills, it builds professional capacity, and, you know, it also, you know, helps gaining a competitive advantage for some individuals. Individuals within the jobs that may want to, you know, go to another level or get a job. So I think, you know, you've got to look at professional certifications as a whole, and IWP is out there really pushing all accessibility certifications. So again, it's about the certification, and it's about that professional education.

Well, thank you so much again, and we had as our guest today IAAP-affiliated Sam Evans, Certification Manager, Chris Lee, the Managing Director, and Jay Wyant, the Global Leadership Council member, strategic leader in Accessibility Task Force. I-A-A-P. Make sure you follow them. And one more time, go to Apple or Spotify. You can subscribe to the show and tell others that you want to hear this show. All right, we end the show with every, every show with a quote, and today that quote is from Eve Hill, a national disability rights leader, who said, "How can you ask me to join the company if your website is not accessible. This is Joyce Bender, America's Voice, where disability matters, at voiceamerica.com. Talk to you next week with our great guest, Andy Imperato.

Voice America would like to thank you for tuning in. Please join us next Tuesday at 11 AM Pacific Time and 2 PM Eastern Time for another installment of Disability Matters right here on the Voice America Variety Channel. We are the leader in live internet talk radio. VoiceAmerica.com.