Updates

IFES Senior Global Inclusion Advisor Virginia Atkinson Named on Forbes Inaugural Accessibility 100

IFES celebrates its Senior Global Inclusion Advisor Virginia Atkinson for being named one of Forbes’ top 100 “impact-makers and innovators in the field of accessibility for people with disabilities.” Making its debut this year, the list features leaders across communication, education, employment and workplace, entertainment and arts, influencer and advocacy, law and government, mobility, products, software, sports and recreation, and others.

Featured in the law and government category, Virginia shared her experience advancing voting rights by making elections accessible for persons with disabilities and protecting these rights with new laws and policies.

In reflecting on her work, Virginia shared, “I am honored to be included on this list with formidable colleagues and friends. Disability rights advocates around the world are on the front lines of democracy promotion and continue to make gains that support the human rights of all people, even as civic space shrinks. Thank you to Forbes for releasing their inaugural Accessibility 100 List to shine a light on these innovations.”

We congratulate Virginia on her hard work and dedication to promoting disability inclusion across the electoral cycle and for persons with disabilities’ meaningful engagement in civic and political life!

View the full list here.

Kickoff: the Election Tech Accessibility Database

Today the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES), with support from Microsoft, proposed a new database that will track the accessibility of election technology available around the world. Serving as a catalog of election technology and assistive technology that can be deployed during elections, the database will rely on ongoing community and vendor feedback to ensure it is relevant, useful, and accurate.

The consultative event, held at the Microsoft office in New York on the sidelines of the Conference of State Parties to the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, featured a panel of speakers, including Microsoft Vice President & Chief Accessibility Officer Jenny Lay-Flurrie; IFES Senior Global Advisor, Inclusion Virginia Atkinson; and IFES Senior Global Digital Democracy Advisor Matt Bailey. The event brought over 125 attendees in person and online around the world together to learn more about the initiative and share thoughts on the usability of a database of this kind.

Call for feedback

IFES will continue to collect feedback from the broader community through July 7th to inform the data schema. IFES will begin soliciting data from elections technology providers, election authorities, and other stakeholders to populate the resource. For future updates, be sure to follow electionaccess.org, where the dataset will eventually be made publicly available.

Learn more about the database Explore the database codebook