Introduction to EOWG

Dear EOWG participants,

It's a real pleasure being with you in EOWG.   As you may know, I'm new 
in more than one way, as I'm also the newest member of the WAI  Team, 
joining Shadi in the WAI-ACT project.  Here's a pocket biography so that 
everyone has access to the information given in my verbal introduction 
last week.

Until June this year I was the technical lead consultant in the Royal 
National Institute of Blind People (RNIB) Web
Access team. My day-to-day duties included evaluating the accessibility 
of (mainly UK) corporate and local authority web sites, as well as 
developing and delivering web accessibility training courses.

As technical lead  it was my pleasure to guide the team in both legal 
and technical issues, which as you can imagine, meant a lot of research 
when the law and standards relating to web accessibility changed.

Before RNIB I worked for the BBC as a web author on one of the regional 
web sites.  Here I made such a noise over inaccessible techniques, which 
were, (eight years ago), quite common at BBC, that I was co-opted onto 
their Web
Accessibility Working Group.

The first contact I had with WAI and web accessibility was at 
university, reading for a (very late) degree in IT. It became the focus 
of most of my studies, all of my presentations and of course the final 
dissertation.  I
really needed the Web, as my library and for completing course work, but 
  In 1998 it was getting more and more inaccessible.  Thank heaven for WCAG!

When I'm not beating my web accessibility drum I bake and make 
chocolates. At the same time  i like to read well-written, 
well-researched historical fiction and crime thrillers.

I'm really looking forward to meeting you all in the calls and working 
with you, sharing ideas, experiences  and knowledge to help make the Web 
accessible to everyone.

Kind regards,

Bim

Received on Friday, 14 December 2012 22:40:24 UTC