Virtual Ability's Annual International Disability Rights Affirmation Conference

 

You are cordially invited to attend Virtual Ability's annual International Disability Rights Affirmation Conference. This year it will be held on Friday, November 10. It is in Sojourner Auditorium on Virtual Ability island.

http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Virtual%20Ability/54/170/23

This year's theme is "Do, Create, Live." We're looking at what people with disabilities can do, create, and live when their rights are respected.

Here is the schedule (subject to change, and in SLT, of course).

7-7:30am - Joseph English will talk about how setting up QuadRebuild to help others changed his new life as a quadriplegic

7:30-8:30am - Erin Willis and Daniel Garza will explain their research on patient influencers who do direct-to-consumer pharmaceutical marketing

8:30-9:30am - Emily Wright, who survived multiple concussions, explains how she rebalanced her mind

9:30-10:30am - John Cronin, who has Down syndrome, describes his Crazy Socks store and how he runs it with his father Mark Cronin

10:30am-11am - a panel discusses what "Do, Create, Live" means in education

11:00-11:30am - BREAK!

11:30am-noon - Keri Gray tells about the National Alliance of Melanin Disabled Advocates (the NAMED Advocates).

noon-12:30pm - a panel discusses what "Do, Create, Live" means in the arts

12:30-1:30pm - Judy Mittag explains how advocates got federal legislation passed to require insurance coverage for lymphedema supplies

1:30-2:30pm - Heather Markham, author, shares how we can each choose a title for our own stories

You can learn more about the speakers here: https://virtualability.org/idrac-2023/

We hope you can attend our conference.

Questions? Ask Gentle Heron.

Announcement: Virtual Ability IDRAC Conference This Friday

 Save the Date- Oct 28 IDRAC 

Virtual Ability's annual International Disability Rights Affirmation Conference is a free public professional conference. This year's conference is on Friday, October 28, in the Sojourner Auditorium on Virtual Ability island. The theme of the conference is "Access to Justice."

The impetus behind Virtual Ability's conferences is to provide professional-level information to the general public in a highly accessible format. Most of us would never get to hear from and interact with these researchers and other experts outside of Second Life!

You can see the conference schedule and more about the speakers here: https://virtualability.org/idrac-2022/

Presenters at this year's conference range from a lawyer talking about how "typical" employment hours are discriminatory,  to a student investigating the fairness of AI hiring software; from a retired professor who became a disability ally, to a physical therapist who has written children's books featuring a dog with an amputated leg who deals with discrimination and bullying.

Additionally, several of the poster sets on Healthinfo Island address topics related to Access to Justice. These you can visit any time during the month of October. Be sure to click each poster for additional information and live links. You can get a notecard containing all the text (posters + click text) plus image descriptions by clicking the entrance poster.

We hope you can attend the IDRAC conference on October 28. If you (your avatar) can't attend live in Second Life, you can watch the conference live stream on Virtual Ability's YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/VirtualAbilityInc

http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Virtual%20Ability/54/170/23

 

Reminder: IDRAC Conference Tomorrow

 

Just a reminder that the International Disability Rights Affirmation Conference is tomorrow, Saturday October 10, at the Sojourner Auditorium at Virtual Ability.

Click Here for the schedule.

http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Virtual%20Ability/54/170/23

Press Release: International Disability Rights Affirmation Conference, Oct 10

International Disability Rights Affirmation Conference
Saturday October 10
Sojourner Auditorium on Virtual Ability island

http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Virtual%20Ability/54/170/23

To celebrate the 30th anniversary of the signing of the Americans with Disability Act, our theme this year is “Where have we been? Where are we headed? How should we get there?”

7:30am SLT- "Ludic Design for Accessibility" - Manohar Swaminathan, Microsoft Research India

8:30am SLT- "Exploring Ethical and Social Implications of Embodied AI" - Amelia Fiske, Technical University of Munich

9:15am SLT- "Memories of July 26, 1990" - Margaret Nosek, Baylor College of Medicine

10am SLT- "Who are the Heroes? A History of the Disability Rights Movement" - Barry Whaley, Southeast ADA Center

11:30am SLT- David Larson, Hamline School of Law, Dispute Resolution Institute

1pm SLT- "Employment and the ADA" - Krista Watson, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission

2:30pm SLT- "Women with Disabilities: Experiences of Microaggressions" - Rhoda Olkin, Alliant International University

You can read more about the speakers and their session topics at the conference website: https://virtualability.org/idrac-2020/

Press Release: 2019 IDRAC Schedule

This year’s annual IDRAC conference will be held on Friday and Saturday, November 1 and 2. It has the theme “We help each other, we help ourselves.”
Read about the conference here: https://virtualability.org/idrac-2019/

The conference is held in the Sojourner Auditorium on Virtual Ability island.
The SLURL is http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Virtual%20Ability/54/170/23

Here is the schedule.

NOTE All times are given as SLT or Second Life Time, which is the same as Pacific time in California. You should use a converter such as https://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/converter-classic.html to confirm your local time.

FRIDAY
7 am SLT Mari Kimura (PCORI)
“The Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI): Mission and Successes”
8:30 am SLT Arleen Ionescu (Shanghai Jiao Tong University) and Anne-Marie Callus (University of Malta)
"Reading the Personal and the Social in Disability Studies and Trauma Studies"
10 am SLT Catalin Brylla (University of West London)
“Disability and Media Representation”
11:30 am SLT Frederic Fovet (Royal Roads University)
“UDL in Higher Ed: Shifting access from the remedial to the proactive”
1 pm SLT Nohemi Lugo, Maria Elena Melon, Maria Concepcion Castillo (Tecnologico de Monterrey, Mexico)
“The representation of autism in the narratives of fanfiction.net: Affinity spaces as an opportunity for the negotiation of meaning”

SATURDAY
6:30 am SLT panel “Hearing Our Voices” with Alyssa Hillary (blogger and advocate), Rob Castellanos (Syndio Health) and Kirk Munsch (Rare Patient Voice)
8 am SLT showing and discussion of the video “The Bench”
9 am SLT Fleur Heleen Boot (Radboud University Medical Centre, the Netherlands)
"Which factors influence access to assistive products for people with intellectual disabilities?"
10:30 am SLT Sunil Deepak (AIFO, Italy)
"Challenges and Opportunities in Community-based Rehabilitation and Emancipatory Disability Research"
Noon SLT Katherine Breward (University of Winnipeg)
"Disability Accommodation and Intersectional Identities: Evidence for Differential Requesting and Accommodation Rates"
1:30 pm SLT Lydia X. Z. Brown (advocate)
"The Autistic People of Color Fund: Building Networks of Mutual Aid by/for Negatively Racialized Autistic People"

Press Release: International Disability Rights Affirmation Conference This Friday, Saturday

International Disability Rights Affirmation Conference (IDRAC 2016)
"We’re Part of the Community.”
The Sojourner Auditorium, Virtual Ability Island??
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Virtual%20Ability/56/174/23

Friday, November 18
8am Caroline Pavis of Johnson and Johnson will talk about their HealthEVoices disability bloggers conference.
9:30am Theresa Lorenzo of the University of Cape Town, South Africa, will talk about her research on ways to make disability-inclusive services available in rural areas of South Africa, Botswana and Malawi.
11am A panel of members of Chronic Pain Anonymous will talk about peer support in various social media venues.
12:30pm Members of the Baylor College of Medicine (TX) Center for Research on Women with Disabilities will talk about their GoWoman weight management project for women with mobility disabilities.
2pm Maggie Sheets with the Disability Policy Consortium of Massachusetts will explain the importance of including people with disability in policy making.


Saturday, November 19
8am l’Arche, an intentional mixed residential community for people with and without intellectual disabilities (presenter still being confirmed).
9:30am Margaret Nosek, professor in Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at Baylor College of Medicine, will talk about her research projects in Second Life for women with physical disabilities.
11am John Lester, expert in online communities and former Education Liaison with Linden Lab, will talk about early patient support communities in virtual worlds created by Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard.
12:30pm A presentation by Virtual Ability community member KriJon about people with disabilities and 9/11.

For more information about presenters and presentations, please see the Virtual Ability blog:
http://blog.virtualability.org

Press Release: International Disability Rights Affirmation Conference on Oct 3-4

You're invited to the Oct. 3-4, 2014 International Disability Rights Affirmation Conference (IDRAC), sponsored by Virtual Ability®,Inc. This international conference will be held in Second Life®.

The theme for 2014 is "Technically, we're accessible... right?" Exploring True Inclusion in the Digital World.

Join colleagues, friends, and community members for presentations on web accessibility, advances in assistive technology, creating an accessible user experience, accessible gaming, emerging standards for technology, and more! Presenters from Spain, U.K., U.S., and Australia will join us at The Sojourner Auditorium on Virtual Ability Island within Second Life.

Why don’t you join us, too?

Questions?
Contact sister@virtualability.org or Sister Abeyante
Keep your eyes on Virtual Ability's blog for more information as we get closer to this exciting event!

http://blog.virtualability.org/

Press Release: IDRAC Disability Rights Conference at Virtual Ability

The time for Virtual Ability's annual International Disability Rights Affirmation Conference is upon us once again. This year the theme is "Let Me In" and the dates are Friday and Saturday, the 27th and 28th of September on Virtual Ability Island.

We are so excited! We invite you to attend the conference if you can, and tell your friends about it - bring them along! 

The slate of presenters is broad and varied. We'll have:

- Panels talking about disability rights around the world
- A keynote address about how young children with disabilities can learn through play
- Another keynote presentation about the World Report on Disability
- A discussion about making buildings more accessible
- Empowerment medicine
- Autism in India
- Reproductive health literacy in Ghana
- Emergency preparedness
- And more

Presenters hail from places as diverse as Germany, South Africa and the Netherlands. Panelists come from places as widespread as Brazil, Italy, Japan, Ecuador, and Denmark.

You can find more information about the conference, the speakers and the schedule on Virtual Ability's website at http://www.virtualability.org and the blog at http://blog.virtualability.org.

Join us on the 27th and 28th as we celebrate successes, identify issues and re-affirm the rights of people with disabilities across the world.

International Disability Rights Affirmation Conference (IDRAC)
September 27 & 28, 2013
The Sojourner Auditorium, Virtual Ability Island

Virtual Ability (53/172/23)

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Daniel Voyager had a list of panellists on his blog:

International Panel #1- FRI Sept 27, 5:30pm SLT
Moderator- Svea Morane (US)
Panelist from Brazil- Roth Grut
Panelist from Ecuador- Losairam
Panelist from Denmark- Jens Nerido

International Panel #2- SAT Sept 28, 7am SLT
Moderator- Tom Bukowski (US)
Panelist from Germany- Letty Pienaar
Panelist from Portugal- Winter Wardhani
Panelist from Australia- JayJay Zifanwe

International Panel #3- SAT Sept 28, 1pm SLT
Moderator- Blu Heron (US)
Panelist from Italy- Slatan Dryke
Panelist from Greece- Libido Siemens
Panelist from Egypt- jihan wonder

International Panel #4- SAT Sept 28, 5:30pm SLT
Moderator- Kopilo Hallard (Australia)
Panelist from Canada- LifeSkillsWorker
Panelist from Malaysia- Loquacia Loon
Panelist from Japan- Kiremimi Tigerpaw
Panelist from United States- Zsuzsa Tomsen