Gavin Neate, Andrea Mocellin, and Michael Curran showcase assistive technology they created and developed.
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AT Showcase: The Future is Here
Transcript for AT Showcase: The Future is Here
Hello conference. My name is Gavin Neate, and it is an absolute honor to be presenting to you today at accessibility.com. You haven't heard of my company. It's called Neatebox, the app I'm going to tell you about or the service I want to tell you about today is called Welcome. And there are two reasons why you've not heard about my company yet. Well, most of you won't have heard about my company.
One is because we're very small I've only just started, but two and it's probably more pertinent to the world we're living in now. And that is that new technology is coming along so quick, that it's incredibly difficult for us to keep in touch with what is actually happening and what is available out there.
Let me explain a little bit more about how my company came into being, and the service that we provide came into being. And then you'll be able to make a decision yourselves as to whether this is the future. This is what we're going to be looking at tomorrow and the day after, and the day after that.
I think the message that I want to give above all else is that if you are looking for solutions, you must be actively looking for solutions. With an open mind, there are a lot of people out there developing a lot of solutions, and unless we can get a little bit more of an understanding and be open to them, then they're just going to fly past and we're not going to know about them.
So my name is Gavin Neate, and I am the CEO and founder of Neatebox and specifically for today, the welcome app. I was not a technology creator. In fact, I was actually a practitioner. For 18 years, I trained people how to use guide dogs. That was my job it was my dream job. 18 years of being a guide dog mobility instructor here in the United Kingdom.
Around about-- I did that from 1996 onwards. Around about 2003, I started using more technology myself. I think I actually got a PC around about 2000, 2001. But I really didn't understand it, and I didn't put much work to it. However, in 2003, I started getting involved in this project around GPS, and how my visually impaired clients were using GPS or potentially using GPS to get from A to B, but they had a big palm top or a laptop virtually on their side, and they had a microphone or a speaker up here and they had their GPS device up here. It was a very clunky and very early days.
However, by 2006 my clients were buying mobile phones and instead of in fact in 2006 instead of getting speech software put onto their phone, it was already on their voiceover. I think it was iPhone 2S was the first one but voice over was standard on people's phones. So my clients would come up to me and say, oh yeah I've got this amazing new app. Gavin it's doing this or that or the next thing where I'm using my phone to access my bank, and I was like wow this is amazing.
It seemed to me that as a practitioner, I didn't really have my finger on the pulse. So I started introducing tech talks onto every single one of my classes, and people would come and train with their guide dogs and on particularly rainy day, and I do live in Scotland.
On a particularly rainy day, we would all sit down and we would all talk about the technology that people were using, and I learnt a lot from that, and in fact 2008-- maybe 2007, I bought my first iPhone and I started learning voiceover, and I'm reasonably good at voiceover now but certainly not an expert. But I started thinking about ways that voiceover could be utilized or rather technology, could be utilized to help my clients.
It wasn't until 2009, I actually invented the world's first pedestrian crossing operated by smartphones, which by 2012 was being installed, but that kind of set me in motion as to how we could be using technology not just coming up with ideas as to how it could be used, but actually utilizing it in a way that was going to directly help the people that were requiring that support and of course, visually impaired people require that support.
When I was working on pedestrian crossings, I realized that I could press the button with my mobile phone. So I press the button automatically, phone in my pocket and I and the person would be able to operate the crossing. And then I thought well, actually this is a massive reasoning behind what I did. This wasn't just going to be for visually impaired people. I saw a chap who was using a power chair, and I thought well he can't even reach the button. And that made me think about pressing buttons for everybody, and then that became this much, much bigger idea about-- it was a great lever for everybody as long as we made sure the design reached all the people that were in our charge or that we were supporting.
That's where welcome came from I realized I could press the button a pedestrian crossing. I realized then I could press the button a door, and if I could press the button a door in that moment, the people inside the building could know who was about to walk through the door. And then I added GPS and stuff that I've been working on with GPS and I thought, well, what if I had a GPS to this? What if somebody knew 500 meters before they were walking through the door, they could be given information on how to interact with that person, and what if all of that was dictated by the visitor?
What if it's the disabled person who says, this is me, this is how I'm going to need you to interact with me before I walk through the door. And I thought about this for a while I thought well actually this is like some sort of progression or evolution from the doorbell, and I used to remember when I was a young child watching a program called Little House on the Prairie. And there was-- I think it was the ingels store.
And the door would open ding, ding, ding, ding and he would come in Mr. Engelhardt it is like yeah. And I thought, oh yeah. Well, that doorbell, that invention of a doorbell or a bell above a door, that indicated to the person in the hardware store that somebody in walk through the door, and with a welcome what I was doing, was I was ringing the doorbell 500 meters from the door.
And as I explained so much bigger than that, empowering the disabled person to dictate the service that they got before they walked through the door. This was like an epiphany for me, because everything we'd done around customer service was train the staff member and then hope they remembered it six, 12, two years two months later, two years later, hope they remembered the information that they had either read in a book or had face to face.
But of course they couldn't remember that, and then you took into consideration that the staff member might be new and maybe hasn't had that training yet or might not even-- that training might not even be available in that organization. And I thought, well, if we could approach this in the same way that I now approach car mechanics, which is going on YouTube look at work out what's wrong with a car, go on YouTube work out how to fix that particular thing, watch a video for 10 minutes, watch a video again for 10 minutes, and then watch it again while I'm doing it, I could actually find out ways to do things.
So by doing this with welcome, what we could do is we could put all the information in the hands of the staff member. Now we're going to look for a second at, I will demonstrate that to you a little bit later, but we're going to look at a second who benefits from this-- who benefits from this, because there's a big picture here that we need to look at.
Well, obviously the disabled person benefits, because they feel more comfortable going to particular venues. In fact, they feel more comfortable going to venues they've never been to before. And I think it's reasonable to assume that disabled people like going to places as we all do, where they can expect a certain standard of service.
Of course when I go to a restaurant, I may or may not get a really nice fillip of fish. However, I will get through the door. I won't be discriminated against somebody is going to say you can't come in sir. That does happen with disabled people. And it happens even more when somebody doesn't know that venue, maybe they're just not even comfortable going to that venue.
So we're going to help, and we are helping the disabled person who's actually being encouraged to go to venues. But we're helping the staff member, scope a charity here in the United Kingdom, had a fantastic campaign a couple of years ago called end the awkward. There was a recognition there that disabled-- the non-disabled people felt uncomfortable when they met somebody who they considered to be different in some way. They would feel so nervous sometimes that they would disappear into the back office, and they get somebody else to do it rather than actually address that themselves.
So I'm helping the staff member, because I'm going to give them the information they need before they walk through the door. And I'm helping the business, because the more disabled people who come into my business, the more disabled people are happy to come into my business and get good service, the more they will spend. Or if you're looking at a health center, the happier they will be or the more efficient the system is that takes them through the process.
So we then have the disabled person happier, the customer service member happier, the business happier. But of course, the staff member goes away and takes that information with them. They go home that day and they put that information out there into the world around them. And of course when that person is actually interacting with a disabled person, they're feeling happier. And I've watched this, and I've spoken to people afterwards, and they've had goose bumps. They've gone wow this was just like the most amazing experience because I knew what to do making people happier.
We have this big issue in the world right now around loneliness. Loneliness is probably one of the biggest killers there was a study recently that said it's about 15 cigarettes a day is the damage that loneliness and isolation is doing to the individual.
A lot of elderly and disabled people are now very lonely, or more lonely than they were before COVID and the pandemic because they are worried and sometimes scared about leaving home. With something like Welcome, they know they can leave home. They can feel even just by looking and seeing which particular venues are on the platform, they know that they can leave home comfortable that they're going to get a certain level of interaction and to get there.
OK, so that's about the tech-- that's what I do. I want to show you in a second, but the big picture here is you've got to know that this stuff exists. Otherwise, you can't put it into practice and I guarantee you there are companies out there like mine that are going I've got this amazing solution, and you need to find out about it.
Now there are amazing companies out there are organizations like valuable 500 do a fantastic work in this area, billion strong we the 15 which is just the most amazing system are set up in the entire world about building empowerment, but everybody has to have solutions. And this is where you guys need to engage with all the people around me before and after who are all delivering these amazing solutions to you.
So what I to do now is I'm going to take you through the platform and show you how it works. If we click on the Welcome icon, which is an app on our phone, we get a message that says where are we going, because we've already set up a profile. If I click on Profile, you'll see the information that we ask people to provide us with. Photograph, a name, and an email makes perfect sense, awareness required for.
And then we have a list of different conditions that people could raise awareness about before they arrive at a particular venue. So I have on here aphasia and dementia, but we'll add in epilepsy as well just as an interesting addition. I click Done. And now I'm ready to find a place that I could visit. So I click on Plan Visit, and I get a list of all the different venues that are on the platform based on the one that's closest to me first.
So I go down here now eventually, I'm going to come to the venue that I want to visit which is the welcome demonstration venue. So I click on Welcome demonstration venue, I now get information about the venue I'm going to. And this is just really useful general information, and of course access information. So we have the map and the opening times. Can we have general information about the venue? How accessible physically the venue is? And then increasingly important, how socially accessible it is. Through the assistance that is provided.
We also then have links to access able and you in Skype who will like review sites here in the United Kingdom. And then there's a link to the venue website itself. We could then have our favorites, we could contact the venue directly or we can say we're going. So we click on going, and it says when do you want to go? Or when will you be going?
So let's go to this particular venue tomorrow between 12:00 and 5:00 o'clock. Here's some questions about the visit, but these questions are set by the venue, and they can ask any question from, do you have your passport with you? Or do you have any food allergies? Or do you know your doctor's name? Or which ticket would you like to purchase? Or do you know your customer number? These sorts of things.
So the first question I have on here is, are you exempt from wearing a mask? Yes I am. Do you have any food allergies? No I don't. My next question is, what do you want to do on this visit? So let's say I'm meeting somebody, and we're going out for a coffee, but I would like to use the accessible toilet before we leave.
Hi, I'm meeting Alan, I would like to use the accessible toilet before we leave for a coffee. Thank you so much. I'm also happy to sit and wait in the reception area until Alan is available. There's my message. I now click Done. I can see that there are other supported requirements but I could also add a new ones. I click Next. It says this will confirm your booking. Are you sure you wish to proceed? Now let's just go over to the venue itself.
So the information that the venue had access to. Here is the log in page. If I click Log In, we're going to see a couple of venues-- a couple of visits that are already up on the screen. I'm now going to click Yes on my mobile phone, and I will get a message that says, are you sure? And it says your requirements have been sent, they look forward to seeing you later. Well, that's great.
Over at the venue, they've just had a phone call, an email and a text message to say that somebody is wanting to come and visit. So if I now have a look at this, I can see here's Gavin, he's wanted to come tomorrow between 12:00 and 5:00, it's currently pending, and Gavin wants me to know a little bit more about dementia epilepsy and aphasia. If I now click on View, I'm going to get a little bit more information in a little bit more detail about these particular conditions.
So as we can see here, we've now got a little bit more information about Gavin and his needs. Further down the screen, we've got an overview of what it is to be living their condition-- the condition is dementia, epilepsy, and aphasia. We also have top tips on how to interact with that particular person. We also have links to the charities that gave us the information.
Let me of course, we also have the questions-- the responses to the questions that we asked Gavin when he was booking the visit. And most importantly of all of that, we have the message from Gavin which says, Hi, I'm meeting Alan, I would like to use the accessible toilet before we leave for a coffee. Thank you so much. I'm also happy to sit and wait in reception until-- the reception area until Alan is available.
This is all absolutely fine for me working in this particular venue, so what I do is I click on the Accept button, and that sends an email back to Gavin to say, we know you're coming and we look forward to your arrival. Gavin then can reduce his anxiety by going, wow, these guys know I'm coming.
When Gavin is then on his way to the venue, he could then click the Manual arrival button. So just when he's outside the door, he clicks on the manual arrival button on his app, and that sends another message to the venue to say Gavin has arrived. Message we have here is trigger manual arrival. Are you sure you want to tell the venue staff you've arrived? I click Yes. And they get another email to say Gavin is now in the building. Of course at that point, the staff member can then click on View and then have a little look again at the information they need before they need to approach Gavin at that venue. And that is how Welcome works.
So I'm now wanting to talk to you a little bit more about corporate social responsibility. The reason I want to talk to you about that is because corporate social responsibility is the world we have lived in. It is the world that dictated that you did it because it was the right thing to do.
I don't want to move away from the right thing to do. But I'm not so naive to think that unless we can find ways to make the right thing to do accessible to society in general, we're not actually going to do the right thing.
So when I came up with the idea of Welcome, I was pushed towards having a charity. I was pushed towards having a social enterprise, because it was for disabled people. It was a social responsibility. It was the right thing to do, all the nice to have. I didn't want that. I wanted something that said that I understood fundamentally that society doesn't just do the right thing for no good reason. It will do it, but it won't drive society.
Society needs to be driven by the thing that drives humans, which is creation, and building things and progression. And I needed to look at a way to make this commercially viable. This has to prove not just a responsibility, but also if you don't do it, you're done. You're done commercially. We know that the world is changing. We've seen the world change. We're talking more about mental health, a diversity, and inclusion, and accessibility.
Accessibility and diversity, we're having these conversations. But there's a potential we might still be thinking that the reason we're having these conversations is because it's the right thing to do. The truth is that if your business is offering better customer service. If your business is offering a more inclusive and engaging environment for disabled employees to work within, you're going to be ahead of the opposition.
The opposition is going to look at you and go, why do they keep coming up with these amazing ideas? And it's because your company or your products reflect the people who are going to be using them. The service you deliver at the door is going to reflect the people who you are encouraging to walk through the door.
We haven't known who's coming through the door-- who's come through the door over the past few years. We can see if somebody has a physical disability, we can see wheelchairs, and we can see guide dogs. We can see long canes. But 80% of disabled people have hidden conditions. We don't know if somebody is autistic. So we don't know if we should be changing the products that we deliver to help the people want to spend money in our premises, or work for our companies.
So this is not about doing the right thing. We're going to do the right thing by delivering a product or a service. We're going to be setting our company above and beyond what others are doing. And I guarantee you the people in this conference right now are above and beyond the other people that are out there.
You do not have to go far in the society around you to realize that other people aren't even thinking about inclusion diversity and accessibility. So far be it for me to say you're the chosen few but well done for being here well done for thinking about this stuff as a basic level of service that you need to provide. You're looking for these solutions. You signed up for this conference because you wanted to find something, you wanted to go to the next level.
It is not about doing the right thing. Charity is important. Don't get me wrong. It is important to do the right thing, because that gets us somewhere in our heart, but society needs us to actually build and create and we can do that if we are more accessible, diverse, and inclusive.
Thank you so much indeed for listening to my chat today. Truly, I have people before me and after me who I have considered to be heroes for so long. I'm new to this game-- 8, 9 years. I'm new to this game in respect to the business world, but that does not mean that the solutions that I come up with are any less important than everybody else's. But these guys are amazing, and you should listen to them. And please, please, please do get in touch with anybody you've heard in the conference, because I guarantee you one thing above all of us. Have this running through our veins, we want the world to improve. We want to take you with us. Thank you so much indeed for your time today.
Live Q&A
Transcript for Live Q&A
(Kevin McDaniel) Well, thank you to all, to Gavin Neate again, and to Andrea Mocellin and to Mick Curran, my friend. New Zealand, I wish he would have been able to join us. Just incredible interviews and really innovative people, and we really are so grateful to have had them here and to have the opportunity to speak to them.
Gavin, I really appreciate you joining us here. I don't know what time it is in the United Kingdom, but I am so grateful. I truly appreciate your time.
(Gavin Neate) No, not at all. I've had an absolutely fantastic evening. I haven't been able to be there every single step of the way, but it's been an absolute pleasure and I've listened to some amazing talks who've they said you guys have just rocked it. It's been fantastic. Well done.
(Kevin) Oh, I, you know, it's really it's just having the opportunity to speak to all of the advocates and the folks in the community who are really making a difference.
It's been it's been an honor for me. I hope everyone's enjoyed it. I wouldn't have pictured I'd be in this position to be to talk to some great people ten years ago, for sure. Well, Gavin, I mean, you're what you're doing, you know?
There's something to, you know, walk into the frame where you talk about the front door and greeting people and being able to accommodate and provide quality customer service to people with disabilities. You know, there's. Of course, you talked about charity and and we're not doing this for charity, and we're not doing this for, you know, it's we're not doing is the right thing. It makes sense. We're doing it because it's just it's it's what has to be done, but it's also about bottom line.
And so, you know, given the time that you spent doing this now in your experience, you're talking to all the folks that have registered for this conference is a lot of business leaders here. What do you think is the impact of not providing an inclusive customers service experience? And then the second part would be where does customer service fit into, you know, sustainability planning, you know, retaining customers and and what's what's the bottom line here?
You know?
(Gavin) So, what do we lose when we don't do it? So I don't think I had a chance to mention this earlier, but we think of disabled people as wheelchair users, long cane users, guide dogs, seeing eye dog users walking frame uses powerchair users, but they are a really small percentage of those who are disabled. We have absolutely no idea how many people who are coming through our door are a disabled person. In the UK. 75% of disabled people have hidden conditions, and there are many people who are visibly disabled who have a hidden condition as well.
So we have no idea. We don't know who's coming through our door. And I guarantee you if we don't make sure that the lighting is right or the sounds right or the hand dryers are correct for somebody who's autistic, they're not going to want to come back.
Not because we've given them bad service. We just haven't made the environment correct for them. So we have to take those things into consideration. And I've mentioned it briefly earlier when I was talking and said, if we if we don't and somebody else is providing those services, we're going to lose that customer.
So I think that's what's at stake here. And it's not rocket science to realize that as we live longer, we're not elongating that healthy 32 to 38 age that we would all like to keep hold of. We're elongating the the 97 to 105 age, and that's an age where we're going to be disabled, but requiring services.
So we're getting older and we're older for longer, and we're going to need people to deliver those services to us. And that might just be how they how we're communicated with. And when I talk about communication, we we've heard it so many times in our lives.
We make our mind up about somebody in the first seven seconds negatively or positively. And if you interact with somebody negatively or even if you don't perceive you're doing it negatively, they will make their mind up about you in that time.
However, if you know how to interact with somebody, you can make them feel positive about that interaction. But and I mentioned this several times. This is about the big picture. It's not just about the disabled person feeling positive, it's about the person who's greeting them feeling positive, because when you give good customer service, you feel good about the delivery of that service. And so I'll stop there on that. There was a second part to that question. I forgot the second part. And if you've got it down there, but it was some. (Kevin) Yeah, yeah, no, it was.
It was. How you where does customer service fit into sustainability planning? Because I think.
(Gavin) Yeah, yeah.
(Kevin) You know, I think about businesses. Yeah, go ahead. Go ahead.
(Gavin) Well, yeah. So you've got a 19 year old working in Starbucks and that 19 year old working in Starbucks has a bad experience and goes, I really don't want to do customer service it now. If they love customer service, you never know. They might want to become a manager at Starbucks, which may stay there for five years, become a manager and then maybe get their own franchise or who knows what they want to do.
But if they stay there for six weeks and then they go, then they move on and somebody else has to come in. And that's not a particularly sustainable way of of interacting with the people that are working for your company for lots of reasons.
There's loads of sustainability issues in there, so it doesn't always have to be something that's green. It's just the why put the energy into it if it's if you don't have to necessarily put that energy? So we want people to stay in organizations.
I've always thought that sustainability in a green sense that that would trump disability. But the truth is that they are both of the same, they're both two sides of the same coin. It's not one side or the other side of the coin.
You have to be sustainable, but you also have to be sustainable for disabled people. They are part of the world in which we live. They demand and deserve these things themselves. I saw this the other day actually in a slight deviate from what we're saying, but it was an EV charging unit electric vehicle charging unit that would be put on a pavement and which is obviously that brilliant. It is going to be charging a vehicle, but it actually blocked the pavement for a wheelchair user. I mean, think, well, why would you... What are we doing there when we're trumping something else?
Well, what we should be doing is trying to find ways to actually include both and indeed all the other people we need. And that does mean more intelligent design, more intelligent universal design and for processes. But we do need to put those processes in practice.
You can't just go what is sustainable, therefore, it's going to be good for everybody because we all want the planet to survive. Well, we also want the planet survive and be diverse and inclusive and accessible.
(Kevin) So can I ask you this is more of a tactical question, and this is not an US versus a this is a question for me, a tactical question. You know, I've spent most of my time in government and one of the things that the Department of Justice here in America asks that we do when they settle a lawsuit with with with agencies is that they adopt some type of disability etiquette training, customer service training.
And that's just, you know, one of the 30 or 40 things that are required, you know? And you know, I guess my question is this, you know, I like the idea of the fact that we have all of these great leaders here.
You have all this experience in customer service. I feel like it'd be a missed opportunity if I didn't ask you this. But as someone who has had to implement all the provisions and requirements of the settlement agreement, I understand how difficult it is.
If you're talking to a 500 - 1000 people who are in the midst of doing this and they're going back to their leadership and saying, you know, we have to implement a more inclusive customer service program. We, you know, we don't want a settlement agreement or if they have one, we have to develop this process and implement it.
What do you what do you take back? What do you say to them to make them a champion? And what do you what do you give them to go back to their organization so they can create more champions?
(Alycia Anderson) And this will be our final thought. I'm getting noted in the air.
(Kevin) So really I don't want to waste the opportunity.
(Gavin) I want to. I'll make it really quick, go back in and just make sure that people realize that if you if you address these issues now, you'll address them forever.
And Welcome was designed to say, Well, we don't need to constantly do staff training or we don't have to constantly worry about doing it wrong. If we put something in place that make sure staff are trained regularly and all the way around the clock, somebody leaves.
Somebody arrives. It doesn't matter because you've got processes in place. So I think just getting those processes in place actually saves you way down the line. And I would finish with that because I think it's pretty powerful stuff.
And also on a personal note, you guys are brilliant. I absolutely love this conference. You've done it so well. Your tech has been brilliant for my experience. It's been really smooth, and it's probably the best is the best I've been to this year, which is saying a lot because I've been to a lot.
(Kevin) Alycia, may I just add on to that? One, last... I'm so sorry. One last part we had one last question here because I think this is so important. When you're implementing this customer service process, how do you incorporate the disability voice into that process, into the training?
(Gavin) So easy. That's so easy. All of the overviews and the top tips, if you look to the video, all the overviews and the top tips have been provided by the charities that represent those particular disabilities. Disabled people, if they see that their disability or their condition isn't on our platform, they contact us and say, I want this disability on the platform. We've just added in Tourettes. Just last week, because somebody said, I want Tourettes on that, we contacted the charity. They said, Here's an overview and top tips and things you need to do. But also, when a disabled person goes into the app, they can request new venues.
So they say to us, I want this in IKEA. One disabled person says, I want it in IKEA. We phone up IKEA. We say we've had one person say that they would like Welcome. They say, No, we're not very interested.
We say not a problem. We'll be in touch. Six months later, 1000 disabled people have said, IKEA, we want this installed. We turn around to IKEA and we say 1000 people have said they want this installed. IKEA say how much it costs.
We say $50 a month. We will make you an absolute fortune by having 1000 more people a month coming in and spending money on Swedish meatballs. If you pay $50 a month to have this service. Everybody wins.
So yeah, the disabled person dictates for the first time ever what the world they want to live in by. Just don't. Thank you.
(Kevin) Wow. Thank you. I really appreciate it.