Full Transcription:
Calvin:
What we’re trying to do here at Lighthouse Guild is develop this game-changing technology that can have this major impact on so many lives of people who are visually impaired.
Pete:
Meet Dr. Calvin Roberts, of the Lighthouse Guild in New York City, bringing a new approach – a full range of products and services to its clients.
Calvin:
Whether it’s artificial intelligence, whether it’s program learning, whether it’s facial recognition, augmented reality, we’re trying to build a series of communities. Communities around technology, rehabilitation, telehealth, telesupport, we have this unique opportunity to do both, to have a major impact on lots of lives at the same time that we are providing these services.
Pete:
With a strong focus on technology-
Calvin:
When technology is really, really good, it’s like gosh, why didn’t I think of this? NaviLens created their own codes, which look a little bit like QR codes, except they are in four colors. When you start adding the colors, the amount of information that you can embed in it multiplies tremendously. So here we go, I’ve turned on my phone-
Phone:
One foot away. Office of Dr. Calvin Roberts, President and CEO of Lighthouse Guild. Our mission is to provide exceptional services that inspire people who are visually impaired to attain their goals.
Pete:
And be sure to check out his podcast-
Calvin:
This is Lighthouse Guild’s podcast “On Tech and Vision with Dr. Cal Roberts,” where I talk with people with big ideas about how technology can make life better for people with vision loss.
Pete:
And now let’s listen to Jeff Thompson, Pete Lane, and our guest, Dr. Calvin W. Roberts of the Lighthouse Guild.
Jeff:
Welcome to Blind Abilities, I’m Jeff Thompson.
Pete:
And I’m Pete Lane. Our guest today is Dr. Calvin Roberts, Dr. Roberts is an ophthalmologist by trade, and currently the Chief Executive Officer for the Lighthouse Guild, located in New York City. Good morning, Dr. Cal! How are you?
Calvin:
Great, and thank you for having me on with you guys, you guys are terrific, what you’re doing with this podcast is just superb, such a pleasure to be on with you.
Jeff:
Well, thank you very much, and I’ve heard you got a new podcast out there too.
Calvin:
Oh my gosh, if you let me shamelessly promote my podcast that’ll be the whole time here.
Jeff:
There you go, the mic’s all yours!
Pete:
There you go!
Calvin (recording):
When you listen to a baseball game, do you see the game? This is Lighthouse Guild’s podcast on tech and vision with Dr. Cal Roberts, where I talk with people with big ideas about how technology can make life better for people with vision loss.
Calvin:
My podcast is called “On Tech and Vision with Dr. Cal Roberts,” and it’s produced at Lighthouse Guild, with the idea being that in order to advance the technology of assistive devices, you need some big ideas, and people who have thought about different ways to advance our field.
Calvin (recording):
How well can hearing replace lost sight, and for developers of technologies, for people who are blind or people who have vision loss, what are the benefits and challenges to using sound as a substitute sense? OrCam is an Israeli company that has been tackling this issue using a camera to talk to people who are visually impaired.
Calvin:
What we do on each podcast is talk about one big idea, take it from its inception, and then quickly get it to the point where it becomes applicable, and then show how real life can be influenced, so let me give you one example, right away. 5G, now everybody hears about 5G, you can’t turn on the TV without hearing an ad for a cell phone company that talks about 5G. Well, what in the world is 5G? And by the way, what does 5G have to do with people who are visually impaired? Well, turns out it has everything to do, because 5G is a technology for moving information back and forth, say you’re visually impaired, and you’re walking down the street, and you’re looking at something using some kind of assistive device, and you’ve got to figure out what is it. Well, if the camera has never seen it before, what it needs to do is take an image of it, send it to some huge mega-computer someplace, which’ll be able to recognize the image and tell you what it is. Well, that’s a lot of information that you’re gonna have to send out to that supercomputer someplace, and what 5G allows you to do is to send that information so quickly, and you can send so many different images with such great speed that your now supercomputer easily figures out what this is and quickly sends the message back out to you and tells you what it is that you’re looking at. So, 5G has the potential to really influence the way that people who are visually impaired interact with their world. But someone had to think about doing it that way. What we do on our podcast is take something like 5G, explain what it is, explain how it can impact general life and those who are sighted, and then specifically how it can influence the lives of people who are visually impaired. And then next week, we try something else.
Pete:
Dr. Cal, you obviously are here representing the Lighthouse Guild in New York City. I see on your website that the Lighthouse Guild is dedicated to providing exceptional services for blind and visually impaired individuals, and you list a variety of services including eye health, clinical diagnosis, optical optometrist services, behavioral health services, what could a visually impaired individual expect when they walk through the door, whether totally blind or visually impaired? What would they expect to see?
Calvin:
I love the question, because it goes right to the fundamentals of what we’re trying to do here at Lighthouse Guild. The simple answer to your question is that someone who came to Lighthouse Guild would experience what it was like to be at an organization that was run by an ophthalmologist, which may be very different than an organization that was run by a social worker or administrator, or something else, because as a doctor there are many ways that you can help patients, and my career, I’m fortunate to have been able to try several of them, for the first 25 years I was a doctor in practice. 15 years as part of a major medical center, as a professor at Cornell Medical College here in New York City, and 10 years in private practice on Park Avenue, and when you’re a doctor in practice, the beauty of it is that you can have a major impact on the lives of the patients that you care for. Unfortunately, it’s just a limited number of them as a practicing doctor at any one time, and then after that, I spent 10 years in the pharmaceutical industry as the Chief Medical Officer at Bausch and Lomb, the eye care company, and there my responsibility was to be part of the team that was developing a new medicine or a new device or a new treatment, and in that situation, a doctor has the ability to impact now many patients, but from a distance and only in a limited way. And people say to me all the time, well, which is better, which is more important, to be the doctor who has a major impact on a few lives or that doctor who has a small impact but on many lives? And the answer is one way is not better. We need both, you know, I spent this last decade until coming here to Lighthouse Guild at Bausch and Lomb, and I’m very proud of the innovations that came out of the company over my years there, but what I learned there, I learned so much about what it takes to bring an idea, a concept, from an interesting thought to a commercially viable product. And so I learned a lot about how to develop technology, but what I missed was that part of doctoring that involves the direct care of patients, one on one. And so the product of the 25 years of one on one and then another 10 years of the one on many, is that it was just great preparation for what we’re trying to do here at Lighthouse Guild, and what we’re trying to do here at Lighthouse Guild is develop this game-changing technology that can have this major impact on so many lives of people who are visually impaired. We have this unique opportunity to do both, to have a major impact on lots of lives, at the same time that we are providing these services to the people that are in our catchment area, because like never before, we talk about this with the podcast, these advances, whether it’s artificial intelligence, whether it’s programmed learning, whether it’s facial recognition, augmented reality, these are all primed to benefit those who are visually impaired, and we at Lighthouse Guild are the connecting rods who are bringing together the scientists, the developers, the entrepreneurs, academics, physicians, and the end-users.
Pete:
And users, right.
Calvin:
Patients! Bring everybody together to advance this technology. Getting back to your questions, what would somebody find when they came to Lighthouse Guild, they find a community, and that’s what we’re trying to build here. We’re trying to build a series of communities, communities around technology, communities around rehabilitation, telehealth, telesupport, where people feel comfortable and want to be part of the community that we are creating.
Jeff:
Dr. Cal, low vision is a large part of the blindness community. How does the Lighthouse Guild approach low vision, and is the low vision field growing?
Calvin:
At Lighthouse Guild, we are there for everyone, across the whole spectrum of vision loss. We’re there for the person who has full vision, we’re there for the person who has little if any vision, and we’re there for everyone in between, because what we have found is that to put people into buckets is not fair, there are people with, pick a number, 20/50, 20/60 vision, who need a lot more services than some other people who are even considered to be legally blind, and so what we want to do is take people at any point of the vision loss spectrum and say, okay, what do you need, what are your goals, what are you trying to accomplish, how can we help you to attain your goals? And then what we want to do is come up with a plan, and so we can then provide the services that that person needs, so that they can attain their goals.
Pete:
I’m wondering, doctor, is there any concern on your part that you’re spreading yourself too thin? You’re offering these services to all of these different types of patients, does that prevent you from giving adequate or sufficient assistance to any particular grouping of patients?
Calvin:
The question makes sense. The reality is just the opposite. What we need to do is to think big, and think bigger, and think bigger than one service or one technology, or one program. We have to have the size that’s necessary, such that we can provide so many services, that the menu is so vast that we don’t have to cookie-cut anyone into a particular program, that we can offer the services that people need, and not the ones they don’t. Let me give you one example: if there is one service that I think is really unique about Lighthouse Guild, it’s what we do in the area of behavioral health, or mental health. I always start out by asking people, what percentage of people who are blind today became blind after age 21 versus before age 21? When I ask that of people who don’t have a lot of experience, they think about it, and they say to me “I don’t know, maybe two-thirds?” And I say to them, “Actually the number is more than 95%.” More than 95% of people who are blind today became blind after age 21, and the reason why I did my research at 21 is because at 21 most people have completed most of their formal education. And so if 95% of people who are blind today became blind after age 21, it means that they were educated as a sighted person. I don’t need to tell them what a keyboard is, what a computer is, or what it looks like, or how to use it. What I need to do is to create technology that allows that person who has lost their vision to regain the functionality of that computer that they had before. The absolutely most common request that I get on a weekly basis, somebody calls me up, and they say to me “My mother is developing macular degeneration, and she’s really having a lot of trouble using her iPhone. Is there someone at Lighthouse Guild who could help her?” And my answer is yes! That’s what we do here! The group, or the sector that knows the least about assistive technology tends to be our wealthier clientele. They have never before been plugged into the social services network. They have no idea what services are available. And so I’ll meet a retired business executive who has lost much of his vision, and he’s walking around carrying a magnifying glass to try to help him read print. And when I show him something like an OrCam or an IrisVision or eSight, he’ll go “This is amazing! How come no one ever told me before that this type of technology is out there.” What we have to do, what all of us have to do, is get the word out there that there is so much that we can do to benefit people who are visually impaired, get the people to come! If you’ve had vision, and you then lost it, there is one thing that I can guarantee: you will become depressed at some point in time.
Pete:
You need that behavioral help.
Calvin:
Correct. That’s one of those services that we do so uniquely well here, between our psychiatrists, our psychologists, our clinical social workers, we have this really broad team of expertise, and what we learned during the pandemic is that of all our services this is one of the very best to migrate from in-person to telehealth. We can go online, over the phone, over the computer, however we do it, with our behavioral health patients, our clients. Interestingly, when I look at the statistics, on the productivity of our behavioral health department, we set all kinds of new records during the pandemic, because when people are at home and locked down, number one, they are unlikely to cancel their appointments, number two, they are unlikely to be a no-show. If you booked a day of 10 patients, the good likelihood is that you will have sessions with 10 patients that day. Our team loved it, because their productivity went up, their connectivity to our clients was terrific, and the beauty of telehealth is now the geographic barriers are gone. We can provide telehealth to someone in California as easily as we can provide telehealth to someone here in New York City.
Pete:
Has your clientele increased in that manner?
Calvin:
Yes, so one of the things that I really like doing is I like speaking to the leaders of some of the smaller local low-vision agencies across the United States. Every time that I speak to one of these people, I just feel so good, because they’re so dedicated, they are so committed to what they’re doing for their clients who are blind and visually impaired. They’re just handicapped by the lack of resources and funds that they have in order to do what they do. Maybe in the past when they spoke to someone from a big organization like ours, their concern was oh my gosh, these people want to come and take me over, which is about the last thing that I had any desire to do. But what I do have a desire to do is to supplement any services that would benefit their clients that they’re not able to provide, and one of them is this behavioral health aspect, and so when I talk to leaders of these regional Lighthouses or other low-vision agencies, and I explain to them that if they have clients who are struggling with their vision loss, let us work together with you and let’s see if you can be more effective in what you’re doing if we can take that behavioral health component and try to improve that for your clients.
Jeff:
Dr. Cal, typically when I see an adjustment to blindness training or a place that provides services, you usually see mobility, skill building or life skills, soft skills, you know, that stuff built into it, it’s all compartmentalized, but you don’t ever see that component too much, the mental health part of it. I think it’s great that you’re offering those places that service just like that.
Calvin:
And I just try to make it as clear as I possibly can, I’m not trying to do what you’re doing. I just want to provide services that you’re not able to provide, so that you can be more effective in what you’re doing. Obviously there are some administrative functions in terms of licensing and stuff like that, and those are things that we can work through, and they don’t turn out to be huge obstacles. At the end of the day, we are a mission-driven organization. You know what’s so different for me, from my decade working in the corporate world, where every decision at the end of the day has to be about the impact on our shareholders and stockholders and profits and return on investment, here we are mission-driven, and we’re fortunate enough that we have the size and we have the resources that we can do things because it helps people.
Jeff:
And I can tell it is helping because some of the teens that have been on, some of the kids that we’ve talked to on this program, it’s just impressive to know, like I said, I think our future’s in good hands, because I see these people coming along that are in so many programs, they’re doing artsy stuff, they’re doing acting stuff, they’re involved, gaining that skill and confidence, that’s not the clinical side, but they’re moving forward in life, and they’re happy.
Calvin:
And that’s also the community side of this. The other day I was speaking with this fellow who has a condition called albinism, albinism is one of the conditions where you don’t have a normal pigment that people have in the skin at all, so it affects the eyes, and in many people can cause pretty severe vision loss. He grew up in a rural area, and he was the only person in his school, in his neighborhood, who had albinism. He grew up being so isolated, because he was so different from everybody else. And then he was introduced to one of our telesupport groups, where every week they would meet over the phone, and it was a whole group of young people who had ocular albinism, everybody was the same. They would talk about what do you in this situation, and what do you do when somebody calls you this name, and what do you do, and what technology works for you, and what technology doesn’t work, and what have you tried, and what do you do in school, and what do you tell your teacher, and what do you tell your principal, and they all work it out together! And he goes from being a person who is isolated and alone and just different from everybody else, to being part of a community of people who are just like him.
Pete:
What a welcome change.
Calvin:
And the other side of that is the role model side. Take that same person, with ocular albinism, well, what’s gonna become of me? What happens to someone with ocular albinism when they grow up? Well, our telesupport includes people often of different ages, and that same 15-year-old with ocular albinism can talk to somebody who’s 40 years old, who went through college, who got this job and that job and all this kind of stuff, and you know what? It works! And you can be successful, and you can have a great life, and ocular albinism does not need to hold you back from what you want to do.
Jeff:
Dr. Cal, being on the side where you were fixing eyes, doing surgery, medical, developing microscopes and technology to help doctors and clients, you fixed them and sent them on their way, what’s it like now for you to know what technologies are out there, what surgeons are doing, and now you’re seeing the other side of it, that you’re living with blindness, how has that transformed you?
Calvin:
I love the question, because it’s transformed me tremendously. When I was a doctor in practice, I thought that I was doing my job because of the fact that I was as obsessive as anyone could be about the health of my patients’ eyes. There was no detail about the health of their eyes that I felt like I wasn’t on top of, and trying to do whatever I can, whether it was medically or surgically or whatever. And then I come here, and I realize that I was not doing my job, because rarely if ever did I ever ask my patients about the impact that their vision loss had on their lives. Rarely did I ask anybody “So, can you pour your coffee in the morning without spilling?” The thought never had come to me. And it wasn’t until I came here, and every morning when I come to work and I come to my office, the first thing I do is I brew myself a pot of tea and it sits on my desk and I pour a little bit all morning as I’m working, and one day as I’m pouring my pot of tea into my teacup, I thought about how visually demanding this process is, that I actually aim the pour so that it goes right down the center of my teacup, and I stop it at the exact right time so that my teacup is two-thirds filled. I never thought about how visually demanding that is. I never thought about the fact that people don’t have to be severely visually impaired to lose the ability just to do a task like pouring a cup of coffee or tea. And I realized that if I had spent more time during that 25 years that I was practicing ophthalmology, and tending to people’s eyes, if I had spent more time tending to the person behind the eyes, and helping that person to get the services, the technology, the skills, so that they can handle not even just the big stuff, the reading part and the navigation and the orientation, and the travel part of it, but even just the little stuff of how you prepare your own food and take care of yourself during the day, that I wasn’t helping my patients get those services, and so that I was only doing half the job. That’s what I talk to my ophthalmology colleagues about all the time. If you would just send the people to us, all I ask you to do, just give me their name and let us follow up. We will make you, doctor, look like a hero, because your patients who become our clients will be so appreciative of the referral that they will thank you, and all you had to do was just make the referral.
Jeff:
You know, when I first lost eyesight, I didn’t know where they kept the blind. I’ve said that on many podcasts, I remember the doctor just telling me “You might want to contact your government agency,” or something of that nature. I’m glad that you’re talking to your former colleagues, the doctors out there, and letting them know, knowing that person behind the eyes, as you said, is huge, because it’s such a lonely spot when you walk out of that doctor’s office for the last time saying you’re probably gonna lose a lot of eyesight, and then you walk out there with maybe a piece of paper in your hand with the state agency number, maybe, so I’m glad you’re reaching out and sharing that, I’ve waited 22 years to hear that.
Calvin:
As you see, I have a lot of work ahead of me. I’ve got a lot to do, fortunately we have such a strong and great team here at Lighthouse Guild. I just work with so many truly talented, dedicated professionals, who have been here 25, 30 years. My job is just to provide them with the resources, so that they can do the things that they do so well. Yeah, I’m just the dumb administrator, who’s here just to provide services.
Pete:
I wanted to talk a little bit about technology, obviously you are targeting technology as tools for visually impaired and blind individuals in terms of not only fixing sight, restoring sight, etc., but dealing with it as it’s lost. Your podcast features a variety of technological topics, whether they’re treatments, medications, tools, devices. Number one, where do you see assistive technology going in the future, and number two, have you a personal feeling or an intuition about any particular device that may be more promising in the future?
Calvin:
So, there are a couple trends that are so important. First of all, we want to take devices and make them smaller, lighter, easier to use. So even things like headsets that were once so heavy and so bulky, and make them light and make them easy to use. Second thing is cost. Cost is always gonna be a barrier, because it is truly extraordinary when you come from the medical world that I came from, and now go to the rehab world, how comparatively easy it is to get insurance payment or government payment for medical services compared to how incredibly difficult, if not impossible, to get payment for assistive technology. I do not want assistive technology to just be in the hands of a few people who can afford it. I want the technology to be in the hands of as many people as it possibly can, which means cost has to go down. The third thing is intuitiveness. I once watched this movie where this group brought some iPads to a rural area in Africa where they had never seen something like this before, and they gave it to a handful of young people, just handed it to them, and how quickly they just with no prior experience could figure out what it did and how it worked and how it could help them. And that’s what we need to do with assistive technology. Many of the people who would benefit so much from assistive technology are older, don’t have as much experience with technology, need more training, those people need something that is intuitive for them, and so the trend that I find most exciting is when technology can move from a stand-alone device to an app on your phone. The barrier to entry is really just the ability to have a phone, so that things like seeing AI, or one of the programs that we’re working with, something called NaviLens, is just this opportunity that we can make technology available to as many people as we can at a, not a zero cost, but at a relatively low cost compared to other technologies that I love. I love OrCam, I love what it does, I think that OrCam is just a game-changing technology, but at 4000, 5000 dollars, it kind of limits the number of people that I can provide with this technology. Lighter, simpler, smaller is one, cost is two, and easy to learn, intuitive, minimum amount of training is three.
Jeff:
Dr. Cal, on your podcast “On Tech and Vision with Dr. Roberts,” you just released one on NaviLens. Could you tell us a little bit about NaviLens?
Calvin:
Yeah! So, NaviLens is in a category of when technology is really, really good, it’s like gosh, why didn’t I think of this, it just seems so simple. What NaviLens does is NaviLens creates what looks like QR codes, we’re familiar with these QR codes, we often see them on boxes or other things, and embedded in them is lots of information, so with a QR code you take your cell phone, the camera from it, you shine it on the QR code, and boom, you get all this information that’s embedded in this code. Well, what NaviLens did was create their own codes which look a little bit like QR codes except that they are in four colors, and apparently as they tell me, when you start adding the colors to it, now the amount of information that you can embed in it multiplies tremendously. As a sighted person, what does a sign on a building, on a wall do for me? A sign gives me information, it tells me where I am, it tells me what that store is, it tells me what floor I’m on, it tells me specific information that the person who put up that sign wants me to know. What NaviLens does, in its simplest way, is NaviLens acts like a sign for people who are blind and visually impaired. You can embed in that code whatever information you would have in a sign. So if you come to Lighthouse Guild and you walk around here, every place that we have a sign for people who are sighted, there’s a NaviLens code that would tell you the same thing that was on the sign. You can also just put so much more information, I can put so much more information into a NaviLens code than I can put on a sign because the sign would just get too big or the print would get too small. In its simplest form it acts like a sign, so you get off the elevator – say you get off at the third floor elevator here at Lighthouse Guild, and immediately if you’re holding your cell phone, all you have to do is just hold it, you don’t have to be close to it or anything else, you get onto it, as long as you are within 40 feet of the NaviLens code, even if you’re not straight on but you’re up to 160 degrees away from it it’ll pick up the code, and so it’ll tell you: this is the third floor, these are the services that are on the third floor. It’ll tell you how far away you are from that sign, and it’ll tell you where the door is, it’ll tell you how to get there, it’ll tell you, by the way, where is the men’s room, where is the ladies’ room, how do you get there? It’s all embedded in this code, and then it will just guide you, if you want to get to the men’s room it’ll guide you to get to the men’s room. It’s so intuitive and so easy to use that it just gives our clients a sense of independence that they’re not used to and that they really embrace, so that’s like the basics of it. Now you get to the next iteration, which is that you then link these codes to databases. So for example, let’s say that you are wanting to take a bus, so you have your GPS guided Google Maps or whatever that’ll kind of get you kind of close to the bus stop, but we know that GPS, though it’s great, can only get you so far. So now we are working with the New York City, MTA is putting NaviLens codes, we’re starting with a trial of one bus line. When you pick up the NaviLens code, at that bus line, it’ll tell you not only where the bus stop is, where the bus is, but it links to the bus authority’s database and it tells you when the next bus is coming and what bus it is. And so it’ll tell you that the number 3 bus is coming in six minutes, and the number 4 bus is coming in 8 minutes, and then it’ll direct you to where the front door of the bus is, and so it’s pretty extraordinary. It’s a great technology for outdoors, but it’s even a better technology for indoors, because one of the things that I had to learn is that assistive technology for navigation outdoors so far is a lot better than the navigation technology for indoors, and NaviLens is just one way, it’s not the way, but it’s just one way to improve navigation, particularly indoors.
Pete:
And this is currently in app format on smartphones?
Calvin:
Correct! Yeah, it’s an app, you download this program called NaviLens, and then that’s all you need. So, it’s just so brilliantly simple, and it’s just so wonderfully powerful.
Pete:
And a lot less costly than a hardware device might have been.
Calvin:
For the user it has no cost.
Jeff:
So it seems like a QR code on steroids, where it’s almost interactive and has variables in it that can be interchanged with your location, your needs, and what you want. Wow.
Pete:
Yeah.
Calvin:
And from the sponsor’s perspective, when we put these codes up, they’re so simple to program, all you need is the software program that we have on our computers here at Lighthouse Guild for programming it, we just type in whatever information that we want, and then all you just need is just a basic color printer just to print the QR code out and you just stick it on the wall.
Jeff:
One of the biggest things when I was going to the doctor, after laser surgery and a few other things here and there, was you’d go in and right next to the elevator is that big board, “Dr. Roberts, floor 6, room 603,” or something. But it turned into just nothing, it was just this panel on the wall with blurs on it, you know. It would be so neat to just, bing, you know, connect up and there’s the database that you could search.
Calvin:
So actually, what I’m gonna do, you’ve got to give me about 20 seconds, I’m gonna pull down the NaviLens code that is sitting outside my office here, and that way I can just show you. Give me 20 seconds. Here we go.
Pete:
We’ll give you 30.
Calvin:
All right. So here we go, I just took this down off the front of my- well, I turned on my phone, I just turned my phone-
Phone:
One foot away, office of Dr. Calvin Roberts, president and CEO of Lighthouse Guild. Our mission is to provide exceptional services that inspire people who are visually impaired to attain their goals.
Calvin:
So as you’re anywhere within 40 feet of my office, it’ll just tell you where you’re at.
Jeff:
Now, if someone was wearing an earphone or a Bose Frames, Aftershocks or something, and storefronts had this at a mall, they could gather information as they’re walking by.
Calvin:
Right, yep.
Jeff:
Oh, cool.
Calvin:
What’s happening to you right now is kind of what happened to me when I was first introduced to this, and you go oh my gosh, just think about what the potential is.
Jeff:
What’s in aisle 3, 4, 5, or 6 of the grocery store, they always have those signs up there, they say about three little things up there, but now you could just probably do it to the store, then go into another level, another level, another level.
Calvin:
Oh, yeah, but in Europe they put these signs on groceries, like on cereal boxes, so now iteration number three, you talk to the app, and you say to the app “Where are the Cheerios?” and it tells you, they are in aisle 3 and here’s how you get to aisle 3. Turn left, it’s about 15 feet, and as you’re walking along it tells you 10 feet, five feet, three feet, two feet, okay, you’re at aisle 3, turn right, and as you’re walking along, it’ll tell you okay, Cheerios are coming up on your left, another 12 feet, 10 feet, eight feet, seven feet, six feet, three feet, two feet, okay, Cheerios are here on your left.
Jeff:
You go down the aisle and all the different cereal boxes are yelling at you.
Pete:
Right?
Jeff:
Buy me, buy me!
Calvin:
Right, so you query in advance and then it’ll just direct you to where you want to go.
Pete:
How prevalent is this?
Calvin:
Yeah, so it’s not, we are working with the company to try to take it to the next level, to try to improve the technology, we have these demo projects like we’re doing with Metropolitan Transit Authority here in New York City. Every time we try it we learn more about what it can do and what the opportunity is to make this a really viable technology.
Pete:
The principle is not new, but the application and the capacity seem to be extraordinary.
Calvin:
QR codes are almost 25 years old, they were invented by Toyota back in the 90s just as a way of putting information on the surface of a box. Yeah, as you say, the technology of QR codes isn’t new, but what they’ve done is just taken that and just really, you know, expanded it so much. And so the opportunities just become that much greater.
Jeff:
You know, Dr. Cal, I lost my eyesight due to Angioid Streaks years ago, did laser surgery and they tried to prevent going to the central vision area. I got home and I found out what I had and so I started looking it up, scoured the internet, macular degeneration was popular too, and angioid streaks have a similar type of thing, and I was looking for any study, any hope that we could cure this, and I’m gonna get on this, and after about four months I realized okay, I’ve got to get some blindness adjustment training. We kind of talked about this, but when someone is at that point, what suggestions do you have for them, Lighthouse Guild, I used to think oh, now they’ve switched into- I mean, when I first heard that you were there and your mission and stuff I didn’t really get it, and I was kind of vexed a little bit, like oh, doctors, but you’ve really explained to me that you’ve blended it together a little bit and I’m really excited. I’m convinced that it’s such a great mix that you are in the position you are with the history that you have and the skill sets that you bring, and now the reality of meeting the patients, meeting what we can do at this point and still build technology for the future, I tip my hat to you for what you’re doing, and congratulations to Lighthouse Guild for getting you on board.
Calvin:
Well, Jeff, listen, I really appreciate that. One of the things that I want and that I require is that every one of our clients also has an ophthalmologist. Let the ophthalmologist continue to do that part of the care of our clients to make sure that they’re getting the best medical treatment that is possibly available, while we do our part, which is to take the person with the vision that they have, and now allow them to attain the goals that they set for themselves. You know, I spent enough years on the medical side that I know there are new things that are coming all the time, and things that weren’t possible years ago may be possible now, and I want to make sure that all our clients always know if there is some kind of game-changing medical treatment that can help them, while we work on the game-changing rehabilitative technology.
Pete:
That’s interesting, and an excellent approach, because not only might that ophthalmological attention yield something in terms of well, yeah, we do have a treatment that we didn’t have when you last saw your ophthalmologist, but it also gives those patients hope because there’s constant lingering, I know there is in my mind, that I’ve been away from my doctor too long, and do I need to go back just to see if there’s any updates.
Calvin:
Right. Like I told you, we need all types of doctors, we need the doctors who do one part and the doctors who do the other part, to create the community among doctors, it’s all about creating communities, to create that community among the doctors, we all do our part.
Jeff:
Dr. Cal, where can someone find more about you and Lighthouse Guild.
Calvin:
Oh, well thank you, so the obvious place that I want everyone to start is to go to our website, www.lighthouseguild.org, and from there you can navigate to see our services, link to our podcast, get information about your condition, start here at lighthouseguild.org.
Pete:
And again, your podcast is called “On Tech and Vision With Dr. Cal Roberts,” and where might they find that, on their favorite podcast app, Apple Podcast?
Calvin:
Exactly, Apple Podcast, Spotify, wherever you get your podcasts. We’re on all the services.
Pete:
Jeff and I have listened to quite a few of those, you do feature some remarkable products, some remarkable individuals, we recommend it.
Calvin:
Well, thanks guys!
Jeff:
I love the big ideas, love ‘em.
Pete:
Absolutely.
Jeff:
Well, thanks for taking your time and coming onto Blind Abilities-
Pete:
Thanks a lot, doctor.
Calvin:
Oh, my pleasure. You guys are terrific, thank you so much.
Pete:
You have a great day.
Pete:
Jeff and I want to thank Dr. Cal Roberts, for joining us on the Blind Abilities podcast today. Remember, you can check out the Lighthouse Guild on their website, at www.lighthouseguild.org, and be sure to check in on Dr. Cal’s podcast “On Tech and Vision with Dr. Cal Roberts.” It can be found on all of your podcast applications. We’d like to thank Chee Chau for his amazing music, @lcheechau. And from all of us here at Blind Abilities, through these challenging times, to you, your family, and friends, stay well, stay informed, and stay strong. Thank you so much for listening, and have a great day.
[Music] [Transition noise] -When we share
-What we see
-Through each other’s eyes…
[Multiple voices overlapping, in unison, to form a single sentence]
…We can then begin to bridge the gap between the limited expectations, and the realities of Blind Abilities.
Jeff:
For more podcasts with the blindness perspective, check us out on the web at www.blindabilities.com, on Twitter @BlindAbilities. Download our app from the app store, Blind Abilities, that’s two words, or send us an email at info@blindabilities.com. Thanks for listening.
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