Latest / Automated with Brian Heater / Samantha Johnson on the Robot Giving DeafBlind People a New Way to Connect

Transcript

Samantha Johnson on the Robot Giving DeafBlind People a New Way to Connect · Automated with Brian Heater

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: The first offline person I ever met, her name was Elaine.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_01: When I was leaving her, I asked how we could stay in touch.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_01: And she said, Oh, we can't.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_01: You'll just have to catch me next time you see me because you can't call me.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_01: I just immediately ran to my ASL teacher who was deaf as well.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_01: She's like, Well, what if there was some sort of robot we could make for them?
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_01: She goes, try.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_01: I got into robotics not necessarily because of the robotics themselves, but because of what they could do.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_01: Deafline people were struggling immensely in the pandemic with lack of access to interpreting services, social distancing, and thought robotics could be the solution to that.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_01: When I first started this company five years ago, every pitch I gave told me to put the deafblind thing aside and do that later.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_01: They didn't really think that we could make a profit off of this product.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_01: Deafline people are now able to make their own doctor's appointments.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_01: They're able to call extensions of friends and families and cousins, but they're also able to connect with each other, which has been really rewarding to see.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_01: This one deafblind woman.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_01: She called her daughter for the first time using the robot, and she sat there the whole time.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_01: She was just sobbing on the phone, talking to her daughter, and she's like, It's your mom, it's your mom on the phone.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_01: Checking the weather, checking the news, all these things are so beneficial and helpful.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_01: But to have this connectivity, I think really is what gave this product its life.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: Initially, you don't know if this is even a product that they necessarily want if they would be able to use a robot.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: So, how did you actually start bringing people on board?
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: Hey folks, welcome to Automated.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: My name is Brian Heater.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: I am the managing editor at the Association for Advancing Automation.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: We've got another episode from our trip to Mass Robotics this week.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: We are catching up with Samantha Johnson, the co-founder and CEO of Tatum Robotics.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: I first chatted with her at the company's very early stages over at Mass Robotics several years ago.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: And it's been very cool seeing how far the project and the company has come.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: She's uh channeled her robotics know-how and engineering into serving the deafblind community.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: It is a great company and a great conversation.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you as always for listening.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: If you've been enjoying the show, it would be a huge help if you would like and subscribe and tell a couple of friends.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: And while you're at it, why not subscribe to the newsletter over at automator.fm.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: Now please enjoy this conversation with Samantha Johnson of Tatum Robotics.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: From quality spectrum and predictive moments to robotics, logistics, medical devices, aerospace, and manufacturing version and I covered different industrial methods on real-world AI protected connectors.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: You'll also be able to connect with the people who are talking about concept.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: Whether you're building, buying, or implementing these systems, this is a chance to stay ahead of the curve and see how vision and AI are moving from promise to practical impact.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: Learn more and make sure to buy your ticket early at the Advanced Vision and AI conference September 23rd and 24th in Santa Clara.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: What did you learn from the salamanders?
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_01: Well, that was a really interesting lab because I went into that with very little biology experience, despite being a bioengineer.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_01: And I was accepted in Celab, I think, because they thought I would do something cool with robotics.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's why they wanted me there.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_01: But interestingly, I was so interested by the axotils because their genome is 98% similar to a human's, but they have all these incredible properties.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_01: Again, you can chop off their arm and it will completely regrow.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_01: And we don't quite know why.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_01: And there's all these two.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: So you didn't solve that mystery during your semester?
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_01: I did not solve it in my semester cut short before COVID began.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_01: But there's some incredible minds on it.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_01: And it was really interesting to see some automation and innovation happening around the lab work as well, which is now we're seeing some companies at Master Products that are doing some lab-based automation.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_01: And I hope to see those kind of move into the labs in the future as well.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: You said you were a bioengineer, but you also said that part of the reason why you were accepted is because they uh they thought you would be bringing a robot.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: So you were already like deep into robotics at that point.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_01: No, I thought robots were really interesting.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_01: And I thought that robots could have really interesting applications.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_01: And I was studying engineering and had very little experience with robotics, but wanted to investigate how they could be used.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_01: And the PI that I was working under also had this very similar curiosity.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_01: So we were trying to look at how a lot of wet lab tasks are very tedious, they take a long time, they require a lot of precision, and there was this question that maybe robots could help supplement that.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_01: So we went into this with a very similar question mark, and I was into 3D printing at the time.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_01: I could was trying to make all these attachments for the robot arms that already existed.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_01: And a few months into that process, COVID did occur and shut down all the labs.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_01: And unfortunately, all of that research had to come to a pause, but gave me the opportunity to start my research for Tatum.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_01: So it was a really interesting pivot, but gave me a lot of the perspective of what could robots do as I started in that lab.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: Do you obviously like, you know, it's it's not always the best idea idea to play in hypotheticals, but do you think that you would be in robotics right now had the pandemic not occurred at that moment?
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_01: Probably not.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_01: I was not a trained roboticist by any means.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_01: Bioengineering, I was a bioengineering student at Northeastern University, which is more focused in sort of wet lab work or computation.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_01: So kind of MATLAB-heavy research and not necessarily electronics and not necessarily manufacturing and things like that.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_01: And I got into robotics not necessarily because of the robotics themselves, but because of what they could do.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_01: I saw this problem of deaf-blind people can't communicate and thought robotics could be the solution to that.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_01: And that's sort of how I found my way to robotics.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: Aaron Powell So was it was any of your study uh did any of it translate?
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: Was any of it actually like useful in what you're doing now?
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_01: It was interesting because bioengineering often does trying to understand the human body, there's that element.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, let my musculoskeletal biodynamics classes were really interesting as I'm trying to mimic a human hand and its motions.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_01: Or, you know, there was a lot of intro classes that intro to coding, intro to electronics, intro to materials.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_01: And I think as a founder, that was really helpful to have kind of a base level of a lot of things.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_01: And then it was really just okay, now what do we need to focus and learn a lot more about?
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_01: But I remember being at my apartment, you know, before AI, so you have to Google things like for real, Google it.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_01: And I was on a Wikipedia page trying to figure out how to spin a servo.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_01: And that was me and my thesis.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_01: I had never done it before.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_01: So really starting from ground zero, really.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: So so you you shifted your focus to robotics and study?
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, at that point, I was basically my thesis.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_01: So I was probably doing that pretty much full time, and that was where my study was exclusively.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_01: We had great collaborators who were helpful along that way.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, I had to learn how to build a robot.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's it's interesting because obviously, like robotics specifically is an incredibly uh physical field.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, and all these companies that I've talked to, like they were some of the first to go back to working in person, right?
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um uh it you can't really it's hard to run a robotics company through remote work because everything is and it's so it's funny to me that you got into robotics and that you launched a robotics company during that period.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I was a bit ambitious, I will say.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_01: I definitely went into it thinking it might be a little bit easier than it ended up being.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_01: But I think also because it was COVID, I had this very forgiving space to innovate.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_01: You know, nobody was watching me.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_01: I could make a lot of mistakes along the way.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_01: I set many a PCB a little to smoke, you know.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but it was really this cool space that I could get a 3D printer and just print and print and print and figure out what I was doing.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: You were like doing this in your apartment?
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_01: I went to Micro Center down in Cambridge, bought a printer, set it up, and my poor roommates got to get see a lot of finger prototypes along the way, and just kind of seeing it develop and then eventually moving back into the lab when the world opened up a little bit, starting to build a team when I officially started the company after my thesis wrapped up.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_01: So it's been a really fun process along the way.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so so so it was a thesis project.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: At what point did it actually sort of become, oh, this is could actually be a business?
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I wouldn't say I started the thesis thinking entrepreneurially.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um I started the thesis because deafline people were struggling immensely in the pandemic with lack of access to interpreting services, social distancing.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_00: Well, so let's let's talk about that real quick because I think that that's an important point here.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um, that that is in order for them to communicate, somebody has to be in the room, somebody physically has to be touching them.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_01: So deafline people communicate through tactile sign language because they can't see nor hear, so they actually hold onto the hand of the person that's signing.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_01: So basically they need to be, we would be too far away to be tactile signing.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_01: So naturally, the pandemic was hugely impactful and arguably overnight as well, with very little plan and preparation for the world and also for this community that relies so heavily on in-person content.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_00: Something something that something I was, yeah, as I was reading up on this project, something that like really like got like got me in the gut was that because it happened so quickly and because there was so much social distancing, that there were just a lot of people in that community who just didn't know what happened because all of a sudden people had to just stop showing up.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_01: And I was reading articles about deafly people in institutions, they're at schools for the deaf, or they're in places that you think there'd be actually more resources than any of the deaf life people are crawling through buildings looking for access for information.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_01: And because again, just as you mentioned, it was overnight.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_01: And that's and I had met deafline people prior to beginning my thesis, and I had had the idea of building something then, but as I've mentioned, I didn't really have the skills to do it or necessarily the time, and I wasn't really sure what path I was going on.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_01: And then when COVID happened and I was reading about these horrible uh experiences of Deafline people during the pandemic, I thought now's the time to do it and really prioritize this and see what we can do with it.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: So so uh the the project that that ultimately became the the hand, I mean you you had had that idea earlier and and the pandemic just sort of like hastened your bringing it out?
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so I actually remember meeting the first Deafline Persiper Met.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_01: Her name was Elaine, and Elaine's actually now on our team at Tato Robotics, which is a fun full circle moment.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_01: But she was the first ever Deafline person I ever met.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_01: And she is a ball of energy, an absolute superwoman, really.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_01: And when I was leaving her, I asked how we could stay in touch.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_01: And she said, Oh, we can't.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_01: You'll just have to catch me next time you see me because you can't call me.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_01: And I just immediately ran to my ASL teacher who was deaf as well.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_01: It's like, well, what if there was some sort of robot we could make for them?
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_01: She goes, try.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, Well, I don't know how to do that.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then COVID happened about like six months after this, and so it was still kind of fresh in my brain, and I still had that connection to the Deafblind Contact Center that Elaine was a part of, and how I met her through my ASL class that I just was taking out as an elective.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_01: And that's sort of how all of this got started.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_01: And again, it was very research.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_01: Like there's no robots that are communicating with deaf blind people right now.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_01: It was really the deaflind people can they receive from deaf from robotics?
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_01: Do they want robotics to support them?
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_01: So when I started as my thesis, it wasn't necessarily this is going to change the world.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_01: It was a question of can this be beneficial for the community?
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: There are so many things once you actually start uh interacting with people with that condition that um I I I assume like it just didn't even occur to you.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_00: Like the communication thing that there's like there's just absolutely no way to keep in touch with somebody unless you're in the room with them.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and it's inspired our team, I think, quite a lot to, you know, I wouldn't say necessarily feature creep, but really just really want to make this such a holistic product because I go to a deaflin person's house, there's no way for even me to tell her that I'm there.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_01: I just have to walk into her house and basically break and enter into this poor woman's house because there's no way for me to tell her.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_01: And so now we're like, okay, well, we need to connect this with a smartwatch that we can actually, you know, alert them that we're arriving, they're not always be sitting at.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_01: So it really just allows us to think even more broadly.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_01: And because this community has been so void of technology.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: I just have so many like logistical questions, right?
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, like I'm sure you did too, especially as as you were pulling this together, as you were um like focus grouping it.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um just just again, and just in terms of actually like con contacting people, um, you know, in terms of uh let's talk about focus grouping.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you uh initially you don't know if this is even a product that they didn't necessarily want, if they would uh, you know, be able to use a robot.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: So how did you actually start bringing people on board?
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and that was tricky as well because again, I'm doing this in the heat of COVID.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_01: Like I started this officially, I guess, May 2020.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_01: Like the world is shut down.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_01: So there was a fair amount of kind of assumptions I had to make leading into those first trials with deaf-blind people because there wasn't a way for me to get in contact with them.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember the first validation I ever did, every assumption I made that was wrong.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, w give me some.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I had covered the hand in this silicone skin.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_00: Like you wanted it to be human like.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_01: So I thought it would feel so human, and they were disgusted by it.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_01: They said it felt like a monster and they wouldn't touch it until I removed it.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_00: It's like that uh, you know, you peel the grapes and the spaghetti in the haunted house kind of thing.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_01: In a very uncanny valley, yeah.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_01: And so I remember peeling the skin off of my robot while there's a few deaf blind people, and then they're like, all right, we'll start now with it, now that you've peeled the skin off of it.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, things I'm I'm not deafblind.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_01: I can only make so many assumptions.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_01: I made a hand and I just found a model online and they said, This feels too much like a man's hand, it's too big.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_01: You know, and it's like, oh, I didn't, I assumed if you guys sign with everybody, it would probably be fine.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_01: But you know, to make it to make these small tweaks and able to make it so much more accessible for more people.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_00: So is that's you are that's why it's a female?
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and that's why everyone always it's funny, deafblind people also refer to it as a feminine product.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_01: Like a lot of deaf blind people now that they have it, they're naming it.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_01: And this one deafblind woman, I asked her, What do you name?
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_01: What do you call your robot?
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_01: And she goes, Oh, well, my support person gave me a name of all female horse names, and I picked my favorite one because she loves horses.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_01: And so it's fun to see the names people are picking out for it.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_01: One deafblind person named hers Breezy after the Olympic skier, because she said it felt like it moved the way that people interpret how you ski, the hand moves that way.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so um I mean, at what point was it clear that like this was actually something that they were interested in?
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_01: When they kept asking me when they could come back to see the next version, which was every time, and it was I think it's also it was informative for me as well, as someone who had never built robotics before, and this community that's now coming in who has not been a part of this RD process for robotics before either both of us were like, well, how long do you think it'll take?
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_01: But I don't know, all of us let's let's schedule something for a month and a half, and then in a month and a half I'd have nothing to show them, you know, because you don't do any innovation in a month and a half.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but it was really and then when I was about to graduate, the Canadian National Institute for the Blind saw what I was working on.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_00: Of course the Canadians were the first.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_01: The Canadians, thank goodness for the Canadians, and they connected me and they actually said, if if you want to continue this research and start a company, we'll actually give you your first grant so that you can start this.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_01: And again, prior to that, I was looking for jobs.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_01: I was graduating.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_01: I had I wasn't necessarily planning to spin this out.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_01: And I spoke with a handful of the deafline people that had been in those focus groups, and they were like, Oh, you can't stop now.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_01: You haven't helped us yet.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_01: You know, if you end right now, you haven't done anything, you haven't been able to benefit us.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_01: So I decided to spin it out and came here to Mass Robotics the next day and moved in.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I I mean I was saying that when you and I first met, I mean, it was it was very early on, it was like 2021.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you you already had a hand prototype, and and I I was amazed at how quickly you had moved up till that point.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: So I you granted, like you weren't necessarily able to turn things around in a month and a half, but like you were you were on a mission, it seems like.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and I think it was really helpful that the our mission was so set from the beginning.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we weren't trying to build this it can do all things robotic hand.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_01: It's not also a gripper and it's not gonna also pick up fruit off of a pick and play.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we're making a hand for deafblind people for tactile sign.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that really helped focus us as well.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_01: And we're innovating for this sole purpose, and we're innovating exclusively from the feedback we're getting from the community.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's kind of tricky as innovators, as artists, as engineers.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_01: We have all these grand ideas, but it really doesn't matter what we think, it matters what the perspectives that we're getting are.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_01: And it is funny, people have been telling me from a very early stage, you're moving so fast.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_01: I think living in it, it doesn't feel that way.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_01: But it really is, I think now that we have a product launched and it's out in the world, it's like, wow, we actually we did this from the very start, from day one.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_01: We built this from the absolute bottom up, 20 times over, and we're able to make something that now allows people to call their children for the first time.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_00: It was, I I I want to say there it was just like two of you at the time.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_00: Is that right?
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we we still are pretty small.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_01: We have I think we have six people full-time now at our office.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_01: We actually have moved recently out of Mastrobotics over to the Perkins School for the Blind.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_01: They've created a very a kind of startup and residence space there.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_01: And the Perkins School for the Blind has a renowned deafblind program.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um, they also have a lot of deaf resources for deafblind individuals.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_01: So there's a really heavy prevalence of deafblind people in the area.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_01: So it's been really helpful for us to get a lot of people in at all times to, again, move us to that finish line to get the product on the market.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I I mean, I I assume that you're the only startup in residence there, right now.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_01: We are.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_01: We are the only one.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_01: But they have, I think they have dreams of building that out because there are so many assistive technology startups.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_01: And we're not obviously not the only one, we're not even the only ones innovating for deafblind.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think it's really exciting.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_01: And I think something that we end up sort of being is showing that you can have a startup in accessibility that makes money, that is, can grow and build and have technology.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_01: Because I think when I first started this company five years ago, and I would talk to angels or VCs, they did not.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_01: They took the meeting to be nice, and that was nice of them to do, and that was about it.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_01: You know, they didn't really think that we could make a profit off of this product and still have the mission and the impact that we do.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I'm sure that they they they had the same reaction that I had.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_00: They have the same reaction like Janet, when I was talking to you earlier, when I, you know, I was looking it up, and I think it's uh maybe my numbers are way out, but like 1.5 million in the US and like 150 across the world.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, 0.2% of the population has deaf blindness.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's actually just So people, yeah.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_00: So people like just I don't don't understand.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_00: And obviously, you know, I think a big part of the reason why is because they're not you know out in the world.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_01: Right, so isolated, so isolated.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_01: And I think something that's been really cool about our technology is it's helping their community become so much bigger.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_01: You know, definitely people are now able to make their own doctor's appointments, they're able to call extensions of friends and families and cousins, but they're also able to connect with each other, which has been really rewarding to see.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_01: You know, a deaflin woman in Massachusetts called her deafline friend in Connecticut, and they hadn't talked in 15 years.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_01: And suddenly they were able to have a phone call with each other.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_00: So they like had gone to school together growing up.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_00: That's wild.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_01: And then now they're able to have a phone call.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that that's something that to have even just a connection with your own community and also now allowing you to build your community out further.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_01: It's been the deafline people have really resonated with that and have they we get calls.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_01: We have I basically have a call center at our office that help facilitate these calls.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_01: It's the phones are ringing off the canoe.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I I I understand why initially, you know, you were going the VC route.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, obviously, like that's that's how startups get funded.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um and as you said, you know, you you are you are making money at it now, but you did, I mean, ultimately, like, you know, you did have to get grants, right?
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's the way a product like this has to come into the world.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_01: 100%.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_01: And we are we're a hardware company, you know, it costs money to make hardware at the end of the day.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and we've been very lucky.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_01: We've won many federal grants, state grants, foundation grants to help us conduct this RD to build these initial prototypes.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_01: And being at Mass Robotics for those first three years was really helpful.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_01: We didn't have to buy 3D printers, you know, we didn't have to buy these kind of like capital equipment costs that go into hardware as well.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_01: And we were able to get the resources that we need.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I didn't take a salary for the first four and a half of those years, and that's okay.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it allowed us to really stay focused, and a lot of the investors we talked to, I think we would have lost a part of our mission along the way had we been able to be successful on that route.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_00: You you would have compromised.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_01: For sure.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_01: And that wasn't something me or my team was willing to do.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we saw this problem and we saw these people really passionate about getting a solution to having telecommunication access, as we all do, as you're sitting here with an iPad in your hand and we have phones around the place.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_01: Everyone deserves access to these simple luxuries.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_00: What uh if if you can say what was kind of one of the more wildest suggestions that you got, like in a pitch meeting.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_01: I think every pitch I gave told me to put the deafblind thing aside and do that later.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_01: They said, build a build a functional robotic hand for grippers for any application.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_01: And then once you're successful, you can figure out how to use that for deafblind people.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_00: And that that'll only take you 25 years.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_01: That'll be quick.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_01: Month and a half, you know.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so and but I feel really glad that I stood and knew that wasn't the right answer.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I didn't once consider, you know, these people they're they've been in the field for a long time, they probably know better because nobody knew the deafline community the way that I hadn't I knew this problem.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_01: So I was able to stand firmly and say that's not the path we're gonna be taking.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, obviously they're thinking, you know, they're they're VCs, they're venture capitalists, they're thinking in purely uh monetary terms.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_00: For sure.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, that's what they do.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_01: And that's and that's great that people are able to find success through that route.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_01: And it's great that there are these other options that allowed us to also have a successful business and be so mission focused.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_00: What what are some of these you were talking a little bit about mission creep before, like what are some of these kind of iterations that have been happening over time?
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_01: So when I started this as my thesis, the goal was to give news.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_01: That was the idea.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_01: News for deaf blind people.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_01: Deafline people don't have access to this COVID pandemic happening.
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_01: We need define people.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: Have access to news.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_01: And one day a deaf mind person came to visit my office and he's like, oh, well, which button will tell me the time?
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, oh my gosh, the time.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_00: Just the most basic.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_01: The absolute most basic.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_01: Because he was telling me, he's like, well, if I take a nap and I wake up, I don't know if I was asleep for two hours or two days.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_01: I have absolutely no idea.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_01: No, right.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_01: And it's also like, how do you not add that into the robot now, you know?
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_01: And so you hear things of, you know, I want to be able to, and I think calling was really what pushed this technology over from being, you know, beneficial to really being life-changing for people to being able to.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_01: We have a deaf fine man who has a robot.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_01: He's he's very young, and he calls his grandmother every day at four o'clock and he teases her, he makes jokes with her.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_01: He's like, I wore my PJs to class today.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_01: Does you think that's a good idea?
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_01: And she's like, no, and he's giggling, laughing on the phone.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_01: And it's just being able to call your grandmother every day or being able to connect with your family.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_01: I think that really was the piece that checking the weather, checking the news, all these things are so beneficial and helpful.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_01: But to have this connectivity, I think really is what set gave this product its life, you know?
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I'm I'm you you did ultimately, I've obviously like you did build a robot hand, and and I'm curious, like along the way, what you've what you've learned about that, you know, about the actual like building of I mean, obviously this is a big problem, and you're not trying to build a universal hand, you're not trying to build a humanoid hand, but um you must have discovered some kind of fascinating stuff about sort of like human biology, or at least trying to, you know, form like metal actuators into something biological.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and I think that was funny when we were explaining this to deaf one people why it was taking so long.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, guys, this is not actually a solved problem yet.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_01: You know, they haven't really made this low-cost compliant robotic hand that I can just plop on.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_01: But that was actually my intention when I started this as my thesis.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_01: Again, I wasn't a roboticist.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_00: You thought like off the shelf existed.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely my intention, as I was like, there are so many robotic hands, and with my newfound printer, I started printing them out and building them and seeing what they could and couldn't do.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_01: And very quickly I realized they can't American Sign Language requires such a high level of dexterity, like between letters to move between them.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_01: There also we can't use metal linkages.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_01: There's stuff when people's hands are gonna be in the pinch points.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_01: We can't be using all these traditional things.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_01: So suddenly we need to now workshop these critical problems in tendon-driven robotics.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_01: You know, the lifestyle life, lifetime, friction, all of these problems that again aren't solved problems.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_00: So you so you are really pulling like uh biologically inspired Absolutely, and that's something that I just started adding degrees of freedom.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_01: That's essentially how I did it.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_01: So we took a five I took a five degree of freedom hand and it could do XYZ.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, let's add another, let's add another.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_01: We had abduction and a couple fingers, okay?
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_01: We still can't make the differentiation between B and four.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_01: I guess all of the fingers need to have it and building up.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_01: And absolutely, we have anatomical models at our office.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_01: We were absolutely trying to create from what works and what people and it allows us to create a product that requires almost no learning curve to it.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_01: Definitely people put their hands on it, they immediately know what it's saying because it mimics a human hand so closely.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_00: How long does it take somebody to like get what it is the first time they experience it?
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_01: The first time someone puts their hand on it and moves the first time, you get a lot of, oh my gosh, what is going on?
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I got that just out of the corner of my eye, just seeing it like twitch.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_00: Like I got a little bit.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_01: And it was funny.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_01: This one definitely when she was using it for a little bit, and then she just jumped and she put her, threw her hands up, and I said, What's up?
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_01: She goes, I forgot it was a robot.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_01: I thought it was a human.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, nah, thank you for that.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but it really is, I think it's something that it happens so quickly.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_01: And because we've built so many, so the system is a hardware robot, but all of the software is cloud-based, so allows us to have like infinite amount of customizations.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_01: So we can make it move basically like their hand.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_01: So basically we can make it slower, we can make it faster, we can customize the grammar, the hand shapes to really make sure that again, there is this process that it feels like you.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_00: So so it's still um in terms of deployment.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, and you just you like just started shipping this, right?
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_01: We did, yeah, we just started shipping at the end of the Q4 of 2025.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_01: So there's only about 15 units out in the world right now, um, which is a lot for us, but not a lot in the scheme of robotics.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_01: But um, it's been really exciting to you learn so much.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_01: You know, the first few go out, what do we learn?
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_01: What we need to change.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_01: But I was, I think we were all really excited about, you know, we got the first few orders, and then people were using them.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we people are you every day people go in and they check the time and they check their notifications and they check the weather first thing every morning, just like we do.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_01: The more people are getting it, the more people are using, the more they're we're getting more just organic interest from, oh well, I know my sister needs this too.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_01: And a lot of deafline people come from families of deafline people.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_01: And so this one deafline woman has the robot, and my one of our trainers went out to visit her, and her deafline sister was there, and she was teaching her deafline sister how to use her robot so that then they were working together on it.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_01: And that's exactly what she wants to see.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_01: That she thought this was so beneficial to her, now this can be beneficial to my family as well.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_00: I was uh uh looking at your LinkedIn, and uh the first person to get one is like an ex-NASA bill.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, um Barry.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_01: Barry.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, ex-NASA engineer.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_01: So he was deaf for a long time when and they had a whole team of deaf engineers working at NASA, and he was a part of that group, and then he lost his vision, and he suddenly is deafblind.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_01: He didn't and doesn't know Braille because most deaf, like most deaf-blind people who have acquired deafblindness, they become deaf blind 40, 50, 60, and they can't learn Braille anymore.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_01: They might have neuropathy in their fingertips.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_01: It's just a completely new language for them.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_01: And he was in this group of people who's suddenly so isolated.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_01: Somebody who's brilliant, he's witty, he's funny.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_01: And he was talking about how he's like, I can't even banter with my wife anymore, because I don't know what's going on in the world.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_01: I need her for everything.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_01: I can't even like have productive conversations.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_01: And he was one of the first people, and we have had so many stories like that.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_01: This one deafblind woman, she was deaf, she lost her vision 40 years ago, and she called her daughter for the first time using the robot, and she sat there the whole time.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_01: She was just sobbing on the phone, talking to her daughter, and she's like, It's your mom, it's your mom on the phone.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_01: And it's the people that definitely people they're smart, they're excited, they're motivated to learn, and now we're just giving them the tools that will let them do that.
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, who said he was having religious debates with the hands.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_01: He he loves to argue, you know, he likes to debate, and uh now he can get what's going on in the world, he can read stories, he can pull other people about their perspectives.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_00: What what is the I mean it it sounds like it's a very kind of specific deployment process, as uh especially since it's still like a relatively small number.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_00: So you're kind of going and you're customizing each of these for each person?
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so basically the process is someone gets the robot and there's a user web when you set a user portal when you set it up and you pick their customizations.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_01: So the Stephblind man, he got a robot.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_01: He had never touched the robot before.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_01: He got a the robot through a federal program that purchased it for him.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_01: And we did a two-hour training with him, and he after that we left.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_01: He made a 15-minute call to his grandma, and now he calls his grandmother.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_01: That's the person.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_01: Now he calls his friends, he checks the weather, he does it all by himself.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_01: And so it's just really anyone can set up the portal for them.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_01: You just pick their preferences and then they're off to the races.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_01: And they can change it themselves at any time too, once they once they have it.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_01: If they, as many of them do get faster as they use it, they might start it two letters a second, and then three weeks later, they're like, I'm getting good at this.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_01: I want it three letters a second.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_01: They can change it and make it faster.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_00: Government purchasing program must be huge for you.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_00: That's a game changer, right?
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_01: That was it's for sure.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_01: It's an incredible program.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_01: And it purchases telecommunication devices for deafblind people.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_01: And that is that is what we do.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_00: Well, yeah, I mean, I I you know, we were talking about uh like at the beginning of this conversation, I it kind of sounded like there weren't other ones.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_00: Are are there other systems out there?
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_01: So some deafblind people do know Braille, of course.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_01: So if you can, if you're the if you have a refreshable Braille tablet, you could use that to connect to your phone.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_01: Some deafblind people who have limited vision, they might use like an iPad with really large print.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_01: So there's other technologies that deafblind people can access through these programs.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_01: And now this is just another tool that fits into that program.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_01: So we didn't have to invent the program or anything, which is great.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_01: We just essentially fit into it.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_00: I something I'm always fascinated about is is the uh is the technical founder conversation, you know.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_00: And obviously, like you are a technical founder.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you you know, you are coming from robotics, but you're also coming from science.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_00: But it's it, I suspect that for you, like you've really had to learn like every single step along the way, like how to run a company, how to scale, you know, manufacturing, all of these different pieces.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think the fun is that I get to learn something every day.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_01: I think that is the fun.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_01: But absolutely.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_01: So I started, I I do identify as a technical founder, despite my technical skills, maybe not necessarily being in robotics, but they definitely were not in business.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I'd never taken a business class.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_01: As I mentioned, I wasn't necessarily entrepreneurial.
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_01: So I needed to learn what a PL was.
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_01: I needed to learn how to put together a business plan, I needed to do all these things.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_01: I needed to gain the trust of my customers, I needed to do all these things.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_01: We were so lucky to be part of MIT Solve, the Mass Robotics Accelerator, these programs that help build up founders.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_01: And I I was at a conference once and the founder of Square, he said, you know, if you're doing something truly new, no one's the expert.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_01: And I think I don't know why that really resonated with me.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_01: That because I think when you first start a company and you don't have any of the skills to be doing what you're doing, you're like, oh, well, maybe somebody else should be doing this.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_01: But who really has skills in deaf-blind robotics?
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_01: Probably nobody.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_01: So um it really it's been such a journey, and I feel very lucky to have the team that we've had surrounded that we're all learning together.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_01: And it's probably almost for the best that we're all learning together because we didn't come in with these preconceived notions of what anthropomorphic robotics should look like.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_01: We were able to really just focus on the perspectives and the feedback of the deaf-blind people and build that instead of building what we thought was the correct human robotics.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it is an interesting point.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_00: And obviously, like there are all of these like stories and technology about founders, you know, in their garage.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I think there's also like a lot of a lot of power in you know, not having any like set expectations and starting it there and and and not even thinking that you were gonna launch a company, like um, you know, maybe maybe you were taking risks that you might not have taken otherwise.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_01: And I think, you know, those month and a half milestones I was setting for myself, maybe we didn't accomplish a ton, but we accomplished something because we set these unrealistic goals, but it allowed us to move really, he's like, let's throw something together.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_01: We could they're coming anyway, let's put something together for them to test.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_01: Let's they're coming, let's test everything we can while they're here.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_01: So it really set us up that we're gonna be this organization that is just kind of building what they're telling us to build.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_01: And that's what we did from really early on.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_01: And even when it's, you know, a kind of a non-realistic idea, like let's build a tendon-driven robotic hand out of 3D printed materials that can last for three years.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, let's figure out how to do that, you know.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_01: And it's been a fun press along the way to to do it with the people we're designing for.
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it it's it sounds so like you you do have to continue to be like really deliberate when it comes to, you know, like scale and the people that you're that you're hiring.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_00: It's a what six-person company at this point.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and we have, you know, we have our full-time team, but we also have Deaf Mind consultants that come in every week.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um, we have a whole advisory board of Deaf Mind people from across the country, across the world, really, who are advising us as we're building this to ensure that it's not just beneficial for one person.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_01: And I think as we're scaling, that's also been something we I've spent a lot of time talking to a lot of people about how to do this purposefully because again, we're a small team.
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_01: If we got an order for 100 robots, that would take some time.
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we're building this all in-house, we're doing these things.
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_01: So, how can we ensure the people that are getting this to start are the people that are going to benefit from it the most and also give us that time to build up our operations.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_00: Is that sort of a anticipation or expectation that there is going to be a point at some point as you're scaling that like a hundred robot order is going to come in?
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_01: Well, luckily with this, luckily, unluckily, whatever you want to call it, this federal program, it's not something that they're gonna buy a hundred.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_01: They buy per person.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_01: So if 100 people requested one, they would do, but it'd still come in on a one-per-one basis.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_01: And what we're trying to do right now is essentially grow per region.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_01: So we're taking, we're looking to support people in New England right now.
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, now we're branching out to this sec sub two and sub three so that way as we're building, we can ensure that as people are putting in orders, they're not waiting a year to get it.
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we can build it and we can get it to them along in a reasonable amount of time.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_00: And and these these are assembled completely on site?
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we build it all, we print everything, we assemble it, we tension it, we do everything.
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_01: I sew the gloves at the office, we do it all.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that so what what are the tendons made out of?
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_01: It's just a it's a stainless steel nylon coated tendon.
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, yeah.
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's funny, it's been really cool to see what decisions I made in my thesis, not knowing anything about robotics a long time ago, and what decisions are still true today.
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_01: Like that tendon material that we used, we still use, you know, and what you know, material for the hand we used and we still use.
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_01: And and then the things that have vastly changed.
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_01: And so that's been a really interesting just thing to monitor along the way.
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean it's it sounds like largely the changes that you've made are the changes that you've made based on user feedback.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_01: 100%.
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_01: And for example, I'm sure when you saw it last, this kind of box that the robot was on was huge.
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_01: It was this like tub.
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_01: We used to call it the tub because it was huge.
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_01: And everybody at like robotics events was like, you gotta make that smaller.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, it doesn't have to be smaller, you know, they can't see it.
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_01: It's fine.
• 35:23
  SPEAKER_01: And then we gave it to Deafline people for a beta.
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_01: And when we went to go pick them up, they each had like a stack of books that they were resting their arm on because it was too tall.
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_01: And we're like, okay, we'll make it smaller.
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_01: You know, like that that motivated us to make that was this problem.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_01: Now it's a problem.
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_01: Before it was just a suggestion.
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_01: Now it's like we're getting this feedback that it needs to be smaller, so we'll prioritize this.
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_00: And and you just you're just continuing to iterate on it all the time?
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_01: So we're obviously making, kind of now that it's a product out in the world, we're making smaller improvements as we see need.
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_01: But we actually we got our face two NSF, which is actually gonna allow us to build our next product, which is actually a whole arm that does more complex signing.
• 36:00
  SPEAKER_01: So this is our finger spelling hand.
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_01: So American Sign Language, any sign language that has, you know, you have the letters A, B, C, D, E, F.
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but you also have a whole vocabulary signs.
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_01: Hi, my name, Sam.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_01: But this robot will do hi, my name, Sam.
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_01: So it's really just gonna allow us to really encapsulate the language.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_00: How different of a problem is that when it comes to actually building a robot to do the full arm?
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_01: The difference is sort of the safety that comes into it.
• 36:27
  SPEAKER_01: This is inherently safe.
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_01: Again, it's all TPU, you're not gonna get hurt while using it.
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_01: And now you have an arm that's moving in a space of deafblind people.
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_01: So that is kind of where a lot of that work comes in is the compliance and the controls of that system.
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, because obviously, I mean, obviously they can't see, so they don't know, you know, how it's moving and and and they're not aware of their surroundings.
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, the safety standards for collaborative robotics are new.
• 36:53
  SPEAKER_01: And a lot of it's funny, I remember looking at the standards for collaborative robotics X years ago, and the first rule is like say six feet away.
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_01: And it's like, well, they're gonna not be staying six feet away.
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_01: They will be, they'll be holding on to it.
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so but these deafline people, they are they have no fear, you know, they're like, it hits me when we're gonna work through it, you know.
• 37:10
  SPEAKER_00: And so I've been through worse.
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 37:13
  SPEAKER_01: And it's it's fun to see.
• 37:15
  SPEAKER_01: It's also interesting what matters and what doesn't matter, and that's been exciting and interesting to learn what they care a lot about and what they care nothing about.
• 37:22
  SPEAKER_01: What we learned is deaf-blind people really care about the color of the glove.
• 37:24
  SPEAKER_01: They can't see it, but they have a favorite color, they have a preference, and they want it personalized to them.
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_01: So we have one deaf blind woman, she's got this cheetah print, the rainbow glove, and because it fits her personality, and she's like, I want a super fun glove.
• 37:38
  SPEAKER_01: And we're like, okay, let's make it for you.
• 37:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_00: I I was I was gonna ask, you know, so what things look like moving forward, but it sounds like it's, you know, obviously the the focus continues to be on um the audience, uh, but it's building uh potentially uh new products for that space.
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_01: That space.
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_01: And I think what I see also being asked right now, we've been really heavily prioritizing deafline people in their homes, you know, where they can't tell the time where they're not surrounded by other people that can support them.
• 38:06
  SPEAKER_01: But we're also, you know, working with the Museum of Science to see how this can be used to make the Museum of Science more accessible, or we're working with other healthcare applications to see how this can make, you know, digital health equity possible.
• 38:18
  SPEAKER_01: How can we make a patient portal accessible?
• 38:20
  SPEAKER_01: How can this make having a doctor's appointment more accessible?
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_01: So there's all of these ways that, you know, deafline people in their homes, of course, need support, but it doesn't end in their homes.
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_01: So we're investigating as we're building more products, but also where are these other applications that would help improve Deafline people's experience?
• 38:36
  SPEAKER_00: So it's I'm not just like dropping that in somebody's home and then I'm like, all right, see ya.
• 38:41
  SPEAKER_01: Right, right.
• 38:41
  SPEAKER_01: So in what's really great about having these people's homes first is now they know how to use it.
• 38:45
  SPEAKER_01: So you know, they go to the emergency room and want to be sitting there, they know what to do.
• 38:49
  SPEAKER_01: You know, they know how to how to be able to make calls and relay their problems effectively.
• 38:55
  SPEAKER_00: Aaron Powell Do you feel like generally think like things are are are improving when it comes to um launching an accessibility startup?
• 39:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, I think it's improving for a number of reasons.
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_01: One, I think you can build something at a lower cost of entry, which I think is is so important for accessibility.
• 39:13
  SPEAKER_00: And but that's more of just sort of like a hardware management.
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_01: But I think but I think what's really important about that is because you can build it at a lower cost of entry, you can start getting feedback from the populations you need.
• 39:23
  SPEAKER_01: I think a lot of accessibility projects for a long time, you couldn't get feedback from the people you were designing for until it was already arguably too late.
• 39:31
  SPEAKER_01: And as a result, people accessibility solutions would come out that are not providing benefit to people.
• 39:36
  SPEAKER_01: And now you can get people in the room at such an early stage.
• 39:39
  SPEAKER_01: And now people are prioritizing.
• 39:40
  SPEAKER_01: As I mentioned, Perkins launched this whole center, the Perkins Innovation Center, and they're working with McKinsey to get all of these detailed reports on what the market size looks like, which didn't always exist.
• 39:49
  SPEAKER_01: What you know programs are available and why you can have a company that is successful in accessibility.
• 39:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I I really appreciate your taking the time and of course, thanks so much for having me.
• 40:00
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 40:01
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much to Samantha and the team at Mass Robotics for setting that up.
• 40:06
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks to you, as always, for sticking around and listening andor watching the show.
• 40:11
  SPEAKER_00: If you are a fan, you can support us by liking and subscribing on the platform of your choice and subscribing to our newsletter over at automated.fm.
• 40:21
  SPEAKER_00: And with all of that, we will see you next week for another episode of Automated.