2019 Tapia Celebration of Diversity in Computing

Tapia keynote speaker Jen Mankoff

This September’s Tapia Celebration of Diversity in Computing, held in San Diego, CA, was the biggest Tapia Celebration yet and the first one to have an accessibility committee.

As chair of the accessibility committee, I was lucky to have a great group of committee members, including AccessComputing PI Richard Ladner, Jerri Barrett, Rua Williams, and Synge Tyson. We were able to increase accessibility and inclusion at the conference, which a specific focus on the following important items:

  • Electronic versions of posters and presentations available online.
  • An accessible PDF of the conference program
  • A quiet room
  • Increased training for student volunteers
  • Information about conference accessibility on the website

It will be exciting to see how accessibility continues to improve at Tapia in future years.

We were also excited to provide travel funding for 11 AccessComputing team members to attend Tapia and see many other students at Tapia who had received travel funding from elsewhere. The conference kicked off with a keynote presentation from the University of Washington’s Jen Mankoff on “Making Accessibility,” and there were several other sessions on the conference program that focused on or addressed disability.

In early 2020, the call for proposals and travel scholarship application for Tapia 2020 will be available.  When it is available, share this information with students and others in your community who may be interested in attending.