AXSChat Podcast with Andy Black - Tech Accessibility Evangelist

 Hosted by Antonio Santos, Debra Ruh and Neil Milliken. 

Andy Black has over 30 years’ experience in tech for learning and inclusion. Renowned in the Noughties for his forty gadgets in forty minutes live demonstration and being digitally resident in most things he should be and some he thinks he now possibly should not have been. He floated the idea of the mobile device (phone) as Lord of the ring’s device or as a tech swiss army knife in the 90’s. He worked as a part of a team horizon scanning emerging technologies in the commercial space with potential uses in education.

Andy as a dyslexic dyspraxia diagnosed in his 50’s but writ large through his whole life experience. Passionate about tech for inclusion be that SMS for deaf learners in further education or specialist stem sign language on 1st gen apple iPod touches back in the early 2000’s.

Andy discovered twitter in early 2008 he believes his live tweeting at events may have got Neil Milliken of #AXSCHAT started on his twitter journey.

He now heads a small but incredibly talented team championing business engagement and accessibility for internal staff in a Government department in the UK.

Andy in 2019 co-founded a Cross Government Group Office 365 Accessibility Group looking at leverage best Accessibility features in O365.

Outside of work he is a non-exec director of a community farm, scout leader passionate is cyclist walker climber lover of the outdoors has two fantastic kids and long suffering talented wife.

He used to shy away from describing himself as a polymath but to be honest I am into a lot of stuff. Maybe too many things for my own good.

Passionate believer in us all striving to be Accessible by Default and that the network human or electronic is the answer to anything, now what is the question.

A colleague once described Andy: “to describe Andy as an out of the box thinker misses the point Andy doesn’t understand what a box is. He will make linkage find opportunities and give that commitment to make a difference to learners.  Frankly at times he is exhausting to work with“

He has in the past been tempted to write an “e- book “entitled “what do when the kit doesn’t work apart from tell jokes (my jokes are terrible by the way). 

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