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The Conference Committee is happy to announce that Ather Sharif, PhD Student at the University of Washington, Software Engineer at Comcast, and Founder and Researcher at EvoXLabs, will present the Keynote Address.
Ather used to design and develop websites and web apps until a car accident in March of 2013 took away his ability to use his limbs, making him a quadriplegic. After the accident he realized how inaccessible the web was for people with disabilities and began researching ways to make the digital world as accessible to people with disabilities as it is for able-body people.
In his work to improve web accessibility, Ather founded EvoXLabs. EvoXLabs (eee-vox-labs) is an initiative dedicated to bridging the gap between technology and people with disabilities. They research and develop universally designed state of the art tools to improve Web Accessibility, and run projects such as evoHaX, FAWN, SCI Video Blog and The Accessible World Conference to improve lives.
At Comcast he works as a Software Engineer, working with the Core Applications Platforms Team.
Ather has been widely recognized for his work in accessibility. His achievements include 2018 ADA 25 Advancing Leadership Fellow, Google Scholar, Oliver H. M. Jordan Scholar, IBM People with Disabilities Award Winner, and Philadelphia’s Geek of the Year, 2015.
In his spare time, he enjoys drawing terrible stick figures on whiteboards, buying the most unnecessary gadgets on Amazon, and watching the Big Bang Theory.