Ex-congresswoman Gabby Giffords (D-AZ) is joining AudioEye's advisory board.
In a press release published last week, Arizona-based web accessibility company AudioEye announced Gabby Giffords has agreed to join its advisory board. The move is described by AudioEye as an effort to “drive awareness of digital accessibility for persons with disabilities.”
Giffords, whom AudioEye called “one of the most powerful voices in the disability community,” is a former congresswoman from Arizona who suffered a severe brain injury following an assassination attempt on her life outside Tucson in January 2011. Since the shooting, she has dedicated her life to raising awareness for aphasia, a neurological condition where a person has difficulty comprehending or formulating language. Approximately 2 million people in America cope with aphasia.
In a statement included in the press release, AudioEye chief executive officer David Moradi hailed Giffords’ appointment to the company’s advisory board, saying her “influence in the disability community, paired with her passion for change, will help AudioEye continue to make great strides in building solutions that close the digital accessibility gap.”
For her part, Giffords said in her own statement she is looking forward to working in this new partnership with AudioEye. She added that their commitment to listening to disabled people about their needs and tolerances is “mission critical” as the work to make the internet more accessible to everyone continues. “Online is a lifeline for the disability community. That’s why technological tools like news, shopping, banking, and search need to be powerfully optimized for inclusivity,” she said.
The addition of Giffords to AudioEye’s advisory board is significant, as it marks the second high-profile former congressperson to work with the company on digital accessibility. As I’ve mentioned several times, Tony Coelho (D-CA), who’s widely credited with pioneering and writing the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), is a member of AudioEye’s board of directors. I interviewed him in 2020, where he said digital accessibility is the ADA’s Achilles heel. “My hope is that we continue to recognize the importance of equal access and continue to push for online equality,” Coelho told me of making the internet more accessible. “We have accomplished a lot for the physical space in 30 years [the ADA was enacted in 1990], but we have a lot left to do in this digital era.”
