Karen Holtzblatt is a thought leader, industry speaker, and author. Karen is the visionary behind InContext's unique customer-centered design approach, Contextual Design. Recognized as a leader in requirements and design, Karen has pioneered transformative ideas and design approaches throughout her career. She introduced Contextual Design, the industry standard for understanding the customer and organizing that data to drive innovative product concepts. ACM SIGCHI has twice honored Karen as a member of the CHI Academy and with the first Lifetime Award for Practice presented in recognition of her impact on the field.

Karen has now turned her energy to the challenges of women in technology founding the Women in Tech Retention Project – creating the @Work Action Framework for understanding women’s experience at work and interventions to help companies and individuals.

Karen co-founded InContext Design in 1992 with Hugh Beyer to use Contextual Design techniques to coach product teams. Karen holds a doctorate in applied psychology from the University of Toronto. Her newest book Contextual Design 2nd Edition Design for Life details the new techniques needed for product innovation today.

Richard E. Ladner is a Professor Emeritus in Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Washington where he has been on the faculty since 1971. His current research is in the area of accessible computing which is an important subarea of HCI. He is the PI for the NSF-funded AccessComputing Alliance that has the goal of increasing participation of students with disabilities in computing fields. He is also a PI for the NSF-funded AccessCSforAll that is helping CS 10K projects prepare K-12 teachers to be more inclusive in their computing courses with students with disabilities. From 2007 – 2013, he directed the Summer Academy for Advancing Deaf and Hard of Hearing in Computing. He is a recipient of the 2004 Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics and Engineering Mentoring (PAESMEM) and the 2008 A. Nico Habermann Award.  He is the winner of the 2014 SIGCHI Social Impact Award.  He is the recipient of the 2016 SIGACCESS Award for Outstanding Contributions to Computing and Accessibility.  He is an ACM Fellow and an IEEE Fellow.  He is a member of the Board of the Center for Minorities and People with Disabilities in Information Technology (CMD-IT).

Anicia Peters is the Dean of the Faculty of Computing and Informatics at the Namibia University of Science and Technology. She completed her PhD degree in HCI at Iowa State University with an International Fulbright Science and Technology Award and the Schlumberger Faculty for the Future Women in Science fellowship. She was also a Google Anita Borg Scholar in the US in 2012. Anicia completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Oregon State University under Margaret Burnett. Anicia is passionate about HCI, especially in Africa, and her University’s teaching, initiatives and research work in HCI is testimony to this. Upon returning to her native Namibia, she started three ACM chapters, including an ACM SIGCHI chapter in Namibia. In October 2016, Anicia chaired the International Culture and Computer Science Conference that was hosted in cooperation with ACM SIGCHI in Windhoek, Namibia.  She then also co-chaired the inaugural Africa Human Computer Interaction Conference (AfriCHI’16) hosted also in-cooperation with ACM SIGCHI in Nairobi, Kenya. Anicia features as one of 20 prominent personalities in Who’sWho Namibia 2017. Afchix selected her recently as one of 10 African Women Role Models in Technology across Africa.