Mobility is for everyone.

Moving through New York City is difficult in the best of conditions. When we consider the added mobility challenges faced by the disabled and elderly communities, is New York City the greatest city in the world or are the challenges even more daunting?

In this GeoNYC, we bring the experiences, perspectives and innovation happening in the worlds of the disabled and elderly communities, people who are too often overlooked. We will look spatially at what it takes to meet the needs of ALL people moving through the city – understanding it takes careful planning to make sure the needs of citizens are met and of all us can live the life we want.

Our speakers this evening are on the front end of a conversation that we expect will become more important as we look at the changing dynamic of our streets, buildings and communication. Mobility is important for everyone, and we will hear about the efforts to create policy, design and systems which ensure quality of life for those who could easily be marginalized.

SPEAKERS:

Charles Catherine [@CharlesRunsNYC (https://twitter.com/CharlesRunsNYC)] is Achilles International's 2015 Athlete of the Year (New York City Chapter). Though he lost a battle with Retinitis Pigmentosa, an eye disease that claimed his vision, he continues to achieve through courage, perseverance and determined athleticism (http://wwww.charlesruns.nyc). Charles and his guides regularly share their thoughts throughout the ups and downs of their vigorous training so for this GeoNYC, we have asked Charles to share more of his inspirational story and how he navigates success and Gotham, in a framing Q&A session. We are excited to have him!

Quemuel Arroyo [NYCDisabilities (https://twitter.com/NYCDisabilities)] is the first Policy Officer for Accessibility (http://www.nyc.gov/html/mopd/html/home/home.shtml) and ADA Coordinator for the New York City Department of Transportation. He joined DOT in 2014 from Morgan Stanley. As a member of the executive staff team, Quemuel advices the DOT Commissioner, Polly Trottenberg, on all matters of accessibility. He works closely with division heads throughout the agency to ensure that their programs and operations follow current guidelines for accessibility and that they are made accessible to all New Yorkers. Quemuel graduated from NYU in 2012 with a Bachelors of Arts in Urban Design and History of Architecture.

Sarah Kaufman [@sarstar (https://twitter.com/sarstar)] is Assistant Director at the NYU Rudin Center for Transportation (http://wagner.nyu.edu/rudincenter/), where she researches, advocates for and educates about cutting-edge technologies in transportation. Sarah leads several projects related to improving transportation including Intelligent Paratransit (https://wagner.nyu.edu/rudincenter/2016/09/new-report-intelligent-paratransit/), to rethink how we transport seniors and the disabled. For this GeoNYC she will share the latest report on this paratransit services, transportation for residents who are physically unable to use public transportation, including the disabled and mobility-impaired elderly.

Elle O'Conner finds open tools one of the few places where the foundational concepts of vulnerability mapping and risk modeling are being addressed. As an ESRI solutions engineer in Redlands, CA, her work aligns with such meaning. Elle will be speaking about her duty is to advise commercial organizations on how to best leverage our location based applications for these most vulnerable of communities.

Erik Shlegel [@erikschlegel1 (https://twitter.com/erikschlegel1)] is an open source engineer within the Developer Experience group of Microsoft and based in the NYC area. Erik and his team recently engineered a navigation platform (http://stateofthemap.us/2016/osm-lights-up-the-world-for-blind-users-with-sound/) intended for users with sight loss using OpenStreetMap and 3D Audio. Built in partnership with the Guide Dog Association, Erik will speak to how open tools and 3D audio were used to build this association of nearby points of interest for the vision impaired.

OUR SCHEDULE

6:30PM: Mingle: doors, beer, pizza and people
7:00PM: Presentations & Q&A
8:30PM+: The after hours celebrations