2025 Accessibility Summit
Date and Time
Location
Thank you for attending the 2025 Accessibility Summit!
- Watch the recording of the morning session (HarvardKey required)
- Read a recap of the event in the Harvard Gazette
Join us for the 2025 Accessibility Summit, hosted by Digital Accessibility Services (DAS). This is an in-person event open to Harvard faculty and staff, and will provide opportunities for learning, connecting, and engaging with other accessibility advocates from around the university.
Seating is limited, so register now! Reach out to digitalaccessibility@harvard.edu with any questions.
Tuesday, June 17, 2025
9am-3pm - Lunch will be provided!
Gutman Conference Center, Harvard Graduate School of Education
Agenda
- Morning Session: Networking and Program
- Introductory Remarks: Alan M. Garber, President of Harvard University
- Keynote: "Why Digital Accessibility is Increasingly Important to Today’s Universities" - Judy Brewer, Executive Fellow, School of Information and Goldman School of Public Policy, University of California, Berkeley; Former Assistant Director for Accessibility, Office of Science and Technology Policy, White House
- Panel Discussion featuring accessibility and inclusion experts from around the university.
- Lunch
- Afternoon Session: Breakout discussions
- 3-5pm: Social reception to follow in Harvard Square
Digital Accessibility Services welcomes participants of all abilities. We will be providing captions for any videos shown and ASL for the event. If you anticipate needing any sort of accommodation to participate fully in the Summit, please share information in the registration form about how we can best support your needs.
Keynote
Judy Brewer, Executive Fellow, School of Information and Goldman School of Public Policy, University of California, Berkeley; Former Assistant Director for Accessibility, Office of Science and Technology Policy, White House
Accessibility of digital environments is essential to students’ ability to participate in all aspects of university life, including academics; essential to faculty’s ability to teach effectively and to lead research that benefits from the insights of the rich variety of human experience; and essential to staff’s ability to excel in a myriad of roles across the university. The impacts of accessibility barriers in academia can be profound, stretching for decades into the future and across every discipline. Judy Brewer will discuss the latest technical and policy advances in digital accessibility, and opportunities for leveraging accessibility-inspired innovations that can improve the research, learning and working environment in support of the mission and vision of Harvard.
Emerging technologies, including artificial intelligence, offer promising opportunities yet also risks for people with disabilities. Their use requires planning and implementation supported by disability-informed research across diverse user needs. Under-implementation of accessibility goals and requirements used to be common in university settings, but has brought lessons on how we can more strategically and efficiently drive accessibility progress in higher education. Brewer will offer perspectives on how each part of Harvard can help establish a foundation where research and teaching can indeed power progress for all.
Breakout Sessions
Many of today’s most useful technologies were originally created to help people with disabilities. Whether voice assistants or audiobooks, smart homes or automated note-takers, new and life-changing examples continue to emerge as rapidly as technology itself. Join this session with presenters from Harvard John A. Paulson School Of Engineering And Applied Sciences (SEAS) to learn about some “home grown” Harvard innovations, born right here!
Presenters:
- Patrick Slade and Raymond Liu, Harvard John A. Paulson School Of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS)
- Erich Manser, Digital Accessibility Services (DAS)
This session will first cover the basics of creating accessible documents and then expand to commonly encountered document issues and how to resolve them while keeping documents visually engaging.
Presenter:
Jamie Spear, Digital Accessibility Services (DAS)
In this session, we’ll discuss key things to consider when planning in-person, virtual, or hybrid events. From planning to implementation, we’ll share tips and best practices for making your next event truly inclusive and accessible.
Presenters:
- Kate Higgins, Harvard University Disability Resources
- Suany Hurlston, Digital Accessibility Services (DAS)
Over the past year, Digital Accessibility Services (DAS) and the Digital Accessibility Working Group (DAWG) have developed a lightweight Canvas course assessment tool that measures accessibility across nine categories, including course design, images, text, and documents. We’ll talk about the tool’s origins, demonstrate its use, and discuss how we can improve it!
Presenters:
- John Williams and Andy Hollenhorst, Digital Accessibility Services (DAS)
Join us to learn more about some of the coolest and most innovative technology solutions supporting individuals with disabilities across Harvard. University Disability Resources and the Assistive Technology Center will describe equipment, services, and software available through their respective offices.
Presenters:
- Kate Upatham, Harvard University Disability Resources
- Tanya Washburn, Assistive Technology Center
This session is intended for operational thinkers who are planning how to maintain their commitment to digital accessibility within budgetary constraints. Participants will learn about strategies for developing internal team capacity, costs of outsourcing with preferred vendors, and pros and cons for their team. If you are managing resources, looking to impress your boss with a cost-effective accessibility process, or need to justify your accessibility-related line-items, we hope you'll join us!
Presenters:
Kyle Shachmut and Jen Dee, Digital Accessibility Services (DAS)
As the only accessibility testing platform powered by users with disabilities, Fable is a useful service that is available to all Harvard schools and departments. Join this session to learn more about the platform itself, the different ways our colleagues are using the service today, and for the steps needed to start using Fable for your next digital project. We look forward to seeing you!
Presenters:
- Erich Manser, Digital Accessibility Services (DAS)
- Sarah Horton, Harvard Web Publishing
The exciting new HarvardSites Drupal has been carefully crafted to be flexible, easy to use, and scalable — but unlike many web publishing platforms, accessibility has been prioritized as an essential feature from the very beginning. In this session, we’ll look at the Design System that HarvardSites was built on, and the guiding principles that ensured accessibility led the way. We’ll share examples of accessibility testing with users of assistive technologies, and how that research shaped usability improvements for both site builders and site visitors. Finally, we’ll demonstrate how easy it is for site builders to create accessible web content on HarvardSites by using built-in tools and support.
Presenter:
Janell Sims, Digital Accessibility Services