Philly Tech Week 2018

Morgan is a Principal with Genacast Ventures where his responsibilities include evaluating investment opportunities, sourcing new deals, and managing the growth of existing portfolio companies.

Prior to joining Genacast, Morgan worked at Bloomberg Beta, the venture firm backed by Bloomberg. He also spent time as a software engineer at Tapad and Market-Based Management instructor at the Charles Koch Institute. Morgan earned his BS from Northeastern University.

Mikey Ilagan is an Accessibility Specialist at Think Company. He works full-time as part of the Comcast Accessibility Team. He's spent the past decade building digital experiences using a lifetime of passion for technology. Today, he uses a diverse background to work with product teams to ensure Xfinity's offerings are usable and well-designed for customers using assistive technology.

Mikey's Talk at Introduced by Technical.ly:

Digital Accessibility: What You Say vs What I Hear

If accessibility is essential for some and useful for all, then why is it regarded as a feature instead of a requirement? Why do we have the perception that accessibility is so difficult to design and develop for? And how does compliance actually fail people with disabilities?

To answer those questions, let’s reframe the conversation. Instead of focusing on compliance, let’s look at the personal and cultural changes we can make that will influence our work. With that, we'll come to an understanding of where we fail the people who may need us most. When thinking about my history as a developer, I regret much of my attitude and inexperience. I’ll share real-life anecdotes of working with engineering teams from the perspective of a developer-turned-accessibility specialist.

Gillian manages Sisu’s products and technical strategy. She is an inventor of Hemafuse and has directed Hemafuse’s development from an idea to fully manufactured, injection-molded device. Gillian previously founded a medical device design firm for Ghana. She has been published in the International Journal of Gynecology and Obstetrics, has presented at the Midwest Biomedical Engineering Career Conference and Appropriate Healthcare Technologies for Developing Countries Seminar in London, and was named Baltimore’s “2016 Technologist of the Year” at Baltimore’s 4th Annual Innovation award.

Since joining Comcast’s Technology & Product (T+P) Team in 2014, Fraser has been on the fast track to success – not only because of his broad and deep knowledge, but also because he is a catalyst for change. His collaborative approach, business acumen and innovative solutions drive important strategies that continue to evolve Comcast from a fast follower to an industry leader in the technology and innovation space. Fraser’s impact to our company has been swift and significant. He has quickly become an integral part of the T+P leadership team and a proven player for Comcast internationally. He has facilitated and fostered important relationships for Comcast and is highly regarded in the company and across the vendor community from OEM’s, SOC and WiFi partners. He is an influential and charismatic leader whose personality can charm and disarm; enabling him to build teams across functional boundaries. As Senior Vice President, Product and Technology, Devices Fraser is responsible for executing on our overall hardware development for all premise devices with a mission of improving new product service velocity, product differentiation and cost management. Fraser is a domain expert in high volume, device deployment, and manufacturing. Since joining Comcast, Fraser conceptualized and led the effort to transform Comcast device Industrial Design standards, putting focus on the product. He has been integral to reimagining the industrial design of Comcast devices helping the consumer see the Product as more than just another piece of technology in the home. He and his team launched the first voice controlled remote control improving functionality and providing accessibility capability that did not exist before. Fraser & Co. have also revamped the device product portfolio delivering a set of superior devices while driving cost down and quality up. Presently Fraser leads the company–wide effort to move to all IP, allowing customers to stream video over WiFi in their homes. Through his leadership and contributions, Fraser is making a lasting mark on Comcast and the broader Cable and Telecommunications industry. Fraser has broad leadership experience. Before joining Comcast he led the OnCue Hardware and Software Engineering team at Intel Media. Prior to that Fraser served as Director of Product for Intel Media and previously held various roles at BSkyB, including Head of Hardware, Planning and Design; Head of Emerging Product Strategy; and Design Manager, among other positions.

Scott Vinkle is a Canadian front end developer and accessibility advocate living in Canada. He spends his days assessing, consulting, and fixing accessibility issues on all the things at Shopify. Find out what else Scott is up to at svinkle.me.

Margaret is the Chief Customer Experience Officer at Yet Analytics, a Baltimore based company that provides tools and solutions used to improve learning and talent development.

Margaret is interested in the development and design of connected learning environments that leverage xAPI and blended learning. Her background is in experiential education, curriculum design, teaching and team development. She is the VP of Community Impact for the Junior League of Baltimore, a member of the SXSWedu Advisory Board and co-founder of EdTechWomen.

Margaret received her BA in English and Environmental Earth Science and her MA in Teaching from Johns Hopkins University. She is a die-hard Blue Jay Lacrosse fan, spends a lot of time cooking, writing, organizing, and exploring and her favorite science-fiction novel is Neuromancer by William Gibson.

Tiffany Polk is an Executive Director within the GTI Integrated Compute Services (ICS) Organization. Her current role is Head of the Storage Service. She is accountable for the strategic direction, fiscal policy and operational soundness for the $470M Storage portfolio across File, Block and Object.

Prior to joining JP Morgan, she was Director of Client Management at EMC where she focused on Technology Services client delivery, solutions and portfolio.

Prior to EMC, Ms. Polk was a Senior Manager and Global Head of Services Portfolio, Operations and Communications at Hewlett-Packard. Ms. Polk has more than 20 years of Technology experience including Delivery, Program Management, Solution, Design, Sales and Services.

Ms. Polk is a member of GTI’s Diversity committee. She is also a member of WITI (Women in Technology International), PMI (Project Management Institute) and Delta Sigma Theta, a public service sorority.

Ms. Polk holds BA from Dartmouth College and a MS in Technology Management from the University of Maryland. She is married with two children and enjoys reading, travel and gardening.