Accessible Web at Vermont Tech Jam 2026

The Vermont Tech Jam is the state’s annual career and technology expo, bringing students, job seekers, and tech companies together for a day of exhibits, talks, and conversations about building a career in Vermont tech. Seven Days has organized the Jam since 2008, and this year it took place on Saturday, October 24, at Hula in Burlington, where Accessible Web is headquartered.

We brought a group of our local staff from across the company. Alaina Gordon, our Director of Operations, and Gianna Barnhart, our Sales Manager, were there alongside Senior Software Engineer Gabriel Holodak and AI Contractor Shannon O’connor. Anna Rowland, our Content & Engagement Manager, rounded out the group.

With sales, marketing, operations, and development all at one table, nearly every question had someone ready to answer it, whether a visitor wanted to know how RAMP fits into a team’s workflow or what it’s like to work on accessibility every day.

From students to seasoned pros

The Jam gathered more than 40 exhibitors under one roof. BETA Technologies, Hazelett, and Rigorous talked about careers in manufacturing. Hack Club, the Burlington-based nonprofit for teenage makers, had sign-ups open. Vermont’s FIRST robotics teams took over a conference room, and schools were on hand to talk through programs.

That same range showed up at our booth. We talked with students just starting to picture a career in tech and with seasoned professionals from across Vermont’s tech industry. For a small state, there’s a remarkable amount of creativity and ingenuity here, and it was a lot of fun to spend a Saturday celebrating it.

What we shared about RAMP

Our conversations kept coming back to Accessible Web RAMP, our comprehensive software for finding accessibility violations, understanding them, and tracking fixes over time. Here’s what RAMP brings together:

• Automated Scanning: Monitor your site continuously against your Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) ruleset of choice.
• Accessible Web Helper Chrome extension: Highlight violations and check color contrast right in your browser.
• Guided Manual Audit Tool: Work through the WCAG 2.2 AA success criteria that automated scans can’t check on their own.
• Recommended Tasks and Remediation Instructions: See which violations are most widespread, then get guidance your team can use to fix them.
• Compliance Center: Identifies which accessibility laws apply to you and builds a customized compliance roadmap. 

RAMP supports your team. Your team does the fixing. That’s how we believe accessibility work should go: no overlays, no shortcuts, and steady progress as your site changes.

The comment we’re still thinking about

One visitor told us we were one of the only booths they’d seen having an immediate, positive impact on people’s lives. We’re still smiling about that one.

It also gets at why Accessible Web exists. One in four Americans has one or more disabilities, as do about one in six people worldwide. When a site won’t scale with zoom, a button can’t be reached by keyboard, or an image has no alt text, people with disabilities can’t finish what they came to do, whether that’s reading a menu, paying a bill, or applying for a job. That last one felt especially relevant at an event built around Vermont careers.

Our founder and CEO, Peter Jewett, CPACC (Certified Professional in Accessibility Core Competencies), started Accessible Web in 2016 after seeing a family member struggle to zoom in and spot links on websites his agency had just launched. Our mission hasn’t changed since: making the internet accessible to everyone, regardless of ability. Every website that gets more usable moves that mission forward.

Hany Farid on deepfakes

At 1 p.m., part of our team headed to “Totally Unreal: How Deepfakes Are Changing Everything.” Hany Farid, a Dartmouth College computer science professor and cofounder and chief science officer of GetReal Security, gave a short presentation on the state of deepfakes and how well we can detect them. 

Senior Software Engineer Gabriel Holodak left the talk feeling both more worried and more hopeful. Farid didn’t shy away from how convincing deepfakes have become and how they’re disrupting elections, relationships, and our sense of what’s real, but Gabriel was impressed by new tools like SynthID, which invisibly watermarks AI-generated images, and by Farid’s own detection techniques, which catch the laws of physics that generative AI still gets wrong, even when the human eye can’t.

It was a fitting session for a Jam whose 2026 theme was real jobs and real people.

Thank you, Tech Jam

Thank you to Seven Days for organizing the Jam, to Hula for hosting, and to every student, job seeker, and fellow exhibitor who stopped by Booth 4. We hope to see you next year!

Missed us at the Jam?

You can still explore what we were sharing. Start a free 14-day trial of Accessible Web RAMP, no card required, or book a demo with our team. We also host a webinar every Thursday, so browse upcoming Accessible Web webinars to find your next one.

We’ve been out in the community a lot this fall. Read our recap of VLCT Town Fair 2026 to see what town leaders asked us about ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) Title II.