Nina Baliga: Accessible tech is better tech for everyone

Nina Bali­ga is the man­ag­ing part­ner for Break­ing the Bias, a pro­gram that helps com­pa­nies and indi­vid­u­als cre­ate tools, meth­ods and strate­gies to build more inclu­sive work­places.

When she isn’t advo­cat­ing for acces­si­ble tech, she spends her time snow­board­ing, rock climb­ing, play­ing video games and spend­ing time with her hus­band Pierce and two dogs, Tavvi and Rook.

One thing that you wouldn’t know about the 39 year old is that she has a ran­dom col­lec­tion of belt buck­les from when she lived in the deep south. We are thrilled to wel­come Nina to the TEDxSalem stage Jan. 4th. 

Do you have a favorite TED Talk? Elaine Mari­no’s “Bring­ing the Work­place into the 21st Cen­tu­ry”. Elaine has been a thought leader in how we can build work­places that tru­ly val­ue diver­si­ty and inclu­sion. I’ve been inspired by her work for years.  

What does this year’s theme “Vision” mean to you? It’s all about acces­si­bil­i­ty. Hav­ing worked with build­ing web­sites and apps that are acces­si­ble for the visu­al­ly impaired, I want­ed to start build­ing things that would be acces­si­ble for peo­ple of all dis­abil­i­ties. I rec­og­nized from the very begin­ning that build­ing acces­si­ble prod­ucts and ser­vices means build­ing amaz­ing prod­ucts for every­one. 

How has your life been dif­fer­ent than what you’d imag­ined? I knew that I would nev­er work a desk job. My biggest fear as a high school­er was the idea of work­ing in a cubi­cle. Even though I’ve held cubi­cle jobs, I’ve shown to myself that how we define work is up to us in many ways. I’ve been able to define my job in my own terms.  

Tell us some­thing about your­self we could nev­er tell from look­ing at you. I learned Irish for my lan­guage require­ment in col­lege. I would go to under­ground Irish-speak­ing pubs in Gal­way when I lived there for a sum­mer. You can imag­ine peo­ple’s faces when a brown 20-some­thing-year-old woman was going in there and speak­ing to them in Irish.   

If you could instant­ly become an expert in some­thing, what would it be? Video game design. I believe video games are not only an escape from our hec­tic lives, but can also be used as a tool for social impact. They’re a pow­er­ful form of sto­ry­telling that any­one can access.   

Go-to karaoke song? “Pour Some Sug­ar on Me” by Def Lep­pard.   

Under your bed right now? Prob­a­bly a whole bunch of dog fur. 

Chunky or smooth peanut but­ter? Smooth

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TEDxSalem VII

TEDxSalem VII is an all-day event fea­tur­ing talks, per­for­mances, refresh­ments, lunch and swag. It takes place from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Sat­ur­day, Jan. 4, 2020, at the Salem Con­ven­tion Cen­ter. Click here for tick­ets.  Fol­low us on Face­book for the most up-to-date news from our com­mu­ni­ty, and check our web­site reg­u­lar­ly for new infor­ma­tion. You can also reach us at info@tedxsalem.com