Accessibility Vendor Showcase

Zoom registration link

Explore how audio solutions enhance digital accessibility, breaking down barriers for diverse learners while offering greater flexibility in how students engage with course content. With ReadSpeaker integrated into Brightspace, course text is converted into audio with a single click. 

Discover how text-to-speech supports multimodal learning, aiding students with learning differences, visual impairments, or language barriers when navigating dense readings, complex terminology, and assignment instructions. Learn how ReadSpeaker, a Universal Design for Learning (UDL) certified solution, proactively addresses accessibility compliance and supports student success.

In this session, you’ll learn:

• How to leverage ReadSpeaker to transform standard digital materials into more accessible audio content
• How embedding audio tools seamlessly into everyday course design and instruction makes course more accessible and engaging
• How audio supports neurodivergent learners, auditory processors, and dual-modality readers
• How ReadSpeaker aligns with UDL principles to help meet digital accessibility standards and improve inclusivity in course design

Join ReadSpeaker’s Erin Martin  and Colleen Sandquist as they discuss how audio can provide a fresh framework for creating a more inclusive digital learning environment.

Presenter: Kaitlin Young

Zoom registration link

Join Silktide for a practical, easy-to-follow demo on making web and PDF accessibility easier to manage. See how to find and prioritize accessibility issues, understand what needs fixing, and give everyone who manages web content the guidance and tools to improve it.

Silktide already works with SUNY Empire, SUNY Jefferson Community College, SUNY Niagara, SUNY Stony Brook University, and SUNY Tompkins Cortland Community College — so we’ll keep the demo relevant to the challenges SUNY teams are working through today.

Hosted by Kaitlin Young, Web Accessibility Consultant at Silktide, with 5+ years helping organizations improve their website accessibility.  

Accessibility questions answered by Jessica Chambers, Certified Professional in Web Accessibility (CPWA), with 12+ years in accessibility and a lot longer building for the web. Her specialty is making accessibility make sense by connecting how people think, what they notice, and what they can actually use into something practical

No accessibility expertise required. Bring your questions!

Separate resources

• Free Silktide Accessibility Checker
  Test any webpage for 200+ WCAG issues and get straightforward guidance on how to fix them.
  Try the free accessibility checker
• Silktide Accessibility Videos
  Short, practical videos that make web accessibility easier to understand and put into practice.
  Watch the accessibility video series
• Don’t Panic. It’s Just Accessibility.
  A friendly, funny, people-first introduction to accessibility — without the overwhelm.
  Read Don’t Panic
• ADA Website Compliance Guide
  A practical guide to understanding ADA website accessibility requirements and what they mean for your organization.
  Read the ADA compliance guide

Zoom registration link

Description:

As universities face mounting legal expectations – including updated ADA Title II regulations – proactive and sustainable digital accessibility is more critical than ever. This one-hour webinar explores GrackleDocs’ end-to-end suite of products and expert services, demonstrating how higher education institutions can seamlessly streamline digital accessibility, build organization-wide buy-in, and ensure every student, faculty member, and staff stakeholder has the accessible resources they need to succeed.

Key Topics Covered:

• Comprehensive Product Ecosystem: Explore industry-leading tools designed for higher education workflows, including Grackle Workspace, Grackle PDF for advanced document remediation, and Grackle Office for Microsoft environments.
• Expert Services & Auditing: Discover our professional PDF remediation services, where experts help transform complex files and legacy content into fully compliant assets. Followed by a comprehensive look at our specialized Grackle Audit services – including manual WCAG 2.2 alignment evaluations and user journey testing by individuals with disabilities – designed to ensure absolute compliance and elevate the user experience.
• Strategic Integration & Roadmaps: Learn how to move beyond reactive fixes by partnering with Grackle Consulting to develop tailored digital accessibility assessments, multi-year strategic plans, robust governance structures, and updated procurement policies.
• Building Buy-In & Training: Through Grackle Training, gain actionable techniques to foster institutional culture change, communicate the value of digital equity across departments, and leverage customized training programs and accessible Learning Management System (LMS) integration.

Separate Resources: 

• Grackle Go is our free PDF accessibility checker and validator. Simply create a Grackle Account, upload a PDF, and receive an interactive, printable compliance report. You can create your Grackle Account here.
• Grackle Office is an extension for Microsoft Word and PowerPoint that provides an accessibility checker directly within your documents, helping users identify and address accessibility issues. Grackle Office is simple to install, simple to use, and has a free trial available.
• Grackle Workspace is a Google Workspace add-on that provides an accessibility checker and generates accessible PDFs directly from Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides. A free trial is available through the Google Workspace Marketplace.
• Grackle PDF is designed for anyone who needs to quickly tag a PDF, including non-technical users. A free trial is available to help users see how PDF tagging can be fast and easy to do.

As the SUNY system-wide dedicated Account Manager, I would be happy to be included as a resource for anyone looking to learn more:

Christina Mackenzie
Dedicated Account Manager
cmackenzie@grackledocs.com

Zoom registration link

One Plan, Every Student: A Simpler Path to Campus Accessibility

Making lectures, events, and media accessible to every student is central to how colleges and universities serve their communities, and it supports compliance with ADA Title II. In this one-hour session, Verbit introduces Campus Complete, our higher education accessibility subscription that brings captioning, transcription, and audio description into a single plan, so institutions can meet that goal while keeping budgets predictable.

We’ll cover:

• Human and AI captioning across live and recorded content, from lectures to campus events to existing media libraries
• Unlimited AI Audio Description, now included, making video accessible to students who are blind or have low vision with no per-hour caps
• How one subscription keeps costs steady and puts disability services, accessibility, and IT teams on the same page
• How Campus Complete supports ADA Title II compliance for digital media on your campus

Zoom registration link

Presenter: Michael Peckham

Your website is the part of your digital estate everyone sees. Your PDFs are the part almost no one checks, and for most universities, that is exactly where accessibility risk piles up.

With the April 2027 ADA Title II deadline approaching, SUNY teams do not need another tool that lists problems and leaves you to it. You need a way to find every barrier across your website and your documents, fix what matters most, and build the documented record that shows the reasonable steps you are taking.

This session focuses on where the workload is heaviest: PDFs. Course catalogs, policies, forms, syllabi, and the thousands of documents that quietly make up a large share of any institution’s digital footprint. Michael Peckham will show you how to find inaccessible PDFs across your site, decide what to fix first, and remediate at scale without burying your team in manual rework.

You will also see how the same approach extends across your whole estate. Find barriers with the Website Accessibility Checker. Remediate documents with PDF Intercept. Give every visitor a more usable experience through the Assistive Toolbar. Capture your evidence with Accessibility Documentation. And bring in expert support through Accessibility Consultancy when you need a hand.

Hosted by Michael Peckham, Business Development Executive at Recite Me, this is a working hour, not a sales pitch. Expect straight answers to real questions and a clear picture of what proportionate, defensible accessibility progress looks like for a SUNY institution. Bring the PDFs and the problems that have been sitting on your list. This is the session to start sorting them.

Separate resources

• Recite Me Website Accessibility Checker
  Scan your site and surface the accessibility barriers hiding across your pages and documents, with plain guidance on what to fix first.
  Start a free accessibility scan
  
  
• Recite Me Assistive Toolbar
  Let visitors adjust how they read and navigate your content, from text and color changes to reading support and translation, so more people can use your site their way.
  Try the features
  
  
• PDF Accessibility Remediation Checklist
  A working checklist for reviewing, fixing, and maintaining accessible PDFs, built for the teams doing the work.
  Get your free checklist
  
  
• Education Report
  Practical steps to make your education website more accessible, remove digital barriers, and ensure students, parents, and staff can access the information and services they need.
  Download the report

Zoom Registration Link

Unlock Document Accessibility with SensusAccess and Sensus Remediator

Are you looking for ways to make your digital learning materials, documents, and content accessible to everyone? Join us for an upcoming presentation on SensusAccess and Sensus Remediator—two powerful tools designed to automate and simplify document remediation.

In this session, you will you will get to know how to:

• Convert documents automatically into accessible formats like audiobooks, e-books, DAISY books and digital Braille using SensusAccess.
• Remediate inaccessible  PDFs at scale with Sensus Remediator.
• Support diverse learning needs and ensure compliance with digital accessibility standards.

Whether you are an educator, administrator, or content creator, this session will give you practical insights into creating a more inclusive digital environment.

Tanja Stevns and Lars Christensen will be presenting and taking questions – we both have been working with accessible media for 20+ years and our services already support a number of universities and colleges in NY; many of them SUNYS.

See you then!

Zoom registration link

Genio delivers specialized note-taking support designed for students with accommodations. Already trusted by 27 SUNY institutions, Genio enables students to record lectures, integrate slides, and generate transcripts – with the option to provide comprehensive note sets for those needing higher-level assistance.

As a leader in STEM support, Genio features real-time formula recognition, digital ink annotations, freehand scribble, and advanced OCR technology to instantly extract text and complex equations from any image or slide, or even whiteboard pictures.

We look forward to demonstrating Genio’s newest capabilities, showing it in action, and answering your questions so you can maximize its value for you and your students.

Zoom registration link

Discover what’s possible when you provide accessible learning support that adapts to your students’ needs, rather than the other way around.

In this session, we’ll show you how you can change the lives of the students on your caseload – across every subject from STEM to Spanish – by giving them multiple ways to prepare for class, capture notes and study effectively.

Learn how to deliver personalised learning experiences for students with disabilities before, during and after class. Already part of a system-wide SUNY contract, Jamworks helps each and every student turn lectures into lasting knowledge.

We look forward to sharing how these experiences help students overcome barriers, build confidence and – in their own words – change their lives.

Zoom Registration Link

Join us for a session on how Zoom helps make virtual learning and communication more accessible for everyone. We’ll show real, working examples of features that support people with different hearing, vision, movement, and learning needs — like live captions, screen reader compatibility, and easy-to-use controls that let each person adjust their own experience. We’ll also talk openly about what Zoom already does well and where there’s still room to grow, keeping the conversation honest and practical rather than just a sales pitch. This is meant to be a conversation, not a lecture — come with your questions and experiences, and help shape what we discuss.

Zoom registration link

uConnect: Building Accessible Career Services Infrastructure for Higher Education

Presenter:
Stephy Miehle, UX, Product, & Accessibility Engineer, uConnect

Session Overview:

Join uConnect for an introduction and live demonstration of our Virtual Career Center platform, built to make career services accessible to every student, including those navigating disability services.

uConnect’s platform is designed to meet WCAG accessibility standards across the student-facing experience, with captioned and transcribed video content through our Candid Career library, screen-reader-compatible interfaces, and flexible advising tools that reduce barriers for students with visual, auditory, motor, or cognitive accommodations. Institutions use uConnect to ensure career readiness resources — resume help, employer events, career exploration — are reachable by every student, regardless of how they access them.

This session will explore how career services and disability services offices can partner using uConnect to close accessibility gaps in career programming, followed by a live demonstration and discussion of implementation across multi-campus systems like SUNY.

Resource Links:

• Product Overview
• Accessibility Policy

Zoom registration link

Presenter: George Haines

As higher education continues to focus on digital accessibility and inclusive learning environments, faculty need practical ways to design courses that give every student meaningful opportunities to access content, participate in learning, and demonstrate what they know. VoiceThread provides a flexible, multimodal environment that can help educators incorporate accessibility and Universal Design for Learning (UDL) principles directly into course activities and discussions.

In this one-hour webinar, participants will explore how VoiceThread can support multiple means of engagement, representation, and action and expression in online, hybrid, and face-to-face courses. We’ll look beyond simply making content accessible and consider how instructors can use VoiceThread’s range of communication and accessibility tools to create more flexible ways for students to learn and participate.

Participants will see how VoiceThread can support accessible course content and student participation through features such as closed captioning, automatic alt-text generation, video comments that support ASL and visual communication, screen-reader compatibility, and multiple comment formats including voice, video, text, and audio.

Key Topics Covered

Designing for Multiple Means of Engagement
Explore how VoiceThread can provide students with different ways to participate in discussions and interact with their instructor and classmates, helping create a stronger sense of presence and participation in online and hybrid learning environments.

Multiple Means of Representation
See how instructors can combine video, audio, images, documents, slides, and other media while using accessibility tools such as closed captioning and automatic alt-text to make course content available in more flexible ways.

Multiple Means of Action and Expression
Learn how students can demonstrate their learning through voice, video, text, audio, and other multimodal responses. We’ll consider how offering different methods of expression can remove unnecessary barriers without lowering academic expectations.

Accessibility Features in VoiceThread
Get a practical look at VoiceThread’s built-in accessibility capabilities, including closed captioning, automatic alt-text, keyboard navigation, screen-reader support, accessible media, and video comments that can support ASL and other visual forms of communication.

Accessible Discussions and Student Interaction
Explore strategies for creating accessible asynchronous discussions that encourage meaningful interaction between students and instructors while giving learners greater flexibility in how they engage and respond.

Accessibility and UDL in Practice
Connect VoiceThread’s accessibility features to Universal Design for Learning principles and leave with practical ideas for incorporating accessible, multimodal activities into existing courses without having to completely redesign them.

No previous VoiceThread or accessibility expertise is required. Participants will leave with practical strategies they can apply to their own courses and a better understanding of how VoiceThread can support accessible, flexible, and inclusive learning experiences across SUNY.

Zoom registration link

At Odysseus Software LLC, we specialize in developing innovative software solutions that address unmet needs across various industries. We invite collaboration and feedback from all sectors to ensure our tools effectively support users.

Drawing on the extensive experience of two of our senior managers, who previously worked in education software with Lenovo, we proudly present our flagship product, AutoAccessible.com. This tool revolutionizes document accessibility by updating Word, Excel, PowerPoint, PDF, and Google Docs to comply with WCAG standards. Unique to AutoAccessible is its capability to handle untagged PDFs – whether scanned or older – alongside a built-in ADA Scanner that verifies compliance. Users can make updates directly in the interface to address any overlooked requirements, making AutoAccessible both quick and user-friendly.

We offer a free trial period for individual users. Additionally, for educational institutions, we empower school administrators to set up user accounts and access detailed analytics through an intuitive dashboard.

In this session, we will provide a comprehensive walk-through of our product and roadmap, demonstrating how to update your documents swiftly and accurately.

We are dedicated to continuous improvement and value the insights of our users, enabling us to enhance our offerings and better serve our customers.

Zoom registration link

getAbstract provides concise written and audio summaries of nonfiction books and other resources to support workplace learning and professional development.

getAbstract can support workplace accessibility by providing employees with multiple ways to access learning and professional development content. For employees who are blind or have low vision, digital content and audio summaries can provide alternatives to traditional printed materials and may work with assistive technologies such as screen readers and magnification tools. For employees who are deaf or hard of hearing, written summaries provide an alternative to audio-based learning, allowing them to access key information without relying on spoken content. Concise summaries can also benefit employees with dyslexia, cognitive disabilities, attention-related disabilities, or other learning differences by presenting information in shorter, more manageable sections. Employees can access content on demand and at their own pace, allowing them to pause, revisit, or review information as needed. By offering different formats and flexible ways to engage with content, getAbstract can help create a more inclusive workplace learning environment that supports employees with a range of disabilities, access needs, and learning preferences.

Zoom registration link

Hushbird: Private On-Device Mac Dictation, Reading & Translation for Student Accommodations

Presenter:
Steven Peguero, Founder & Principal Developer, PSYT LLC

Session Overview:
Join PSYT LLC for an introduction and live demonstration of Hushbird (hushbird.app), an on-device accessibility application built natively for macOS on Apple Silicon.

Hushbird provides system-wide speech-to-text dictation, synchronized text-to-speech reading with visual tracking, and inline two-way translation across all native Mac applications. Designed specifically to resolve the Mac accommodation gap following the discontinuation of Dragon for Mac, Hushbird runs 100% locally on-device with zero cloud audio uploads, ensuring complete student privacy and FERPA compliance without recurring subscription costs.

This session will explore how Hushbird supports students and researchers with repetitive strain injuries, motor accommodations, dyslexia, ADHD, and cognitive processing fatigue, followed by a live demonstration and discussion of institutional licensing and campus testing center deployment.

Resource Links:
• Product Overview
• Accessibility Conformance Report (VPAT – Section 508 / WCAG 2.1 AA)
• Vendor Information: PSYT LLC (Boston, MA) | SAM.gov UEI: ZST3XWTXJYE6 | COMMBUYS Vendor ID: 00091426

Zoom registration link

AT&T enables the connected technologies that help colleges and universities create more accessible, inclusive, and safer learning environments. Through AT&T’s IoT connectivity, FirstNet network capabilities, and device management platforms, institutions can deploy and manage a wide range of accessibility-focused solutions across their campuses.

Zoom Registration Link

Coursedog: Automated Accessibility Compliance in Catalog & Syllabus Publishing

Coursedog is an academic operations platform helping institutions modernize academic operations to support student enrollment, retention and success. This session looks at Catalogs and Syllabus – two of the most heavily scrutinized document types in ADA/Section 504 compliance reviews – and how accessibility can be engineered into the systems that produce them, rather than fixed after the fact.

We’ll walk through how Coursedog generates catalog and syllabus PDFs built to WCAG 2.2 AA and PDF/UA-1 standards, with structural remediation applied automatically at the moment of publishing – no manual PDF cleanup required for the elements that create the most common screen-reader failures.

In this session, you’ll see:

• How tagged structure, reading order, and heading-level normalization are applied automatically as catalog and syllabus PDFs are generated
• How table header attributes, accessible link wrapping, and decorative-content tagging are handled without manual intervention
• The clear line between what’s automated and what still requires human judgment – alt text, color contrast, and descriptive language remain an editor’s responsibility and where that handoff happens
• How the public catalog editor surfaces accessibility issues in context by integrating the WAVE accessibility checker directly into the publishing workflow
• How proactive, built-in remediation supports institutions preparing for the April 2027 ADA Title II compliance deadline

This session is aimed at disability services staff, accessibility officers, registrars, and catalog/curriculum administrators who want to understand how document accessibility can be handled upstream, at the point of publishing, instead of as a recurring manual audit.