2025 Speakers

Caroline Desrosiers is an accessibility advocate, speaker, writer, and founder of Scribely, a company dedicated to making digital content inclusive and barrier-free. Her work has been featured in The New York Times, Fast Company, and Mashable, and she collaborates with organizations such as Amazon, Sesame Street, Smithsonian, and Walmart to integrate accessibility into their content strategies and workflows. Passionate about “born-accessible” practices, Caroline led the creation of new IPTC accessibility metadata standards that ensure quality accessibility information travels with images wherever they appear online.

Joe Devon is a technology entrepreneur and web accessibility advocate, best known for co-founding Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD) in 2012. Inspired by his 2011 blog post highlighting the need for mainstream accessibility knowledge among developers, GAAD has grown into an annual event observed on the third Thursday of May, promoting digital access and inclusion for over one billion people with disabilities worldwide.

As Chair of the GAAD Foundation, Joe strives to disrupt the culture of technology and digital product development by embedding accessibility as a core requirement. He also co-hosts the Accessibility and Gen.AI Podcast, exploring the intersection of accessibility and artificial intelligence.

Larry is “rewired” – consulting with startups in the accessibility field and involved with numerous public policy initiatives, including service as a public member of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts’ Digital Accessibility and Equity Governance Board. Previously, Larry was Head of Accessibility at Yahoo, where he directed a dedicated team of accessibility professionals and coordinated with hundreds of designers and developers to ensure that Yahoo’s many products, services and media offerings were as accessible as possible for people with disabilities. Larry started his career in accessible media and technology at WGBH Boston, where he was director of its Media Access Group and where he founded and directed its National Center for Accessible Media (NCAM). He was directly involved in such ground-breaking legislation as the TV Decoder Circuitry Act, The Telecommunications Act of 1996 and the 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act.

Mike Hess is the Founder and Executive Director of Blind Institute of Technology (BIT), a nonprofit on a mission to close the employment gap for professionals with disabilities. After two decades managing multimillion-dollar tech projects for Fortune 500 companies, Mike grew frustrated by being seen as the “token blind guy.” He knew the skills he’d developed because of his blindness were an asset – not a limitation – and he set out to challenge stereotypes, break down employment barriers, and promote equity for disabled professionals in corporate America.

Since launching BIT, Mike has built global partnerships and connected talented disabled professionals with career opportunities at leading companies. He also created the BIT Academy, the only Salesforce-approved training provider for professionals with disabilities, offering accessible, complimentary courses in Salesforce Administration, Digital Accessibility, Platform App Builder, and Agentforce – with more to come in 2025.

Under Mike’s leadership, BIT launched two U.S. Department of Labor–registered apprenticeship programs and was awarded a large Disability Innovation Fund grant to scale its workforce development model nationwide. Mike’s work continues to challenge outdated narratives and shape a more equitable workforce where disability is seen as a strength, not a setback.

Matthew Krieger is a technologist and executive with extensive experience in IT and nonprofit sectors. He is President of Cober, Inc. Previously, Matthew held senior IT leadership positions at Time and the Reader’s Digest Association in the roles of division CTO, global data center management, strategy and governance.

Matthew is Board Chair of the Reader’s Digest Partners for Sight Foundation, a non-profit grant maker focusing on direct services to increase the independence of blind and visually impaired individuals. He has extensive experience collaborating with blind and visually impaired people, having served nine years as a Board member of the Computer Center for Visually Impaired People at Baruch College.

Matthew founded and built Whysper, a text-to-speech audio content aggregator. He serves on the board of the International Microwave Power Institute and advises Tech 2 Success, Cyber-Seniors, and Creative Coefficient.

A frequent presenter on topics of business and technology and the intersection of them, Matthew holds a Master of Science in Computer Science from NYU Poly and a Bachelor of Science in Physics from the University of Connecticut.

Karae Lisle has more than 20 years of leadership experience in both the private and non-profit sectors, and currently serves as the CEO of Vista Center for the Blind and Visually Impaired. Early on, Karae worked in the tech sector, beginning with a sales support role at Burroughs Corporation, progressing through client-facing and revenue generating roles, to executive management in a variety of early-stage software firms. Moving to California in 1998 to work for Oracle’s inaugural CRM initiative, she later founded a boutique strategy consulting firm serving tech start-ups. Karae went on to join Shelter Network as CEO in 2011, and spearheaded the merger between nonprofits, InnVision and Shelter Network, (now LifeMoves, $20M budget) which created the largest provider of homeless shelter and services for Silicon Valley, providing 1000 beds (nightly) to individuals, families, veterans.

Including her role on the Vista Center Board of Directors, Karae’s community engagement includes serving on the boards of the Harvard Business School No. Calif. Alumni Association, and as the Chair of Mercado Global, a nonprofit serving indigenous Guatemalan women. She served as an Adjunct Professor at the University of San Francisco, and San Jose State in the MBA, MS, and undergraduate programs from 2000 to 2010. Karae attended Stanford Business School Nonprofit Executive program and holds an MBA from the Harvard Business School, after receiving a BS in Management Information Systems from Florida State University.

Troy Otillio is a Chief Executive Officer at Aira. Mr. Otillio is a noted technology leader and entrepreneur whose lengthy experience in the industry has included managing successful startups and spearheading the first enterprise-scale adoption of AWS infrastructure at Intuit, Inc., At Aira, Troy focuses on scaling Aira’s business functions, including marketing, sales, engineering and agent services. He is also actively seeking talent and collaborators in the areas of AI, NLP, IoT, Marketing, QA, and Security. Troy is an initial investor and Advisor with Aira with a tenure stretching back to the inception of the company. With over 25 years of experience, Otillio is a software product and technology entrepreneur having particular expertise in early-stage successful startups (including Ariba and Documentum), and large high-tech enterprises such as Intuit, where he served as Director of Public Cloud in the company´s Central Technology organization. Otillio, who earned his degree in computer science from California Polytechnic State University-San Luis Obispo and holds four patents in technology, also served as Executive in Residence at Plug and Play Tech Center, a Silicon Valley-based accelerator specializing in emerging tech startups.

Ned Desmond is Sight Tech Global’s founder and former executive producer. Currently Ned is a senior operating partner at SOSV, responsible for communications, marketing, and operations, among other things. Prior to joining SOSV, Ned was the COO at the media company TechCrunch for eight years, where he oversaw its growth to become a major force in tech media. Ned started his career as a journalist, and served as a foreign correspondent for Time magazine in Asia for eight years, and also covered Silicon valley for Fortune magazine. He joined his first Silicon valley startup, Infoseek, in 1996 and has been happily working at the intersection of media and startups ever since.

At Microsoft, Saqib Shaikh leads teams of engineers to blend emerging technologies with natural user experiences to empower people with disabilities to achieve more – and thus to create a more inclusive world for all.

His latest project, Seeing AI, enables someone who is visually impaired to hold up their phone, and hear more about the text, people, and objects in their surroundings. It has won multiple awards, and been called “life changing” by users. Shaikh has demonstrated his work to the UK Prime Minister, and to the House of Lords. The video of the original prototype has been viewed over three million times.

Shaikh holds a BSc in Computer Science (graduating top of his class), and an MSc in Artificial Intelligence. He has been recognized by the British Computer Society as the Young IT Practitioner of the Year.

Mike Shebanek has held product leadership roles at tech giants Apple, Yahoo, Facebook (Meta), and Be My Eyes in a technology career spanning more than 30 years. He was the product manager for the original iMac and iPad and led the creation of the VoiceOver screenreader and other accessibility features now found in every Mac, iPad and iPhone. He was also instrumental in founding several pioneering industry-wide accessibility initiatives including TeachAccess.org, the Getty Images Disability Collection, and XR Access. Mike holds several technology patents, is an author, guest speaker, and has served as Vice-Chair on the Board of Directors at the LightHouse for the Blind in San Francisco. He is now retired  after heading Accessibility at Apple, Yahoo, Verizon Media, and Meta.

Jim Fruchterman is a serial tech and social entrepreneur, who has already proven how technology can change entire fields in the social sector. He was the founder and CEO of Benetech for nearly 30 years, delivering large-scale change in partnership with hundreds of organizations as part of social enterprises addressing education, disability, human rights, and the environment. In addition, he has advised hundreds of diverse social enterprises on the use of technology and data. He previously founded two successful for-profit Silicon Valley tech companies in the machine learning/artificial intelligence field, and is an active angel investor in and board member for several companies. Fruchterman has been widely recognized for his social change work, including being selected as a recipient of the MacArthur Fellowship, the Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship, the Schwab Social Entrepreneur Award, and the Caltech Distinguished Alumni award.

Greg Stilson has been building technology solutions for those who are blind or low vision for the past 20 years.  While at HumanWare, a leading assistive technology manufacturer, Greg lead the development of such products as the BrailleNote Touch braille tablet, Trekker Breeze talking GPS device, Brailliant braille displays, and VictorReader accessible audio book devices, among others.  He spent two years with a startup company Aira, developing the Aira app and smart glasses platform, to create access to on-demand visual information. In 2020 he joined APH to further develop access solutions for those who are blind at all stages of life, from education to leisure, culminating in the launch of the Monarch in 2024 as a first of its kind all-in-one tactile display. When not working Greg lives in Madison WI with his wife and two children. He is an avid sports fan and is also a blind gamer.

Dr. Joshua Miele is a blind scientist, community leader, and inventor with a history of developing innovative information-accessibility solutions for blind people. In 2021, Miele was named a MacArthur Fellow for developing devices to enable blind and visually impaired people access to everyday technologies and digital information. Currently, Miele is a principal accessibility researcher at Amazon, where he helps guide the non-visual customer experience for device accessibility, and advises widely across Amazon on inclusive design and research methods. His work integrates disability-inclusive design, accessibility engineering, disability studies, and other disciplines, applying emerging technologies and trends to a range of information accessibility challenges. Prior to Amazon, Miele worked at the Smith-Kettlewell Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center on Blindness and Low Vision, leading a team of engineers and scientists dedicated to addressing accessible information challenges in education, employment, and entertainment. He is the former President of the Board of Directors of the San Francisco LightHouse for the Blind and Visually Impaired, where he cofounded LightHouse Labs, a Bay Area think tank committed to tightening ties between technology innovators and the blind community. Miele holds a bachelor’s degree in physics and a Ph.D. in psychoacoustics from the University of California at Berkeley.

Dr Louis-Philippe Massé has a Doctorate in Physics. He worked for more than 20 years in the industries of fiber optics, 2D and 3D sensor design as we as in product development in the field of metrology and product inspection. He occupied positions in sales and corporate management. He started at HumanWare as the Director of Product Management. He is currently Vice-president of Product Innovation and Technologies where he is responsible for product management, development as well as emerging technology assessment.

Ki was fascinated by startups and entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley and always enjoyed building software programs for his friends to do something easier than ever.  He was inspired to apply his tech entrepreneurship to make the world more accessible by providing innovative hardware and software tools for the visually impaired. So he established Dot Inc. and built a revolutionary tactile display that brings graphics and images in tactile so that blind people can access the world better. With the tactile display, he won the Titanium award at Cannes Innovations in 2022.