Early Adopters: How Embracing Assistive Technology Can Help Any Business

Transcript for Embracing Assistive Technology - Panel

Welcome to the AccessibilityPlus conference assistive technology and action panel. Early adopters, how embracing assistive technology can help any business. Basic navigation techniques and common obstacles presented, can help move accessibility from a concept to a practice for some people. This session will examine the truths in real experience. My name is Andy Houghton. And I've had the great pleasure of working around the globe to implement programs for individuals with disabilities. I'm a white male, age 54. I use a wheelchair for mobility for the past 34 years. I'm so grateful to be moderating this panel of global experts today. And with that, I want to introduce our first panelist Meryl Evans. Meryl, she's an author, a digital marketing and accessibility consultant. And a highly sought after speaker who happens to be profoundly deaf.

Our next panelist is Gavin Neate. He's the founder and CEO of Neat Box Limited. Neat Box Limited created the award winning mobile phone application, Welcome. Which prepares customer service teams for the arrival of visitors with disabilities. Our next panelist is Andrea Mocellin. He's the founder and inventor of Revolve Air. His experience includes the role as a senior designer at Alfa Romeo Maserati. And he's the inventor of the Revolve Wheel and Revolve Air wheelchair. Aiming to open new frontiers in the field of micromobility.

With that, I want to welcome everyone today. Thank you for your participation. And I'd like to start off the bat with some questions. I'll start with Gavin. I read that your work centers around the need for social access as much as physical access. You talk a lot about the cycle of poor customer service. And you've kind of identify these five items incident, complaint, apology, staff training, and then passage of time, and then back to one. Can you talk a little bit more about that and how your application you know-- addresses those issues.

Yes of course. So first of all, hello panel. Hello delegation. It's an absolute pleasure to be here. So my experience for the last 18 years or for 18 years was as a guide dog mobility instructor. My job was training people how to use guide dogs. I would follow them into shops, part of their training and I observed from a distance how staff interacted with them. And the thing that was pretty much consistent across everything was a total lack of consistency. And they were always having to explain to the staff member how they shouldn't talk to their dog or should they introduce themselves or whatever it might be. And then, the following week they would go into the same shop and they'd be met by a different member of staff, who would then do all the same things wrong. And I realized that staff training was just not as it was. It's just not fit for purpose. What was basically happening was that somebody would have an incident, they would then complain, there'd be an apology, there would be some staff training. Then there'd be a period of time and then they would just go back to square one again.

So Welcome was just a way of saying, well, instead of having to do staff training two years before the staff member meets somebody, I'm going to do staff training 20 minutes before I meet somebody. And with modern technology that is very easy to do. So Yeah, the customer service issues were all around staff not feeling comfortable about meeting disabled people. And of course, with Welcome they can now do that.

And so, maybe talk a little bit about the types of companies. How does somebody get part-- become part of the app? How do companies be part of the-- become part of the app. And talk a little bit about the impact that it's had so far.

So we've got about 150 companies on the platform currently but a lot of those companies are companies that are going to then roll it out to more and more of their sites across the country. And impact is heard so far, as we've got disabled people feeling more comfortable about leaving home, and about going to venues they might never have been to before. One of the key secrets of the application is that disabled users of the app, which is totally free, can actually say where they want it. So we might get 20 people all saying this particular venue needs to install this particular system. So we contact the venue, and we say hi, guys, we've got 20 people. They have all said that if you put this in, they'll come in and spend more money in your shop. That's a massive step forward to actually really empower the disabled person to be very much a part of improving the service delivery.

The beauty of it is that we've got some of the biggest companies in the world on that Diageo, Deloitte, Scottish government, Irish rail and Artos. These are very large companies all looking to provide better customer service for the people who are going to be walking through the door.

Excellent, excellent. Thanks so much. I'd like to move on to Meryl. One of the things when I was doing some research, you talk about the functional solutions model of disability. Medical versus social being two of those. A lot of passionate accessibility supporters who take the functional approach typically get ahead and-- get ahead of yourselves. And maybe you could talk a little bit about that because I was intrigued by that statement.

This is Meryl. I have shoulder length curly hair. I'm a lefty and I have pale skin. And I'm in Generation X. And to talk about the functional model, we have them so many wonderful accessibility supporters. They just want to come out with solutions to-- so we can live our lives and-- like everybody else. But sometimes they forget about the implications or the side effects of those solutions. Social implication, political implication and other implications. For example, a great one is captions are built-in TV. So I can go to anybody's house or to a hotel and know that there's captions there. But there's that other side , a negative one. I'm sure many of you have heard about the sign language gloves. And everybody was sharing, oh, this is so cool, how amazing! But they don't stop and think about the issues with it. And one of those is that is-- the person who signs is the one that has to wear them. And they had to carry the computer. So-- and it's not affordable.

Unfortunately, 70% of deaf people are either unemployed or under employed. Another example, is a wristband for the deaf. It has motors and will vibrate for different sounds. So a dog barking and the phone ringing will be two different vibrations. That sound great, doesn't it, because you wear the wrist [band] and you know what's sounds are happening. But if you already own a watch, that's another thing you have to wear. And the only thing it can do is vibrate sound. A better more option is to use your phone or your computerized watch like a fitness watch. I have an Apple watch. I bought it for fitness. I did not buy it for accessibility. And I was so pleasantly surprised how many things it helps me with from a accessibility perspective.

A perfect example is we have a doorbell with a camera. And it connects to our phone, any kind of movement in front of the door, my phone buzzes, it vibrates. Well, guess what? So does my watch, which works great because I don't want to carry my phone on me all the time when I'm at home, right? And one time my watch vibrated. And I knew it was the door because every vibration is different. So I know the difference between a text message, a timer or the doorbell. So I saw it was my sister. I didn't even know she was coming. My son did, he forgot to tell me. Typical. So I didn't have a hearing aid on at the time, so I was really grateful to have the watch letting me know that she was there. So this is a tool that using something I already have. So--

Well, thanks for that. Now, is there some-- is it some specific software that's unique, that you have to actually upload to your device or is it software existing already in your watch-- your Apple Watch and your iPhones.

So for this particular doorbell, all I have to do is download the app that goes with it. Anybody who buys the doorbell will get the app. Because that's how you could talk to somebody on the door, or whatever. And the watch works with all kinds of software on the phone. So I didn't have to do anything special. That's what makes it such a great solution.

Great, great. Well, thank you for that. And I'm sure we'll be coming back to both of you guys in a minute. I just wanted to reach out to our next panelist Andrea. You're obviously an entrepreneur, creative mind, an inventor. You know-- so talk a little bit about the work that you do around the creative. Talk a little bit about the work you do around the Revolve Wheel and the Revolve Air Wheelchair. And and-- what inspired you to get into that area of work.

Thank you Andy for the question. Am gland am here today. It's a good question in the way that I've been spending up to 15 years designing cars. Luxury cars, city cars, and airplanes. And now I'm also involved in the aviation. So I've always been involved in big vehicles. Let's call it like that. But never the vehicle or a tool that can create a smooth transition between your house to the underground station, to the train, to the car, to the plane. So what is really fascinating at myself is how to create a new icon of freedom and independence for wheelchair user that allow wheelchair user to easily move between all these vehicles. Because the technology there is improving really fast but at the same time the design of the wheelchair stays the same over and over in the years. There is not like a concept or a wheelchair that can really be disrupting the way that is designed in terms of architecture.

That's why-- As I always been working with products with wheels, for example cars. You always design the product around the wheel. But if you don't change the wheel, the product will always be more or less the same. That's why I decided to deconstruct the wheel, to make it much smaller when you're not using it. So when you want to store the wheel and the product or the frame that is around it in the way to making it multitasking, in the way that you can store it everywhere, it means in the car, in the cabin of an airplane. In the way to create a total new wheelchair design means that when is unfolded, when basically the wheelchair is open is an absolutely classical wheelchair. So the user can sit comfortably on it, can push it quite comfortably. But when it's traveling by diverse typology of transportation, it can easily carry in the car without struggling in the driver's seat, on the passenger seat. And you can actually just place it in nearby selves in the way that it doesn't need any additional help for example or to struggle with the space is using around himself while driving the car and parking the car.

Same when he's traveling by plane, it doesn't need to check in the wheelchair before the flight. So saving time, go straight to the plane, can go to the airport one hour before and same when the plane is landing. It doesn't have to go to the luggage claim and waiting for the wheelchair or the wheels or the frame and sometimes waiting that the wheelchair is damaged by the airlines. So going to the complain the assistance, go through the procedure. So--

Yeah.

That's well-- all around the story behind it.

Well, you know-- you've got a wheel and you've got the wheelchair. And it's almost like the story of the chicken or the egg. What came first? Did you come up with the concept to design the wheel, and then you thought about the wheelchair or did they both come around at the same time?

Basically, the wheel came as a challenge. By all the years I spent as styling the vehicles, never to design vehicles. I think is two really different things. I wanted to invent and design something that can improve people's life. So the wheel was designed for both bicycles and wheelchair at the beginning. I first unveiled the project in 2018. Only as wheel design but that stage when I was showing the wheel to exhibitions, a lot of wheelchair user were coming to me and told me, well, if you design the frame around those wheels , well then you have a totally new product. A new icon for us. That-- This is why it took me three years to then reframe all the design of the wheels and the frame of the wheelchair and the way to get this ultra compact size. And the way to create this kind of tool to move around in various vehicles.

Yeah. You know-- so you you've been in the fast car industry and you say you're in the aeronautics industry. What can high speed Formula One type engineers teach us about making wheelchairs and other adaptive equipment lighter and more portable?

Yeah. Well, I'm partnering now with the engineering team based in London UK. I'm currently based in Germany, Munich. And themselves came to me, when I unveiled the project through a simple LinkedIn post. And they asked to myself, can we help actually to make this wheelchair even lighter than you thought. And I was like, well, I mean-- if you can do that you're welcome. And this engineering team was actually coming from Formula One. So in Formula One every single gram count for the performance of the race. And actually, the work they're are doing, the companies the access technologies, and especially Francesco which is my CTO in the company, they can really work in such a way that you can save kilos in total in the world wheelchair. Making it under 10 kilos. Means that you can easily bring in the plane. The cabin crew also can handle it quite easily. It's not only the user but so that family member friends that are living with the wheelchair user they're going to have like an easy way to store it and moving around. So actually, they are really using their skills for improving something that didn't change for such a long time as the frame of the wheelchair itself.

Excellent, excellent. Gavin, did you-- you came up with this concept. What was the impetus behind the technology realizing do you have a technology background that drove you to create this level of technology. And how is business responding because over the past several years, there's been a lot more emphasis on social responsibility. And obviously, accessibility, disability is a huge component of social responsibility corporate social responsibility. So how does what you're doing fit within that overall arching theme of social responsibility.

Yeah. So what can I say? I am not a fan of corporate social responsibility. Am not a fan. There are 1.3 billion disabled people on the planet. And that's going up. They spend $8 trillion every single year. And that's going to go up. In the United Kingdom alone we have 13.2 million disabled people. They spend 274 billion pounds a year on goods and services. Is it a corporate social responsibility to provide a service for them? Or are we absolutely insane if we don't provide a service for them? Commercially, it would be suicide if we didn't. If we thought that 20% of the world's population isn't somebody that we're going to service with the solution.

And of course, it's not just 20%, Meryl said this earlier. This is not just about disabled people. This is about all the people around disabled people. This is families and friends and everybody around it. So the commercial responsibility for any company is not to go, Yeah, this is a nice thing to do or a good thing to do or something that I have to do to sort of as a corporate social responsibility. This is a commercial imperative here. That if people don't deliver services for disabled people they will sink. Because the opposition will be delivering services to people. So Yeah. I'm not a massive fan of corporate social responsibility. What I want is companies to say let's deliver services for disabled people.

Excellent point. And just-- I guess doing the right thing is not exclusive of doing the right thing and improving your bottom line. There is a kind of a connection. Absolute connection between those two and particularly in this case. But excellent, excellent point and way to bring that around to the reality of the buying power of individuals with disabilities around the globe. Meryl maybe as an individual user, can you talk about some of the messaging that when you go out and you speak and you write, what do you tell people about the importance of technology and how it has impacted your life and how it can impact the lives of others.

This is Meryl. Thanks for the great question. So technology allow us to communicate with each other. For example, I was talking to a friend who was blind. Obviously, we both use the cell phone very differently. I used the onscreen keyboard and I typed my text messages. He listened to the text messages I sent him. And then he'll speak his text message and they'll come back to me. So we both can communicate however we prefer. And we can talk to each other. I think that's just amazing. Here's a great example of something I saw not long ago in the virtual reality environment where the captions are in beta. So a friend of mine in Japan who speaks fluent Japanese, he's from Japan. And he spoke Japanese in that environment. I don't speak Japanese so I will not understand that. But the captions converted what he said in Japanese into English. So I was able to comprehend and everybody who was in the audience, it was mostly not people from Japan, could understand what he said. I mean that feels amazing and the implications are huge.

And to go back to what Gavin was talking about. Buying power. Don't forget we all have families and friends. So back in the day, when we had captioned decoders before they were in TV, my family member will have to buy one so I can come over to their house and watch TV. That's just the small example of how family members and friends will buy things that are accessible. So when I was looking into a kitchen appliance, I was trying to find something that is accessible to the blind. Even though I don't use those features, but I want to reward the company for thinking of these things. So I will pick a company that cares about accessibility over the one that does not. So you see how the power can even go beyond friends and family.

Yeah. Well, one of the things that's most fascinating about what you're talking about to me at least, is that technology to convert one language to another is benefiting. Not only those individuals who benefit from the translation but it's individuals like yourself who are able to benefit from the captioning or the real time transcription that's happening. And the same thing with your watch and the technology there. And Andrea do-- can you talk a little bit about if you have a connection to disability. Because I always find it fascinating when folks like yourself who are creating technology and have this vision to improve the quality of lives of people and and-- ease of use. Do you have a connection to disability? And if not, what-- you just kind of fell into this?

Good question actually. I don't have direct-- I didn't have actually direct conversation about those topics before inventing-- reinventing this wheel, the Revolve wheel. It came when I, as I mentioned before, I was showing the project through design festivals and exhibitions and media. And then I got in contact with more and more people and they are traveling every day. Doesn't need the-- they can be athletes, for example, I think our Paralympic really show us how much us in the media, the technology and the abilities are empowering people to get more sensitive about this topic.

And it was fascinating about how much we can do to improve the tools that help people to really speed up their life to move around. And as the designer, I always felt like why should I always spend the time to make a product just a bit more beautiful, when you can actually deconstruct the product to make it-- to improve the functionality of this product. And through the project I developed Revolve Air. I got closer and closer with the wheelchair community. I was quite impressed about how positive you were coming to me, to help me to improve the product. This is why now I'm working really close with the different community or in Germany, for example. The US of course, and they are really telling me tell me sorry-- what's the secret behind the perfect wheelchair in terms of comfort, portability, transport ability.

And what I'm doing now is like fine tunes you know-- like to make it something that they are comfortable to move around but plus they can have this magical experience to fold the wheels, to fold the wheelchair in an extremely compact size. And something that was quite fascinating that when I did the film about the wheelchair, it happened in the iPod, it happened in the train station, people were stopping by and taking pictures of the wheelchair. They were taking pictures of the people folding the wheelchair and-- because for them it was like something completely different and unique. And they were opening their eyes in the way to say, wow OK. I never really reflect the difficulties that people with wheelchair can face during the experience of traveling. So I do like a lot the fact that I can work so close with a wheelchair community and do the best product for the wheelchair community not just with the designer high but also with the user highs.

That's great. Now given-- it's inspiring because here you've created you-- set out to create a product that was just a better product. And then, you got into disability and now with your experience disability, you have this new mindset to think that you'll always be thinking about disability and access in all the work you do going forward. So that's a huge really-- from our perspective and the disability community, having people like you working through that set of lenses is really just amazing. And so, thanks for all the work you do.

Gavin I just wanted to ask you. Because we're getting close to rounding up here. But you know-- it just seems crazy today that we need an app like yours to help people improve-- help people improve people experience in the retail sector or going out to have dinner or shopping at the grocery store or going to the doctor's office. Do you see a time when this will become the norm? And your app shouldn't be necessary. Not I'm trying-- not that I'm trying to make your app obsolete but you know it's--

No I understand exactly what you're saying. The truth is that if you look at a school, for instance. You can train or teach a group of 30 children over a period of six years and then they leave. You then don't go, well, we've trained them really well. Therefore, the children that are starting now don't need to be taught anything because hey, we've already done all the training. We don't need to train anybody anybody-- anymore. The truth is that training is a thing that just goes round and round and round. And Yes, some disabled people will use the app and some disabled people won't use the app. And that will be totally up to them. But when they go to a venue and they get good customer service, it might be because five people before, that person used the app and it raised the awareness of the staff members inside the building before that person turned up.

So no-- I have no concerns about something being obsolete because it's going to be needed. We need to make sure that people are taught how to interact. We can't just expect people to know what to do. In fact, now we're expecting so much more of our staff than we ever have before because we're talking about neurodiversity, acquired brain injuries, cerebral palsy, aphasia, ataxia, epilepsy, autism, visual impairment, muscular dystrophy. There are so many different conditions that we're expecting our staff to have a little bit of an understanding of and they can't unless we actually train them. So training them 20 minutes before the person walks through the door, makes lots of sense, lot of sense. So no, we're not going to be obsolete in fact, we're going to grow and help more and more people and give better customer service.

Excellent. Thank you so much. Very well said. I just want to give everyone a chance, if you have any closing remarks you'd like to share. Why don't we start ladies first. With you Meryl

This is Meryl, thank you. So I have a couple of points that I have to make. One is the curb cut effect. You may have heard that term or if you haven't, real quick what it is, is you know the curb at the crosswalk have ... there's a curb and there's a ramp. And allows wheelchair to cross the street safely. Well, so many people use that. Not just people in wheelchairs. Parents pushing strollers, skateboarders, bikers, people pulling luggage. So many people use the curb cut. Captions are of one of the best example of curb cut. Because I have met so, so many people who are not deaf or a hard of hearing that use captions. They choose to use captions. And sometimes they have to use captions out of necessity because they are in a noisy environment and they can't hear the TV.

So making technology accessible, you're making sure that everybody in the future has access to whatever whenever. We're going to all need it at some point because we all have one thing in common. We're all getting older. And that comes with the need for accessibility. And the second point I wanted to make is, you have to think about accessibility as the full picture. To go with what Gavin was talking about.

So my friend who's blind could not make an appointment to get COVID testing because the application was not accessible for him. It was accessible to me but when I got to the-- OK I've lived across from the pharmacy for 20 years. I've never used the drive-through we know why so-- But when I had to get that COVID test, I had to go through the drive-through. I had no choice. And when I got there, they were on speaker so I couldn't hear it. And then secondly, even though there was a window. The window was reflecting so bad I couldn't see inside. I couldn't see who was inside the window. So it made getting the test inaccessible to me. And I shared my experience and learned about another person who also had the same problem, except she wanted to go in the drive-through and they were making her go in and she had mobility issue. So you can see how one process is affecting three people with three different disabilities in different ways. So companies need to look at the whole thing, not just the digital product.

Excellent. Andrea in a few seconds we have left. Do you have any closing remarks?

Well, first of all, thank you for having me here. Also because even today I learn a lot from Gavin and Meryl and yourself. And what I wish actually, also is my dream is to create more and more attraction from engineers, designer, thinkers, that really are keen to disrupt the mobility of the future and inclusion and accessibility. In the way to use the know how, that now is wasted sometimes with useless product. To make really use of these smart people around the world. To create the right network and creating this kind of-- I like to call it mobility lab where we explore we revolutionize the vehicles that move people all around the world. It means everyone no not living out anyone in the world. So that's like my dream. Hopefully it's going to happen soon starting from a Revolver up to other vehicles and other tools and devices and will improve life.

Great, great. Thanks and Gavin. You have-- In three seconds you have left. No am kidding.

I would say education. We must make sure that education is equally available to all disabled people. The better educated disabled people are, the more appealing they are in the job market, the more they get jobs, the more they work for companies. The more disabled people working for companies, the more the products and services they design and develop and are involved with will suit the people that are requiring those particular products. So education leading to employment that's it.

This has been such an informative panel. I just want to thank our guests again, Meryl Evans, Gavin Neate, Andrea Mocellin. We want to save some time for some questions after the session. Immediately following the session. So once again, thanks to our global panel of experts. We've all learned a great deal and we hope-- we hope this will be a very informative session.

Transcript for Live Q&A

(Kevin McDaniel) Thank you so much. Thank you very much to Andrew Houghton and to all of our panelists. Gavin Neate to Meryl. Andrea Mocellin. And thank you so much for your time. That was a wonderful discussion. My name is Kevin McDaniel and the current editor in chief for Accessibility.com.

And so I'll be moderating the question answer section of these presentations. Had some incredible questions here. And I'd like to just go ahead and get started because we have such limited time. And I can see that Andrea and Meryl have joined us.

 Thank you guys so much. That was a wonderful presentation. I I really enjoyed that. There were with the question answer the the discussion board here was was really I mean, there are so many questions I hope I can get to them all.

So please let me just go ahead and get started. Meryl, I'll start with you. One of the questions I noted here was Where do you see given your experience? Where do you see assistive technology going from here? What's the future of it, in your opinion? Returning to. Here we go.

(Meryl Evans) Do you mind putting in?

(Kevin) The chat?

(Meryl) Yes, because I'm not seeing the question on the list.

(Kevin) Yes, ma'am.

(Meryl) Thank you so much. The captions were kind of flaky there.

(Kevin) Yes, ma'am. And so I'll just read it one more time for our viewers.

This is where one of the questions is where do you see assistive technology going from here?

(Meryl) I think we're going to be seeing more and more things. Coming to the crisis, we already own and be adding more, we should make it more inclusive.

And the big picture, I mean, we have a new operating system that just came out. It has more accessibility built into it. And... But we need to think about these things whenever we create any new product. So I think we're going to see what a sort of a product you think that we can all the back because so many people with disabilities don't even have a computer. I read that data somewhere. That makes no dimension.

(Kevin) Yeah, there's actually quite a few studies that come out now that talked about the lot of folks. Just skip to the computer age went right to mobile.

When you talk about assistive technology in the future, there was another question here, but I'll switch over to Andrea here. And it was so funny that Andrew actually touched on this the chicken or the egg question, because one of the questions was what came first when you were developing the Revolve Air? The innovation or the need for accessibility? And are the two interchangeable?

(Andrea Mocellin) Yeah, thank you for the question. I mean, great to hear the positive feedback during the conference. Actually, that came first, the innovation because I'm coming from, let's say, aviation and auto industry, and then innovation varies quite low.

Let's say, let's put it like that. So I was really driven to innovation, and I have to say there was the huge potential to do better design and accessibility, for example, and inclusion, so that the idea was really like, OK, can you use the background that I gained through the experience in global your yams and startups or something that is more meaningful than for something that needs to be changed or improved because there wasn't one in the past ten years or more. There was not such a big innovation in that field, for example, in The wheelchairs and then that just that have been through so many projects in the past that was like, What is burning light? Look, not me. Well, try to explore more specifically tried to do to improve the design and the way people can use the wheelchair in different scenarios. And that drove me actually to push me through to create this kind of invention as well for collapsible wheel is important to wheelchair frame.

(Kevin) Mm hmm. Yeah. There was just so much great feedback, a lot of folks asked where they can learn more about the Revolve Air. And I sent them a link. But if for all of our viewers, if you don't mind sharing before, we only have so much time.

Do you mind sharing where? Where are some of our viewers can learn more about your product?

(Andrea) Well, actually there is the website now. So like a quite active in LinkedIn where I put like an ad post every latest update.

Um, actually, I'm constantly traveling around Europe to meet the partners. So I do have great partners working separately in the development of the chair so that the chair is going to be, first of all, coming with that composite materials to achieve the lightest weight possible and the wheel is going to be developed separately in the way that can also always be improve and getting through the feedback of the users getting better and better. You know, like it's a new technology is what I am in for is like that the user is going to give me really important feedback every time and the way that the next generation of which it would be better than the previous one. So we like to be pragmatic and honest with ourselves and in the team as well, and we want to generate the best product that the user can practically use during the traveling by plane, by cars and the type of transportation and future transportation as well.

(Kevin) It's a really incredible product, and it's funny, as we are as we're going through these questions, answers I had, I had seven or eight listed here for all of you and they just continue to come. So I apologize if I'm looking over Gavin, let me switch to you.

One of the first questions we got was speaking about your application, which they give thank you for doing. This was where do you think given given the nature of your product, where do you think customer service fits into creating a more inclusive and accessible customer experience is it was a first, second. How is it prioritized in that experience?

(Gavin Neate) That is a good question. How do you? I think so. I think all the disabled people really deserve is to be treated with equity. A lot of people talk about equality. Equality, of course, is important, but equity means that if somebody needs a lower desk for you to talk to the service desk, then it's a lower desk. It's not all the desks are low or something like that. So. So I think that as long as we have good physical design, the next question is then how well can we educate the people who are interacting education in in the nicest, in the nicest possible sense?

This isn't about educating you how to talk to people. This is about how to help two people communicate with each other because this is customer service is delivering a service. But ultimately, you don't stay in customer service unless you're happy doing it.

And if every time you see a disabled person come through the door, you think, uh-oh this is where I run the risk of messing up again. And if that if you're thinking of yet another opportunity for me to do brilliant customer service and if we can do that, then there's going to be equitability.

If that's a word, this is equality, then that I guess that's where it is. But I want a situation where no matter who comes through the door, the customer service representative is prepared to interact with them.

(Kevin) Now, there was another question came in, I had a follow up for you, but I think this was more relevant to your comment. It says here how can your product be used in a customer call center setting? It cannot be used in that setting.

(Gavin) Oh my word. You know, the problem when you have an idea is everybody can see so many different ways of it being used.

So, yeah, let's say in the future, what we're doing right now is pretty big. Every hospital, every health center, every doctor's surgery, every cinema, every coffee shop, every restaurant, every train station, every airport, every ferry terminal, every restaurant.

You know everything could potentially use this customer service thing, but we've had people ask us two specific questions Can it be used when somebody's phone to call center? Well, let's imagine in the future that somebody signed up for the service.

And when you call that call center, the person at the other end of the line goes, Right, okay, Gavin. Gavin needs me to know he has acquired brain injury. I need to take a little bit more time in how I speak with Gavin and make sure that if Gavin sounds like he needs a break, then I'm going to give him a pause and then ask him if everything is fine and do some active listening and all that kind of stuff. So call centers? Yes, 100%. But here's another newsflash. Somebody said to me, Yeah, what if somebody is going around to somebody's house?

What if you're a gas or a delivery person? Let's hear Amazon worker and the person on the other side. The door is a power chair user and they need to get into the power chair in order to get to the door.

What if the delivery driver or the person who's visiting knew before they got to the door what needs that person had before they got? So OK, let's forget about all of those places. We can install it and my word all over phone or phone lines and all delivery.

Oh no, OK, enough already. Let's do that next week.

(Kevin) Yeah, that's right.

(Gavin) Yes, it can be. Yes, it should be.

(Kevin) Yeah. And how can how can folks learn more about your application? Is there a direct link that we can?

(Gavin) Yeah, so. Wel hyphen co dot me. Well, hyphen co Dot me is welcome. People can check out the website there, but get in touch with me on LinkedIn. I think the probably the best thing you could possibly do is wait until the last tool called the presentation of this evening this afternoon, because that's my presentation.

A deep dove on actually what welcome does, and I'm more than happy to chat to people. I love chatting to people about inclusion and equality anyway. And I will. Yeah, and if you're in the states you call me and it's 2:00 in the morning, I will take the call.

(Kevin) Oh, really? We really appreciate it, and I would all do, too. Gavin is asking these questions, do you ever get to watch any of it? And I have another question for you Meryl, before I do, I just want to say to for Andrea on the Revolve Air tons, dozens of comments and questions coming in.

I'm going to send you some more of them. If we have time, I want to go back to one of them, but I'm counting ten, 20, 25 comments about how great. And so let me let me get this one question to Meryl, and hopefully we have time because I do have a couple more for you.

Meryl, I have one question come in and this speaks to you again to the customer service piece. But I think the question really was how can assistive technology be embraced to improve accessibility for customers when their their needs aren't necessarily known to the to the organization?

(Meryl) I would like to get proactive, and that's why it's so important to bake accessibility into the company culture, not in the stock or not. I think the whole culture could affect the budget if they work in silos. The whole organization needs to be involved, and they could be proactive by having information on a rough time.

So the accommodation they offer were to contact that the missing. So you have to let people know what is available when you do that, that you have to care. It's very hard to think of every possibility because we even have.

Schrodinger added cat attacks not to call them because one person they can conflict with another person's name so don't know pleasing everyone. So be very I at a pretty rough time to show her you care about accessibility, but I think that is what you're doing.

And if there's something that's not covered, get the marketplace reach out to you.

(Kevin) Hmm. So building it, building accessibility into your culture, having direct lines of communication with your customer and thinking about what I understood from what you were saying is is to sum up what you are saying is that understanding that just because you can be 100% compliant doesn't mean you're necessarily going to be 100% accessible. And the key is to engage your customers, right? Is that? Yeah, I think it's so true and we advocate that we advocate for that, of course, to to first embrace that connection with the community, to really understand the accessibility needs your community.

And so I thought that was a great question, and I wish I could get to them all. And you know, we have so many and I know that you're going to be with us a little bit later as well.

So I'll try to start marking some of these questions and be a little bit more direct because there's so many great great questions for all three of you. Andrea, go back to you. This is actually a specific question.

I know this speaks again to this is this is, you know, the reason you created this was to was to create a unique experience that solves a problem. So with with with with all the things that the Revolve Air already does, does it does it?

Does it actually create a do you have a telescoping ability to adjust for smaller sizes that you incorporate that any of that into your design? Oh, your muted. Sorry, I'm sorry.

(Andrea) Yeah, great question, indeed. Actually, the wheel is being studied to be modular because the patented mechanism can be scalable for any size of wheel.

The idea, of course, is starting with the universal sized, let's call it, the 24 inches for the wheelchair to reach more people. But of course, the idea that after the first series of which is going to be out of there, then it's possible to scale it for different sizes.

So there is already we are already working in the way to a different set of wheels, different sets of chairs, adaptability. So it's something that is absolutely coming along. The first launch of the wheelchair, so more successful is the first launched.

More is going to be the progress to do so and consequence to the the wheelchair. So the idea of the company is only innovation driven. So everything we are developing is to reach more people than to have a better journey and safer trips.

So that's the mission one. And that comes with modularity of the product.

(Kevin) It's the customization. It starts with its usability, its universal design. That's the that's just the really great thing about what all of you do. And you have a ton of fans here.

I really wish. It's so funny, you know, the entire presentation, and there must be 100 questions coming up right now. So, Alycia, how much time do we have? Do you mind how much it

(Alycia Anderson - MC) maybe one more quick one?

(Kevin) OK, one more quick one. OK? Gavin, you seem to stick to the rotation here and I have more questions for all of you in later sessions. But Gavin, how do you know? How do you know when a new technology is accessible?

Meaning if you've created an accessible customer experience, you're using the app? How do you know you've gotten there? How do you know you've matured as an organization?

(Gavin) OK, right? So, so 18 years Guide Dogs for the Blind. I was living and breathing visual impairment and disability for for a long time.

I was also talking with people who were disabled for a long time. When I found a software developer, when I found an abstract, I found somebody who understood disability. When I employed people, I made sure and half of my company, the people who work in the company, are either living with disability or have children or family members who are disabled. When we found a software development company, we found people who understood disability from the very get go. So it was impossible not to make something that was disability friendly. That said, when we then put it out into the world, we then got feedback from all our users.

All right, you need to do this. You can improve it. That and we just went, Guys tell us how we can improve. Don't ever be embarrassed about not being perfect. Apple launched something you are one of the most amazing companies in the world.

Two weeks later, there's an update. There's a reason for that is because they're always ready to improve and do things better. Andrea is always going to be finding a new thing that you can do with stuff. Meryl is always going to be asking for things it could do, but it doesn't.

You're not criticizing when a bit of tech doesn't work. You just saying, how can I add things to it? Well, I got to thinking about that. That's goosebumps, I love that. (Kevin) Well, you know, I'm I'm a big advocate for the accessibility maturity model and being becoming more mature as an organization.

(Kevin) So I think that innovation is key and I am going to tell you and I watched your presentation. I'm such a huge fan of all of you. You may have seen me creep in on your LinkedIn. So because I just love what you guys do and I really appreciate your time, and I wish we had more time for questions, but I know I'll have more time with you later. So thank you all again and looking forward to hearing more from you a little bit later. Thank you so much.

(Alycia) That was amazing. Your products are awesome, and what is really great is your enthusiasm in creating them.

I love it. Technology is where it that we need to give people the right technology to access life and the best way possible. So you all are doing amazing work. Thank you so much and I can't wait to explore your products myself.

So thank you for your time. I used to be in tech. I'm get fired up like yoga, then I'm totally into it. So it's good stuff.