#a11yTO Update – April, 2020

Hi all!

First off, we hope this message find you and your loved ones all safe, and healthy.

Sorry for the radio silence lately. As you know, #a11yTO is run by a very small group of volunteers and we, like many of you, have been a little overwhelmed the last few weeks.

We’ve had a few folks reach out to us to ask how #a11yTO is going to handle all our 2020 events and we thought it was only fair to bring you all up to speed. Last year we ran many #a11yTO Meetups, our annual #a11yTO Camp, #a11yTO Conf for the third year, as well as the introduction of two new events – #a11yIRL and #a11yTO Gaming – to create a new week-long event called #a11yWeekTO. We were busy planning a fantastic 2020 until everything changed.

So, where does that leave us? What do we do? To be honest, we don’t have all those answers right now, and might not have them for a little while.

Here’s what we do know… we’re not going anywhere, and we are going to do our best to keep providing you with quality events in whatever format we can.

Let’s start with the good news…

#a11yTO Camp is happening!

That’s right, #a11yTO Camp is back again on Saturday, May 23, 2020 for another awesome day of accessibility talks! Given that we can’t welcome you all to OCAD this year, we’re hoping you will welcome us into your home as #a11yTO Camp goes virtual for the first time ever!

We’ve been hard at work lining up a fantastic playlist of speakers for you. More info will be available very soon. Please save the date and plan on sitting back at home with your favourite beverage and slippers.

#a11yTO Meetups

Meetups will return in a virtual environment in the coming months. Not only are we going to be running our regular evening meetups, we are launching a brand new series of events to be held during the day (EST) called #a11yTO Lunch Meet! This “lunch and learn” series will be 100% virtual and free to join!

The best way to keep up to date is to join the #a11yTO Meetup Group on Meetup.com.

#a11yWeekTO

This is the tough one. We’ve been planning the event since November of last year and we aren’t going to let anything get in the way of us hosting “The best accessibility party on the planet”. While we don’t know whether things will be back to normal by October, we are 100% committed to hosting this event, in some form, and are still hard at work planning.

Normally we’d be prepping for the “big reveal” on Global Accessibility Awareness Day on May 21, but in light of everything that’s going on, we don’t feel like we’re ready to make any big announcements. The truth is, we don’t know if we’re going to be allowed to have almost 400 people in the same room come October. Until we do, we don’t want to make any further announcements or start selling any tickets. However, we can assure you that we are holding steady with our dates for our three #a11yWeekTO core events:

We’re going to monitor things over the next few months with ticket sales starting on July 1, 2020.

Now, it’s not all bad news here. In fact, we’re pretty excited to announce that – just like camp next month – for the first time ever #a11yTO Conf will also be available to watch at home!

Those of you who have attended #a11yTO Conf in the past know how special this event is. We honestly believe that our conference is one-of-a-kind, and what makes it special is its energy. We’ve done a lot of brainstorming about how we can translate the awesome vibe of our conference to a virtual environment, and we have a LOT of ideas. Stay tuned for more info in the coming weeks.

There we have it. Before we go, we’d like to thank you for taking the time to read this, and for your support and your patience while we continue to figure out how to keep bringing you awesome events.

Until we meet again, stay safe, stay healthy, and stay at home!

Hope to see you all soon!

The #a11yTO Team

#a11yWeekTO

October 19-24, 2020

#a11yWeekTO is back for a second year

After a successful first year, the #a11yTO Team is thrilled announce the return of #a11yWeekTO!

This week-long celebration of accessibilty features our core events: #a11yTO Conf (our digital accessibility conference), #a11yIRL (Accessibility In Real Life - our built environment conference), and #a11yTO Gaming (our accessible gaming conference), in addition to several soon-to-be-announced day and evening events.

It has long been our goal to make Toronto a destination where we can showcase the depth and diversity of our accessibility community. Last year we welcomed hundreds of speakers and attendees from all over the world, and look forward to doing it all again in October, 2020!

Save the date! More #a11yWeekTO events will be announced in the new year.

If you are interested in sponsoring #a11yWeekTO or any of its events, please get in touch with us at sponsor@a11yto.com.

Our Sponsors

Diamond Sponsor

Gold Sponsors

If you are interested in sponsoring #a11yTO, please email us at sponsor@a11yto.com