Author: Dennis

Very disappointing news today. The AccessU West conference by Knowbility scheduled for January 10-12 in San Jose, California, has been officially cancelled due to low registration numbers.

The AccessU training conference in Austin, Texas, May 17-19, 2011, will be held as usual. This event is the original from Knowbility and continues to be very successful. You can also follow Knowbility on Twitter.

Still, it’s so saddening that a web accessibility event with major speakers (such as Derek Featherstone and yours truly) has such little interest. Especially in Silicon Valley. Here are some reasons I suspect. Can you think of any other?

1. Accessibility is not “cool” in Bay area where other exciting web technology is created.
2. Bad timing; beginning of year may be not ideal for people’s personal schedules and business’ budgets.
3. Competition – too many other great webinars, conferences, and meetups to choose from.

Here are some great events relating to web accessibility that are occurring soon.

• Free 2-day Section 508 conference in Washington DC, Dec 13-14.
• Meetup with Sydney Web Accessibility & Inclusive Design, Tues, Dec 14, Sydney, Australia.
• Perth (Australia) Web Accessibility and Inclusive Design meetup, Wed, Dec 15, 7:30 AM.
• Workshop on Principles of Web Accessibility in Mumbai, India, 16 December.
• CANCELLED! AccessU West 2011, Knowbility’s West Coast web accessibility institute (previously CalWAC) January 10-12. CANCELLED!
• ATIA 2011 Orlando – Assistive Technology Industry Association conference, Orlando, Florida, January 26-29.

Any missing in the next month? If so, please add in the comments.