Apple Celebrates 15 Years of GAAD with Co-founders Joe Devon & Jennison Asuncion

As the GAAD (Global Accessibility Awareness Day) Foundation marks its 15th annual Global Accessibility Awareness Day this month, co-founders Joe Devon and Jennison Asuncion had the privilege of speaking at Apple's Cupertino, California campus. After a decade of celebrating GAAD as a company, Apple honored the milestone this year by welcoming Joe and Jennison for a conversation with Sarah Herrlinger, Apple's Senior Director of Global Accessibility Policy & Initiatives. Their conversation covered the origins and significance of the day, the meaningful progress made toward a more accessible digital world, and the work that still lies ahead.

"It was wonderful to see how aligned the mission of GAAD is with Apple's own core values, and to see how many people at Apple genuinely care about accessibility and are engaged in the conversation," said Joe Devon, Co-Founder of GAAD.

This month's fireside celebrated 15 years of meaningful dialogue and concrete action in the accessibility space. A central theme of this year's conversation was, naturally, the rise of artificial intelligence and its potential to reshape the world yet again. GAAD is committed to ensuring that this wave of new technology does not leave people with disabilities behind, a pattern that has repeated itself too often across the broader tech industry. Apple has demonstrated its commitment to embedding accessible design into the earliest phases of its software and hardware development, providing a model for other companies in turn to build a more inclusive world.