PDF to Accessible Markdown: Introducing Equalify Reflow, an Open Source AI Tool

This event will be online at YouTube and in-person (New York City). The speaker and live stream starts at 7:30 pm ET. In-person attendees may arrive as early as 7 pm ET. If arriving late, please leave a comment on this page and someone will come down ASAP.

Description
Members of the University of Illinois Chicago (UIC) Digital Accessibility Team will introduce Equalify Reflow, an open-source, agentic AI tool that transforms inaccessible PDFs into dynamic, accessible assets.

The presentation will cover common institutional challenges with PDFs, why the team uses Markdown, and how AI is informing decisions about building and scaling PDF remediation. The team will also explain why the work is being released as open source and why UIC is investing in open-source digital accessibility solutions.

This session is designed for accessibility leaders and engineers building new solutions. Attendees will leave with a clearer understanding of the opportunities and limitations of AI-assisted PDF remediation, and the role open source can play in advancing digital accessibility—supported by UIC’s growing work in the open-source accessibility space.

The presentation covers:

• Why PDFs continue to be a major accessibility barrier in institutional environments
• How Equalify Reflow converts PDFs into dynamic accessibility assets
• Why Markdown is central to the team’s workflow and long-term content strategy
• How AI supports triage, prioritization, and remediation decisions (and where it should not be trusted)
• What “scalable remediation” looks like in practice: governance, quality controls, and implementation
• Why UIC is releasing the work as open source and investing in open-source accessibility solutions

Presenter bios
Blake Bertuccelli-Booth is UIC’s Assistant Director of Web Accessibility Engineering. In addition to passionately working to advance the rights of people with disabilities, Blake is the creator of Equalify – an open source web accessibility platform – and leads accessibility testing for WordPress. He has spoken at numerous conferences, including HighEdWeb, WordCamp, and WPCampus. Blake is passionate about raising the bar for digital inclusion through open tools, community-driven standards, and real-world impact.

Dylan Isaac is an AI accessibility consultant and founder of Enablement Engineering, and a former Lead AI Engineer at Deque Systems, where he invented and built axe Assistant. He's currently building agentic harnesses to solve accessibility and education problems that were previously impossible — including Equalify Reflow, a multi-agent system that converts PDFs into accessible semantic markup. When he's not wrangling AI agents, he's eating wings and shoveling snow in his home in Buffalo 🦬.

Accessibility
The presentation will have human captions [CC], not automatic captions. For ASL preferred speakers, learn about the Aira ASL App, and download it before the event.

For the Blind and Low Vision community, learn about the Aira Explorer App and download it before the event.

To access the online webinar for audio description, use the A11yNYC Access Offer to call, or simply inform your Visual Interpreter that you'd like that offer applied when you connect.

For additional accessibility requirements, please email meryl@equalentry.com two weeks before the event.

Livestream
YouTube link coming soon.

Provided by Internet Society Accessibility SIG.

Location details
The event is on the 4th floor. Everyone must be accompanied to the event on the 4th floor. Because everyone needs to be escorted, please arrive early or on time. When you enter the ground floor, a representative from A11yNYC will be there to provide elevator access.

The building is near several transit stops:
6 train

• Spring Street (non-accessible stop): 100 feet
• Canal Street (accessible stop): 0.4 miles

NQRW trains

• Prince Street (non-accessible stop): 0.2 miles
• Canal Street (accessible stop): 0.3 miles

M1 / M55 Bus lines

• Broadway/Spring Street stop: 500 feet

Cabs and rideshares can let passengers out right near the building entrance

Important note
Google Maps currently incorrectly pins the location around the corner on Crosby Street. The entrance is not on Crosby. The entrance is on Spring Street, inside the Marc Jacobs International building. It is roughly halfway between Crosby and Lafayette, almost directly across Spring Street from the Chipotle restaurant.

Traveling to the event?
We recommend Hotel on Rivington or Crosby Street Hotel.

Accreditation
All A11yNYC meetups are pre-approved for IAAP Continuing Accessibility Education Credits (CAEC).

Sponsors
Thanks to AKQA, Deque, Evinced, Equal Entry, and Fable for sponsoring. Want to be a sponsor? Contact meryl@equalentry.com