The world’s largest digital accessibility event.

Live virtual event: February 23-24, 2027

35,000

registrants

12,000

organizations

75

expert presenters

5

years running

Register for Free

Call for Presenters

Axe-con: Where the global digital accessibility community comes together

Join fellow developers, designers, business users, and accessibility professionals of all experience levels as we advance digital accessibility programs across the globe. You’ll learn the latest trends in tech, global compliance, and more, as we focus on building, testing, and delivering accessible digital experiences.

Together, let’s shape the future of digital accessibility.

Meet our 2027 keynote presenters

See who’ll be giving keynotes at Axe-con 2027 and make sure to check back frequently as we continue to announce new expert presenters.

Keynote

Co-founder of CodePen, Co-Host of ShopTalk Show

Keynote

Co-Founder of Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD)

70+ additional expert presenters

Stay tuned for more updates!

Apply to present at Axe-con 2027

Axe-con is powered by our presenters. Submit your proposal for our Development, Design, Organizational Success in Accessibility, or Wildcard breakout tracks.

Call for Presenters

Axe-con 2026 presenter Kai Wong

Axe-con 2026 presenter wearing an a11y vibes shirt

Axe-con presenters are the #1 reason why people love to attend

Here are just some of the incredible digital accessibility and disability advocates, allies, and change-makers who’ve joined our events.

Disabled Activist, Writer, Media Maker, and Consultant

Lawyer; Disability rights advocate

United States Senator, Disability Rights Advocate

Wall Street Journal bestselling author, researcher, and multiple award-winning CTO

Inventor of the World Wide Web, Founder and Director of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)

Disability Rights and Inclusion Activist and Speaker

Expert presenters join us from leading companies such as:

ADP

Meta

Axe-con is a breath of fresh air in the midst of a culture that pushes back hard on accessibility implementation.
2026 Attendee

The sessions were informative, and the speakers shared valuable real-world accessibility experiences.
2026 Attendee

I found myself wanting my entire agile team to participate.
2026 Attendee

I look forward to it every year!
2026 Attendee

I really appreciate being able to attend this conference for free and rewatch the talks on my own time.
2026 Attendee

Thank you to the team for putting together such a meaningful event.
2026 Attendee

My friends are already sick of hearing me go on and on about how great it was.
2026 Attendee

Attendance is free! Register now.

The sooner you register, the sooner you can get updates, build your itinerary, and connect with the community.

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Get instant access to the Axe-con library of past presentations.

As a registered attendee, you can attend live and also get access to our incredible collection of past presentation recordings.

Browse Last Year’s Sessions

Axe-con 2026

Building a stronger, more innovative accessibility community

Haben Girma

Lawyer; Disability rights advocate

Axe-con 2026

Accessibility in the End of Deterministic Design (Again)

Anna Cook

Senior Inclusive Designer

Axe-con 2026

Shift Left Without Shifting Gears: Accessibility in Your Existing Workflow

Harris Schneiderman

Director of Product Management

Axe-con 2026

Accessible by Default: Scaling Design Systems with AI-Assisted Development

Jesse Beach

Software Engineering Manager

Attendance is free! Register now.

The sooner you register, the sooner you can get updates, build your itinerary, and connect with the community.

Register for Free

Alice Wong is a writer, editor, and disability justice activist cultivating a vibrant and diverse community of disabled people rooted in joy, abundance, mutual aid, and care. Wong is steeped in disability justice and uses the power of storytelling across various media platforms. She publishes personal stories that expose ableist attitudes, policies, and practices across a society that pushes disabled people to the margins. She also shares her own experiences navigating the world as a disabled person with a progressive neuromuscular disease.
In 2014, Wong founded theÂ Disability Visibility ProjectÂ (DVP) to amplify the unfiltered voices of disabled people and explore the intersections of race, ethnicity, gender identity, and disability. DVP began with an oral history project encouraging disabled people to interview one another. It has since expanded to include a podcast, a blog, social media, arts projects, and spaces for connection and community building. DVP centers disabled peopleâs perspectives around topics such as opioid addiction, sexual abuse, mental health, economic insecurity, and education. Wong has edited two essay collectionsâDisability Visibility: First-Person Stories from the Twenty-First CenturyÂ (2020) andÂ Disability Intimacy: Essays on Love, Care, and DesireÂ (2024)âthat capture the diverse experiences of disabled people and the specific challenges faced by people of color, immigrants, and queer people who are disabled. Wongâs own writings highlight the shortcomings of systems of care available to people with disabilities. In op-eds, a column forÂ Teen Vogue,Â essays on DVP, and her memoir,Â Year of the Tiger: An Activistâs LifeÂ (2022), she gives unflinching accounts of the challenges of living in the community with autonomy, rather than in an institution.
Wong has also brought broader attention to the widespread ableism and prejudice disabled people face and to the policies that adversely affect them, such as theÂ ban on drinking strawsÂ and theÂ disuse of masks in healthcare settings. She used hashtag activism, such as #PodSaveJon and #HighRiskCA, to create change and bring disabled people together in conversation. In 2016, she co-founded #CripTheVote, a nonpartisan online movement that engaged voters and politicians in productive discussions about disability issues in the United States. In another line of work, Wong has helped found organizations that provide material and professional development support to disabled people working in different industries. One such project is the BIPOC Disabled Filmmakers Coalition. With visionary and committed leadership, Wong highlights and supports the work of disabled people, builds relationships and collaborations within the disability community, challenges social and systemic ableism, and increases the political and cultural visibility of disabled people.

Alice’s Sessions

Combating Ableism and Driving Positive Change

Axe-con 2025 Keynote

Watch Recording

Preferred Pronouns: She/Her
The first Deafblind person to graduate from Harvard Law School, Haben Girma, is a human rights lawyer advancing disability justice. President Obama named her a White House Champion of Change. She received the Helen Keller Achievement Award, a spot on the Forbes 30 Under 30 list, and TIME100 Talks. President Bill Clinton, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and Chancellor Angela Merkel have all honored Haben. Haben believes disability is an opportunity for innovation, and she teaches organizations the importance of choosing inclusion. The New York Times, Oprah Magazine, and TODAY Show featured her memoir, Haben: The Deafblind Woman Who Conquered Harvard Law.
Haben was born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, where she currently lives. Her memoir takes readers on adventures around the world, including her parents’ homes in Eritrea and Ethiopia, building a school under the scorching Saharan sun, training with a guide dog in New Jersey, climbing an iceberg in Alaska, fighting for blind readers at a courthouse in Vermont, and talking with President Obama at the White House. Warm, funny, thoughtful, and uplifting, this captivating book is a testament to Haben’s determination to resist isolation and find the keys to connection.
The hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook (narrated by Haben herself) are available at most bookstores. Learn more on the book page.
Watch Haben’s 2021 keynote: “Difference Drives Innovation & Disability Inclusion Benefits All of Us“

Haben’s Sessions

Building a stronger, more innovative accessibility community

Axe-con 2026 Keynote

Watch Recording

U.S. Senator Tammy Duckworth is an Iraq War Veteran, Purple Heart recipient, and former Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs who was among the first handful of Army women to fly combat missions during Operation Iraqi Freedom. Duckworth served in the Reserve Forces for 23 years before retiring at the rank of Lieutenant Colonel in 2014. She was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2016 after representing Illinoisâs Eighth Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives for two terms.
In 2004, Duckworth was deployed to Iraq as a Blackhawk helicopter pilot for the Illinois Army National Guard. On November 12, 2004, her helicopter was hit by an RPG and she lost her legs and partial use of her right arm. After spending 13 months recovering from a double amputation, Duckworth became Director of the Illinois Department of Veteransâ Affairs, and in 2009 she was appointed Assistant Secretary of Veterans Affairs by President Barack Obama. Three years later, Duckworth left that post to join the U.S. House of Representatives. In 2016, she was elected to the U.S. Senate.
Senator Duckworth is the first woman with a disability elected to the United States House of RepresentativesÂ and the U.S. Senate. During the 115th Congress, Duckworth saved the Americans with Disabilities Act. Specifically, she led public opposition to a controversial bill, H.R. 620, and led 42 senators in pledging to oppose any effort to pass H.R. 620 through the Senate. The Veterans Service Organization and Paralyzed Veterans of America recognized Duckworth’s leadership in defending the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Her legislative accomplishments also include expanding Medicare coverage for durable medical equipment, making public transit stations accessible, advocating for students with disabilities, ensuring fair rates for communication between incarcerated individuals and their families, addressing maternal mortality among veterans, and securing resources for State Medicaid Home and Community-Based Services.
Learn more about Senator Duckworth by visiting:Â Duckworth.Senate.gov/About-Tammy/Biography

Tammy’s Sessions

A Conversation with Senator Duckworth and Former Representative Coelho

Axe-con 2025 Keynote

Watch Recording

Sir Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web while at CERN, the European Particle Physics Laboratory, in 1989. He wrote the first web client and server in 1990. His specifications of URIs, HTTP and HTML were refined as Web technology spread.

He is the co-founder and CTO of Inrupt.com, a tech start-up that uses, promotes and helps develop the open source Solid platform. Solid aims to give people control and agency over their data, questioning many assumptions about how the web has to work. Solid technically is a new level of standard at the web layer, which adds features never put into the original spec, such as global single sign-on, universal access control, and a universal data API so that any app can store data in any storage place. Socially Solid is a movement away from much of the issues with the current WWW, and toward a world in which users are in control, and empowered by large amounts of data, private, shared, and public.

Sir Tim is the Founder, Emeritus Director, and an Honorary Member of the Board of Directors of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), a Web standards organization that he founded in 1994 which develops interoperable technologies (specifications, guidelines, software, and tools) to lead the Web to its full potential. He is a Director of the World Wide Web Foundation that was launched in 2009 to coordinate efforts to further the potential of the Web to benefit humanity.

He is the Emeritus 3Com Founders Professor of Engineering in the School of Engineering with a joint appointment in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the Laboratory for Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence ( CSAIL) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) where he founded the Decentralized Information Group (DIG).

Research at DIG and its collaborators was the origin of what became the Solid Platform.

He is also a Professor in the Computer Science Department, and an Honorary Student at Christ Church, at the University of Oxford, UK. He is President of and co-founder the Open Data Institute in London.