On this episode of the podcast we continue a conversation we started with Haben Girma, an advocate for equal rights for people with disabilities, regarding the value of tech accessibility. Melanie and Mark talk with her about common challenges and best practices when considering accessibility in technology design and development. Bottom line - we need one solution that works for all.

Haben Girma

The first Deafblind person to graduate from Harvard Law School, Haben Girma advocates for equal opportunities for people with disabilities. President Obama named her a White House Champion of Change, and Forbes recognized her in Forbes 30 Under 30. Haben travels the world consulting and public speaking, teaching clients the benefits of fully accessible products and services. Haben is a talented storyteller who helps people frame difference as an asset. She resisted society’s low expectations, choosing to create her own pioneering story. Because of her disability rights advocacy she has been honored by President Obama, President Clinton, and many others. Haben is also writing a memoir that will be published by Grand Central Publishing in 2019. Learn more at habengirma.com.

Cool things of the week

• Istio reaches 1.0: ready for prod blog
• Google for Nigeria: Making the internet more useful for more people blog
  • GCPPodcast Episode 17: The Cloud In Africa with Hiren Patel and Dale Humby podcast
• Access Google Cloud services, right from IntelliJ IDEA blog

Interview

• Haben Girma’s website site
• Haben Girma’s presentation at NEXT video
• GCPPodcast Episode 100: Vint Cerf: past, present, and future of the internet podcast
• Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) site
• Android Accessibility Guidelines site
• Apple Developer Accessibility Guidelines site
• Black in AI site
• Google Accessibility site
• San Francisco Lighthouse for the Blind site
• National Federation of the Blind site
• National Association of the Deaf site

Question of the week

How do I perform large scale mutations in BigQuery? blog and site

Where can you find us next?

Mark will be at Pax Dev and Pax West starting August 28th. In September, he’ll be at Tokyo NEXT.

Melanie is at Def Con, Black Hat, and BSides Las Vegas. In September, she will be at Deep Learning Indaba.