CSUN Highlights 2025

In mid-March, many of the TPGi team made the annual pilgrimage to Anaheim, California, as part of Vispero’s presence at the 40th CSUN Assistive Technology Conference. We were there to present, learn, network, socialize, and generally support what has been long-established as the largest annual in-person conference on accessibility and assistive technology.

One of my personal highlights of the conference was presenting Principal Engineer Carolina Crespo with the inaugural Spirit of Accessibility Award, in recognition of her commitment to helping clients, coworkers, and the wider community in efforts to advance digital accessibility.

We’ve collected session descriptions and links to slides from TPGi talks for you to review and access. This post provides some other highlights from the conference shared by our team.

Ian Lloyd (Principal Accessibility Engineer)

The Vispero room (Platinum 5) looked great – the shark mouth entrance was superb. But if there could be one thing to upstage that, it was Sharky himself (or herself, depending on who was inside the suit at the time!) greeting people. The JAWS 30th anniversary party, and the 30th anniversary swag, all seemed to go down very well, and it was great to be marking that while CSUN celebrated 40 years!

A personal highlight was having people I didn’t know who thanked me for the accessibility tools that I have created (bookmarklets), often people I had not met before.

Jason Hester (Senior Accessibility Engineer)

The highlight for me was the Equalify session and Amazon open-source sessions. I also was a big fan of the open-source rapid prototyping tool “paper playground” which I think has immense potential to improve the design process for all users.

Mitchell Evan (Principal Accessibility Engineer)

There were so many highlights it’s hard to choose. One of mine was making a dash through the exhibit hall, comparing the latest smart TV platform accessibility features for three different platforms (Amazon, LG, Sony), and talking with their development teams.

Jeanne Erickson Cooley (Senior Accessibility Engineer)

Lainey Feingold’s talk was both invigorating and hopeful. I need to visit Lainey’s website weekly at a minimum.

Alicia Evans (Senior Accessibility Engineer)

One amazing thing about the CSUN ATC is that it really shakes you out of your day-to-day work. It gets you thinking about the big picture, the mission, and the greater accessibility and disability communities. You can’t get much further away from your regular routine than dressing up as a giant shark!

And that’s exactly what I did this year.

This year, Vispero asked for volunteers to dress up as “Sharky” and take pictures with people to celebrate 30 years of JAWS. I felt nervous about dressing up in a 7-foot-tall inflatable costume, but this was a surprising highlight of the conference for me. Sharky brought so much joy to the exhibition hall and the conference halls, and I got to hear amazing stories about people’s experiences using JAWS over the years.

John Lilly (Senior Accessibility Engineer)

It was great to finally getting a chance to meet my colleagues in person. I’ve worked with everyone for about a total of 3 years but haven’t gotten the chance to meet any of them in person. It was nice to see someone that isn’t behind a screen.

Charlie Pike (Platform Success Lead)

I had a chance meeting with Klaus Miesenberger, from the ICCHP conference. Klaus gave me an extempore history of assistive technology. He needs to write a book! I also loved Stevie Wonder’s short and powerful call-to-arms, and my favorite session was Ian Lloyd’s.

Brian Elton (Practice Manager, Training)

I appreciated receiving good feedback from the education community on my session on teaching accessibility to younger students, and making connections with the Teach Access project on opportunities to collaborate.

Wes Estes (Accessibility Engineer)

My favorite session was “Mind the Gap: What Experts Forget When Teaching Accessibility” by Tess Hutley from Intopia. It was a good talk and a stark reminder of just how specialized many accessibility engineers are and how we can easily take basic level knowledge for granted when trying to teach or present to non-experts.

Laurie Pagano (Principal Accessibility Engineer)

Seeing new and old colleagues in person—and in some cases meeting my colleagues’ new and old colleagues—is always a major highlight! This year I also stepped way outside of my comfort zone to give a talk and was surprised by how much I enjoyed it.

Jonny James (Principal Accessibility Engineer)

Firstly, nothing beats seeing colleagues and friends in-person and meeting new people in the accessibility community. – My favorite talk was Tj Squires and Jeanne Erickson Cooley’s talk on ADHD and the web. It was hilarious and informative. What more could you ask for?!

Tj Squires (Accessibility Engineer)

One highlight came from Gabby Giffords’ keynote. I’m often told I’m an inspiration, even for small things—taking an Uber alone, having a job, walking down the street. While I understand the intention, it can sometimes feel exhausting or even insulting. Of course I can do these things. But as I listened to Gabby Giffords and her therapist discuss aphasia, I found myself truly inspired. Reflecting on the past week, I’ve realized that what inspires me is her effort and progress in overcoming being shot in the head. It helped me reconsider the idea of inspiration—it’s not such a bad thing.

One of the biggest challenges blind people face is a world that doesn’t always understand our capabilities. We as accessibility professionals, and I as a blind person on top of that are in a position to advocate for accessibility, and sometimes that’s as simple as saying, “Yes, a blind person can use a computer,” and taking the opportunity to educate. It’s something I’ve dealt with my whole life, and it can be frustrating to have the same conversations over and over again. But this presentation helped ease that fatigue. It reminded me why those conversations are worth having.

Aaron Farber (Senior Accessibility Platform Consultant)

My highlight was the positive reaction to my talk on industry benchmarking. I received several requests from attendees for information on how their website’s accessibility compares to their industry. I appreciate the kind words that the talk was entertaining – I enjoy public speaking and it was great to receive validation.

Carolina Crespo (Principal Accessibility Engineer)

Without any doubt, the best part was to see and meet coworkers. Also, realizing that the most technical talks were from TPGi made me feel very proud!

Dennis McHugh (VP, Customer Service Operations)

With 2025 being the second CSUN I attended, I had forgotten what an impact Thursday afternoon had on me when the younger students visit the Exhibit hall.  It is a proud moment for our industry knowing that we are making the world a better place for people with disabilities in the future.  I thought to myself, this is why we do what we do!

Appreciation

We’re grateful for Vispero and TPGi’s support for the CSUN conference, and we thank the conference organizers and host team for all their hard work in putting on another terrific event. And we thank the disability and accessibility community for supporting the event, for their resilience, and for making the occasion such an energizing, creative, and rewarding coming-together of people committed to improving disability inclusion in the digital world.