An Inclusivity unlocked! Webinar about online accessibility

Abhishek Dhol

Abhishek Dhol is an undergraduate Bachelors of Law (LLB) student at Queen Mary University of London and Director of Diversity and Inclusion at the Queen Mary Commercial Awareness Society. Abhishek has a condition called Retinopathy of Prematurity (ROP). The retinas of his eyes are damaged, leaving him completely sightless. He has little to no light perception, and therefore uses nonvisual techniques to carry out the everyday activities of his life – using a screen-reader to read his study materials and deal with online communications.

Miriam Wollacott

Miriam Wollacott, a Senior Scientist in Pharmaceutical Development at Vectura Ltd. Mim has hearing difficulties and will tell us about how that affects her interactions with online platforms and tools.

Chris Naylor,Bnode

Chris Naylor has worked within the digital industry for over 20 years and has made the topic of accessibility and environmental considerations a topic within modern digital practices. After many years of doing practical Web Building, PPC, SEO, Branding, and project management, he finally ended up in a directorship role within a digital agency. In 2021 he decided that it was time to move on and create a digital strategy agency that aligns with “my morals and offers digital marketing consulting services, focusing on how business can have strong ethical values while also growing profits.”

Debra Smith, Mayfin IP

Debra’s technical background is in Mechanical Engineering (Imperial College, University of London). After completion of her degree in 1989 she worked in engineering for about 4 years, initially in R&D for the company that sponsored Debra through her degree – based in Leicester. She then worked for a Consultancy carrying out a contractual role – based in Peterborough.

At this stage, she decided to make a career change and ended up entering the IP profession (quite by accident) working for the UK MoD where she started her training in Intellectual Property, obtained a “Certificate in Intellectual Property Law” from QMWC and qualified as a UK Patent Attorney in 1998. After working at the MoD for 6 years, Debra changed jobs to work in-house for the next 14+ years and qualified as a European Patent Attorney in 1999.

Debra now has been working for her own company (Mayfin IP Ltd) for the last 8+ years and realises that it was only through the help provided by Debra’s previous employer that she could ever have setup her own business.