Advancing Accessibility Through Community and Open Source  🔗 **Source:** [Advancing Accessibility Through Community and Open Source](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0NY4T6AQcA) > [!note]+ Document Notes > --- > tags: [accessibility, digital-inclusion, wordpress-community, devrel, disability-employment, ghana] > author: Samuel Osei > source: WordPress Accessibility Day 2025 > reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0NY4T6AQcA > date created: 2026-09-08 > --- > > [!info] Generated analysis — not the author's words. Sections below are machine-written > > from the captured source. Only text inside `> [!quote]` blocks is verbatim from the author. > > Do not quote or attribute any other line to the named author. > # 🏷️ Title: Advancing Accessibility Through Community and Open Source > ## 🧭 Table of Contents > - [📝 Summary](#-summary) > - [📖 Main Content](#-main-content) > - [🗒️ Notes](#️-notes) > - [📚 References](#-references) > - [🗣️ Paraphrase](#️-paraphrase) > - [📰 Newsletter](#-newsletter) > - [✅ Action Items](#-action-items) > - [🧪 Hypotheses](#-hypotheses) > - [📊 Methodology](#-methodology) > - [❓ Questions](#-questions) > - [🔮 Future Research](#-future-research) > - [💡 Implications](#-implications) > - [🧠 Learning Styles Assessment](#-learning-styles-assessment) > - [📊 Accessibility Assessment](#-accessibility-assessment) > - [🌍 DEIB Assessment](#-deib-assessment) > - [✅ Logical Validity](#-logical-validity) > - [🛡️ DARVO Analysis](#-darvo-analysis) > - [🎯 Conclusion](#-conclusion) > - [🔄 Refactor Appendix](#-refactor-appendix--advancing-accessibility-through-community-and-open-source) > ### 🔗 References > - [TechAble contact — [email protected]](mailto:[email protected]) (funding and partnership inquiries, mentioned t=2320) > - [KNUST — Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology](https://www.knust.edu.gh/) (program partner, t=2261) > - [IEEE Computer Society](https://www.computer.org/) (initial TechAble funder, t=2251) > - [WordPress Accessibility Day feedback form](https://2025.wpaccessibility.day/feedback) (t=2870) > - Event hashtags: #WPA11yDay, #WPAD2025 (t=2856) > ## 📝 Summary > - **What happened.** Samuel Osei, a Ghanaian software engineer and WordPress Meetup organizer in Kumasi, presented at WordPress Accessibility Day 2025 (hosted by Chris Hinds, COO of Equalize Digital) on TechAble, a WordPress-based digital-skills training initiative for people with disabilities in Ghana. > - **Why it matters.** Osei ties a global accessibility statistic — the WHO's estimate that 16% of the world's population, or 1.3 billion people, experiences significant disability (t=499) — to a concrete, running program that trains people with disabilities in WordPress development, digital marketing, and graphic design (t=2524), funded initially by the IEEE Computer Society and run in partnership with KNUST's Student with Disability Association (t=2251–2269). > - **Key stakeholders.** TechAble participants (56% women, t=1631), IEEE Computer Society (funder), KNUST and its Student with Disability Association (partner/volunteers), industry mentors, WordPress's accessibility team, and WordPress Accessibility Day sponsors who were asked live to donate commercial plugin licenses. > - **Risks and tradeoffs.** The program is still pre-launch on infrastructure: no public website yet (t=2394), funding requests route through a personal email address rather than a formal channel (t=2320–2333), and the biggest cost driver is hardware/connectivity, not curriculum (t=2341–2383) — a scaling risk if device costs aren't solved before enrollment grows. > - **Bottom line.** Osei's central claim is that open source removes the financial barrier to entry that proprietary tools create (t=1483–1489), and that community — mentorship, peer buddies, industry connections — is what converts technical training into sustained employment and belonging (t=1990–2010). > ## 📖 Main Content > Osei frames accessibility as a legal and ethical mandate, not a feature (t=414–426), then names four concrete barriers people with disabilities face when trying to gain digital skills: inaccessible platforms and tools (unlabeled form fields, image buttons with no alt text, t=610–708), training content without captions (t=708–807), lack of assistive-technology support baked into how software is coded (t=807–904), and limited community support that leads to isolation and attrition (t=911–1024). > He pairs each barrier with an opportunity: inclusive training opens remote jobs and entrepreneurship because digital skills are "location-independent" (t=1077–1093), builds independence and dignity through economic self-sufficiency (t=1179–1258), improves representation because people with disabilities catch accessibility issues able-bodied teams miss (t=1274–1372), and creates empowered communities where "learners become teachers" (t=1381–1452) — a grassroots-over-top-down argument for how the movement scales. > WordPress is positioned as the delivery mechanism specifically because it's free to use, modify, and distribute, removing the cost barrier proprietary software creates, and because it already has "a very active accessibility team" (t=1477–1500). That belief led to TechAble: three tracks (WordPress web development, digital marketing, graphic design, t=2522–2534), a mentorship structure pairing each participant with an industry mentor (t=1712–1719), and a deliberate 56%-women cohort achieved through "peer buddy" accountability pairing and extra facilitation attention rather than by accident (t=1639–1649, t=2417–2455). > The closing third covers five operating lessons (accessibility as ongoing work, not a checklist item; disabilities and learning styles vary; soft skills matter as much as technical skills; psychological and emotional barriers — internalized ableism, family discouragement — require direct intervention; and collaboration beats competition in social-impact work, t=1842–1985), followed by role-specific calls to action for developers, employers, educators, funders, advocates, and people with disabilities themselves (t=2009–2136), and a Q&A that surfaces the program's real operational constraints: no government support, funding routed through IEEE, and device/internet cost as the binding scale constraint in Ghana (t=2240–2383). > ### 🗒️ Notes > #### ⏱️ [00:01:32](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0NY4T6AQcA&t=92s) Introduction and speaker bio > - Chris Hinds (COO, Equalize Digital) introduces WordPress Accessibility Day 2025 and Samuel Osei as the Kumasi, Ghana WordPress Meetup organizer and WordPress.org support-forum volunteer. > - Q&A will run through Zoom's Q&A panel; chat is for attendee-to-attendee connection. > #### ⏱️ [00:03:46](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0NY4T6AQcA&t=226s) Osei's background > - Osei is a software engineer and community manager, goes by OseiAGM online, and frames his work as sitting at the intersection of community involvement and technical expertise (t=234–284). > - Names Ghana's "global South" constraints directly: infrastructure challenges, economic barriers, and "significant accessibility gaps" (t=318–333). > #### ⏱️ [00:06:50](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0NY4T6AQcA&t=410s) "Accessibility is not optional" > - States accessibility is an ethical and often legal mandate (t=420–426), then pivots to education: universities, certifications, job applications, and freelance marketplaces have moved online, so inaccessible pathways structurally exclude people from skills and the economy (t=463–486). > #### ⏱️ [00:08:12](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0NY4T6AQcA&t=492s) WHO statistics > - Cites the World Health Organization figure: ~16% of the global population, 1.3 billion people, experience significant disability (t=499–505); people with disabilities face unemployment rates 2–3x higher than people without disabilities (t=517–525). > - Universal-design argument: captions help noisy-environment and second-language viewers too; keyboard navigation helps power users; simple language helps everyone parsing complex information (t=542–576). > #### ⏱️ [00:10:10](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0NY4T6AQcA&t=610s) Barrier 1 — inaccessible platforms and tools > - Walks through a concrete scenario: a blind student using a screen reader hits a course registration form with unlabeled fields (reader announces "edit boxes") and a submit button that's an unlabeled image, so the form is unusable even though the course itself might be a good fit (t=642–693). > #### ⏱️ [00:11:48](https (Announcer) Thank you to our sponsors. Platinum Sponsor: Gravity Forms. Build accessible, powerful WordPress forms with Gravity Forms' flexible tools for creators, developers, and teams of all sizes. Platinum Sponsor: WP Engine. WP Engine provides the most relied-upon and trusted WordPress products for businesses, brands, and agencies of all sizes. Platinum Sponsor: Woo. WooCommerce is the open source e-commerce platform built on WordPress, helping merchants worldwide sell, manage, and grow their businesses. Gold Sponsors: Ally Web Accessibility. Equalize Digital – websites for everyone. GoDaddy, GreenGeeks Web Hosting, Yoast. Silver Sponsors: AAArdvark, CodeGeek, Your Vision. Our Talent. One Team, Kinetic Iris, Kinsta, Pressable, Second Melody. Bronze Sponsors, Nine Planets Hosting, Engage, Draw Attention, Multidots, NerdPress, Osom Studio, OZeWAI – Australian Web Accessibility Initiative, Progress Planner, QualityLogic, Sharp, Simply Schedule Appointments, SiteGround, StellarWP, Termageddon, WebYes. (Chris Hinds) Welcome to WordPress Accessibility Day 2025. My name is Chris Hinds and I'm the COO at Equalize Digital. Thank you for joining us for Advancing Accessibility Through Community and Open Source with Samuel Osei. Samuel is a community leader who fosters local engagement as the WordPress Meetup organizer in Kumasi, Ghana, while also supporting users worldwide in the WordPress support forums. He's a passionate advocate for the power of local tech communities, drawing from his extensive experience serving in multiple community focused roles. Please feel free to add your questions in the Zoom Q&A section and we'll answer them at the end of the session. Use the chat to connect with other attendees. (Samuel Osei) Good morning, good afternoon, or good evening wherever you are joining from. Thank you for being part of this important conversation today. My name is Samuel Osei and I am honored to discuss a topic that is truly vital for the future of the digital world, Advancing Accessibility Through Community and Open Source. Before we begin, I want you to take a moment and consider this. How many times today have you already interacted with a website, an app, or a digital tool? Perhaps you checked your email this morning, scrolled through social media, or even registered for this very event online. For many of us, these interactions are seamless, almost invisible, but for millions of people around the world, specifically over 1 billion people with disabilities, these same interactions can be filled with frustration, confusion, or worse, complete impossibility. Today, we are going to explore not just why this matters, but more importantly, what we can do about it and what we are already doing about it through practical community-driven action. Before we delve into the core material, let me briefly introduce myself and share why this work is so personal and important to me. As I mentioned earlier, my name is Samuel Osei and you can find me online as OseiAGM. O-S-E-I A-G-M. I work as a software engineer building digital solutions that I hope make people's life easier and more connected. I also serve as a community manager, which means I spend a lot of my time connecting with people, creating networks of support, and enabling collaboration, and proudly, I am a Ghanaian. This blend of community involvement and technical expertise drives my commitment to making technology truly open and accessible to all. Throughout my career, I've witnessed firsthand how the right training, the right community, and the right tools can completely transform someone's trajectory. I've seen individuals go from feeling excluded by technology to becoming confident digital creators. That transformation is what fuels my work every single day. Ghana, like many countries in the global South, faces unique challenges when it comes to digital inclusion. We have brilliant minds, incredible creativity, and strong community bonds, but we also have infrastructure challenges, economic barriers, and yes, significant accessibility gaps. This contest makes our work even more urgent and, I believe, even more impactful. Over the next 30 minutes or so, we will navigate through several key areas that structure our discussion today. We will start by establishing the foundational importance of accessibility in our introduction before moving to define the challenge faced by people with disabilities globally. Then, we will explore the opportunity that inclusive training offers and discuss WordPress as a catalyst for change. The heart of this presentation lies in the TechAble Initiative, detailing our approach, including mentorship for participants, and our specific focus on gender inclusion. Following that, we will review the tangible impact our work is having and discuss the lessons we've learned along the way. Finally, we will close with a call to action for how you can be part of this movement. Let's start with a non-negotiable principle. Accessibility is not optional. This is more than a slogan. It is an ethical and often legal mandate that defines how we should build the digital world. Why must we start here? Because, despite the digital evolution, despite the fact that we can video call someone on the other side of the planet, access the world's information instantly, and work from virtually anywhere, people with disabilities or PWDs continue to face significant barriers in accessing education globally. Think about the sheer amount of knowledge, training, and opportunities that are delivered exclusively online. Universities have moved courses online. Professional certifications are digital. Job applications happen through web portals. Freelance marketplaces operate entirely in the digital space. If those pathways are structurally inaccessible, we are systematically excluding millions of people from obtaining the necessary skills to participate fully in modern society and the economy. Let me put this in perspective with some statistics. According to the World Health Organization, approximately 16% of the global population, that's 1.3 billion people, experience significant disability. In the context of education and employment, studies show that people with disabilities are significantly less likely to complete secondary education and face unemployment rates that are two to three times higher than those without disabilities. Addressing this gap, this systemic exclusion from education, is the first critical step in ensuring genuine inclusion for persons with disabilities, but here's the crucial point. When we build accessible systems, everyone benefits. Captions help not just deaf users, but also people watching videos in noisy environments, or those learning in a second language. Keyboard navigation helps not just users with motor disabilities, but also power users who want to work more efficiently. Clear, simple language helps not just users with cognitive disabilities, but everyone trying to understand complex information. Accessibility is good design, it's universal design, and it's simply the right thing to do. The digital divide for persons with disabilities is created by a combination of technical failure and social exclusion. The challenges we currently face can be distilled into four critical barriers, but I want to spend time really unpacking each one so you can understand the lived reality behind these technical descriptions. Firstly, we contend with inaccessible platforms and tools. Many mainstream learning management systems, collaboration tools, and general software are designed without disabled users in mind. This means navigation is impossible for some, or essential functions are unusable, locking out individuals before they even begin to learn. Let me give you a concrete example. Imagine you're a blind student trying to enroll in an online course. You navigate to the website using your screen reader, software that reads the test on screen aloud to you, but the course registration form wasn't coded with accessibility in mind. The form fields don't have proper labels, so your screen reader just says, edit books, without telling you what information to put there. The submit button is actually an image without an alternative text, so you don't even know where to click to submit your form. The course you want to take might be perfect for you, but you can't even register because the gateway is locked. This isn't a hypothetical scenario, this happens every single day to millions of people trying to access education, employment, and essential services online. Secondly, there is the pervasive issue of training content without captions. While captions might seem like a small detail to those who don't rely on them, the lack of them instantly renders educational videos, lectures, and virtual training inaccessible to individuals who are deaf or hard of hearing. This exclusion narrows the available educational contents dramatically. Consider the explosion of video-based learning. Platforms like YouTube, Coursera, and Udemy have democratized education in many ways. You can learn almost anything from world-class instructors, but if you are deaf or hard of hearing and the video doesn't have captions, that entire course is closed to you. You might be the most motivated learner in the world, but motivation can't overcome a fundamental technical barrier. Here's what frustrates me most about this particular barrier. Adding captions is entirely achievable. The technology exists. Automatic captioning has improved dramatically. Manual captioning services are affordable. The barrier here isn't technical impossibility, it's lack of awareness, lack of priority, and sometimes lack of care. Thirdly, we often see a fundamental lack of assistive technology support. Assistive technologies such as screen readers for blind users, voice recognition software for those with motor disabilities, or switch control for users with limited mobility are essential tools. When platforms are poorly coded, they conflict with these tools, rendering technology useless. If a screen reader cannot correctly interpret a website structure, that website remains closed off. This barrier is particularly insidious because it's often invisible to developers who don't use assistive technology themselves. A website might look perfectly functional in a standard browser, but be completely unusable with a screen reader. Developers might use the latest JavaScript framework and create beautiful animations, but if they don't consider semantic HTML or keyboard navigations, they've built a beautiful building with no doors. I want to emphasize something important here. Assistive technology users are incredibly resourceful and determined. They will try workarounds, they will spend extra hours trying to make something work, they will seek help from their networks, but the burden should not be on them to constantly adapt to our failures. The burden should be on us as creators to build right from the start. Finally and critically, there's limited community support. Technical barriers are often compounded by social isolation. When persons with disabilities pursue technical training, they need not only technical resources, but a strong supportive peer network where they can share challenges, find mentorship, and feel represented. A lack of this community support can lead to attrition and limit long-term success. Think about your own learning journey, whether you learned to code, learned a new language, or developed a new skill. Who helped you? Maybe it was a friend who recommended a good resource. Maybe it was a study group that kept you motivated. Maybe it was a mentor who believed in you when you doubted yourself. Maybe it was just seeing someone who looked like you succeeding in that field and thinking if they can do it too, so can I. Now imagine trying to break into the tech industry, an industry already known for being exclusive and sometimes unwelcoming, without any of those support structures. Imagine being one of the only people with a disability in your course, in your boot camp, in a workplace. Imagine not having anyone who understands the specific challenges you face or who can give you advice that actually applies to your situation. This isolation doesn't just make the journey harder, it makes people give up entirely, and when that happens, we all lose. We lose their perspective, their creativity, their contributions, and their potential leadership. While the challenges are formidable, the opportunity to transform lives through inclusive training is even greater. By intentionally designing training programs for accessibility, we unlock profound benefits, not just for the participants, but for society as a whole. I want to shift our mindset here from seeing accessibility as a problem to solve, to seeing it as an opportunity to seize. Because when we get this right, the benefits ripple out in ways you might not even anticipate. Firstly, inclusive training provides crucial access to jobs and entrepreneurship. Digital skills are highly valuable and often location-independent, making them ideal for persons with disabilities who may face mobility challenges or discrimination in traditional workplaces. These skills directly translate into economic opportunities. The digital economy has fundamentally changed what's possible for employment. A talented web developer in Accra can work for a client in London, New York, or Tokyo. A skilled digital marketer can run campaigns from anywhere with an internet connection. A graphic designer can build a thriving freelance business without ever commuting to an office. For people with disabilities who might face physical barriers in traditional office environments, who might experience discrimination in hiring, or who might need flexible work arrangements, the digital economy represents unprecedented opportunity, but only if they have the skills to access it. Here's the economic reality. The tech sector is growing faster than almost any other industry. There's a global shortage of qualified tech workers. Companies are desperate to find talent. If we can successfully train people with disabilities in these in-demand skills, we are not doing charity. We are meeting market demand while simultaneously advancing inclusion. Secondly, this access fosters greater independence. Economic empowerment through employment leads directly to financial and social independence, allowing individuals to control their own futures and participate more actively in the economy. Independence is dignity, is the ability to make your own choices, support yourself and potentially your family, and live life on your own terms. When people with disabilities are systematically excluded from economic opportunities, they often become dependent on family members, social services, or charity. While support systems are important, the ability to be economically self-sufficient is transformative. I've witnessed this transformation personally through our program. Participants who entered uncertain about their prospects, who had been told explicitly or implicitly that certain careers weren't for them, who had internalized society's low expectations, these same participants now run their own freelance businesses, earn competitive salaries, and more importantly, see themselves as valuable contributors to the digital economy. That shift in self-perception from, I need help, to, I have valuable skills to offer, that's the shift that changes everything. Thirdly, we achieve digital participation and representation. When people with disabilities are skilled and employed in the digital economy, they cease being mere consumers of technology and become creators and shapers of it. Their perspectives are essential for building truly inclusive products, thereby increasing representation across the tech landscape. Here's a hard truth about the tech industry, we have a diversity problem. The people building our digital future don't represent the diversity of people who use it, and when the builders aren't diverse, the products reflect the lack of diversity through oversight, through bias, and through outright exclusion. Here's the opportunity, when we bring people with disability into tech as designers, developers, product managers, and leaders, they bring invaluable perspective. They understand accessibility not as a compliance checkbox, but as a fundamental design principle. They catch issues that others miss. They advocate for inclusive features from the beginning of the development process, not as an afterthought. Beyond the practical benefits, representation matters for its own sake. When a young person with a disability sees someone like them succeeding in tech, it expands their sense of what's possible. It challenges stereotypes, it changes narratives, it inspires the next generation. Finally, we build empowered communities. When individuals gain skills and confidence, they often turn around and lift up those in their networks, creating a powerful ripple effect that strengthens social cohesion and spreads a culture of inclusion. One of the most beautiful things I've observed in our program is how quickly participants go from being learners to teachers. Someone who struggled with their concept three weeks ago is now helping a newer participant understand it. Someone who landed their first freelance client is now sharing advice with others on how to find opportunities. Someone who built their first accessible website is now advocating for accessibility in their community. This is how movements grow, not through top-down mandates, but through grassroots empowerment where each person actually succeeds, reaches back to help the next person climb up. This creates sustainable change that doesn't depend on any single organization or initiative, but becomes woven into the fabric of the community itself. So, the problem is clear and the potential is huge, but how do we bridge that gap? This is where open source comes in. I firmly believe that open source democratizes access to technology and learning opportunities. Tools like WordPress are perfect examples. WordPress is open source, meaning it's free to use, modify and distribute. This removes the financial barrier to entry that proprietary software often creates. It has a massive global community dedicated to its development and support, including a very active accessibility team committing to making the platform usable for everyone. This belief in the power of open source and community led to the creation of TechAble. TechAble is an initiative that aims to bridge the technological gap for people with disabilities. Our mission is to enhance employability, promote inclusivity in the digital economy by providing accessible digital skills training in web development using WordPress. We set out to create a program that didn't just teach technical skills, but also address the other barriers we identified. We wanted to build a supportive, inclusive environment where people could not only learn, but also thrive and feel a true sense of belonging. A crucial component of the TechAble mission is a specific focus on gender inclusion. Statistics often show that women, and particularly women with disabilities, face a double barrier to entry in the tech sector. We are actively working to change that narrative. Let me provide some context for why this focus is so important. Women are already underrepresented in tech globally, typically comprising only about 25% to 30% of the tech workforce. Women with disabilities face even steeper odds, dealing with both gender discrimination and disability discrimination, what researchers call intersectional disadvantage. Studies have shown that women with disabilities experience lower employment rates than both men with disabilities and women without disabilities, higher rates of poverty, less access to education, more significant wage gaps, greater barriers to career advancement. We decided that addressing this intersectional challenge would be a core focus of TechAble, not an afterthought. I am proud to share that 56% of our participants are women. This demonstrates our commitment to providing an equitable environment where everyone has a chance to thrive. We didn't achieve this percentage by accident. It required intentional outreach, creating a supportive environment, addressing specific barriers and being thoughtful about the program design. Our program's overarching goal is that it empowers women to shape accessible digital futures. When we invest in them, we not only change individual lives but also ensure that the future generation of digital products and services is designed with a wider, more inclusive lens. The women in our program are not just learning to code, they are learning to lead. They are becoming the next generation of tech entrepreneurs, accessibility advocates and community builders, and that's going to change the face of tech in Ghana and beyond. A core component of TechAble's success is our approach to mentorship. We knew that just providing lessons wouldn't be enough. We needed to address the issue of limited community support head-on. Our mentorship program provides personalized guidance. Each participant is paired with experienced mentors from the tech industry who can provide one-on-one support, answer technical questions and offer career advice. It fosters peer support. We built a community where participants can learn from and support each other. They work on projects together, share their challenges and successes and build lasting friendships. This peer network is often just as valuable as the formal training itself, and crucially, it helps participants build valuable industry networks. Our mentors open doors for our participants, connecting them to people and opportunities they might not otherwise have access to. This helps to break down the professional barriers that can be just as challenging as the technical ones. What has the impact been? It has been profound, both for the individuals and for the community as a whole. First and foremost, participants built their first accessible websites. They went from having little or no web development experience to creating fully functional, professional, and most importantly, accessible websites. This is a huge technical achievement. Perhaps even more important is the human impact. We saw participants gain the confidence to pursue freelance and digital jobs. They started to see themselves as professionals, as people with valuable skills to offer. That shift in mindset is life-changing. Finally, we fostered a stronger sense of community and inclusion. Participants told us they finally felt they belong in the tech world. They found a network of peers and mentors who understood them and supported them. This sense of belonging is the foundation upon which long-term success is built. No initiative succeeds without challenges and no team grows without learning from mistakes. One first major lesson was that accessibility is not something you achieve once and check off your list. It's an ongoing commitment that requires constant attention, learning, and improvement. Our second major lesson was about the diversity of disabilities and learning styles. Different disabilities require different accommodations. What works for deaf participants doesn't necessarily work for a blind participant. Beyond disability categories, people are individuals with different learning paces, different prior knowledge and different goals. Lesson three: soft skills matter as much as technical ones. Technical skills are necessary but not sufficient. Many of our graduates struggled not because they couldn't build good websites but because they didn't know how to find clients, communicate professionally, price their services, manage projects or market themselves. Lesson four: perhaps our most important lesson, has been about the psychological and emotional dimensions of this work. Many of our participants entered the program carrying years of rejection, low expectations from others and internalized ableism. They've been told explicitly or implicitly that they can't succeed in tech. Some have been discouraged by family members out of misguided protectiveness try to steer them toward more realistic goals. Technical training alone doesn't overcome years of being told you're not capable. We learned that we needed to intentionally address the psychological barriers alongside the technical ones. Lesson five: partnership and collaboration amplify impact. We've learned that collaboration, not competition, is how social impact works best. When organizations working towards similar goals support each other, everyone wins, especially the people we are all trying to serve. We've covered a lot of ground in this presentation. Now I want to talk about the most important part, what you can do to help advance this mission. There are actions you can take right now regardless of your role or resources. Let me suggest several ways you can. For developers and designers, learn accessibility standards. There are excellent free resources available online. If you have accessibility expertise, share it. Mentor someone who is learning. For employers and business leaders, don't just say you value diversity. Demonstrate it through action. Actively recruit people with disabilities. For educators and trainers, make your content accessible. Use accessible documents formats. Test your learning platforms with assistive technology. For funders and philanthropists, support programs that are doing the hard work of creating opportunity. Accessible training programs need financial support to scale. For advocates and allies, learn about accessibility and disability rights. Read blogs by people with disabilities. Speak up when you encounter inaccessible products or discriminatory practices. Support disability-led organizations. For people with disabilities, know your worth. You have valuable skills, perspectives and contributions to offer. The barriers you face are not your fault and they do not reflect your abilities. Connect with other people with disabilities. Share resources, challenges and successes. There is power in community. Advocate for yourself. Learn to articulate your needs and advocate for accommodations. Consider mentoring. Once you have the skills and experience, consider paying it forward. I'll leave you with one specific challenge. In the next week, take one concrete action to advance digital accessibility. It could be adding proper access to images on your website, learning one new thing about web accessibility, making a donation to an accessibility-focused organization, committing to making accessibility a priority in your next project. Just one action, small steps, taken by many people, creates movement. Thank you for your time and attention. Thank you for caring about this issue. Thank you for whatever action you choose to take, whether large or small, to advance accessibility. I hope this discussion has not only informed you, but also inspired you to think about how you too can contribute to a more accessible digital future. The work continues, the community grows, the impact expands and we invite you to be a part of it. I am happy to take any questions you may have. Thank you once again. Let's build an accessible digital future together. (Chris Hinds) Thank you very much, Samuel, for that wonderful presentation. Just a reminder to our audience, you can enter questions in the Q&A section anytime, and we would love to take any additional questions you have. Samuel was kind enough to share some answers in writing, but I do want to run through a couple of these questions, Samuel, that you've already answered and just give people the opportunity to hear you speak to them a little bit. First and foremost, one question that I would love to hear you expand on and just share is, could you just share more about overcoming challenges and surpassing barriers like a lack of government support at TechAble as you were working on that program? (Samuel Osei) As you mentioned, there were several challenges that we had to face. When there was no government support, we had to rely on funding from IEEE Computer Society. That was like the initial funds we had to get started with TechAble. We also partnered with KNUST, which is the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology. There's a Student with Disability Association there. We partnered with their patron. Also, one part of it was getting their volunteers. It was really hard trying to convince everyone, but they all made it a success and it was a really great outcome. (Chris) One thing Taco asked, who's one of our tech coordinators, was what's something that TechAble needs most to expand further and to help more people? You had mentioned funding and I want to expand on Taco's question a little bit. What's the best way for people to inquire about providing that funding or who would they reach out to or how would they get in touch to be able to support the program more if they were interested? (Samuel) At the moment, the channels to reach out, it's via the email I shared earlier. As I say, at IEEE.org, we are making systems in place for proper channels and proper documentation of everything. As of now, it's the email I shared earlier. With respect to the funding, one challenge we had was many of the participants don't own laptops or internet is really expensive in Ghana and like the part of the world we live. Most of the funding goes to these, acquiring these personal devices and like accessibility too. Most of the time, another challenge has to do with the buildings, the places that they're going to have the events. Not every building over here is accessible. We have to have a very friendly environment where participants can come in and it's also close to their residence. They don't have to commute for longer distance. It's really important to have the funding to be able to acquire these new devices. As I mentioned, it's still in its early stages. We will be putting proper measures in place. Our website will also be live very shortly. We started off based on an IEEE concept. We are taking it higher and scaling it. (Chris) That's so amazing. Amy asked, is there more you'd like to say or share about the particular experiences of women in connecting with and staying in the program? (Samuel) For the women we had, one important thing we did was trying to make them have like peer buddies. We group them in pairs and they check up on each other. If one is coming for a meeting, they reach out to see if the other is coming. Like sort of an accountability buddy. We did that. Another example, another instance was how we make sure women are giving more attention, more care, because realize some women don't really trust in themselves. They need an extra push, some extra support to guide them in that process. We made sure that we had volunteers or the assistants at their disposal. We paid more attention to them and we made them also like take charge of activities. An example would be leading a session or taking control of a particular, let's say, task, like trying to put them at places where they can shine and gain confidence. (Chris) Wonderful. I have my own question that may or may not get added to the official Q&A log. I was curious if you could list out or provide a more detailed view of what kind of digital services or expertise that TechAble participants were trained in? Is there a way for companies who might need help to reach out and potentially hire them? (Samuel) The digital services expertise, so before we started, we did a brief analysis on what we can teach in that scheme. We currently run three programs. Like web development using WordPress, we do digital marketing and then graphic design. These three are the lines we have. We believe these skills are really essential and with training, the participants to be able to have easy work to do and also try to earn their living. The whole goal is to empower these people, especially in Ghana, most people with disabilities don't have relatively high incomes. We are trying to let them be prepared for remote opportunities. That was our guided direction for choosing the programs we run. A way for companies to potentially hire them. We started off connecting them with companies, local companies. Mostly they work remotely from their homes. It's mostly online work. So one is more like trying to reconnect the participants with employers. We believe we should take on the hard work of looking for opportunities for them. Some participants are still [unintelligible] and additional training from some of our partner companies. An example would be the cloud practitioner training. We put them on such training with our partner company. What we do is just everything routes through the organizing committee. Then we distribute to our participants who have interest. Some just basically want to have the skills for their personal use. Some want to also like start off with something they know they can do something increasingly well. With that, they have the confidence to advance that. (Chris) That's great. Thank you so much for sharing all of that. Another question we have here is a lot of WordPress's potential is tied up in these commercial products that you have to buy licenses for, and that can get quite expensive. Another question that we have here is could product companies find a way to donate paid licenses of their WordPress products to TechAble? How would we do that? (Samuel) Yeah, I think that would be really awesome because as I mentioned, living in Ghana, the currency is already much higher compared to the US. You have to spend much more money to afford basic plugins and other commercial products. One, that would be an amazing opportunity and we would be more than happy to have that. The other part of the question has to do with the channel of doing that. At the moment, I mentioned earlier our websites and I did say everything is in the pipeline. We just finished off running the pilot space with IEEE. Very soon everything will be together. But now at the moment, you can reach out by the email, the SSA at IEEE.org. Once we go live, our websites are going to provide all correspondence to that. That's my answer for the question. (Chris) Taco asked, in addition to the question about licenses, is there an opportunity to do a remote training session to help TechAble members learn popular plugins more deeply? (Samuel) Yes, that would be really, really awesome. The program we ran at KNUST, for instance, we had [] for mentors. [unintelligible] they are called mentors and some of their trainings are online. We welcome any opportunity, any avenue for us to improve the skill sets of our participants. Let's get talking. We are going to put structures in place, trying to find a place where all the participants can get together. Another challenge had to do with infrastructure. Network is quite an issue in Ghana and other developing countries. We try to assemble all the participants in a place where they have access to fast Wi-Fi and internet connections. We can sort of have a large screen where everyone can tune in and then have a session. It's something that we can explore and we can make accommodations for that. (Chris) Wonderful. It seems like Taco has volunteered me to do a remote accessibility training session. I will commit to doing that. If you want to send me a note afterwards, or I actually connected with you on X, you can send me a DM and we can coordinate something. (Samuel) Awesome. (Chris) I'm out of questions in the Q&A. Does anyone have any final questions? I think we have like a minute left or so. If anyone has any, they'd like to drop in the chat? Any questions? All right. Well, in that case, if there are no more questions, then I will thank everyone for attending this session with Samuel Osei. It was amazing. You can continue the conversation in the chat or on social media using #WPA11yDay and #WPAD2025. We also appreciate it if you go to 2025.wpaccessibility.day slash feedback to provide anonymous feedback for our speakers on their presentation. You can enter to win a T-shirt while you're there. Stay tuned for Build for Everyone or Build for No One with Elaine Shannon and Kevin Andrews, which is starting at 1400 UTC. And while you're waiting, don't forget to visit the sponsors pages to grab that virtual swag and enter for a chance to win some great prizes. See you in the next session., Advancing Accessibility Through Community and Open Source, Samuel Osei, 01m21cz81kf9meyzga13bpsqwd.