20 Years of Accessibility Journey – Yahoo!
While I was working at BarrierBreak, I got introduced to this wonderful platform LinkedIn. One day got a message from Sandeep Datar mentioning that Yahoo! is looking for an Accessibility Specialist and if I am interested to explore. Not just it has been an incredible opportunity but privilage. I have had an amazing chance to work with some amazing people. I’m sure I’m going to miss hundreds of names in this post so apologies in advance.
Sandeep Datar Who have hired me in his fantastic User Experience Design (UED) team and gave me freedom to explore what best I can do at Yahoo!
Victor Tsaran Great friend and partner in crime in driving accessibility at Yahoo! I felt more privilaged because we already knew each other through another organization earlier where he volunteered to build website for them. He made sure that I get introduced to teams and leaders across the organization. He is a geek and always bring in innovative ideas to build inclusive experiences. I can write a book about Victor!!
Alan Brightman It’s certainly a honor and privilage to got to work with this amazing leader. He happened to be the 1st Keynote speaker at the #CSUNATC – CSUN Assistive Technology Conference. He has been instrumental in disability and accessible tech in the era of 1980s. Such a humble personality and his first email to me was “Welcome, Srinivasu! It’s day 4, have you changed the world yet?” and he floated my introduction to all leadership channels.
Subramanyan Murali He is the first engineering person I have ever met who believes that Accessibility is a mindset issue and not technology limitation.
Artur Ortega He made my job easy!! Because of his escalation about inaccessibility of one of our new products, I got introduced to some amazing leaders who made a decision that all of the products that their team develops are accessible on day 1.
Lavanya Lakshman has partnered with me on so many platforms to deliver Accessibility Awareness sessions.
Ted Drake He is one of those people I know who turned from UI Engineer to fully passionate Accessibility advocate. He has been instrumental in building Yahoo! User Interface and many other things including Yahoo! Accessibility Blog.
I have got a tremendous support from colleagues and several leaders not just to make Yahoo! Products Accessible but also evengalise outside Yahoo! as well. We have hosted a day conference on Web Accessibility in partnership with W3C India, Yahoo! India helped building a website for the Office of Chief Commissioner, Disabilities. Yahoo! has been a place that made more popular. In fact, even today, mu contact got saved on many phones as “Srinivasu Yahoo!”
Gratitude for incredible support for many and not limited to:
Ramkumar Narayanan Souvick Mukharjee, Dr. Tathagat Varma Ravindranath Palahalli, Amit Dayal Baiju Joseph Thalupadath, Raghu Krishnananda Shyam Ramamurthy, Ramamurthy Shastry, Nandakumar Ramakrishnan, Ph.D,
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