Mike Gifford

Mike Gifford is a Senior Strategist at CivicActions. His primary focus is on building digital accessibility confidence and capabilities in the public sector.

Previously, he was the Founder and President of OpenConcept Consulting Inc., a web development agency specializing in building open source solutions for the open web. We worked primarily with the Drupal CMS. In this role he was an active part of the Government of Canada's Open Source Advisory Board.

Pushed by a desire to build better and more inclusive world, Mike has been involved with accessibility since the beginning of the 90s. He has spearheaded accessibility improvements in Drupal since 2008, and officially became Drupal’s Core Accessibility Maintainer in 2012.

As a techie at heart, Mike likes to get into the code when he gets the chance. There is always more to learn and he is always exploring better practices to resolving problems. Usually better incentives and policies provide an improved experience for people with disabilities than incorporating artificial intelligence. Not always though.

Mike's wide range of experience provides the ability to understand the technological big picture.

About The Organization

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CivicActions

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What we doCivicActions helps government agencies better serve the public through large-scale modernization projects that impact the lives of millions of people. Open source technologies (such as Drupal) and human-centered design are at the core of our work.We partner with agencies to solve complex problems and improve the delivery of critical services like Veteran benefits, health care for retirees, adult education, and national scientific research. 