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Making NYC’s COVID-19 data Accessible to the Disability Community

Data is increasingly becoming more integrated into the day to day lives of New Yorkers and people around the world. From neighborhood statistics to public health data, there is a lot of data to consume. Because data is often displayed in complex data visualizations, it is not always easy to access by people with disabilities.

During the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, disability advocates all over the country spoke out about city and state governments failing to provide them access to their local COVID-19 data. In this event, the NYC Mayor’s Office for People with Disabilities and the department of Health and Mental Hygiene will share our story working together to make NYC’s COVID-19 data accessible to disabled New Yorkers.

We will cover
- Website accessibility standards
- General concepts and specific techniques on making your data accessible
- Why it is important to include disabled users when making your datasets accessible
- Choosing accessible data visualization platforms
- Collaborating with venders on accessibility enhancements and advocating for product updates to improve accessibility
- An assistive technology demo that will include a blind person using a screen reader to read both accessible and inaccessible data visualizations

Register for this 90 minute virtual event and come find out how you can start making your data accessible!

Presenters:
Walei Sabry – Digital Accessibility Coordinator at the Mayor’s Office for People with Disabilities

Matthew Montesano – Data Communication Specialist at Department of Health and Mental Hygiene

Accessibility:
This is a virtual event that will be held on Zoom. The Zoom platform supports captioning, keyboard access as well as screen reader access. To request accommodations such as American Sign Language interpretation, live captioning or materials in accessible formats, please contact Walei Sabry at wsabry@doitt.nyc.gov or 646-965-1922.

Register: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZApfu6prjMpEtBjoOkj_E2zh0EElBveYid7?fbclid=IwAR3tTKfdyWDw2fOn9CtUCp9WBP-o260TqlSgxHlpm9K_JDZu-8Oy5c-0MnQ