Assistive Technology Update - A fast-paced weekly update for AT professionals and enthusiasts
ATU689 - Index Braille with Mikael Vikman Sunna
Your weekly dose of information that keeps you up to date on the latest developments in the field of technology designed to assist people with disabilities and special needs. Special Guest: Mikael Vikman Sunna - CEO - Index Braille Website: www.indexbraille.com INDATA Full Day Training Sign Up Link: https://bit.ly/3ygEfGf —————————— If you have an AT question, leave us a voice mail at: 317-721-7124 or email tech@eastersealscrossroads.org Check out our web site: http://www.eastersealstech.com Follow us on Twitter: @INDATAproject Like us on Facebook: www.Facebook.com/INDATA
Hi, this is Michael Vichman-Suna and I am the CEO of IndexPrayal Sweden and this is your Assistive Technology Update. Hello and welcome to your Assistive Technology Update, a weekly dose of information that keeps you up to date on the latest developments in the field of technology designed to assist individuals with disabilities and special needs. I'm your host Josh Anderson with the Indato Project at Easterseals Crossroads in beautiful Indianapolis, Indiana. Welcome to episode 689 of Assistive Technology Update. It is scheduled to be released on August 9th, 2024. On today's show, we are super excited to be joined by Michael Vichman-Suna, the CEO of IndexPrayal and he's here to tell us all about their embossers, the importance of Braille and all the really great things that they offer. Listeners, as always, we're super excited that you're listening to us today and don't forget, you can always reach out to us. Just drop us a line. You can give us a call at 317-721-7124 or shoot us an email at tech@eastersealscrossroads.org. But without any further ado, folks, let's go ahead and get on with the show. Folks, if you're listening to this show, it's obvious that you like Assistive Technology and you love podcasts. Well, if you like Assistive Technology and podcasts, if I got a treat for you, since your technology update is not our only podcast here at the Indata Project at Easterseals Crossroads, no, we actually have two others. Assistive Technology frequently asks questions or ATFAQ is a question and answer show where we take your questions as well as questions that we receive through our other programs and do our best to answer those with our panel of experts. I use that word very loosely, but usually it's myself Brian Norton and other members of our team sitting in to try to answer your questions. This show relies on our listeners not just for our questions, but sometimes for the answers. Let's not lie. We do not know everything that there is to know. So we always kind of try to throw those questions out and sometimes our listeners feedback. Well, we get to learn stuff as well, which is always a great thing. Or if perhaps you're short on time, we also have Accessibility Minute. Now accessibility minute is just a little taster. It's going to give you just a little bit of information about a new piece of Assistive Technology, a new app program or something else cool that might be able to help individuals with disabilities and they give you some resources where you can go and check out more about it on your own. So remember, if you like this show, if you like Assistive Technology and you like podcasts, check out our other show's Assistive Technology frequently asked questions and Accessibility Minute to go along with the Assistive Technology update, which you're listening to right now. You can find those over at eastersealstech.com or anywhere you get your podcast. Don't forget to like, subscribe and give us some comments and feedback. We always love hearing from you. And thank you so most for listening to this and all of our programs. Listeners, I want to make sure that you are aware of our next full day training here at NData. It is coming up on August 22. So just a few weeks from now, it'll take place from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Eastern. And this training will be online only so you can attend from anywhere that you might be. This full day training will cover innovative Assistive Technology. Now what in the world does that mean? Well, artificial intelligence, robots, virtual reality, augmented reality, adaptive gaming, alternative input devices, all of these amazing breakthroughs in technology. And then really digging into how they change the landscape of Assistive Technology, how these really great folks like the ones you hear on the show here all the time are incorporating these really merging technologies into Assistive Technology to make things maybe more user friendly, to make them do things they were never able to do before and to really just open up the world of accessibility for individuals with disabilities. So if you're interested in Assistive Technology, artificial intelligence, robots, virtual reality, adaptive gaming, the internet of things, and all these other just amazing technological advances, please, please, please do sign up to attend our August full day training here at NData on innovative Assistive Technology coming up on August 22 from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. CEUs are available for this event. So if you need those to keep a certification or just for anything else, those are available, but you do have to register. There are not a lot of spots left. So make sure that you register very soon. We'll put a link down in the show notes that it's very easy to just click right over there and do it again. This is all online. So if you ever want to join us for one of our full days, if you joined us before or are just looking to maybe have the first time joining us for a full day training again, join us for innovative Assistive Technology full day training on August 22 from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Eastern online via Zoom. Check out the show notes for how to register and sign up for the training. Listeners today, we are super excited to welcome Michael Vickman-Suna from Index Braille to the show to tell us all about the cool items that they offer and how they can help the individuals that they serve. Michael, welcome to the show. Thank you very much. Thank you. Yeah, I am and I'm really excited. I know we've been trying to kind of get together for a while to learn more about Index Braille. But before we do that, could you tell our listeners a little bit about yourself? Yeah, I can do that. I am actually the CEO of Index Braille and I've been working with this company for I think it's about 32 years now actually. So it's been a while. So I've been in the industry for quite a while. Started out as sort of a mistake. I wasn't supposed to do this. I was actually a photographer from the start. Yeah, I tried to make my living as a photographer and it was kind of hard. So I figured I need this. I need something to make some cash for building up by my photo studio. And I stumbled on this job as a technician on the Index Braille back in 1990. So that's how it started. So I started as a technician and been working here ever since. And it's a great company and many people who start working here, they don't ever quit. They're kind of happy to be within the company. So I can tell you a little bit about the company. Back then it was owned by the founder, Bjorn Levstedt. He started this in the early 80s and was the sole owner of the Index a couple of years ago. We got the opportunity to buy the company from him. So it's actually new ownership since a little more than two years now. So it shifted to the old management team who has actually been running the company the last year. So now we got the opportunity to actually take over and run Index in the direction that we want to do. So it's great. That's awesome. And I love two things. One that the leaders have a personal stake, not just in the success of the company for that's part of the job, but also is the ownership part. And then also I love that longevity, talking about folks that come and just never leave. That's what I always look for in my team. And I take a lot of pride in knowing that I sit there and meet with members of my team and talk about them being new. And I realize they've been here three to five years. But compared to other folks, that is kind of new. That's kind of new. But it's always just a, you know, you're doing something right if folks really, really stick around. Yeah, we do actually, yeah, sorry to interrupt you. But I mean, Index is like, it's known for being quite, it's not a family business, but it's the feeling of the company is really warm and friendly. And all the people who work there think of index as part of the family actually. And I think that's really, really great. But I mean, we're a small comp, relatively small company. And we try to handle everything in house and other people here, or like multi-talented and to just not only one thing on. I think that's one of the keys to get a good be happy at work. I mean, to do a lot of different things. Yeah. Yeah, it definitely gives you more of a personal stake. It pretty much no matter where you are in the company for sure. And I'm sure as a CEO, that's a great thing for you to not have to hire and be able to be able to hold on to those good folks for a long time. Well, I guess, yeah, I guess we got to get a little bit of just, you know, we know some of the back story and everything else about index braille. But what does index braille make or do? Well, index braille is actually one of a few companies in the world who makes Brian Busser's. And we've been doing this and only this for I mean, since the company was started, actually. And we're one of two big companies in the world actually providing, I don't know the percentage, but we have a large part of the world market with our products. But the main core thing is braille embossers and also the software side of it. That's what we do some some accessories also we got some acoustic cabinets and we got some staples and so on accessories to these braille embossers. But that's what we do. And we got a few got four different types of embossers all the way from small tabletop embossers for personal use up to really large machines that are for large scale production and so on. And it's both for get to two lines. You say you've got one for attractive head paper and also we cover the cut sheet paper market. And that differs, I mean, all around the world. It's some parts of the world. They prefer the cut sheet paper because it's cheaper and easy to get and other parts of the world. They prefer a attractive head paper or continuous paper. Nice. And you said you kind of four main different ones is the main difference just the size and the kind of paper. Are there other differences between the different different models of embossers? It's actually, yeah, the size is, I mean, they're quite different in size and look of it. But also the speed, I mean, the large scale production embossers are much faster than the smaller ones, of course. So that's mainly the difference. But all for the what's come the same for it is the I mean, it's the same software and it's the same. So you recognize everything. If you have the smallest one or the biggest one, you handle the embossers and the printouts in a similar way. So you're, I mean, do you know, if you know one of the embossers, you know, the more you can say that. Yeah, nice. And I'm sure that helps probably on the service side from your side. But then also, yeah, from the user experience. So Michael, tell me a little bit about the software. I think there's a belief out there that if I need things made in Braille, I just send you a document. And that's pretty much it. But I know there's so much more that goes on. Oh, come on the back end behind the scenes in order to do everything. So could you describe the software to us a little bit? Yeah, I can do it just. So I mean, the history of the the Braille making from from the beginning has been, I mean, it's not been easy to make Braille. You have to have some some kind of a knowledge and you also used to have to have some sort of translation software and external programs that you have to buy for a lot of money and so on. And it's it's actually still like that. But for for index, we have been working quite long with with implementing the software within the embossers. So what I mean by that is when you buy an index embosser, you don't need to buy any additional software or or anything else. It's all there with built-in in the machine. So you can cover most most of your printing needs within index embosser without having to buy anything else. But if you need to I mean, if you need to print music or if you need to print advanced maths, then you need some special software. And that is I mean, that's the only thing actually. Everything else is there from the start. So, so it's all built-in in in the machines here. Very, very cool. And I know you said you're you know, one of the main kind of major Braille embosser, you know, manufacturers dealers kind of everything out there. What really sets index Braille apart? I think it's I think it's a couple of things, actually. One is that they are really beautiful. We take a lot of pride and yeah, they are. We take a lot of pride in in the design work with them. And we got actually one embosser or two embossers actually that won a lot of lot of big design awards all around the world. Like, yeah, one of the big one as Capriets ago won the Red Dot Award, which is kind of world famous. And also the German design awards and Swedish design awards and so on. So they are really good looking. So it's yeah, it's it's not a piece of I mean, a gray box sitting in the corner. This is actually embossers that are pretty beautiful. So that that's one thing. The other thing is that as I said, everything is included when you buy them. And also they are really high technical level on it. And one thing that that people really loves about them is that they are really easy to use. We have that as a statement, "Brile printing made easy." We think that it's it should be easy to print Braille. And that is one thing. And also for the service part of it, you don't need to I mean, we handle service trainings here at the company and so on for our distributors. Invite them up to the northern parts of Sweden to be able to really get to know the embossers and how to take care of them. And they're really easy to service and support. I think that's that's mainly what differs our embossers from our competitors. I would say. Nice. That's that's that's awesome. Now, a lot of our listeners have probably, you know, never seen an embosser. So and we kind of mentioned this at the beginning of some of the things you offer. Can you describe what an acoustic cabinet and maybe even like the the table based hood are and why they're important. Now we have an embosser here. So I I know why these things are important. But for those folks who've maybe never seen a braille embosser, or seen what kind of working, what are they and why are those those pieces important? Yeah, they are really important for for in some parts. I mean, large scale production centers often have a separate room where they whether have their embossers when they print a lot of not of Braille, because printing Braille makes noise. You you actually when you print on paper, the paper is like a membrane and it enhances the sound actually from from the the making of the dot. So it's it's kind of loud. But our biggest embossers are they are like captured. So so they are the the noise is canceled in the inside the construction of the embosser. It's like an sound cabinet itself. But the smaller ones makes a lot of noise. And for that reason, we have a couple of different acoustic cabinets, which is like it's actually cabinet where you put your embosser and you close the door and you print from there. And that way you can really decrease the sound or the noise from from the printing process. Yeah, and like you said, if you don't have a full separate room, those are those are pretty darn important, because man, it just sounds like that thing is beating that paper to death when it's when it when it's putting those braille dots on there sometimes and it can get yeah, if you're doing much work, it can get a little annoying after some time, especially if you got to work kind of close to it. But yeah, yeah, yeah, of course, you're not the most popular guy at the office. That's for sure. That is definitely for sure. Well, Michael, I know at least here in the in the States and I know some places there was the I want to say, maybe not an intentional but kind of a move away from Braille. And then I know that that things are moving back to Braille just because of the importance of of the communication and everything. But could you kind of tell us in our opinion why you think maybe Braille is important and why, you know, access to the Braille parent is is important for individuals? I mean, it's it's I've been hearing this for about 10, 15 years now that Braille is I mean, you're seeing market shares or what to say. I mean, it's the demand for Braille is going to go away. And so printed by talking about now. But we actually experience the opposite. I mean, we have an increasing demand for for written braille on paper. And I think that's it's because it's a cheap way of making braille documents for schools and for individuals all over and for the learning process and so on. It's a really cheap way. I mean, for one school, you can actually, if you buy one Braille embosser, you can provide material for for a whole school. If if you got tablets and so on, you need actually, well, a couple of at least like 10 times as much and so on in or at least. And I think but it's a complement. I think both are needed. You know, I mean, it's it depends on the usage and which part of the world and so on. So what we see now is that it's increasing the amount for written braille on paper in in many parts of the world. Africa, for instance, and Asia and so on. It's really it's it's increasing for us. So it's it's it's a good way. But I mean, all equipment that helps people to be able to learn and read and write and get the opportunity to to get a better life and a better job and so on are good. And and some parts. I mean, some wants to have written braille on paper and others could use a braille displays and other stuff. So so I mean, it's it's a complement. And what people say about that braille written braille on paper is is becoming more less and less important. I think we're not experiencing that at all. So it's for us, it's the complete opposite. So it's I think it's it's also an easy way to to to produce braille for those who doesn't need it every day. I mean, if you're looking at hotels and restaurants and so on, they can just if they have a braille embosser, they can just print the menu or or, you know, whatever on the bond, actually, if a customer requires a menu in braille, then if you got a braille embosser at the hotel, the receptionist can easily print out the menu in just a few seconds, actually. So it's so it's I mean, but both are needed, both both refreshable braille and braille on paper. Yeah, and that's that's actually very refreshing to to hear because I think over the years as I've kind of heard, Oh, paper, braille might be going away. I feel like it's never been someone who actually uses braille that says that. I think it's more more of a speculative thing. So I'm very glad to hear that that is that is definitely not the case. Well, Michael, you've been there for quite a few years. Do you have kind of a story about, you know, someone that you guys were able to to help by utilizing your your equipment and maybe how that was able to make a little bit of a difference for for either them for their company or or just make a little bit of a difference for the folks that they served or were able to assist? Well, we got a lot of a lot of different examples of that. And we get, I mean, we got regular comments from people who uses our embossers. And I know I was in I think it was in Tokyo last year. And I met a woman who was about, I think she was about 80 or something. And she came up to me and said in a really bad English, but she said that I really loved the index embossers and she wanted to hear what was new about them. So I showed her the latest models. And she said, okay, they are looking good, but I'm really happy with mine. And I asked her about the embossers. And she said that, well, I bought this in 1991. And it still, it still runs like a like clockwork. So she was, she had no, no, no need for buying another one. So, so, and she, she has been using this for every day for since, I mean, 91 or 92, something like that. She was really, really happy with it. And that is, it's really nice to hear those, those things. The people are really, really happy with the quality also. So, yeah, that does make it make it really nice makes it a lot easier to show it for work. When you know you're making something quality that people can actually use. And it sounds like everybody really, really enjoys working there as well. Michael, if our listeners want to find out more about your embossers, about index braille, about the other things that you all offer, what's good ways for them to do that? Well, is this way to actually visit our website index braille.com? There's an old version that we've been having for a lot of love years up and running. But we will actually launch a new website in, I think it's maybe in one or two months, I hope. That will be fresh and new. So, but you can find everything that you need, actually, on our website. And also, I mean, you can contact me or anyone else at the company if you got some more detailed questions. You got my email address is there. And so, and also you can visit us. We travel a lot throughout the world and we're going to visit in the States. As usual, we're going to visit two exhibitions, CSUN, of course, and also Walsag City, Germany, CSUN, and Los Angeles, and the one in Florida. ATIA down there? ATIA, ATIA, yeah. Awesome. So, you can visit us there also and have a look at the stuff and just have a chat. Very, very cool. Well, Michael, we thank you so much for coming on today for telling us all about index Braille, all the great things that you guys do. Like I said, it's very, very good to hear that Braille is still running strong. Thank you so much. And I'll make sure to stop by and say hi at ATIA down in Florida when we're done. Yeah, do that. At least do. Yeah, let's do that. Thank you again, Michael. Take care. Yeah. Thank you. Do you have a question about assistive technology? Do you have a suggestion for someone we should interview on an assistive technology update? If so, call our listener line at 317-721-7124. Send us an email at tech@eastersealscrossroads.org or shoot us a note on Twitter at @indataproject. Our captions and transcripts for the show are sponsored by the Indiana Telephone Relay Access Corporation or InTrack. You can find out more about InTrack at relayindiana.com. A special thanks to Nicole Prieto for scheduling our amazing guests and making a mess of my schedule. Today's show was produced, edited, hosted, and fraud over by yours truly. The opinions expressed by our guests are their own and may or may not reflect those of the INDATA Project, Easterseals Crossroads, our supporting partners, or this host. This was your assistive technology update. I'm Josh Anderson with the INDATA Project at Easterseals Crossroads in beautiful Indianapolis, Indiana. We look forward to seeing you next time. Bye-bye.