Making Tech Conferences Accessible: Lessons from NZ Tech Rally

We're back! It's been a while, but what better time than now to come together as an accessibility community to learn, network, and share? We have a few events lined up for the year that will cover the range about web accessibility. If you want to speak or host, we'd love to hear from you! And yes, there will be pizza.

We also appreciate your patience as we learn the best way to livestream talks, schedule events and make our meetups accessible to everyone. Feedback is always welcome. Now, onto the event!

Event description:
What does an accessible tech conference look like?

In 2023, the NZ Tech Rally team set out to make their inaugural software conference more accessible than any other in the local market, at an affordable price tag. There were some successes, but also some flops!

Not defeated, they tried again in June 2024 with NZTestingConf. Did they succeed? What lessons did they learn? And importantly, as accessibility champions what can we learn from them about maintaining motivation in pursuit of accessibility?

Join us for a talk from Prae Songprasit, co-founder of NZ Tech Rally and longtime accessibility champion. She'll share her experience on what features make a conference accessible and what it takes to make those features a reality.

Schedule:
5:30pm - Doors open
6:00pm - Streaming starts for talk and Q&A
6:45pm - Pizza and mingling
7:30pm - End

Thanks to our sponsors Aleph Accessibility and Somar Digital.

Livestream option:
It would be great to see you in person! But if you can't make it, here is the livestream link, which will be taking place on MS Teams: qrco.de/a11ymeet

Other details:

• Pizza will be served, including plant-based options. Please let us know if you have other dietary requirements
• The event will be in-person and livestreamed. That being said, this is our first event in a while so we appreciate in advance your patience if technical issues arise
• The livestreaming will be on Teams and will have auto-generated captions
• Link for livestream: qrco.de/a11ymeet
• The event space is wheelchair accessible
• Please let us know if we can provide any additional accommodations!