IAAF 2023: Real Talk - A Conversation with Section 508 Program Managers

Narrator

Annual Interagency Accessibility Forum. Day 2, Real Talk.

Betsy Sirk

Good afternoon, everyone. Now I'm hearing some ocean waves? Something feedback? Are we good? Wow, the room got quiet very quickly. So, welcome to what I think is the last panel of the day. Thank you so much for staying and engaging this whole time. I am super thrilled to be here with this panel. Bringing to you for the first time.

It's our inaugural Real Talk with Section 508 Program managers. Not to say that everything you've heard up to this point was fake. I just want to do that disclaimer. I think everything that you've heard and the people that have taken their time to share has been real, but we were hoping that this title would convey the fact that with experience, with facing these challenges, with enjoying the successes, it really, really helps when we collaborate and share these experiences.

So, we put together an opportunity to do that. So, really quickly, I'd love to introduce myself in this esteemed panel so that we can jump right into our discussion and hopefully leave enough time for those of you who have questions to engage with us during this.

So, my name is Betsy Sirk, and I'm honored to be part of this community. I chair our piece of the accessibility community, a practice that focuses on industry outreach. Within National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), I'm a director of digital accessibility and the strategic sourcing. I happen to work within an office that is in the agency's Office of Procurement. I've been doing this for a long time, since the law went into effect, in the technical standards were implemented and started to be enforced in 2001. I had transitioned from NASA headquarters to the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, and was the first Accessibility Program Manager of Section 508 program manager then, and I still retain that role, of looking at the Goddard Space Flight Center Enterprise and doing a few things for the agency in support of Courtney who I’ll introduce next.

So, Courtney, if you could please, add if I miss anything, but I'm super excited to be sitting next to my partner in crime here, Courtney, because when she began work, as an IT specialist at the Goddard Space Flight Center in 2002, she has been my right hand person, and you're sitting on my right so that's so appropriate. And she's been she's a computer specialist, and she's currently the agency's IT accessibility lead at NASA. But when she started, almost when I did the journey so 2002, that's basically right after the law went into effect. She's been the alternate Goddard Section 508 program manager, especially focusing on developing accessible electronic content, including software.

So, that is Courtney. And then next to Courtney, we have, we have Mark Urban. I had to do a double take to make sure I had the right order. But Mark is the Accessibility Program Manager for the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Mark has been a 508 program manager for 14 years and has been involved in accessibility from his time as a mayor. Yes, I said that right. He was a mayor, but he said we don't have to call him your honorable or whatever, but we sometimes do.

Mark Urban

That’s for sure.

Betsy Sirk

But for his time as a mayor, during the implementation of the American with Disabilities Act early in the 1990s. So he's worked with both the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the rehab act and has a wonderful set of experiences.

And then to his right, we're honored to have Sid Sharma, who's the Department of Interior, Section 508 program manager. And as their Section 508 program manager, he manages and oversees the implementation of Section 508 rehabilitation Act of 1973 and ensures all IT products and services developed, procured, maintained and used by Interior are accessible to individual with disabilities.

I know this isn't on the script, but I just feel like pausing and I want to give a round of applause to my colleagues here for willing to come. See, it's all going to be downhill now. All going to be downhill but anyway, seriously, this is.

Mark Urban

Well, you let me in on the panel so yes, it will.

Betsy Sirk

Mark and I both took the same, course. That said, if you're self-deprecating, you beat others to the punch of making fun of you. So, you know, tell a joke. Tell a joke about yourself, and then people will feel, well, we'll feel a little a little, little bad if they jump on you. But listen, this is wonderful to have you here and what we'd like to open with is a little bit different.

And that is, you're inspiring people not only because of what you do now and what you're going to share about what works and doesn't work, but about how you got here, because there's really no playbook that says, as of 20 years ago, oh, hey, here, here's how you become a Section 508 program manager. So, we're, I'd like to know, what was your journey? If you can share with us how you became the position that you're in within your organization and I'd like to start with, Courtney. If you wouldn't mind sharing with us how you got here.

Courtney Ritz

Sure. Let's see, when, I was finishing my last year of college, it was the summer of 2001, and I had a unique opportunity to do an internship at NASA headquarters. I was going to, Mississippi State University at the time. Hail state. And I was getting a business degree there so. [Ringing sound] Little feedback. So, when I was doing my, my internship that it just happened to be, when Section 508 took effect, and I had an opportunity to learn about it from the webmaster at headquarters.

And, you know, I realized this would be a great place for me to work. I've always been a fan of the space program, and I care about accessibility greatly. So, while I was in my last semester of college, I kept in touch with people, at headquarters and then at, the Goddard Space Flight Center. And I bugged them and bugged them, and they found, a position for me, and in, an IT office at that time.

And so, I've been a part of NASA ever since and Betsy has been a super mentor for me all these years. And when our OCIO, office the Chief Information Officer, went through an agency wide restructuring, we had to completely rethink our program. So, that's when they created the IT accessibility lead position that I took in August of last year.

Betsy Sirk

Excellent, Courtney. Thank you so much. Sid, how about you? How did you get here?

Siddhartha 'Sid' Sharma

Sure. Hi, everybody. So, my journey, so in July 1999, after I graduated from Virginia Tech, go Hokies, with a bachelor's degree in marketing. I worked for a law firm in Washington, DC as a paralegal for a few years. During that time, I was also attending night classes at Florida Tech Graduate Center in Alexandria, Virginia working on a master's degree in project management.

Shortly after I received my master's degree in August, August 6th, 2000, yeah, about 2006, I applied for a position at the Department of the Interior, Office of the Chief Information Officer, as a Program Analyst supporting various information management programs such as Privacy for the Records Management Section 508 Information Quality and Web Management. After three years in that position, I was promoted to a Privacy Specialist supporting the DOI Privacy Officer. I worked in that position for roughly five years, at the same time, my vision was deteriorating at a very fast rate, due to a retinal disease. So, with the Section 508 Program Manager position became available in 2014, I applied for it, and then I eventually got it, because of my experiences with disability and, you know, I wanted accessibility and inclusion to be the core of my profession. So, that's basically my journey.

Betsy Sirk

Thank you so much Sid, and Mark.

Mark Urban

Well, I was mayor. It's true, but you have to understand, it's a small town. So, mayor is 600 people in a fire station going, okay, who wants to be mayor? And everyone going, “Mark could be good at it?” And that literally is the story. That's all you need to know. No, I never went into a career in politics, and thankfully I didn't. I will say that it taught me an interesting thing, because during my time as a mayor, of a small town, very rural community in Mass, in western Massachusetts. We had to implement the ADA. And we had no, I had never, I didn't even know what ADA spelled, or how to spell it. I, there was, I had no background in disability. I had no idea what I was getting into when I said, “Oh, well, the National Conference of Mayors needs some, a rural representative on the ADA Guidance Committee for all the cities and towns around the country.”

That was how I got involved in all of this. So, that was way back when. And I never lost the disability bug as I went through my entirely different career, where I got on a big green bus and they sent me to the University of Parris Island. Hurrah! And, became a corpsman and then a P.A. in the Navy, as a Navy corpsman. And spent my whole time with the United States Marine Corps. Love them. It was great. I ended up doing field hospital work all around the world. It was engaging, interesting. At the same time, I stayed involved in disability standards, and I became involved in technology standards for people with disabilities. So, when I was here at home, I literally was getting in my car and driving up to standards committees meetings.

So, if you ever use a, if you ever wonder why your remote control can control your TV and the, something else like the PlayStation or something, that's standard was the standard that we developed for interoperability of devices. Back o lo those many years ago. Needless to say, I won't go too deep down into it other than to say I became a type one diabetic, late onset, and discovered disability the hard way. And I, I remind, it's a great to remind people that, you know, you never know how you know, your life is going to be paved. And, so I started working in accessibility. I worked at IRS helping make tax forms accessible. Then I moved to HHS and did HHS wide trainings and develop the initial guidance, o lo I'm looking at Gary because he was there at the same time. Gary Morin and from NIH and we developed all those checklists and guidance, although lo those many years ago. And then I moved to, you know, now that I was out of the service, I moved to the public health service and, started work at CDC as a federal employee. That was, I believe, during the paleocivic era, or maybe Jurassic, I'm not sure. And, that's, that's how I got here.

Betsy Sirk

Wonderful. I don't even know how to summarize that journey. I mean, I, I do think that his physician's assistant training has come in handy a lot, especially since I tend to get injured and have weird things happen. So, I knew that this panel was really there to protect me as well. But, you know, I'm hearing some themes, which is you engaged like Courtney. I actually started as an undergraduate intern, and NASA doesn't know what they're getting into when decades later the people remain. But, it gives you a different perspective because when you basically work from the ground up, you see what your skills are. You understand what your technical training was. You understand what your educational background was, but all of it can lead you on a path to doing something in this field.

And that's, I've found and maybe you'll agree that, that's both a good thing as well as sometimes a challenge, because it seems that people that don't quite understand the technical aspects of what 508 technical standards are, but they've been assigned this field and they're well intentioned, don't quite get it. So, I think it makes it a little bit more of a challenge for us to, to find that..

But given that and speaking of the word challenge, the scope of the Section 508 program or digital accessibility or accessibility, leadership, whatever you want to call it, it's very broad as we all know in this room, Section 508 touches everything that we create, that we buy, that we implement, the way in which we communicate. It's very broad..

So, the next question is, since this does touch basically everything in the workplace, please share what your particular Section 508 program or Digital Accessibility Program covers and how you ensure that the technology within your department is accessible. So why don't we start with Sid on that one..

Sid Sharma

All right. Thanks, Betsy. So, if you don't already know, you know, I work for the U.S. Department of Interior and DOI is a cabinet level agency that protects and manages the nation's natural resources and cultural heritage data. It provides scientific and other information about those resources and honors trust responsibilities to American Indians, Alaska Natives, and Island communities..

The agency employs roughly 70,000 individuals and in 11 technical bureaus. The DOI Section 508 program resides within the Office of the Secretary, Office of the Chief Information Officer. And, you know, in collaboration with Bureau Section 508 program managers, the departmental Section 508 program does like many other 508 programs do. We develop Section 508 policies and procedures. We provide consultations to agency employees on implementation requirements, tools as well as resources available for implementing the requirements of the law. We provide training and materials to increase awareness of Section 508 standards and Information and communication Technology (ICT) accessibility to acquisition managers, IT web managers, I.T managers, web managers, human resources representatives, and other employees..

We also provide automated or conduct automated testing and manual testing of a variety of technologies such as websites, applications, documents, videos, etc.. We also offer contract services to our employees for document remediation and captioning, audio description, etc...

Betsy Sirk Thank you. So, just as a quick follow up to you. So, since you are at the department level I'm assuming that all of the parts of your organization should have access to all of the services that you're talking about..

Sid Sharma

Yes, they do Betsy.

Betsy Sirk

Yeah, that's very significant when you do that at that level. So wonderful. Thank you for sharing that. Mark, how about you next? What about your program? What is it cover?

Mark Urban

Well it's, we actually, so you notice that we all have different titles. And I think that's really valuable when you think about how 508 works in the federal government. So, my program, I, I'm the Accessibility Program Manager and that's because I've got a several activities that I have, that are kind of my portfolio of services in my team..

It's basically we have a compliance service, and that deals with making sure your acquisition language is correct, making looking at, looking at, a checklist or documentation, looking at, you know, V paths. I doing all of the nuts and bolts of a compliance program to ensure that stage gate reviews for systems, things like that. Then we have actual technical assistance for accessibility, mostly 508 compliance, but we also do other accessibility related technical assistance..

For example, we helped and worked with some of the CDC programs to develop ASL videos of their content and to discuss some. We, I still all the time have meetings with our various programs to talk about how they can communicate better to communities of persons with disabilities. So that's a piece of our activities. But mostly technical assistance is 508 compliance..

Then we have an additional activity, we do meeting access. So, we provide captioning services, for Communication Access Realtime Translation CART services. We do all that set up. So, we're having this meeting and we're doing a number of accessibility activities. We make sure that the rooms have things like loop systems in place or, headsets, if we don't, if we can't do the loops, we provide meeting support if people need an in-person ASL interpreter or an online ASL interpreter. We also identify, meeting room accessibility issues. If you've got individuals coming in and someone says, hey, I need, you know, coming in, in, I have several attendees that are, you know, deaf. I need special seating set aside. So, we'll work with the logistics and the meeting management people to get that set up..

So, we do a bunch of areas and of course, we'll do consulting where we'll just be like, hey, we'll help you set up your meeting, we'll brief your presenters so they know how to do accessible PowerPoints and things like that. And then finally, we provide, assistive technology installation and support. And that is, you know, we don't do the reasonable accommodation official process part, but once a reasonable accommodation is granted, or even if someone applies for one, we go ahead and apply and immediately provide a solution for the individual based on their description of their needs..

We may tweak it after a reasonable accommodation process happens, but the purpose is to get them the tools they need to get to work quickly. And we found that, I don't know if you all have ever been through the reasonable accommodations process, even though it may be being done at the, at the best level, there's a long process involved..

And so, I, by doing it this way, we literally get stuff in people's hands immediately. Today we hired, not my group, but another group at CDC, hired a new individual who has a cochlear implant. And the speaker for the mic, for their cochlear implant isn't covered by the headphones that we normally give people. So, we got them a pair of specialty headphones with the extra large cup so that when they're on meetings they don't have background noise interfering with their participation..

But I didn't wait for the reasonable accommodation process to get them those headphones. I'll track it and make sure that they that it gets done. But that's the other piece of our, of our activity. So, we are really an accessibility shop and, and it's got a whole list of services. And I actually have to account every year for all how much we, the different services are used, and how we pay for that..

Betsy Sirk Thank you, Mark. That is 508 and beyond. Definitely. And Courtney, please share with us what you're doing there is because I think similarly you by being called accessibility lead. I know that's acknowledging that there is a lot of work there about assistive technology and collaboration with the other offices. So, please share your journey there..

Courtney Ritz

Yeah. Well, the scope of our program is very similar to, you know, as Mark and Sid have both said, there's more to IT accessibility than simply 508. I like to think of Section 508 is the foundation. It's the legal requirement but we can go so far beyond, you know, so far beyond that. And that's our goal..

The fun part, as I mentioned with that OCIO restructuring is that we're having to rebuild our Section 508 program from the ground up. In the past, we did rely heavily on the center, you know, our component centers, resources, for testing, for everything really. And then it was just kind of managed at the agency level. Now, we have to look at doing this more from a central. I'm trying to think how to describe that, more at a central point where I am. At the agency level, we pulled a lot of our center IT services into service lines across our agency. But I see that as a great opportunity to find some points of contact and people that I can work with and hold accountable to making sure that all of those enterprise wide services that may have once been managed at a center, now at the agency level to make sure that they are compliant and as accessible as possible beyond that..

We're also combining, what I'm doing more with the equal opportunity office on reasonable accommodations, not so much in that are a process, like you said, Mark, but more once they get the hardware or software that they need, how are we going to make this work, you know, as easily and quickly as possible for them?.

That hasn't been done in the past. So, I'm looking into, you know, how we can, for instance, get an agency license or something similar set up for the most commonly used technologies like Job Access With Speech (JAWS), so that we can all stay on the same, or pretty close to the same versions, because we know that changes very quickly..

And it's the same with other products and services that people receive as a reasonable accommodation. We also have to make sure we can get all these devices on to our networks securely. And I want to make sure we can get all that done quicker and more easily for users. So yeah, we're developing our program.

So, Mark, you and Sid may be hearing a lot from me because I'm going to want to learn from as many people as I can. I've been, I've been on the, you know, center level with Betsy for, you know, 20 years. And now I'm looking at rebuilding the program. That's, it's a daunting task. Luckily, I have a lot of people who are willing to work with me to make it happen..

Betsy Sirk

Excellent, Courtney. Thank you. And I'm sure you will. Whether you want to hear from people, you're going to hear from people, but everybody, it's a great community because we find that there are very few places we can go where people are getting even what we're talking about. I don't know if any of you have family members that ask you, what do you do or what is what is digital accessibility about, or what is 508 about?.

It's really hard when you can't describe it in less than a sentence, or if the sentence is a very long sentence if it doesn't make sense. It's, that's tough. It really is a challenge because it's important and we're passionate about it. But when we can't communicate it that easily, it's hard. But you do have so many people in your corner, so thank you for sharing that..

And then just shifting gears a little bit, we've talked about how, you know, programs are in place and the scope of how they're covered. We know we've been to a lot of sessions to talk about it's essential to have top down support. We heard from great leaders in the government. It's also essential to have grassroots because you have to have ownership, everybody, every employee in the government, every contractor working for the government is responsible for their own content being accessible..

So given all of that, I want to talk about agency culture and not just the obvious things of you have funding or you don't have funding. So, Mark, why don't you share with me how you think agency culture impacts how you do your program?.

Mark Urban

I have funding..

Courtney Ritz I'm jealous..

Mark Urban

Yes, everyone’s jealous, I know. .

Sid Sharma

Lucky you.

Mark Urban

Yeah, I had to, I had to throw that one out there, but it took years to do that. And it took working with the agency culture to do it. Like that, that's one of the things that is always the challenge in working in any space, especially when it's a compliance, because you hear the word compliance and most project managers immediately start to get that cold shiver and they shrink a little bit and, you know, wonder if they can skip out of the room, you know. It's and it legitimately so, because when you have the mentality of like, well, it's compliance. Okay. Well, I have to do it. But what's the minimum I have to do, when you know, what form do I need to fill out so that I can say that I'm 508 and you'll go away?.

That mentality is really hard to overcome. We went, we used, we used our agency's culture to address that. So, a couple things we did. First of all, they're all scientists. They're very used to peer review. So, we didn't say things like compliance signoff. We said we're going to do a review. And they understood what that meant. Because they were like, oh, well, we're scientists, you know, everything gets reviewed..

Oh, it's, there's a, there's this, there's a system that does, reviews statements of work. Why? Because the privacy people like privacy is a huge deal at CDC because of, you know, with us having access to lots of people's information. So, there's all, there’s several organizations that absolutely wanted to have nothing to do with 508, but understood when we said, yeah, it's kind of like Confidential Information Protection and Statistical Efficiency Act (CIPSEA), which is the, which is the Statistical Privacy Act and things like that..

And we said, hey, you know, there's a, there's a bunch of, there's a bunch of requirements here, but don't worry, it's a review. You send it to us, we will help you fix it and then we'll move on. Then we started. So, we started with that. And that actually really fit into the agency culture really well. And then the second piece that we, we took advantage of at CDC more than anything else was, the culture of getting to a solution to a particular problem. Like everybody at CDC is a problem solver that can be good and bad, because they all look at solving their own problems and not solving, you know, necessarily everybody's problems. But that also works to our advantage. We started working with individual groups. We picked a couple of key groups that really were well known in the agency, were big players, and we basically hand walked them to accessibility. And my colleague Ryan Benson, who worked alongside with me, was, you know, hand in hand..

And we were we were hand walking them through it. But then we took advantage of having them tell other people and senior leadership how easy it was to work with us. And so, the cultural component became less one of you're going to check the box, and, or the evil 508 people are going to come and get you to, Oh, it's a review..

And we have reviews for privacy. We have reviews for everything else. We integrated into security and now it's just something you do, you know, at the agency. And that really was a cultural walk through..

Betsy Sirk

Mark, thank you so much. And there are so many lessons in there for all of us about the way in which we get people on board and the organizational change component. And again, you talk about the fact that there's so many multifaceted to this job, but that's one of them, because you can be technically excellent and have the right solutions and tools..

But if you can't find that common ground and make people understand why this is something that they want to do, that's good for them, important for them. So, thank you so much for sharing that. And I heard some success stories in there but why don't we go ahead and now share, just if you don't mind taking like a minute or so..

What in all of your experiences is one you'd like to share that you're especially proud in terms of an accessibility success? Courtney, why don't you start?.

Courtney Ritz

All right. In our, you know, new program, as I said we're having to do a lot of rebuilding. And, you know, and one of the things that I found we probably lacked in the past is outreach to the community as a whole. So, one of the things that my office did this, just during this, past, you know, October for National Disability Employment Awareness Month was we did an OCIO, accessibility speaker series, and it was open to the whole agency..

Now that we can do things in Teams, you know, before Covid and things like this didn't happen very much. But now, you know, we can have a Teams presentation open to anyone across the agency to attend. And Betsy was our first presenter, and she gave a wonderful, high level Section 508 overview. And then we had a presentation on assistive technology for users with dexterity issues..

Because I don't know about you guys, but my experience has been when you say assistive technology the first thing people say, oh, you mean JAWS, right? Well, that's one of the things that we use. But there's so much more out there, that they're just not aware of. And then we had a wrap up presentation on creating the accessible presentations..

And that pulled in more than just making your PowerPoint presentation accessible, but how to, how to speak to your audience, and how to make sure things are properly, you know, including captions and sign language and how are you going to describe things for people who aren't going to be able to see the images? Anyhow, we're going to end up doing more than this..

And I think it's not just going to be in October of each year. I've heard that from so many people at every level of the agency saying, Wow, I didn't realize, you know, that this impacted me. How can I do this better? And so, I'm thrilled to hear that it's not just us saying you have to comply. It’s, oh, it does apply to me..

How do I do this from where I am. Give me the tools and the guidance and I'm ready to do it. So, I think that's a success..

Betsy Sirk

That's wonderful Courtney. Thank you. And it was an honor to be part of that series. And thank you for making that possible at the agency level. So, thank you. Sid, what about you? What's a good success story that you're especially proud of that you'd like to share..

Sid Sharma

So, I'm going to throw in a couple I mean, one of the success stories I'm extremely proud of is developing DOI’s first Section 508 policy which became effective on February 5th, 2016. That provides DOI bureaus and office employees with policy and responsibilities for implementing the requirements of the law. It took me a little bit more than a year to get the approvals, the departmental approvals, the management support, all of that stuff that's necessary to publish the policy..

But, you know, DOI like I mentioned earlier, a cabinet level agency did not have a 508 policy until 2016. And so now, I'm in the, I'm in the process of updating that policy and hope to get that, the updated version out in 2024. And more recently, on July 21st, 2023 DOI office of the Chief Information Officer established Section 508 Support Services blanket purchase agreement..

This BPA allows our DOI employees to issue orders for accessibility support services such as document remediation support, captioning and audio description support, sign language interpretation, testing of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) training and project management support services. So, the BPA provides, quality service providers and provides cost advantages to our agency, to DOI..

So those are the two success stories I'm extremely proud of..

Betsy Sirk

Excellent. Thank you so much. And Mark, what would you like to share? What are you proud of for your program? I know there's so many things..

Mark Urban

There are, but I'll keep it to two because I talk too much. Everyone's laughing. So, the two, the two things that I can think of off the top my head, one is I have a budget. Did I mentioned I have a budget?.

Betsy Sirk

Yeah. We heard that..

Mark Urban

Creating a, I know, and I'm, and I'm hitting one over the head, but it's a real challenge for a lot of....

I hear this again and again from. I've had at least, at least 40 people come and talk to me at some point in the past two days. All of them have said, okay, what do we do? How do we do this without any money? And the answer is you can't do it without some level of resourcing whether it's people, resources or ideally both..

And in order to do it, what we did was we actually added it to a working capital fund, so that it's a recurring amount. It's the same kind of funding that pays for the phone bills, pays for the networking, contracts. All the elements that just are base line activities in the agency. And that took a lot of great work and a lot of support from leadership from Susie Connor, our CIO, and our Chief Operations Officer to say, this is just something that we're going to do. It's going to be done like we have an acquisition shop, like we have a privacy shop, we have an accessibility shop, and it's funded. And this is the funding level, and everybody gets charged a flat, per person rate that gets paid into a fund that then goes to my program for expenditures around all the services that I talked about..

That is by far the most effective thing that we've been able to do. The second thing I think that's really been a kind of a real win for us is we've started creating mechanisms, but we get involved in the specific processes that already existed for acquisitions and getting in so that we can actually be like when an acquisition, when someone wants to buy something, if it's, if it's big enough to meet with the call Fartara, which is, $250,000 or more. That sounds like a lot of money. It isn't in a $12 billion agency like CDC, there's a ton of them. Every one of those the CIO won't even see it until accessibility has signed off on it. The same with the day to day operation before, when you put in a purchase request for anything larger than a credit card purchase, 508 still gets a bite at it before it gets, before it goes to the contracting officer..

The contracting officer never sees it. If you look at that statement of work and there's no requirements for 508 or anything, we just kick it back. The contracting officer hasn't even seen it yet. They're like, well, don't send it to me until 508 approves it. Those two pieces integrating into the system we use for funding and integrating into the systems we use for acquisitions, really both have been some real successes in our organization..

Betsy Sirk

That is wonderful, Mark. What a, what a huge positive impact and you're catching it. I always preach to, the audience, wherever they may be, about how there's a win win of accessible tech for industry and government because industry wants to be able to sell its product to as many people as possible and to have a better design and in the government, of course, we're not doing this really just because it's the law..

We're doing it because it is better technology that reaches all of our people, and we want to enable everything. So, the way that you acquisition is the key way to catch these things. You know, all of the electronic content that we develop internally, whether it be software or PowerPoint presentations or something we're putting on a website. A lot of times that's harder to catch, especially if you're agency or department is not having that kind of filter and catching it. So that's great. I wanted to share something really quick, and then I also have a couple of other things to ask the panel. And we do want to allow, our goal is to allow at least ten minutes to capture some questions. But when we're talking about successes, this is something which I am just so hugely proud..

What I have just displayed on the screen is one of the first pictures to come back from the James Webb Space Telescope. Courtney and I, have both still kind of have offices when we go in at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center even though we are both NASA headquarters employees. Figure that one out. We all can't..

But, we built that there. This is, those of you live in Maryland, you can take pride. If you're in Virginia, you never take pride of anything that Maryland does, but you can call it, call it close enough to home, you know, DMV. Yeah, whatever. But anyway, we. What's so amazing? Yes, it was built there. It was in the clean room..

We can see it, but the pictures that came back as phenomenal as Hubble was, the ones coming from James Webb were orders of magnitude beyond what we had experienced before. So this, this particular picture, what the success story is here is not obviously this mission taking a picture, but it's the most amazing captions and audio text descriptions that were written by on behalf of NASA, the Space Telescope Science Institute..

Shout out to Baltimore, Maryland. It made renown, I mean, it went worldwide through NPR and others how amazing these are. And I don't have time to read all of it. But my illustration of how accessible tech in doing this not only benefits people that may not be able to see the image of benefits, all of this is so evident in this description because you learn so much more..

It talks about in the caption astronomers using James Webb Space Telescope combined capabilities of the telescope's two cameras to create a never before seen view of star forming region in the Carina Nebula. And it talks about the infrared light and the near, by the near infrared cam and the mid-infrared instrument. And by combining these, it revealed previously invisible areas of star birth..

And then this gives me goosebumps the way that they said, what looks much like craggy mountains on a moonlit evening is actually the edge of the nearby young star forming region and it's the cosmic cliffs in this rim of gigantic gaseous cavity is roughly 76,000 light years away. That's just the caption. Okay, so then it gets into really talking about analyzing what is depicted in the picture, and it talks about refraction spikes and everything..

And what really gets me, is the peaks and valleys and rivers and the imagery that's created. It makes you feel, it makes you learn but the last thing that it says is that there are three long diffraction spikes from the top right edge of the image, and that suggests the presence of a large star just out of view..

I mean, I'm just so humbled to be part of an organization that even though we didn't write this ourselves on behalf of NASA, this amazing group took it to the point where scientific knowledge is born, understood, and spread. So that was the one thing that we wanted to share. And then to conclude with a couple of questions and I'll combine them..

And this is about the real talk. I want you all to talk about If there was one thing that keeps you up at night, because I'm sure that's all you're doing is thinking about how to manage your accessibility programs at night. But yeah, I know but sadly, we are often, but what is the biggest challenge you think you faced in your program?.

And then also, if you could combine with that, what are some of the takeaways, like maybe either how you address the challenge, or just what you want to leave this audience with? So, let's start with Courtney on that one..

Courtney Ritz

Well, of course, you know, it goes without saying that having funding is one of the biggest challenges. Yeah. I'm hoping that over time I can convince our management that we need more funding and resources to achieve what we need to. We can only go so far on goodwill and, you know, telling people this is, you know, this is the right thing to do and it's the law. But one of the, I mean, specific challenges that I deal with a lot is trying to convince people that you cannot fully automate your 508 compliance testing, whether it's documents or software or websites or even through acquisitions. You can, you know, you can have some automated pieces, but you're going to have to have humans spending time on this..

You know, they'll say, hey, what tool can I use? Can I just send you this report? And I'm like, well, you can use it, but don't rely 100% on it. And, you know, when we were doing the GSA assessment earlier this year, we went to people and asked them about, you know, some of our most used websites..

And they said they're compliant. I'm like, okay, can you show me a report, that you went through these and they go, well, it worked with JAWS, so I had to again, it's they meant well, but they didn't understand that there is a big difference between can somebody with one assistive technology use it, or is does it meet all of the standards that it needs to meet?.

So, getting people to understand that, and to know that the best tools are only going to help you so far..

Betsy Sirk

Excellent. Thank you. Mark, again, a challenge and then also a takeaway in a minute..

Mark Urban

I was just saying that my biggest challenge is keeping my mouth shut. The short version, but this is Real Talk. I actually, I'll give you a really short answer. Low, no code, no code tools. Tools that allow for rapid development without being able to understand what's happening underneath, or even to change what's happening underneath, if you identify a problem. So, you might even be able to test it, but you might not be able to fix it. How's that for short..

Betsy Sirk

Excellent. Hey, what about a key takeaway? Like, like other than be aware of those. Was there something else, like a theme that, we're going to still have some time with the questions, but I know that you've shared so many cool things. Is there something on top of your mind, like, like Courtney was sharing about how, you know, don't just rely on test results?.

Mark Urban

The automated things, the, if you're going to use automated tools or automated tools that provide or walk you through doing the additional manual steps, are the ones you, if you, if you, have to give it to, and you do, have to give people tools that they can use, give them tools that will help them do the manual steps as well..

And then the second piece is, don't give them the tools without any training. If they don't understand accessibility, the tools are pretty much useless..

Betsy Sirk

Thank you. Thank you so much. And Sid..

Sid Sharma

I would say very quickly just the lack of, or inadequate consideration of accessibility at the early stages of the ICT lifecycle management process. I mean, I feel like I have to constantly train people and let them know, hey, look, consider accessibility the at the very beginning and this is why. It can be very expensive..

But more importantly, you know, you also exclude your customers, your employees with disabilities, and can open risk for the agency of costly lawsuits. So, yeah. So just constantly training our employees, letting them know why it's important beyond just the law and the regulations..

Betsy Sirk

Thank you so much, Sid. And yeah, that, and even in Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility(DEIA)we are still battling that A should be for accessibility and not for afterthought. So, we are really, really trying to get it in there, but the more opportunities you have to get a seat at the table at the beginning of the acquisition lifecycle, or the development lifecycle, I think you're hearing this here..

Rework is not only costly, sometimes it's cost prohibitive, and sometimes it's just you've got to scratch everything. So countless studies have shown that so excellent points. We do. Hey this is pretty good for being, you know, nine minutes and change away for audience questions. So, I just want to thank everybody for this part..

Mark Urban

Especially with me here..

Betsy Sirk

And yeah exactly. Exactly. I can keep people on track, just not myself. So please, we would like to know, are there any questions for anybody on this panel from the audience? We do, we do have almost ten minutes. We would love to hear your thoughts..

Mark Urban

Anyone except Gary. No..

Gary Morin

Hey…

Mark Urban

That's too late. Okay.

Gary Morin

Gary Morin, National Cancer Institute, and I do have five questions, but I'm trying to prioritize. But first, I just wanted to give a shout out to Sid for his audio description guidance..

Mark Urban

Yeah..

Gary Morin

It's just amazing. And I really just recommend..

Sid Sharma

Thanks Gary.

Gary Morin

I've tried to model ours after, it's documented, and it's clear, and it's publicly available..

So, audio description guidance on Sid's website. Yep. One question that we've been chatting about here at the table. I'm just going to throw a couple out, and whichever ones, kind of hit the wall of your interest. Giving self-description, which I've written a note, is what is your alt text? Because it is kind of alternative text for ourselves as people..

Is it useful or is it just performative? Do blind and vision impaired people really get value out of it? And how should it be done in a way that does have value, or is it just, oh, look at me, I'm being inclusive? The Diversity, Equity, Inclusion (DEI) part, the Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility (DEIA) part..

Betsy Sirk

Can we do one at a time? I'm so sorry. You said you have several..

Gary Morin

No, I’m just going to give out two, and then that's it.

Betsy Sirk

Oh, okay. Okay, so you're going to expect us to remember what your first question was. Remember 508 is supposed to be for everybody, even, you know, if you have issues with multitasking or attention deficit. I'm sorry. No. Go ahead. We okay, first question I think we got. And Gary, please, I'm so sorry. I picked up on the vibe of Mark ribbing you, and now I shouldn't be doing that, but it’s fun..

But please..

Mark Urban

And Gary and I, just to be clear, Gary’s actually a pretty good guy..

Betsy Sirk

Oh my God. So, with Gary, I'm not sure if people can hear from the mic. I always like to repeat the question. The first question has to do with, but then we'll get the second before this esteemed panel addresses it. But it's talking about personal description when a speaker is introducing themselves or when you meet somebody, the value of that, anything else of that..

The second. Oh, and then Gary shared with us for our, listening pleasure in jealousy that he's going to retire in 14 months. So that's why….

Gary Morin

Hey, tomorrow if it stays the way it is..

Betsy Sirk

Oh okay, or tomorrow anyways. So no, no. Go ahead. And then the second question..

Gary Morin

Is accessibility is still an afterthought because it's an add on to, because it's not a part, because people with disabilities are not a part of diversity, equity and inclusion. And that's a really political issue, and I could well get attacked for it and I'm okay with that. That as long as people with disabilities don't matter in terms of diversity, equity and inclusion, or Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (JEDI), or whatever acronym we're going to use, then the accessibility is irrelevant..

If you don't have a culture of inclusion. We're still 23 years into a culture of compliance. And that's all we're still at. So are we doing things such, as or is anybody doing something such as, our IT positions have 508 in their job description, or are contracts for IT support. Because I don't think many do..

We hire people and then we tell them about 508. Are we integrating it say with the GSA policy guidance? When you create an IT position, that person has to be qualified not only on privacy and security, but accessibility. How are we building that culture of inclusion for people with disabilities in diversity, equity, inclusion, so that the accessibility is a given?.

Betsy Sirk

Thank you so much. Okay. So, for the first question again has to do with relevance need. Do you see, or best practices for describing an individual. And then the second part of this is the cultural challenge for building and inclusion. And have any of you been able to have examples where you're making strides that way?.

So, who would like to? Because honestly, it's really up to you. Does anybody in the panel want to take a first crack at, the first go?.

Courtney Ritz

The first one, but I'd also like to kind of hear what Sid thinks about. I as an individual who's blind, I find it interesting to know what a speaker, you know, looks like. You know what? What they're wearing. But it isn't, it isn't the first thing that, that I'm looking to learn. I guess. But that's because I haven't been able to see for a long time, and when I meet a person, I'm thinking more about what they sound like. I guess. But I can see where some people, it might be very important to them to know what color, you know, hair or eyes, or how tall an individual is, or whether they're wearing a business suit or a golf shirt..

You know, there can be times when it could be useful, but I don't know if it's absolutely crucial, for me as an individual..

Sid Sharma

For me, you know, I used to be able to see. So, I know, you know, I could see people's hair color and eye color and all of that, and now I can't. And so having that description is extremely helpful. It gives me additional information. It is inclusive, and I appreciate that..

Betsy Sirk

Well, thank you so much for that question. And the other one was, Mark, did you want to share, perhaps for Gary's second question about the cultural challenge of really building in accessibility and, you know, including in the DEIA initiative..

Mark Urban

So, sure. Okay. So again, that's my opinion, because I agree with you, Gary. It's a political conversation. The current administration is a political administration, and they have a political goal to improve DEIA in the, so but I'm not gonna give you the party line, from a because I'm always this is a real talk..

Betsy Sirk

You're going to be a real talk..

Mark Urban

That's a real talk. Okay? Real talk. One of the things to consider is, that you, and you hit on it. It's the culture of inclusion. The culture of thinking about all of our communities that we serve. And, you know, you talk of the, there was a talk earlier this morning about the customer experience guidance that came out..

I really encourage people to read it, that came out from the White House, because it talks about the fact that we need to meet our customers where they are, in the place they're at, regardless of what that place is. It even gets to the question that was just asked about, you know, it's like, well, it might not add value for Cortney, but it might add value for Sid. I don't, you know, this is and there was a conversation this morning about omnichannel creating multiple pathways to get to yes, and to get to services. And we have to do that for both our employees and our public facing customers..

We can't, and I might add, our contract staff, who should not be, you know, 503 is part of the rehab act too, you know, there's a there's a part of the rehab act that talks about our contractors and their accessibility needs. Don't get lost in the funding for DEIA. Don't get lost in all of the activities and elements. Focus on the culture of inclusion, and you hit it right on the head, Gary. Much as I rib you about stuff, you usually have that perspicacity, so I'll give it that. That's exactly what it is. It's a culture of inclusion..

And if you remind the people in your organization when they talk about diversity, about the breadth of real diversity, which is all the people. And you've met a person with a disability, you've met a person with a disability. And just as you've seen here, not everyone needs things the same. And not everyone has the same answer to the questions..

And I'll leave it at that..

Betsy Sirk

Thank you so much. Now, while there is not time for additional questions, those were amazing. And they touched on broader areas and allowed the panel to engage. So, I just wanted to thank the audience, or anybody that stays, what should feel like 5:20 p.m. but it's 4:20 p.m. on a day because it's dark outside already, so we basically took your whole day..

But, thank you again to the amazing Sid and Mark and Courtney. And it's an honor being here. Thank you to the FDIC host, to our GSA hosts, and who run the program day in and day out. To my other APOP colleagues. This has been wonderful. So please engage with us and keep up the good fight..

We're here with the same struggles you are. So, thank you everyone..

Chet Frith

Accessibility. Happy to answer questions then. And then we'll have two breakout sessions after that for you to choose from..

The three different tracks that are available. Finally, while it's not a sponsored event this evening, those who wish to attend, many of us will be there. It's available answer questions that you might have, but we'll be at Quincy Hall at 4001 Fairfax Drive. And this concludes today's events..

Like, it was previously mentioned. It is dark out there. So, hence I think my, circadian clock is making me want to take a nap right now, but, anyway, thank you everyone, for, wonderful day. Looking forward to seeing everybody tomorrow..