Philly Tech Week 2018

Erica is CTO & Founder at IOpipe where she is building tools to help developers of serverless applications iterate faster and support their applications in production. She is a former maintainer of Docker and OpenStack and has been building cloud, ops, and infrastructure tooling for over 15 years.

Darian Davis is an Experience Designer at Think Company. In his role, he is focused on building evidence-based designs and crafting well-considered experiences. Darian has previously worked in the IoT industry crafting UX solutions for apps linking internet-connected devices for companies including ADT and T-Mobile. With a background in visual design, Darian maintains a balance of form and function in his design process, offering clients a well-rounded perspective when approaching new challenges.

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.

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.

Kathryn is VP of Marketing at La Colombe Coffee Roasters. She drives marketing and communications efforts for one of the leading independent coffee roasters and ready-to-drink companies in the US. With a knack and a passion for positioning brands at the intersection of aspirational lifestyle and functional, Kathryn works to build brand awareness and promote La Colombe’s products and services to consumers through retail, e-commerce, cafe, and hospitality channels. Kathryn came to La Colombe from her position as Director of Marketing for Free People, a boutique women’s fashion brand and part of Urban Outfitters, Inc. An intuitive understanding of people and their behavior helps Kathryn accomplish her ultimate goal: connecting more people with great product.

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.

As founder and creative director of creative incubator REC Philly—credited for its worthwhile events throughout the city—Will is doing his part to help creative entrepreneurs build and sustain professional careers within their industry. He is on the path to incite valuable change in Philly's art and music culture.