Speakers

Kona Franks-Ongoy has spent 10 years working towards deinstitutionalization and community inclusion for the disability community. He has direct client experience as a professional community advocate and in postsecondary education as an accommodation counselor. He also has proven experience organizing and managing complex initiatives of change and advocacy through accessibility audits of voting locations and across projects in his most recent role as Director of Communication at Montana’s Protection and Advocacy Program, Disability Rights Montana.

Notably, Kona has led changemaking educational work against national attacks on Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, Texas v. Kennedy (formerly Texas v. Becerra). Through community organizing and the press, he sparked meaningful momentum toward removing some of the most harmful language from this lawsuit that would have declared Section 504 unconstitutional. 

In his desire for organizations to move beyond checkbox compliance, Kona envisions a world where the people making decisions at the top are just as diverse as the people whom the decisions impact.