Re: Introduction

Just to add that Eric is also one of the major contributors to the 
latest update to BAD that we carried out in 2009-2010:
  - http://www.w3.org/WAI/demos/bad/acks.html

Hmmm. Thinking of it, soon after that he decided to leave Vienna... ;)

Best,
   Shadi


On 17.12.2013 13:06, Eric Eggert wrote:
> Hi EOWG,
>
> I’m Eric Eggert and I’m new around here and will help Shadi compete the
> WAI-ACT project. I was asked by Shawn to introduce myself here, so I’ve
> written this little origin story:
>
> I’m originally from a small town in Germany, in the middle of the woods.
> No, really[1]. And it was there where I first got in touch with a
> wheelchair user, which was a boy who lived in the house next to my
> parents. Sadly inclusion wasn’t really good back in the days, so we
> didn’t share the school and he wasn’t allowed outside as often as we
> would liked, which improved later.
>
> Later I became interested in programming, doing little apps like an
> electric circuit designer[2] (in the non-famous language Profan²[3]) and
> started to teach it to younger pupils in my school, as the informatics
> education was very much sub-par. It was around the same time when I
> started to think about the web and putting my stuff online so everyone
> could download my apps and I become rich.[4]
>
> As I started to learn HTML I quickly discovered the so-called Web
> Standards movement, which was awesome as it allowed me, the boy from the
> woods, to communicate with people all over the country and later the
> world. I joined the Webkrauts[5] early in the process and tried to
> educate people about the web, starting with some presentations at
> school[6].
>
> In May 2006 – after my A levels – I moved to Vienna to study media
> informatics at Vienna university. As I joined the first BarCamp Vienna
> and talked about Web Standards in Practice[7]. Out of that experience I
> founded the Vienna chapter of the German WebMontag (Web Monday) events,
> which was where I met Shadi for the first time. He subsequently
> introduced me to the huge accessibility scene. I later (2008)
> co-organized the Accessibility Day[8] here in Vienna and spoke there and
> built the websites (2008–2010). In 2009 I was asked to host a panel on
> national accessibility guidelines at the European Accessibility Forum in
> Frankfurt[9].
>
> I moved back to Germany in 2010, still working as a freelancer as I did
> from Vienna in the meantime. This time I chose the large Ruhrgebiet area
> where I live now in the southern borrow of Essen called Kettwig[10].
> Together with a group of enthusiastic people called BPSE (Best Practices
> Stammtisch [Round Table] Essen) we wanted to try out how it is to take
> part in the German web accessibility contest called BIENE[11]. It turned
> out that we won a Golden BIENE in the end for our project Stiftung
> Lebenshilfe Duisburg[12].
>
> In 2011 Sandra Kallmeyer[13], who worked with me the previous year, and
> I started our small 2-people agency, with clients like the University of
> Duisburg-Essen[14] and most recent OWB[15]. With OWB we had the first
> really deep look at Easy Read German, which was a really fun and
> insightful experience. Nowadays I try to close the perceived gap between
> accessibility and developers, showing them that it is easy to make
> better accessible web sites[16].
>
> Oh, I just noticed that this got really long. I guess all I wanted to
> say is that I’m really excited to work with you all! If you like to find
> me elsewhere on the internet my usual nick is “yatil”[17].
>
> I’ll now try to digest all those informations that Shadi threw at me.
>
> I wish you all happy holidays and a successful and accessible 2014.
>
> Best, Eric
>
> PS: Sorry for all those links, that’s probably from my blogging days :-)
>
> [1] https://goo.gl/maps/vGPjx
> [2] http://www.flickr.com/photos/yatil/7240172864
> [3] http://profan.de/
> [4] I didn’t get rich, but you can find my inaccessible, frame site here
> non the less. At least it already had alt attributes on the image map:
> https://web.archive.org/web/20011127145742/http://www.innotic.de/
> [5] http://webkrauts.de
> [6] http://www.slideshare.net/yatil/web-17066984,
> http://www.slideshare.net/yatil/vorteile-vonwebstandards,
> http://www.slideshare.net/yatil/geschichte-undtechnologie,
> http://www.slideshare.net/yatil/fehler-imwebdesign (I must have made
> those around 2002, all in German, but you might recognise the guy in
> that slide http://www.slideshare.net/yatil/web-17066984/7 ;-)
> [7] http://www.flickr.com/photos/68548975@N00/256304756 (Yes, I wore
> fancy shirts back in the days. Also I wear much more hair these days…)
> [8] http://atag.accessiblemedia.at/2008/,
> http://atag.accessiblemedia.at/2009/, http://atag.accessiblemedia.at/2010
> [9] http://eafra.de, Me on tape: http://vimeo.com/3955327
> [10] I made a lot of photos:
> http://www.flickr.com/photos/yatil/collections/72157624478231093/
> [11] http://www.biene-award.de/english/
> [12] http://stiftung-lebenshilfe.org/ – Especially note the animation on
> the logo and on the navigation, I think I could do something like this
> (but with CSS transforms, of course) for W3C, too ;-)
> [13] http://instagram.com/screenorigami
> [14] http://www.uni-due.de (Unfortunately the code was changed – and
> made partly inaccessible – after the launch.)
> [15] http://www.owb.de
> [16] http://lanyrd.com/profile/yatil/
> [17] http://yatil.net, http://twitter.com/yatil,
> http://facebook.com/yatil, https://plus.google.com/+EricEggert – well,
> almost everywhere ;-)
>
>

-- 
Shadi Abou-Zahra - http://www.w3.org/People/shadi/
Activity Lead, W3C/WAI International Program Office
Evaluation and Repair Tools Working Group (ERT WG)
Research and Development Working Group (RDWG)

Received on Tuesday, 17 December 2013 12:36:57 UTC