In recognition of Global Accessibility Awareness Day, May 18th, 2023, the 51±¾É« will be raising awareness on accessibility and accessible practice throughout the campus from the 15th to the 19th of May. As part of this accessibility week, the Student Affairs Division, Marketing and Communications Office, Centre for Transformative Learning and the Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Office will be hosting an online event highlighting accessibility in Higher Education. This event, from 9 am – 11 am on Tuesday, 16th of May, will have two expert speakers on accessibility, Kyran O’Mahoney a founding member and CEO of Inclusion & Accessibility Labs located in Dublin and Matthew Deeprose, a Senior Learning Designer at the University of Southampton.
You must register to attend this online event using the
Profile: Kyran O'Mahoney
Kyran O’Mahoney, one of the founders and CEO of Inclusion & Accessibility Labs (IA Labs), is a proven and product-focused senior IT professional, with over twenty years of experience in the delivery of large complex technical projects for the Financial Services, Insurance, Media, HR, Aviation, Retail Industries and Charity Sector in Ireland, the UK, and the United States. Kyran has held senior positions in some of Ireland’s leading companies including Allied Irish Bank, Ryanair, and Dunnes Stores. Kyran also acts as CTO with the National Council for the Blind of Ireland, which puts him in an ideal position to have hands-on experience in the field of digital accessibility.
Profile: Matthew Deeprose
Matthew Deeprose is a Senior Learning Designer at the University of Southampton. He’s been working in Higher Education IT for more than 20 years. Since 2018, he has been learning about accessibility, finding opportunities to put the principles into practice and looking for ways to share what he learns with others.  
Some recent accessibility projects he has been involved in include:
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Refreshing the Virtual Learning Environment to have an updated, on-brand theme that meets and surpasses accessibility guidelines as much as possible,
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Designing an Accessibility Testing process,
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Running the University of Southampton IT department’s Digital Accessibility Community of Practice,
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Designing and delivering accessibility focussed webinars internally and speaking about accessibility at external events.
Matt recently became co-chair of the International Ally User Group and is a member of the UCISA (Universities and Colleges Information Systems Association) Diversity Task Force.