Full Transcript:
Will:
Some questions are a little bit more than just a pair of eyes, they require an expert. We’re trying to bring on as many experts as possible.
Jeff Thompson:
Please welcome Christian Alexander and Will from Be My Eyes.
Alexander:
And in Specialized Help, you have access to all the companies you have on the platforms, so Microsoft, Google, Proctor & Gamble, Clear Blue. We also have some big banks in Europe, so if you’re based in Europe, you can call your banks and get advice directly from your bank.
Jeff Thompson:
Any time, any place, as many times as you want. It’s all free. Cited assistance and specialized help in the palm of your hand.
Christian:
Having 2.5 million volunteers scattered around the world, people are so eager to take these calls. We’re globally available, 24/7, and completely free.
Jeff Thompson:
The free Be My Eyes app is available on the Apple Store and the Google Play store.
Alexander:
It will be a one way video and two way audio, and you will just be talking to that volunteer. You will always be connected to someone who speaks the same language as you. It’s always completely free, it’s always completely unlimited, so you can make 500 calls a day if you want to.
Jeff Thompson:
And a special announcement about the new release of the Be My Eyes podcast.
Jeff Thompson:
Please welcome Christian Alexander and Will from Be My Eyes.
Jeff Thompson:
Welcome to Blind Abilities, I’m Jeff Thompson. I’m at the NFB Convention 2019 here in Las Vegas, Nevada, and I have the Be My Eyes team here. We got Will, Christian, and Alexander.
Jeff Thompson:
How you doing, Will?
Will:
Excellent. Yeah, really, really hyped up.
Jeff Thompson:
Alexander?
Alexander:
Also, a 10/10, feeling really great.
Christian:
It’s wonderful to be here.
Jeff Thompson:
Alexander, Christian, it’s been a long trip coming here, huh?
Christian:
Yeah, it’s a good long flight coming in from Denmark, but we can beat the jet lag with some strong coffee.
Jeff Thompson:
There you go. How about you?
Alexander:
It’s nice to be in Las Vegas, where you have all these flashing lights, it’s really hard to fall asleep when the lights are going off down there, so we are beating the jet lag that way.
Will:
Still stuck on California time.
Jeff Thompson:
Tough life. Get out of their earthquakes a little bit. Well that’s great.
Jeff Thompson:
Well, we’re here to talk about Be My Eyes and some experiences that people have had with it, and some of the new news–new news, I like that–new news that’s been coming out.
Christian:
Well, just lately we’ve expanded, so now it’s globally available with the Be My Eyes Specialized Help Service. I think that’s one of our latest news to share.
Alexander:
Another interesting news that we can share is this Monday, we went live with Clear Blue, which is a pregnancy test and fertility test company, and they are now available on Specialized Help, so any woman or couple can go in and have their pregnancy test results read out by an expert through Clear Blue. I think that’s a huge step for privacy and independence and everything, and we are super, super stoked to have them on board.
Will:
Yeah, we have all these awesome partners who are coming on board for Specialized Help now, and it’s starting to kind of create this whole ecosystem of, you can get tech support from Google and Microsoft, you can get really personal support from a pregnancy test, or you can get something casual from Herbal Essences, which will just give you help with your hair and give you hair advice, like when I have oily hair, which conditioner should I pick. The reason that we do this is because we know that some questions are a little more than just a pair of eyes. They require an expert, so we’re trying to bring on as many experts as possible.
Jeff Thompson:
And that’s easily to do with your app. You just open up the app, and right away it just says, “Call a volunteer”, basically.
Alexander:
Yeah, you have two options in the app. You have one option to call a volunteer, and it will go out to one of the more than 2.5 million volunteers that are now on call, or you can go into Specialized Help, and in Specialized Help you have access to all the companies we have on the platform. So, Microsoft, Google, Proctor & Gamble, Clear Blue. We also have some big banks in Europe, so if you’re based in Europe you can call your banks and get advice directly from your bank. Two options are available in the volunteer center in Specialized Help, where it’ll talk directly to companies, customer support centers.
Christian:
Having 2.5 million volunteers scattered around the world, is people are so eager to take these calls. We still have some users who are thinking they would be bothering someone when doing a Be My Eyes volunteer call, and that’s quite the contrary. People are so eager to step in and help, and you don’t have to worry about time zones, because we connect you to someone who is during the days, so we don’t wake someone up if it’s in the middle of the night that you need assistance, so it’s globally available, 24/7, and completely free.
Speaker 7:
One of the unexpected bonuses of being in New Zealand is I’ve found I still get quite a few calls from the UK, and they’ll say, “Oh, sorry to bother you so late,” or “I know it’s really early in the morning,” or whatever, and I’m able to say, “Actually, I’m in New Zealand, it’s a perfectly reasonable time for me. It’s absolutely no problem at all.” So that’s really nice. I feel like I’m picking up the less social hours but not having to put in any actual effort, because for me it’ll be nine o’clock in the morning when it’s actually ten o’clock at night in the UK. So that’s fun.
Speaker 7:
But in general, I think it’s a really great app, it’s really easy and straightforward way for everybody to be looking out for each other. Quite literally, I suppose, in some ways. And everyone likes the help, and everybody needs a bit of help sometimes. So why not?
Will:
There’s only one instance that I know of, maybe you guys know of a couple others, where someone actually got someone they know. The statistics of it are incredibly low, but one time, some guy in Ireland called up and asked somebody for help, and someone said, “Where are you? Wait a second, John is that you?” And it turned out to be his neighbor. They didn’t know each other very well, but they rode the train together or something like that.
Christian:
It’s not only a one in a million chance for that, it’s a one in 2.5 million chance of making that happen.
Jeff Thompson:
2.5 million, that’s a, what, 25% growth since CSUN. I mean, I never mentioned there was going to be math.
Christian:
The community has grown significant. As of May of 2018, we had 800,000 volunteers, so just in the last 15, 16 months, we’ve grown significantly to 2.5 million. And it’s still basically the viral sensation going around when people share their stories on both sides of the equation, how gratifying it is to be part of assistance and helping one another out, and from the users who say credibly what they use it for.
Will:
Every day we hear something kind of fun and crazy, and we are constantly being surprised. One of my favorites from this week is a guy heard some little noise in his backyard that he wasn’t totally sure what it was, and he pulled out Be My Eyes, and sure enough it was a foreign dog. After asking the volunteer, “Does he look friendly?”, or something like that, he approached the dog and was able to use Be My Eyes to get the name of the owner off the collar, and actually return the dog to the owner, which is pretty cool.
Jeff Thompson:
That’s a good story.
Christian:
I think some of the cases that really touch me is also the tutoring cases where blind parents are able to tutor young, sighted kids who can’t read yet to help them understand the assignment, and then have that moment of collaboration of not only teaching your child something important, but having a volunteer step in for a brief second there.
Alexander:
Yeah, one that comes to mind for me is this woman here in the US who was about to go to church because she sings in a choir. She wanted to make sure that there was no stains on her shirt, and so she called a volunteer, and she was connected to a volunteer in England. And this volunteer in England was at church with her choir, so after making sure there were no stains on the shirt, they actually had a chance to sing a song. They were proud to say it was their first international concert, and it was just a really fine interaction.
Will:
I heard from a woman also here at the conference who told me she ordered a bunch of shoes, because she loves shoes, and she ordered twenty different pairs of shoes or something like that. They arrived in the box and they’d all fallen out of their boxes. They were totally mixed together. And because she’d never seen or touched the shoes before, she didn’t know which was which, she didn’t know which color was which, she’d gotten all these different colors of the same type of shoe. The volunteer, a really nice volunteer, spent forty minutes with her, not only getting all the shoes back sorted into their different pairs, but then kind of giving her feedback on what they looked like. They said they had a really good time. So you never know when a call’s gonna turn into a real connection.
Christian:
And being here in Vegas, we just heard that people are using to play on the slot machines, so we can contribute to that as well now.
Will:
Can we say that?
Jeff Thompson:
You don’t get commission, though.
Christian:
Not yet, no. No, it’s free, it’s free. Also on the slot machines.
Jeff Thompson:
I really like the app, because you open it up and boom, right on the front page, bang, you’re ready to go. You either tap that button or you go down to the Specialized Help, and then after you do your call, you can rate the volunteer, or the call. I guess you rate the call, right?
Christian:
Yeah, it’s to check if there were any problems, technical or whatever, or if you want to report if something was wrong, and also encourage them to share the good story, because it inspires others to be creative with what they can use it for.
Speaker 8:
The concept of it is exactly what so many people needed, but for me, I never realized how important it would be to just have a pair of eyes when you need them. When you need it, it’s a big thing, because it’s 24 hours a day, it’s just really good to have that and know that you have it, and know that maybe it’s better that you’ll never meet these people, because you might ask them for something really simple, and for me I’m quite independent, and it’s really quite difficult for me to ask for help.
Jeff Thompson:
Alexander, can you just give a brief description of what Be My Eyes is?
Alexander:
Be My Eyes is a free mobile app, we say it’s a community support platform that connects people who are blind or low vision with either volunteers or company representatives. Everything happens through a live video connection, so no phone numbers, names, or anything like that is shared. If you’re blind or low vision and you need assistance with anything, you just open the app.
Be My Eyes:
Call first available volunteer.
Alexander:
And the volunteers will simply get a push notification saying, “Someone needs your help,” and they accept that, and then a live video connection is established, and you then just point your phone at whatever you need explained. So it can be reading out the menu, or a recipe when you’re cooking, or checking the navigation, or whatever it can be. It will be a one-way video and two-way audio, and you’ll just be talking to that volunteer. You would always be connected to someone who speaks the same language as you, it’s always completely free, it’s always completely unlimited, so you can make 500 calls a day if you want to, and it will always be free, and it’s anonymous, so no phone numbers, emails, anything like that is being shared. It’s also really instant. Our average connection time is less than thirty seconds from when you tap that “Call first available volunteer” to someone picks it up, and that’s because there are so many people who have signed up to help.
Will:
We’ve really cut down on connection times, too. I think we can share that, in the last week, I think at least for English, connection times were somewhere around fifteen, eighteen seconds. Anecdotally, I’ve been connected in a couple seconds every time I’ve made a call recently. It makes a huge difference. When you’re waiting for help, you don’t want to be kept waiting any extra second.
Christian:
I think that just having this combination of both having access to volunteers but also including companies is super, super interesting. I think that combination is really powerful because it will allow companies to provide a much more small, accessible customer support, and it will allow you as a blind user, a blind customer, to get the customer support you deserve. It’s something that really works, and at the end of the day, just getting the problem solved much, much faster.
Be My Eyes:
Specialized Help.
Speaker 10:
We come to work each day, committed to helping make all Google products usable by as many people as possible. Each work day is different and unique. I can get calls from anywhere in the world, from Austin to India. The calls can be about anything, from “How do I set up talkback?” to “How do I get on the internet?” Most of our callers are blind or low vision users.
Jeff Thompson:
And this is in numerous countries.
Christian:
We are now available in more than 150 countries, and in more than 185 different languages.
Jeff Thompson:
You’re gonna run out of countries someday.
Christian:
Yeah, there aren’t that many to pick from.
Jeff Thompson:
Of course, I’m in America, but say I’m in China or France, is it geo-sourced?
Christian:
The way that we match is based on languages and time zones. So if you’re in France, and you need help during the day, then we might call someone in France, but if you need help in the middle of the night, then we’ll call a French speaking person who is somewhere else in the world. It might be someone in Canada, for example, who speaks the same language but works a different time zone. So the two variables that we look at is language and time zone, and you’ll always be connected to someone who works during the day.
Jeff Thompson:
And that’s seamless.
Christian:
That is seamless.
Jeff Thompson:
You just tap on the button and a volunteer will be there within ten to fifteen seconds.
Will:
Yes. Hopefully less.
Christian:
It’s pretty smart.
Will:
Christian gets all the credit.
Christian:
And I think on a closing note, Will you can maybe mention the podcast that we’re coming out with.
Will:
Yeah, yeah. We’re really excited, because just this week we’ve launched the official Be My Eyes podcast. We’re gonna be releasing a regular show where we interview some of our favorite community members and particularly blind individuals about blindness and sight and the blurry in between area, and really kind of digging into what it means to live non-visually in a sighted world.
Julia:
You’re listening to the Be My Eyes podcast.
Cathy:
We want to create a world where everyone believes society is better because of disabled people, and that’s a really radical thing.
Julia:
The San Francisco Bay Area is home to the longest running disability film festival in the world, Superfest, a juried film every year that celebrates cutting edge cinema portraying disability through a diverse, complex, unabashed, and engaging lens. It’s put on by the Paul K. Longmore Institute on Disability and Lighthouse for the Blind and Visually Impaired.
Julia:
Cathy is a juror for the festival. She’s professor of history at San Francisco State University, the director of the Paul K. Longmore Institute on Disabilities, and she’s here with Hans and I today to unpack visibility and representation of folks with disabilities in the media.
Hans Jørgen Wiberg:
Hi, this is Hans.
Julia:
My name is Julia.
Hans Jørgen Wiberg:
Thank you for joining us today.
Julia:
We’re glad you made it.
Cathy:
Hi!
Julia:
Hi Cathy.
Hans Jørgen Wiberg:
We’re so glad that you could join us.
Jeff Thompson:
Well that’s great.
Jeff Thompson:
Christian, you’re co-founder of Be My Eyes.
Christian:
Yes, that’s correct. I met Hans back in 2012, where he pitched the idea at a startup event that I was organizing, and I fell in love with the idea right away and had to leave the organizers team to join Hans. So we had 72 hours to come up with the basic premises of the concept of Be My Eyes, and it’s been a pleasure and a privilege to be part of ever since.
Jeff Thompson:
That’s great. I remember when he just came out of winning that, and it was launched.
Christian:
Yeah, launch day was crazy. That was January 2015, and we knew there would be some interest in the blind community from the asking around we’d done, but to see that more than a thousand blind users signed up and ten thousand volunteers was just mind-blowing to us.
Jeff Thompson:
2.5 million today.
Christian:
And about 140 million blind and low vision users.
Jeff Thompson:
Well, great job. The blindness community has a tool now they can all use for free and it’s Be My Eyes from the app store and the Google Play store. Thank you, guys.
Will:
Thank you, Jeff. We love what you’re doing. Your podcast is our favorite.
Jeff Thompson:
I should have bought him a drink.
Jeff Thompson:
It’s always a great time talking to the team from Be My Eyes. It was very special this time, as we all got to meet each other personally, especially in Las Vegas. We all got to sit around and chit chat a little bit. It was a good time. And Hans, I know you couldn’t make it this time, but next time.
Jeff Thompson:
And be sure to enable the Blind Abilities Skill on your Amazon device, just by saying “Enable Blind Abilities.” And for all you Victor Stream users, you can listen to the Blind Abilities podcast just by checking out the suggested list on your Victor device. You can subscribe to the Blind Abilities podcast by just typing in Blind Abilities. That’s two words, Blind Abilities, into any of your pod catchers. Overcast, Downcast, the Podcast app on the iPhone, or any other pod catcher of your choice. On Tune In Radio, Pandora, iHeart Radio, on your Google Device, and the list goes on.
Jeff Thompson:
A big shout out to Chee Chau for his beautiful music. You can follow Chee Chau on Twitter @LCheeChau.
Jeff Thompson:
And most importantly, I want to thank you, the listener. Thank you for listening, I hope you enjoyed, and until next time. Bye-bye.
[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 Thompson:
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 e-mail at:
Thanks for listening.
*****
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