Board of Directors

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  Dr. Imaana Laibuta

  Chairman
  

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Dr. Imaana Laibuta
Chairman
Dr. Laibuta is a Judge of Appeal in the Republic of Kenya. He is a Chartered Arbitrator and a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators. Before joining the Judiciary as a Judge in the Court of Appeal, Dr. Laibuta was a senior law lecturer and legal practitioner, certified mediator and ADR practitioner. He served as an approved tutor, trainer and assessor for the Institute’s training courses in Arbitration and Mediation. He was also a trainer at, and member of, the Strathmore University Dispute Resolution Centre. He is a skilled legislative counsel who has been extensively engaged in policy development and law reform in Kenya.
Dr. Laibuta previously served as a commissioner with the Commission for the Implementation of the Constitution (Kenya) with the mandate of monitoring, facilitating and overseeing the development of legislation and administrative procedures required to implement the Constitution of Kenya, 2010. He served as a member of the National Council for the Administration of Justice, which oversees and facilitates the development of policy, legislation and institutional frameworks for the administration of justice in Kenya.
Dr. Laibuta is an ardent disability rights advocate and has served as Chair and member of various State agencies and non-state agencies, which include non-governmental organisations committed to the promotion and protection of the rights of persons with disabilities.”
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  Sara Bason

  Vice Chair
  

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Sara Bason
Vice Chair
Sara Basson’s role at Google focuses on doing more to empower people with disabilities in emerging markets. In her previous role at Google, she served as Disability Inclusion Lead, with the goal of making the experience of Googlers more inclusive, and technology more accessible and usable, through education and advocacy around accessibility. In previous roles, she worked at IBM Research on the Education Transformation initiative, to achieve better academic outcomes using personalized learning and analytics. In 2011, she completed an international assignment at IBM Research-India, where she worked on strategy, business, and user interface design issues for Spoken Web, a tool that created internet-like access for developing regions, using mobile phones and speech recognition. She has also served as principal investigator from IBM Research to drive improved educational access using speech technologies for university students with disabilities through the Liberated Learning consortium, working with 20 universities worldwide. Sara has more than 50 articles published on topics in speech technology and accessibility in technical journals, as well as multiple patents. She was granted the title of Master Inventor in IBM Research in 2011.
Sara holds an M.B.A. in Management/Marketing from Stern School of Business, New York University, and a Ph.D. in Speech, Hearing, and Language Sciences from The Graduate Center of the City University of New York. She also holds an Honorary Doctorate degree from Saint Mary’s University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, in recognition of her extensive activities using speech technologies to enhance accessibility in the educational arena.
In addition to serving on the Board of Directors of inABLE, Sara serves on the Boards of Lexington School for the Deaf in NYC, and Meals on Wheels of White Plains
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  Jeff Wissel

  Treasurer
  

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Jeff Wissel
Treasurer
Jeff Wissel is the first Chief Accessibility Officer of Disability:IN. Disability:IN is a leading non-profit organization empowering over 400 leading companies to achieve disability inclusion and equality. He had a distinguished career with Fidelity Investments over the past 28 years. Jeff started Fidelity Investments as a Mutual Fund Representative and worked in a variety of roles including multiple Pilot Start up Roles. In March of 2010, Jeff obtained the Certified Financial Planning Certification, and in 2016, Jeff Founded the Fidelity Investments Enable Employee Resource Group. Today there are 5,147 active members.
In May of 2018, Jeff Co-Founded, and was the Director of the Fidelity Investments Office of Customer Accessibility. Since April 2020, Jeff established and was Director of the Fidelity Investments Procurement Accessibility Program.
Jeff is proud to say he is legally blind with a degenerative eye disease called Retinitis Pigmentosa (RP), and has been an avid user of assistive technologies including Screen Readers and Magnifiers for over two decades. Jeff has the IAAP CPACC Certification, the ADA Title II, III Coordinator Certification and is completing the DHS Trusted Tester Certification.
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  Irene Mbari-Kirika

  Secretary
  

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  Joseph N. Kiarie, MInstF (Dip)

  Programming
  

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Joseph N. Kiarie, MInstF (Dip)
Programming
Joe is the Africa director at International Fundraising Consultancy. He is a certified Fundraising Professional by the Institute of Fundraising, UK, with over 15 years’ experience in all aspects of fundraising, including, Development of fundraising strategies; Conducting fundraising audits, Fundraising training, Developing/managing technical proposals, Donor mapping, Building and managing donor relationships and Developing fundraising systems/structures. He has in-depth and practical experience working with institutional donors such as USAID, FCDO, the EU among others.  He has previously worked on behalf of various International development organisations in the UK as well as national and local NGOs in Africa. Joe is keen to support local and national not-for-profit organizations, particularly in Africa, to maximise their funding opportunities through diversification of their funding sources to build a sustainable and robust fundraising programme. Joe holds an MA in International Studies from the University of Birmingham, UK, Post Graduate Diploma in Armed Conflict, Bsc (Hons) in Food Science & Technology and a Professional Certification in Fundraising Management from the Institute of Fundraising (IoF) Academy, UK.
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  Benard Chitunga

  Programming
  

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Benard Chitunga
Programming
Benard Chitunga is a Senior Officer- Partnerships, Donor Relations, and Special Projects, Affirmative Finance Action for Women in Africa (AFAWA) a key flagship at the African Development Bank whose mandate is to dent the existing USD 42 Billion access to finance gap for Women Empowered Businesses in Africa.
Additionally, Benard is the AFAWA liaison on the USD 250 Million Risk share mechanism implemented by Africa Guarantee Fund, Task Lead/Secretariat of the USD 100 Million Gender Equality Trust Fund, and Task Manager/Secretariat for the USD 61.8 Women Entrepreneurs Finance Initiatives. These are the largest mobilized resources and efforts on the continent in unlocking private sector financing
Up to USD 5 Billion in five years (2020 to 2026) to women empowered businesses. Benard coordinates and manages the G7 participating countries, Netherlands and Sweden Secretariat; donors resourcing the Initiatives and the Banks’ Inter- Complex Taskforce secretariat implementing the mechanism.
Benard holds a Masters in Global Business and Sustainability from Universita Cattolica Del Sacro in Italy, Postgraduate in Development Strategy and Governance Bradford University, United Kingdom. Benard is a Doctorate Candidate in Business Administration and Masters in Practical Management from UGSM Monarch Business School in Switzerland.
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  Victor Calise

  Programming
  

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Victor Calise
Programming
As Director of Global Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in Walmart’s newly formed Accessibility Center of Excellence, Victor spearheads an already strong culture by integrating disability into every aspect of the company from employment to accessible shopping. Prior to his time at Walmart, Victor spent over two decades in public service, culminating in his role as Commissioner of the New York City Mayor’s Office for People with Disabilities under three different Administrations from 2012 to 2022. He currently serves in numerous leadership capacities including on the Board of Trustees for the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum and as a Board Member of inAble Africa. He is also a former Mayoral appointee to the Board of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority serving from June 2020 to June 2022.
A native New Yorker, Victor is an internationally-recognized diversity and inclusion champion. An avid athlete, he was a member of the first U.S. national sled hockey team and represented his country at the 1998 Paralympic Games in Nagano, Japan.
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  Nzomo Mbithuka

  Programming
  

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Nzomo Mbithuka
Programming
Nzomo Mbithuka is a Kenyan National with over 20 years’ experience in the ICT industry spanning banking, telecommunications, cloud technology and ICT4D sectors in Africa and Asia. He is currently the Digital Innovations lead at FSD Africa; a specialist development agency funded by UKAID. Prior to this, he was at GSMA where he championed inclusive tech development across Africa & Asia. In his previous role at Oracle Corporation as Cloud Technology Lead, he orchestrated digital transformation in the public and financial services industry by co-creating solutions that led to enhanced service delivery and citizen experience. Before this, he held senior management roles in Avanti Communications Group Plc, Airtel Kenya, Essar Telecom among others.
Nzomo has served as a non-executive director for Kenya’s public policy think tank; KIPPRA through a presidential appointment ,and also sits on the boards of Riziki Source and Albinism Society of Kenya among other community service roles.He was recently appointed by HE The President into a task force to support transformation of the government press.
He holds a BSC-IT, MBA-Strategic Management, and is currently pursuing a PhD among other professional qualifications. He is a member of the institute of Directors of Kenya.
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  Mercy Ndegwa

  Accessibility Events
  

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Mercy Ndegwa
Accessibility Events
Mercy Ndegwa is the Public Policy Director, East & Horn of Africa at Meta (Formerly Facebook). She is a seasoned professional with over twenty years’ experience in the tech and digital sectors. In her current role, Mercy is responsible for driving strategy and advising Meta on policy and regulatory dynamics in the Eastern Africa region while creating the opportunity to have a more inclusive, open, safe, and connected Eastern Africa. She also advises Meta on economic policy issues across Africa which include taxation policy, competition policy, fintech, trade and ecommerce
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  Vincent Aberi

  Accessibility Events
  

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Vincent Aberi
Accessibility Events
Vincent Aberi is an accomplished financial professional with over 10 years working in corporate America in senior level positions. His career has covered North America, Europe, Australia and New Zealand and Africa working for fortune 500 financial companies which include Citi Group, Western & Southern Financial Group, Bank of America & Comerica Bank. In Kenya, he has been at Kenya Commercial Bank as Head of International (Diaspora) Banking where manages assets worth $ 20.3 M with operations across the globe. He has been instrumental in the growth of that unit at KCB, beginning it from scratch and building it to its current realm. Vincent graduated from the University of Texas with a bachelor’s degree with concentration in Marketing & Finance. He is also a graduate of Leadership banking management program from Comerica Bank in Dallas, Texas.
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  Laura Allen

  Accessibility Events
  

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Laura Allen
Accessibility Events
Head of Strategy & Programs for Accessibility & Disability Inclusion 
Google 
Laura works cross-functionally across teams to improve the accessibility and usability of Google products and processes, and to make Google a more accessible and equitable place for people with disabilities. In addition to her core role, Laura is the Global Head of Operations of the Disability Alliance Employee Resource Group. Due to her personal experience with low vision, she believes that technology has more power now than ever to transform lives, and progressing accessibility and disability inclusion is her true passion and purpose. 
Prior to her role as Head of Strategy & Programs, Laura served as the Senior Accessibility Program Manager for the Chrome and Chrome OS teams at Google. For 6+ years, she collaborated with engineers, designers, product managers, and researchers to make the Chrome family of products accessible and usable across platforms, for people of all abilities.
Laura also represents Google in the Teach Access organization, where various technology companies, higher education institutions, and disability advocacy organizations come together to drive the inclusion of accessibility in core computer science, design, human centered interaction programs, and other key disciplines to close the accessibility skills gap. As of 2020, she serves as the Chair of the Teach Access Board of Directors. Since 2017, Laura has also served on the board of directors for the San Francisco Lighthouse for the Blind and Visually Impaired, and is the 2nd Vice Chair. Since 2020, she also serves on the board of the Alphapointe Foundation, an organization centered around empowering individuals who are visually impaired to achieve their goals and aspirations and gain meaningful employment.
For her undergraduate education, Laura studied International Business, Marketing, and Music at Georgetown University. She also completed an Executive Leadership graduate program at Stanford University in 2021.
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  Ve Dewey

  Strategic Design
  

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Ve Dewey
Strategic Design
Ve Dewey is a designer by trade but instinctually a strategic connector for brands, communities, and organisations. For over 15 years Ve has applied this mindset, from brand design to marketing, whilst working with F500 companies and major brands like Mattel, Adobe, WPP, and BBC.
Ve possesses a design-intrapreneurial mindset which allows her to navigate between verticals and industries easily. This is evident with her experience of curating and executing the inaugural creative HR role at Mattel which supported 600+ creatives during the company’s cultural and digital transformation, and marketing at Adobe where she solely established a new creative marketing program in Europe.
Ve’s research and practice focus on design and system-based leadership. She is an Innovation Fellow at the Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design at the Royal College of Art where she works on Creative Leadership, an inclusive model of leadership, and holds an MBA (distinction) from Central Saint Martins focusing on design leadership where she is now on the course team.
Ve is the founder of the RSA’s global Decolonising Design Coalition, a fellow at ZincVC and is collaborating on an AI platform around decolonising and education.
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About Our Founder

Irene Mbari-Kirika founded inABLE in 2009 to empower blind and visually impaired youth in Africa through inclusive education, digital accessibility advocacy, and assistive technology skills training. Irene also led the development of Kenya’s Standard for ICT Products. She is a sought-after speaker and hosts the annual Inclusive Africa Conference - promoting disability and digital inclusion in Africa.

Her recent venture, Technoprise Global, is an innovative, inclusive, and people-first digital agency. Technoprise employs Persons with Disabilities, conducts and leverages Accessibility User Experience(UX) research in Africa, and provides digital accessibility services to companies and organizations worldwide.

Irene holds a Global Master of Arts in International Affairs from the Fletcher School at Tufts University. She is an advisory member of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) Steering Council. In recognition of her many accomplishments in service to Kenya, the Kenyan government awarded Irene the Order of the Grand Warrior of Kenya in 2016.

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