#119: I Like, I Wish, What if?

Welcome to Blind Guys Chat, where this guy, Oren O'Neill.

Hello.

And this guy, Jan Bloom. Hello. And Claudia O'Donovan.

Hello.

Talk about the A to Z of life.

Hello, ladies and gentlemen. And we were just singing. Spring is in the air. Welcome to episode 119 of Blind Guys Chat. The birds are singing. The robins are out.

It is so nice, Oren, to be out and about again.

Love it.

Not to be negative, but we have some excitement here in our area, you know, we have some excitement. No, no, no. Sorry. Yeah. I shared snow via what with the. With the meta Brill glasses, you know, it was really something. Yeah.

Jan did a video call with me when he was skiing to show me some snow.

Yeah.

That'S the nearest you're going to get snow this year.

I know, but at least he was there. He was able to touch it.

And Chef was there a question I.

Want to ask you just about Chef. Does Chef like the snow?

He loved it. And he was even chasing Bumby.

He was chasing Bambi.

Yeah. Wild bummy. Three wild bumbies in a row. And then she said, hey, I'm going there. But. But we could. Yeah, we could really. Well, we. We could keep him a little bit in our. Yeah. In control. But it was funny. We were really, you know, virgin snow. It was there, you know, the first layer and that. Nobody stepped into that. And it. Yeah.

Oh, I love that sound. It's so gorgeous. Yeah.

And then the whole world is then in peace, you know, and it's kind.

Of quiet, but it's also clean. Everything looks clean and I love it.

Yeah. Yeah. It smells also nice then.

It does, doesn't it?

Yeah.

But I wonder, is that to do with being in the mountains and the eye and the kind of air? I don't really know.

No. I think here, in here in the Netherlands, we have no mountains, only Dutch mountains. But it is also peaceful then. And it smells also nice.

What are Dutch mountains, Jan?

They're hills.

Hills and dykes. And dykes.

Okay.

Yeah.

Tell us about. Tell us the good news. I'm delighted. There is. There's fantastic news, folks. There is absolutely fantastic news.

No, tell me more.

Mr. Yan Bloom's meta glasses have stopped.

That's not fantastic news. Just because you.

This is you.

What's it?

Schadenfreude is really true. Well, I was. I was really feeling, you know, like Mr. Trump, you know, nobody can touch me and I can do what I want, you know, I can do it with vpn. Without vpn, I go to the us To Egypt.

You don't have the cards. You don't have the cards, John.

I don't.

I got the cards. You don't have the cards.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Stupid. Like Mr. Zelensky, you don't have the cards.

You know.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's true.

And like, also, I think everyone will encounter sometimes when you. When it's. Yeah. That there will be sometimes bad times and good times, you know, they will follow up.

So right now you're having a bad time because you've lost your VPN in a way.

I'm still using the glasses, to be honest, for WhatsApp and, and streaming. Listening to books. I, I was. I'm. I'm reading a lot of books via the Metaglasses. That. That's quite comfortable.

Oh, you've got an audible account, do you?

No, no, I got. But here in Holland we have a library for the blind and you can really stream all the. And they are spoken.

You know, I prefer.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's, that's quite nice. It's really a really relaxing way and they got a huge library, so it's really. All the titles are there. Yeah. I also like to read in a. On. On a trip, you know, when you're waiting on an airport or, or. And then time flies, really. And when you have an exciting book, you know, a thriller or whatever, you.

Know, the only thing I found about that. And thank God, if we were on a trip. Claudia is usually. If not always with me if I was ever to do it. And I have done it a couple of times.

Yeah. You went to Sweden.

You can get so engrossed in. In the book.

Yeah.

You kind of need somebody there to go, come on, the plane's gone. Oh, yeah, I forgot where he was. Yeah.

Whereas I'm a person who's. I'm a chat with the person you're with. Kind of person, you know. Oh, I like chatting to people.

That's also nice. But sometimes also nice to. Yeah. To read.

It's nice to have pictures. No sound.

Yeah.

But, but, but another exciting news here is that we have. Mr. Stuart Lawler is at CSUN. Hey. Yeah, he's in LA right now.

The lucky.

Yeah, the lucky bastard. Yeah, he is really enjoying. Yeah, he's enjoying. He's enjoying. I. I just spoke to him and. And he's enjoying himself already. The first day.

Yeah. What's he doing over there? He's no reason to go over there. He has all the gear. He. Goodness sake.

That's true. But, but, but he'll Be our ears, you know. So he will be in our show. He will. I've invited him already for an interview. So he will. He will be there. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Lovely.

It'd be nice to catch up with him. Disneyland. Disneyland is in Anaheim. Oh, he could go to Disneyland between.

Disneyland to Disney World.

Oh, I have no idea.

Oh, really?

Is it not the same thing?

It's not. I don't know.

I think Disneyland is in Florida. Isn't it Disney?

I'm just looking at Disneyland. Park is in Anaheim.

Oh, could be.

I don't know.

And then what's in Paris?

There's also Disneyland. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

All right. So your metal glasses have stopped working, so that's terrible. But you're still wearing them, which. And I'm using them a bit more when I'm walking with Larry. I'm using them when I'm in work. Although I feel a bit unlike David Renstrom, I do feel a bit foolish when I go into work or I'm going out to let Larry relieve himself during the day. I do put the Ray Bans on and nobody has said anything to me yet. But you kind of feel that's because.

There'S no one in our back garden.

A twist. No, no. I mean in work, when I'm in the house and, you know, you're passing by loads of people and they're going, why are you wearing sunglasses all of a sudden?

But, I mean, you're a blind guy, so it's okay.

Well, yeah, but. Well, I don't know. Yeah, I'm not Ray Charles.

You know, you can email blind guys chat, gmail.com or tweet us line Guys Chat if you have any comments or questions.

Now, folks, time for our guests for the show and we are delighted to have Sarah Boland. Sarah is from Chat. She's from Freedom Tech. She's from Johnny Gods. She's from the south of Dublin. She's from everywhere else. She's all. She's everywhere all at once. Sarah, you're very welcome. Tell us, first of all, where are you and what's the weather like?

Thanks, Millionaire, and thank you so much for the invite to be on the podcast. Great to be here. Where am I saying that now?

Wait till we. Wait till we actually get into the recording.

I currently, I'm in Dundrum in Dublin and it's nighttime, so it's a bit cold and all I can see is darkness outside. There's a lovely full moon, so that's where I am at the minute.

Let's go out and have a look later.

Tell us about your involvement with chat and with Freedom Tech and with John of God's. What? Because you've got many hats. What's your primary role?

I suppose my full time role is with St. John of God. I work as assistive technology facilitator. I've been in the role for 10 years, a little over 10 years. And I work with adults with an intellectual disability to bridge the digital divide and support them to use technology for independence in their life, whether that's for education, to support with communication, to support with daily living, whatever that is. And I won my job.

You won your job? What were you caller number 10 or something?

No. I was really fortunate to be the 2014 winner of the Vodafone World of Difference and I had just finished a postgrad and mobile app development where I created an app to support people to travel independently with a specific focus. I went into St. John of God, I'd volunteered with them in the past and I really wanted to try and bridge that digital divide and give them tools to support independence. So I was with Vodafone sponsor me for a year and then Saint John of Gods asked me to stay on, which I did. And then I got involved in a number of European Erasmus projects all looking around that digital inclusion piece. And every day has been a learning day and it's been great to work with the adults. We've also been co designing with TU Dublin for 10 years, designing accessible apps every year. So that's actually how I got into Freedom Tech and Freedom Tech started around the same time in 2014 and they published a discussion paper in 2014 and from the discussion paper they then started to launch these chat events, Community Hub for accessible technology. And that was Siobhan Long from Enable Ireland and Joan O'Donnell and Pierce Richardson and they were really the spearheads. They started all this movement off then at around 2017 and they asked me would I help to curate and to pull together the chat event. So it's a community of individuals and organizations with a real interest in transforming and people's lives through the use of at both assistive technology and accessible technology. And we kind of use the term interchanging and it's really to facilitate peer learning, collaboration and to use shared experiences to address at related challenges and gaps. There's like over 200 different organizations and people around the country who've kind of signed up to our mailing list and who come to our events. These are 80 users who are the most important people to have in the Room got practitioners, we've got researchers, educators, service providers and suppliers.

What brought you to this interest there?

Myself personally, I did. My primary degree was in sound engineering and then I did the degree in Bally Fermit in the media management degree there. And I thought I had. Oh yeah, my project. You have to do a final year project. I said I'll be easy, I'll just record a band, it'll be grand. Make CD you'd be doing. But around the same time my, my brother, most of my family will be dyslexic and my brother was doing his leaving cert and I used to get the tape stand from Donegal and my brother is the smartest person on the planet, but he just couldn't understand the accent. So I used to do get. I'd have my mini disc recorder and I'd be recording the books and all the rest of it and forum and it came to history. So for my degree project, then I just switched it overnight and I created an accessible e learning book. YouTube had just come out and I used. I built it all on Flash. This is back in 2001, 2002, I built it all on Flash, an interactive ebook that highlighted the words and spoke them out simultaneously. So I was kind of making at without knowing I was making 80 back then. And then we're solving a problem like.

That, so that's so clever.

That's it. I loved it though. And because he had all the ideas, he knew what he wanted. So I was just listening and then using my tech skills to implement that. He did go on to get an A1 in history. He went to college and he got into Blanchardstown and he was given, I never forget it, he was given like £10,000 worth of equipment, like a laptop. And back then this was a lot of money, right? A laptop, a Kirkwell 2000, jaws, the whole lot.

Wow.

Not an hour of training. So I have to upskill myself to figure out how all this AT worked. And I think I was hooked then. In that whole space of what AT can do and how it can really support and empower and just be a tool for, to change people's lives, I thought it was awesome. It opened so many doors and I.

Mean that's really interesting. Even just hearing that Jaws is being used to help people with dyslexia, that's amazing. Like it's, it makes so much sense. But I've never thought of it that way. I've only ever seen it from the vision impaired end of things. That's really cool.

That's the interesting thing I find with at, a lot of things can be used by lots of different people and sometimes we don't always know that. That's one of the beauties of chat is that we've managed like, well, I've learned so much from the people who come to chat, whether they're the AT users or the people from the different groups to linked out with. Like for example, Child Vision. We hosted a chat out and every time I go there I learn so much from the team out there or in NCBI or when we went to UCD Access Centre. The team in ENABLE Ireland are second to none for the support WITH AT across the country. So it's just great to have an outlet because there's not many of them out there for people to be able to engage with. And just to find out, right, what AT is out there, what's working well for people and how can we collaborate as well on building new 80 brilliant.

What's the hot discussion been about in terms of assisted technology?

Well, I think, and it was actually captured in the discussion paper back in 2016 because Pearson, Joan and Siobhan, they did do a lot of legwork back there, but a lot of the challenges are still to this day there and it circles around the person not being involved enough and not being able to access the information. So that's the person part of it and their role in the whole process. Then it comes into the people to support. We know there's not enough people out there, there's not enough clinicians to be able to give diagnosis and to be able to prescribe X, Y and Z or be able to even access funds to be able to get the AT for people. So the people and the training of staff, training of teachers, training for families. So that was. That's always been an issue. The products as well themselves, sometimes the products. Now I do believe products are getting easier and more accessible to use and to engage with. But I remember like 20 years ago and trying to figure out the Kirk Swelt or the Jaws back then, or trying to install different programs and softwares and there was just an awful lot. They just made it very complicated to even set up some of these ats. Now a lot of things are plug and play, so it's much easier to engage with things. And as well we know that when we co design tools like assistive technology, when people with disabilities are part of building those tools, they're going to be more accessible. So more of that is still needed to this day. Policy is another huge gap there Isn't we don't have a national policy in Ireland. A lot of services don't have policies. It's just this kind of a black hole. And especially from a service point of view, when there isn't policy to support service delivery, it doesn't get done.

And a lot of that is about funding as well because it's, it's very hard to fund a policy role within a lot of these organizations are not for profit and it's. They just don't have the cash, I guess, you know.

Absolutely Claudia. But also sometimes what we found in chat and through Freedom Tech and also the @Password projects that was one of the outcomes of from the discussion paper was the need for this AT Passport to give AT users to empower them to have the information that they need and then they share it. Whether they're transitioning in life from college into the workplace or from the workplace into some other setting that they would have the information that they need. Because there, as we know there's this kind of repeat of assessments and requirement gathering and all this kind of stuff keeps happening when if the person had control over that information that they could then share it with the right people. And why I say that and go back to the kind of the, the money and the cost. A lot of people felt and feel that AT is something really, really expensive when nowadays and even with the AT Passport the average cost for the AT is only about €500. So it's not always very, very expensive to get the AT you need and thanks to like mainstream tech embedding accessibility into their features and their main functions, some of the solutions are easier to get and off the shelf type of things and there is still need for some high end stuff, don't get me wrong. But there is this misconception that assistive technology is always really expensive and it doesn't have to be.

So how far along the road are you in? Because I remember talking to Siobhan Long about the AT Passport. How far has that progressed?

Now thanks to create funding we have had with two pilots of the AT Passport. So the AT Passport was a. We collaborated with St John of God enable Ireland for the lead DFI were there Mississippi, Ireland and Headway. And we also had support from Microsoft and a software development company Tech Enable. And so we've built the initial prototype and minimum valuable product. It was really important that we built an AT Passport that was going to be valuable to different stakeholders. The first and the main stakeholder is the @ user so that they can access their information and Then you've got to look at the other circles of support that are needed. So we have, for example, service providers, AT supporters, family members, whether it's an educational partner or whether it's an employment, somebody in hr. So there's lots of different people and the funders as well for the AT who need to be taken into consideration in their role in the Passport. We've embedded an assessment pathway that works for all four orgs, capturing all that data so that there is also a portal for the funder to receive the request to then approve or not approve the request. And then you've got your portal for the AT Passport owner so they're informed every step of the journey. That was the first iteration. That's what we call at passport 1.0 and now we have the at passport 2.0. And this version of the at passport is for individuals who may already know their needs and they're able to capture all their information. So whether they have previous assessments or previous reports and stuff, they can upload it into the @ password and then they can share that off to whoever they want. But also if they identify a new AT need, we have got a bit of a database running. We're starting to build it up so that we can hopefully use AI in the future and so that they will be able to see which AT will match their need and also where they can get it and who could fund it for them. Or if they want to self fund it, where can they go and buy it? It is complicated, but thanks to all the partners working together on this so far, we know that we need something to support people, to get access to the information and that needs to be central. We're not sure where it's going to live in the future, but we're talking to a number of different departments because it needs be across department, it can't just sit in one. And yeah, so we're keep working on it. And thanks to the Trojan work with by Enable Ireland and Siobhan Long leading it as well. That's really important, but wouldn't have happened without the CREATE grant.

It's good. It's great, isn't it, when you know, we give out about politicians. But it's great when something like that comes out of, you know, where people realize how important it is. Collaboration and co design. The minute you said co design I thought, oh, this girl. Like 10 years ago you said you were working in co design, like that's phenomenal because that's one of the biggest mistakes that a lot of organizations make. Is they don't talk to the people who are going to be using, who have the needs, who will be using the technology or whatever the product or whatever it is. We know from research, we know from a lot of different fields that co designing something, whether it's a product or a service, makes it better.

Yeah, we really need to be creating with people and not for people. And that's been a really strong mantra of what I've done because I learned the hard way. When I built waybuddy the first time, I followed to the rule, to the letter of the law the universal design principles and I followed user centered design. And I got all the interviews and I met all the people, went off, locked myself away for six months, built the app and then did the usual software development, went back to test it with the users and they were like, what is this? Not a chance. I'm going to use this. And then I gave up a year of my life and I went in every week and I worked with a team of them and I got it until I knew they were going to be able to use it. 95% of every single good idea, every single good workflow came from those adults with intellectual disability didn't come from me. I was only the facilitator. It's them because they are every day navigating a world that's not accessible. They are the problem solvers. They are the ones who can really make a change for the better because they know what they need. And so that's been the driver for us for co design and thanks to T. Dublin for facilitating us as well for 10 years to partner with them and the computer science students.

So are you finding that companies and organizations are more receptive now to maybe co designing with the user?

I think there's a number of challenges with co design and getting co design right. We know it's been bandied around a lot lately in a lot of different spaces. How we do it is we upskill people with disabilities in design thinking methods. We've created an accessible design thinking toolkits that we use in the co design workshops. It's not just, oh, let's all sit together and co design. We actually use a methodology based on design thinking to support the co design, if that makes sense.

That's very good. Yeah, yeah.

And it was going back to the D school and the ideo tools from the guys out there in Stanford and taking those tools and making them more accessible to support that co design experience because we can't expect people who've never been Asked for ideas or never been asked to engage, to suddenly sit down there beside somebody else with a different skill set and then answer these questions or start coming up with ideas, start brainstorming. No, we need to take a step back and walk them through a process with tools that are going to be accessible, that are going to be support them to come up with ideas, to think big to the blue sky ideas. One of my favorite tools is that I like. I wish what if? So as especially for the cohort of people that we work with. We need to be visual because they're looking for images they're looking for. Because literacy might be low. So they need to be able to engage in the content. But you could also do it using audio description or something else. But what we do is we keep things, we keep ideating using visuals and we then go back, go to the user, go to the co designers and ask them, ask them around there. What do you like about this? What do you wish could be different? Rather than using negative language like I don't like, we use I wish, I wish it could do this. I wish it was like this. And then the what ifs are those big blue like crazy ideas that we may not be able to build right now, but in the future, hopefully we will.

That's amazing. That's so cool. Yeah. And I mean I know that kind of work isn't easy either, you know, but it's, you know, I've been lucky enough to be involved in some engagement work with people with ID and like it's just the ideas and the amazing way they think about things. Do you know, it's such a huge benefit to understand what they're thinking.

Yeah. And Claude, another thing, another key thing will be the, what the assistive technology does in that space, in that co design space is that it supports people to understand and to be understood and that's really, really important because without the use of at, it's very hard to ensure that things are accessible, that people are keeping up with what's happening. Because as you can imagine, software development, it's quite fast paced and people are kind of changing but you don't want to leave anybody behind. And that's the beauty of using at. And actually the whole collaboration with TU Dublin all started and we went with the idea, we went with the tools, we. And they opened their doors. But it all happened at a chat event, the very first chat event where one of the self advocates who's from St. John of God went up to one John Gilligan, one of the lead Lecturers in computer science in. At the time it was in Kevin street and said, I want to go to college, I want to go to university, I want to build apps to help other people like me. And that's how that co design happened. We were also really fortunate to win the Zero Project UN award for our co design toolkit there in 22 years ago, 2023. So that was really good as well.

Are there people using that toolkit now?

We're using it primarily in td, but we've wrote a number of different research papers on it and it's shared and quite a lot of people are looking at the methodology of using design thinking tools to support the CO design and that kind of as a way and as a tool and as a method to engage in different groups.

Amazing.

So how can people get involved if they want to in chat and contribute?

Yeah, absolutely. So we've got FreedomTech IE is the website and we're also on socials on LinkedIn and X on that as well. But the website is one of our main places and we also have a group on LinkedIn. You can just look up Freedom Tech and you'll find it. Also you can email me sarahreedomtech IE and I can add you to the mailing list. Our next chat event is taking place on the 7th of May and it'll be an online event where we're going to be looking at the European Accessibility Act.

Okay, Can I attend?

Yes, can I attend? We'll have you in as a speaker, Oren. We did touch on it into Dublin last year and the wonderful Donal Rice came to that event and shared his insights on it and it's great to see him move up up into the his new role, which we're hoping to get him at the next chat event. But yeah, open to all to come online and to join us and if you know anybody who'd be really good to reach out to have involved in the discussion on that day, please do.

Get in touch because the EAA is coming up in June, folks.

Yep, that's it around the corner.

All our troubles are over.

Well, it'll take time, he said, but let's be optimistic. Let's be optimistic.

Thanks so much for taking the time to talk to us. This has been fascinating and hopefully I'll make the next. I will make the next chat event and hopefully the next disrupt event, etc. But the work you're doing is fantastic. As well as Enable Ireland, just a.

Big shout out to the chat events and Freedom Tech. Just our sponsors Sight and send technologies and without Stuart Lawler and the guys there.

He abandoned us. Thanks Sarah again for coming on the show and we'll put all the links on the show notes and yeah, keep us up to date with what's happening and yeah, good luck with the future events.

Thank you so much. Thanks Claudia. Cheers.

Aaron, you were telling us before you we. We went on recording the show. Yeah. That you're having some funny things. Funny things happening.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

It is what's happening.

No, we are suffering in this from last weekend. It started Friday night that a part of the Atlas area was. Was woken up by a big blast. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Nobody knows. Well, sometimes it is done by. By some real firework, you know these cobras or a big bang, you know that is the Thunder Kings or whatever. How do they call it. But they a young kids that. Well they are. Then they put it in front of your door. Then it will 3, 2, 1, ignition, 0. And then bang.

And it explodes your door.

Explosion door. Yeah, well. Or even more.

And is this what's happening?

Yeah, it is used to scare off or to say that you don't like each other. Yeah, it is funny but it is used among criminals. For example, I am ruining your cocaine deal or drugs because in Dublin they.

Just shoot each other.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. In a way. So. But, but I know your family or this is your house. So this is the first. So now you need to pay or now you. Yeah, I have no, we have no clue.

But I mean this hasn't happened to you personally, has it?

No, fortunately not. No, no, no, but, but in the area. Yeah, in the area. And it happened on Friday night. But the poor people or the poor lady who lived in that. This is a 70 year old lady sick or whatever. And so there was. So yeah, sorry, wrong number.

No, it was the wrong address.

Yeah, we think so. Yeah. So I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm. I am. I'm only speaking as a reporter so I don't know. And then next night, bang again. Tijo woke up even from this. And then it first started house number 27 on the same street. Then it was number 272. 272 Bang. Also wrong number because there was an old couple living.

No. Yeah, so it's something two seven something they're looking for but they don't quite know. They need to check the address.

That's what I would be doing.270.

Hold on, you're vindicating this by saying I'd look At the address first before you get it right, ladies. Yeah, they shouldn't be doing it at all.

No.

And then, and then the next night, you know, number three in a row, our secure. This area has also a local security, you know the, the some volunteers, they walk around and then they volunteer to keep it safe. So they really saw something happening. So they disturbed two people and they went after them. And then also the police because it's. Yeah, the police was also alert of course after two explosions in the night. And I think those idiots who are doing that, you know, they are the young boys but I think they cannot read or they don't know how to count or they don't. Yeah.

Not that it makes it any better, but it's nice.

It's terrible. Yeah. And, and yeah, I, I think I shared it earlier. In our area we have these wielders, you know, this famous politician lives in this area and he is being secured. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But also he has heavy security, you know, so all cameras, etc.

Well, well, well. Look out for people with bangers, folks at your doors. And be careful, be careful, be careful. Listen, we're out of time. Thanks very much to Sarah Boland for joining us and please do send us an email with any of your thoughts about the show or anything that's happening in your life. Remember blindguyschatmail.com and we shall see you in two weeks time. Yes.

Yay. Well done.

Okay, bye. Bye.

Take care.

Bye.