Daniel Weck works for the DAISY Consortium, a not-for-profit organisation that "envisions a world where people with print disabilities have equal access to information and knowledge, without delay or additional expense". To achieve this goal, the DAISY Consortium actively promotes accessibility within the mainstream publishing industry. Features of EPUB 3 such as the Media Overlays specification (which originate from DAISY "digital talking books", i.e. audio narration synchronised with text) illustrate how accessible technologies can benefit a wider user group.
Daniel has been a professional software engineer for nearly a decade, with an early interest in multimedia and human-computer interaction. Within the past six years, he has participated in the design and implementation of accessible open-source products, including playback and authoring tools focusing on the needs of users with visual impairments.
Daniel has also contributed towards international open-standards at the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and the International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF). He is a co-editor of SMIL (synchronised multimedia integration language), CSS Speech (cascading style sheets, speech synthesis module) and EPUB (the e-book format).
Although the completion of the EPUB 3 standard marked a major milestone, Daniel's commitment towards the inclusion of people with all abilities continues through implementation, advocacy, and community support.