In her work-life, Marieke is a VP of User Experience (UX) and Design at Oracle, located in Seattle. In her personal life, she is an immigrant, mom of two, parent of four, animal lover and competitive rower. Marieke became aware of the Lighthouse in her previous role as ‘accessibility champion’ and UX manager for Conversational AI, at Microsoft. Conversational AI enables people to interact with products and services in a conversational manner, including speech.
What inspires her about the Lighthouse is the combination of community services, training, as well as employment for people who are visually impaired. As a parent of a special needs child – one of Marieke’s children has 22q deletion syndrome – she knows how much it means to see people continue to learn, build confidence and independence, despite cognitive and/or physical challenges. With additional support on many fronts, Marieke’s child attends public school with children of her own age and has dreams like any other kid. She wants to become a bus driver and own an RV.
“I look forward to learning from you all, and using my personal and professional network to contribute to The Lighthouse of the Blind, Inc.”
