Global Accessibility Awareness Day 2022

Jim Smith

Head of Accessibility & Digital Inclusion UK & Ireland – Atos

Jim is currently Head of Accessibility and Digital Inclusion for the UK&I, heading a diverse team of 15 Accessibility professionals. The team supports enterprise customers in the Telecom and Media Technology, Financial Services and Insurance, Health and Life Sciences, Public Sector and Defense, and semi-State sectors. The team actively supports bid work across the Atos organisation. It also provides Accessibility and Assistive Technology support for Atos employees in the UK&I and works closely with delivery teams to support Atos internal tooling globally.

In addition to tactical support, Jim provides strategic leadership in Accessibility through the Atos Global Accessibility Team, the Atos Expert Community, and the Atos Scientific Community. He is currently an IAAP Certified Professional in Web Accessibility, holds an ITIL V4 Foundation Certificate, and an Irish State recognised post-graduate qualification in “Train the Trainer.”

Before joining the UK&I Accessibility and Digital Inclusion team in September 2014 Jim was part of the eLearning, Training and Quality Management support team in the Siemens and Atos Global Service Desk environments. Prior to joining the Tech industry Jim spent 10 years as a post-doctoral researcher in University College Cork, Ireland, specialising the quantitative modelling of ancient environments.

Jim’s driving passion is Inclusion, in particular ensuring that technology and processes not only do not hinder people but that they are used to ensure that everyone has the opportunity to realise their full potential.

Diane Lightfoot

CEO – Business Disability Forum

Diane Lightfoot is CEO of Business Disability Forum, a not-for-profit membership organisation that supports businesses to recruit and retain disabled employees and to serve disabled customers. Business Disability Forum’s c.450 members employ around 20% of the UK workforce and range from FTSE 100 companies and central Government departments to technology, transport and construction companies, retailers, higher education providers and public services bodies.

Diane is co-Chair of the Disability Charities Consortium, a group of nine major national disability charities in the UK. She is also Chair of the Disabled Students Stakeholder Group, and sits on the Institute of Coding’s Diversity & Inclusion Board, the Advisory board for the Centre for Neurodiversity Research at Work, the Steering Group for the RSA Inclusive Work, Disability and Ageing Network and the Steering Group for the Global Business Disability Network, hosted by the International Labor Organization.

Prior to joining Business Disability Forum in February 2017, Diane was Director of Policy and Communications for national disability charity United Response. Whilst at United Response, Diane also took on the strategic leadership of the organisation’s employment services as a whole and she is passionate about the role that good work has to play in transforming people’s lives.

Helen Wilson

Senior Web Development & Digital Content Designer – Worcestershire County Council

Helen Wilson is a Senior Web and Digital Designer and the SCULPT lead at Worcestershire County Council. Before her time at Worcestershire County Council, she spent 14 years working in online learning and teaching in Further Education as well as teaching for several years on the BTEC and HND multimedia and digital design pathways. She has taken part in many JISC projects around digital literacies and is Master’s Degree qualified in Education (SEND) and Online and Distance Education. Her experience, and the research she has conducted has inspired many of her ideas to inform the SCULPT model at Worcestershire.

At Worcestershire County Council, they aim to be a digitally inclusive. Part of that is educating their workforce with the basics to be digitally accessible. They have developed SCULPT for Accessibility as a whole workforce approach to lay the foundations of accessibility awareness and the basic skills to produce accessible content.

Mark Wilcock

Accessibility Academy & Accessibility Knowledge Leads – Atos

Mark is the Global Accessibility Academy & Accessibility Knowledge Lead at Atos, CPWA Certified, an ex-contributing member of the W3C WCAG Working Group for WCAG 2.1 and W3C Cognitive Accessibility Taskforce and an Atos Expert for Immersive Experiences.

Mark is also the co-chair for the development of the Digital Accessibility Specialist Apprenticeship standard, the first apprenticeship standard for Accessibility globally.

Nathan Wood

Junior Accessibility Specialist – Atos

Kiril Turley

Junior Accessibility Specialist – Atos

Damian Farrelly

Junior Accessibility Specialist – Atos

Adam Kempa

Assistive Technology Procurement Specialist – Atos