About Derek Featherstone

When I was 12 years old I decided that I wanted to be a teacher. When I was 18 years old I decided that I wanted to be a high school biology and chemistry teacher. When I was 23 years old I accepted my first full-time teaching job as a high school biology and chemistry teacher. When I was 27 years old I decided that I didn’t want to be a high school biology and chemistry teacher any more.

In 1999, I left all security in that full-time teaching job behind and started my own company. In growing the company I’ve been a hands-on developer, consultant, sales person, administrator, and accountant — and only three of those by choice.

I currently work at Simply Accessible where I lead a team of 8 people in our quest to make the web more accessible, one screen at a time..

I’m a well-known speaker with a reputation for inspiring and exciting the audience with practical demonstrations and techniques for making web sites and applications easier for everyone to use. In addition to technical sessions, I’m honoured to have delivered several keynote addresses at many conferences over the past 2 years and many full-day workshops focused on accessibility.

As of June 2008, I’m the Group Lead for the Web Standards Project — a grassroots coalition fighting for standards which ensure simple, affordable access to web technologies for all.

I’m also an avid triathlete. I’m not fast, but I’m getting better. You might expect that I’d have a blog about triathlons and training. You would be correct: ironfeathers.ca

About this site

This version was designed and coded by Jeff Smith who works with me over at Simply Accessible. The illustration of the bench was hand-crafted by the brilliant artist Anton Peck.

This is the second version of the site and is a chance to start fresh. The original version is now over at v1.boxofchocolates.ca and is archived for historical purposes in its original form.