Recap: Local Guides GAAD 2020 Meetup

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Caption: Photo collage showing Joe Devon and attendees during the virtual chat. (Photo by Jesica)

Every year enthusiasts around the world join forces to create awareness on accessibility to mark the Global Accessibility Awareness Day. This year Local Guides are so proud to have the founder of #GAAD, Joe Devon, as our Special Guest.

The meetup was hosted and facilitated by the #OneAccessibility team members, @PennyChristie @Jesi @ChinonsoOnukwugha @KashifMisidia

@JaneBurunina and myself.

Agenda

The agenda was scheduled into five sessions

  • Introduction
  • Dialogue
  • Brief information on Local Guides/One Accessibility
  • Q&R
  • Closing

Each session was facilitated by one of the team members in such a professional manner that brought commendation afterwards.

Chinonso welcomed participants at about 8:45 am (PST). She explained modalities and program schedule for the meetup. She later introduced Joe Devon on the hour.

Dialogue

Jesi hosted the session where she had one-on-one interaction with Joe on various issues around digital accessibility. Here are some questions posed to Joe.

*Can digital technologies be evaluated? If yes how?

*Like software, can hardware like keyboard and mouse be made accessible for PwDs?

*Are there any tech that flag accessibility issues before being released for public use?

You can see a full list of questions in the album.

Session 2

Kashif gave a brief introduction about Local Guides programme, Google Maps and how we contribute to accessibility for users.

When Joe wanted to know how and where LGs are located, Emeka further explained that LGs are found in six continents with over 120million members around the world.

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caption: Poster showing photo of Joe Devon and the world GAAD 2020 written boldly.

Q&A

During question and answer session Jane moderated by calling participants to ask their questions directly to Joe.

Adrian, Tejal, Isha, Shola and others had questions answered by Joe Devon during this session.

Closing

Chinonso returned to handle closing formalities and bid everyone farewell.

We had 51 participants who were patient and co-operative. We hope to have you in our subsequent events.

Check out some photos in the meetup album and here is the recorded video.

We sincerely appreciate Chinonso @AlphaSays for the 3-1 graphics

Finally, we urge everyone to help make the world better by creating awareness about accessibility.

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Congratulations on this lovely meet-up, @EmekaUlor and everyone who is part of the alliance. I’m so impressed you were able to get this special guest and am so glad we are making Maps better for folks with accessibility needs!

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@EmekaUlor Congratulations on successfully organized this big event for GAAD. I like your detailed discussion and covering all the important parts of the Local Guides program. Thanks for sharing!

Happy Guiding!

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First of all, Congratulations to all members of Team #oneaccessibility, it was a great learning session for all of us, because it was very first time I heard about Digital Technologies for the people with different abilities.

This meet-up was the best example of a great teamwork.

I would like to say thanks to our special guest “Joe Devon”, And all

friends, who attend this awesome and informative meet-up @AdrianLunsong , @Tejal , @MSulaiman , @ravindus , @AlexandreCampbell & many other super LocalGuides, and especially My Team mates of #oneaccessibility alliance @EmekaUlor , @Jesi , @JaneBurunina , @ChinonsoOnukwugha and @PennyChristie .

Shukriya :pray:

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Thank you @EmekaUlor for this fantastic recap. I was in such awe during the event not only because of the presence of fellow local guides and friends, but the genuine interest and engagement! Joe really took the time to answer all questions and provide some clarity to the questions posed.

Two of my biggest takeaways from this event were:

  1. There is An Introduction to Accessibility and Inclusive Design course being offered by University of Illinois on Coursera.

  2. There is a need to have such continuous conversations together to unify and then bring the ideas and solutions discussed to communities where accessibility has not been established. So that the accessibility gap among different areas in the world is not so wide as we progress.

Thank you everybody that attended and even those that were not able to but wished to!

Thanks again for spearheading this event Emeka and much love to the rest of my #OneAccessibility team members! @PennyChristie @Jesi @ChinonsoOnukwugha @Kashifmisidia @JaneBurunina

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@EmekaUlor thank you for giving us the opportunity to talk to a person who is putting so much effort to make an accessible world. This meetup has reflected that there so much work that needs to be done for accessibility around the world.

My concerns are still there for the language barrier as all these Softwares and hardware are available only in limited languages. And there are millions of people who still do not understand available languages. I hope to see more awareness and enhancement in these Softwares that can serve the purpose for the whole world.

@KashifMisidia thank you Bhai for tagging me and allowing me to share my experience.

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Thank you @KashifMisidia for inviting me to this really valuable meetup.

@EmekaUlor It was a great meetup. We learnt a lot of new things. To tell you how I much I got interested, I joined a subsequent GAAD webinar with Kashif. Then I also watched some previous such discussion videos published by GAAD.

Thank you for opening doors for new side of Accessibility

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@EmekaUlor well done my friend! I had the chance to be there for a few minutes because a I had a work meeting, otherwise I would stayed longer. Great work that you guys are pulling off! Keep it up and count on me if you need anything!

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It was really amazing opportunity for all attendees learn about modern digital accessibility especially during the covid19 pandemic situation. Thanks our special guest Joe Devon for great knowledge sharing session!

I particularly wish to note here the work of @EmekaUlor and @Jesi that has made it possible!

That’s awesome to be a part of such amazing team - #OneAccessibility Team!

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This meetup taught us all so many things for accessibility issues that needs to be addressed. Great that people are working on it and making it possible.

Glad that i was a part of this meetup. @EmekaUlor well written recap post.

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@EmekaUlor Thank you so much and your team for doing this. The amount of knowledge I have learned about accessibility that day is beyond what I expected and I will be sharing with all my techie friends and put it into as well. Once again thanks for the great insightful meetup and it was an honour to contribute.

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@TraciC thank you for the inspiration and yes, we are glad to make maps accessible! When Joe heard about Local Guides activities, he went “wow” and couldn’t say no!

So glad he made out time to join us.

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@MSulaiman thank you attending the meetup. As Joe stated, gradually these features will come. There’s progress being made in digital software and I hope more languages will be added.

@marcorp thank you for your kind words and moral support.

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@Shreeya_99 thank you for being part of the meetup and I am glad lots of issues are being addressed too. It keeps getting better.

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@EmekaUlor looking for a bright future for our society. Kudos to your efforts once again.

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