Closing Digital Divide: Employing qualified vision-impaired professionals | BCS Digital Divide SG

Synopsis
The highly qualified blind and vision-impaired community often faces significant challenges in gaining employment. Currently only 30% of blind and vision-impaired individuals of working age are employed. Technology presents a powerful opportunity to bridge this digital divide.
This webinar aims to equip prospective employers with a comprehensive understanding of the practicalities involved in hiring blind and vision-impaired individuals. It also provides valuable insights for prospective employees on how technology can assist those with sight impairments or difficulties using a standard keyboard.
Our speakers will address key questions from an employer’s perspective, including:
• Estimated costs of necessary equipment
• Availability and timing of grants for equipment
• Physical requirements, such as special desks
• Necessary building modifications, like handrails
• Health and safety adjustments, including fire drill procedures
Join us to learn how you can create a more inclusive and accessible workplace.
About the speakers
Kris Gibson
Kris Gibson has lived and worked in Southampton now for many years and feel a true connection with the local community, and so it is a great joy to be a Sight Loss Advisor at Southampton Sight. He is aware of the questions that potential employers have with regards to hiring visually impaired employees. Having been born with a degenerative eye condition, Kris comes with a lifetime’s experience. He believes passionately that the loss of sight does not mean the loss of life and strive to meet the needs of others to support independent and full living.
After all, in this brave new world of high-tech wizardry, where there’s a will, there’s an app!
David Braines
David Braines FBCS, CITP is the Early Careers Advocate, on the BCS Hampshire branch Committee, with a special interest in encouraging students into work and during the early years of their career. He is Distinguished Technical Specialist and Thought Leader at IBM Research Europe (UK). As a researcher he is active in the field of AI and leads a team focused on AI simulation investigating how these techniques can support accelerated scientific discovery. He has published over 100 conference and journal papers and wrote many of these whilst serving as the industry technical leader for a 10-year research consortium of US and UK academic, industry, and government organisations.
Dave is passionate about human-machine cognitive interfaces and has developed techniques to support interactions between human users and machine agents.
Freddie Quek
Freddie Quek FBCS, BCS Digital Divide Specialist Group Chair is a highly experienced and multiple award-winning global technology leader who has worked in Singapore, US and UK across many industry sectors. He started the #joiningthedots initiative joining up 14 UK tech leaders communities to address #digitalinclusion, became special advisor and Community Board member of the Digital Poverty Alliance and established the BCS Digital Divide Specialist Group.He serves on the boards at University of Bristol, BCS Influence Board and eLife, and a member of the Technology Advisory Group of the Royal Society of Chemistry. Freddie is a Fellow of BCS and judge for the UK IT Industry and Women in IT awards.
Margaret Ross
Margaret Ross MBE, FBCS, CITP, CEng,(host) is an active member of the Digital Divide SG, BCSWomen SG and other SGs also Hampshire Branch (Chair), Dorset Branch (Secretary). She Emeritus Professor of Software Quality at Solent University, awarded MBE, BCS HonFBCS, BCS John Ivison Medal, and added to the 2020 Computer Weekly’s Hall of Fame