Try to remember March 2020. The COVID epidemic was raging and businesses sent everyone home to work remotely. Ted Drake and Sagar Barbhaya were at the 2020 CSUN ATC conference. Returning to our homes, we wondered if we could continue the energy and curiosity found at a conference, only transforming it for a virtual work environment. The following week, we launched Intuit’s Zoom-based Accessibility Lunch and Learn series. It was an experiment planned to last only a few weeks. We reached out to our Accessibility Champion network and quickly arranged daily lectures, mostly based on presentations already given at onboarding and other training events. As the epidemic grew, we turned inward and focused less on accessibility and more on our mental health, living with a disability, and celebrating our diversity. The key transformation came with a talk about sobriety in the workplace. The speaker’s courage to discuss her journey led to heartfelt conversations about mental health, the loss of community, and the struggle where colleagues were trying to encourage hope with “happy hours” and alcohol-related team building activities. This presentation led to immediate improvements in our workplace language and pandemic policies. It also showed a lunch and learn was more than a lecture. It could be the community we were aching for. With more than 100 presentations and thousands of participants, we continue to learn something new every week.

1. Transforming
Accessibility
One Lunch at a time

2. Ted Drake
Accessibility and Inclusive Design Leader
Intuit
CSUN ATC co-Program Chair

3. CSUN 2023
● Ken Bigler: Design System Accessibility
● Poonam Tathavadkar: How to Make the Hiring Process Inclusive
● Ted Drake (Program Chair):
○ Transforming Accessibility at Intuit, One Lunch at a Time
○ CSUN's Legacy: Sessions that Changed our Careers
○ Pushing the Boundaries: Accessibility in Virtual Spaces

4. Let’s go back to 2020

5. CSUN 2020
Lots of anxiety about COVID
Empty rooms and social
distancing
Many sessions cancelled,
including several from Intuit
Still great learning opportunities

7. Lockdown for…. 3 weeks?

8. What do we do with this
time at home?
Let’s capture the spirit of CSUN

11. During great uncertainty,
focus on community
development
Lesson #1

12. The original goals
● Make accessibility exciting
● Share the spotlight
● Shared knowledge
● Learn something new
● Archive everything

13. Accessibility Champions
The majority of presentations (86%) were the result of Accessibility
Champions sharing their knowledge and network.
These included our Level 2 and 3 Champions
2020 talks
● 47% - Accessibility Engineering
● 13% - Inclusive Design
● 6% - Neurodiversity

14. It got personal and
everything changed

15. “Breaking the stigma of addiction in the workplace”
- Alicia Parrot
Month 2 of lockdown
● Isolation increased struggle for those in recovery
● COVID lockdown inspired virtual “happy hours”, “beer bashes”, and
“cocktail hours”.
○ These references were changed after this talk.
● Alicia explained sobriety, challenged the stigma of recovery, and
began Intuit’s focus on Mental Health during lockdown.

16. We are stronger together
Lesson #2

17. A diagnosis becomes a community
Gil Aguilar was one of our original Lunch and Learn
attendees
Level 2 Accessibility Champion
Diagnosed with Autism (1) in 2021.
Shared his experience with neurodiversity:
Neurodiversity as an adult in the workplace -
September 2021

18. A community develops
Gil introduced many people to adult diagnosis
Became a mentor for dozens of colleagues
Autism and ADHD community groups founded
17 Lunch and Learns have transformed neurodiversity in the workplace

19. Gil's openness and vulnerability about being Autistic,
Dyslexic and an ADHDer has helped to build a vibrant
and supportive neurodiverse community that continues
to grow.
As a level 1 diagnosed Autistic, Gil was instrumental in
my journey of self acceptance.
- Priscilla Carson

20. Long Covid and Brain Fog - 2022
2021
● Pam Bingham has Covid and experiences
Long Covid
January
● Pam Bingham’s Long Covid and Brain Fog
Accessibility Lunch and Learn
● Follow up presentations at Intuit
● Proposal for Long Covid support shared
with Intuit leadership
March
● Pam Bingham and Ted Drake - Long Covid
at CSUN
Publications
April
● Time: TurboTax’s Workplace Has a Long
Covid Policy. Does yours?
● Quartz: Your problem concentrating at work
might be long covid
June
● Workology: Long-COVID and How It
Impacts a Company With Pam Bingham
From Intuit
● Authority Magazine: Disability Inclusion In
The Workplace: Intuit’s Ted Drake On How
Businesses Make Accommodations For
Customers and Employees Who Have a
Disability

21. One talk can transform
a company
Lesson #3

22. The nitty gritty

23. Privacy
● Sessions are only for Intuit
● Anonymize archive when appropriate
● Stop recording and continue conversation

24. Technology
● Started with Bluejeans, advocated for Zoom’s better accessibility
● Drove integration of auto-captioning in Zoom
● Temi for higher quality transcripts and captions
● High quality archives with resources and transcript
○ Each talk takes 2-3 hours for archiving
● ASL Interpreters are co-hosts for better control of spotlighting

25. From Talk to Product Feature
1. 9/21 - iOS Accessibility with SwiftUI - Ryan Cole
2. 10/21 - Data Sonification - Brandon Biggs
3. 1/22 - Mint iOS Testing - Lucy Greco
Mint released audio graphs in 2021 after Ryan Cole explored Swift UI
and Brandon Biggs discussed Data Sonification.
Lucy Greco did a live evaluation of the graphs in January 22.

26. Logistics
Started with daily sessions
Intuit implemented “no-meeting lunches” for mental health = well being
Hiatus from August 2020 to 2021
Restarted with sessions every Wednesday

27. Engagement
As of March 13, 2023
● 111 Accessibility Lunch and Learns
● 2,250 attendees
● 67 Speakers
● 37 External speakers/organizations
○ Reciprocal participation for other organizations
● Spotlights given to people who have attended 10+ sessions
● Profile badges and spotlights for speakers
● Book awards

28. Topics
32 - Accessible Engineering
17 - Inclusive Design
18 - Neurodiversity
13 - Blindness
10 - Intuit/Benefits
10 - Other
5 - Mental Health
5 - Social and Community
3 - Customer Interviews
2 - Deaf or Hard of Hearing

29. Questions