Program Thursday
All times are CET.
Location: Store auditorium
Øyvind Engh, Acting Deputy National Librarian and host of the conference
Øyvind Engh is Acting Deputy National Librarian at the National Library of Norway. For nearly twenty years, he has headed Norway’s accessible literature services and has been a strong advocate for international collaboration in this field.
Location: Store auditorium
Clint Covington, Accessibility & AI Leader at Microsoft (USA)
Clint Covington is a 28-year Microsoft veteran and leads the accessibility strategy and execution for the company’s Experience + Devices group. This means he works to make Windows, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Teams, Outlook, SharePoint and Copilot usable for people with disabilities.
Location: Store auditorium
The exhibitors will briefly introduce themselves
Location: Store auditorium
Dr. Neil Soiffer, Chief Listening Officer at Talking Cat Software (USA)
Dr. Soiffer will describe his 30 year journey from knowing nothing about accessibility to being a leading advocate for math accessibility and producing the primary solution for speaking, navigating, and brailling mathematics and chemical formulas. Like so many others working in accessibility, it has not always been a straight path, with both pushback and encouragement from companies and the government. He will recount some meetings with some remarkable figures in the field and help people understand the challenges around accessible mathematics.
Neil Soiffer was a principal architect of MathML, the standard for putting math on the web. He is the main developer of MathCAT, which is used with NVDA, JAWS, EasyReader and other assistive technologies to make math accessible in Web, Word, and PowerPoint documents.
Location:
12:00–12:30 Reading Mathematics in EasyReader
Mattias Karlsson, AltFormat Product Manager, Dolphin Computer Access AB (Sweden)
The presentation explores how Dolphin EasyReader supports accessible reading of mathematical content. There will be practical examples using the MathCAT library for MathML, along with EasyReader’s AI‑driven assistance.
Mattias Karlsson has been part of Dolphin since 1994, beginning his career as a software developer before stepping into the role of Product Manager in 2009. He now leads the development team for Dolphin EasyReader and has played an active role in shaping international accessibility standards, contributing to initiatives such as DAISY, EPUB 3, eBraille and multiple EU funded projects.
12:30–13:00 Authoring MathML – Overview and Shortcomings
Sami Määttä, Planner, Accessibility Library Celia (Finland)
The presentation will provide an overview of different solutions for authoring and proofreading MathML content. The aim is to also open discussion on solutions we do not know of yet.
Sami Määttä works in Accessibility Library Celia, Finland. He is an expert in accessible mathematics in digital publications and takes part in the translation work with the screen reader add-on MathCAT. He has experience in planning and doing user research with children with print disabilities.
Location:
12:00–12:20 International working group Tactile Images – working towards standardization and sharing the workload
Julian Nauta, Product Manager for Tactile Images, Dedicon (the Netherlands)
In an increasingly visual world producers of adapted materials can never keep up. The goal of the working group is to define a common design language for tactile images and being able to share production files.
Julian Nauta works as a product manager for Tactile images, Braille books and music at Dedicon in the Netherlands. Dedicon is a non-profit organisation that adapt materials for all visual or reading impairments. Nauta has a background in product design and believes in co-creating tangible solutions for real-world problems or limitations.
12:20–13:00 Picture This: From Image to Experience. Transforming Art, Books and Games into Shared Tactile Experiences through UV Printing
Geke van de Wakker, CBB (the Netherlands)
CBB will introduce their work, explain the elevated prints, and share more about the process and how these works are created.
Location: Canteen
Location: Folkestova
Visit the exhibition to see products and discuss various solutions.
Location:
14:30–14:55 Math Reading and Writing with a Screen Reader
George Kerscher, Chief Innovations Officer, DAISY Consortium and Senior Advisor, Global Literacy, Benetech (USA)
The presentation will explore traditional audio-based reading of educational materials that contain math and compare it with text-based approach using a screen reader with MathCat. The use of Read Aloud features in reading systems will be discussed as a bridge between the two approaches. The ability to stop speech and explore math in detail into Microsoft Word will also be explored.
George Kerscher is Chief Innovations Officer of the DAISY Consortium, Senior Advisor of Global Literacy at Benetech, and member of Publishing Groups in the W3C. Kerscher is a recognized international leader in document accessibility, and he chairs the DAISY/NISO Standards committee.
14:55–15:20 Reading and Writing Math in Microsoft 365
Peter Wu, Principal Software Engineer, Microsoft (USA)
15:20–15:35 Break
15:35–16:15 Discussion on Authoring, Writing and Reading Mathematics
Facilitated by Richard Orme, Chief Executive Officer, DAISY Consortium
Richard is the Chief Executive of the DAISY Consortium. He is a founding member of the UK Publishers Accessibility Action Group, and Advisory Board Vice Chair of the Accessible Books Consortium (an initiative of the UN agency WIPO).
Location:
14:30–15:00 Presentation on eBraille
Manfred Muchenberger, Head of Production, and Christian Egli, Lead Software Developer, SBS Schweizerische Bibliothek für Blinde, Seh- und Lesebehinderte (Switzerland)
15:00–15:30 Presentation on eBraille
Humanware
15:30–15:45 Break
15:45–16:15 Discussion on eBraille
Location: Store auditorium
Maarten Verboom, DAISY Chairman of the Board and Director at Dedicon (the Netherlands)
The Annual General Meeting is open for all DAISY members. The link for live stream will be posted in the program one week before the meeting.
Location: Canteen