Good morning and thank you very much.
I want to go through Be My Eyes and the story
and what we do and show you how it works.
And what we are going to work with in the future.
And then I will try to get through it as quickly
as possible so we can get time for questions.
And if you have questions along the way,
you can put them in the chat and I will be happy to wave until you
stop and answer them.
I will not be able to give you three crystal
clear takeaways on how you do growth hacking.
But maybe there are some principles in what
we have done that you can take with you.
I hope so.
First of all,
I would like to invite you into the
blind and the visually impaired universe.
When we give tactile feedback,
as you can see it is made in the landscape and the environment,
and on Braille that we can read with.
And then there is a very high level of self
-discipline and systems to get through everyday life.
And what surprised me was how good the accessibility
features are on particular Mac products.
Now Apple,
Google and Windows are fortunately coming after it.
But a few years ago, it was their superior
Apple that was dominating these accessibility features.
So when a blind uses a smartphone,
they listen to what we see.
Imagine that the phone is completely
black and when you press messages once,
it says messages.
If you press messages twice, it opens messages.
And you can also write a text message through it.
So they use it completely the same way we do with the blind.
They can tweet,
Facebook, Google and all the other things.
And what we do is establish a visual aid that gives you this,
the name,
visual assistance in the moment.
And you can be the eyes of another.
This is one of our users.
So I will show you how it works.
Identify some of the items in this vending machine.
I see chips of various types,
popcorns and some cheese biscuits.
I see Doritos.
How about you tell me the number corresponding to the Doritos?
Doritos is B4.
Nefertiti Matos is blind and she is using Be My Eyes, a free iPhone.
It is a free iPhone app that connects
her to sighted volunteers via video call.
Well, thank you very much.
You've been very helpful.
So it is so simple that we match on time zone and language.
That means we are not so interested in if you are talking
to someone who is locally in the same room as you or the
same country or the same city or the same country as you.
We are more interested in establishing a connection
to someone who has time and wants to receive the call.
And that means that we match on time and language.
And that the call is forwarded until it is answered.
So when you call,
we forward the call after 8 seconds to a new batch.
But we are accompanied by the call to the first ones.
And that means that when the call is answered,
the volunteer,
but free volunteer,
is someone who has time and desire to help you.
Hans Jørgen,
our inventor and my partner in the company,
is a
blind and is blind to the last.
And Hans Jørgen used FaceTime and Skype before.
But the problem with these services
is that he is standing and saying,
you have to choose who he wants to
He always has to call the same person and ask for assistance.
And what we do by doing this is that we make it
possible that they can ask for assistance 24-7.
And especially with so many helpers that we end
up having 24-7 and you get a new connection and
an anonymous connection established every time.
So we have the example here where Mike can call from Hong Kong.
We do not disturb our helpers between 22 and 07.
Then we think,
now you can just restructure and be ready again.
So what we do instead is that we send the call to
a time zone where we are in the middle of the day.
So in this case,
we match the English speaking and that it is an
overlapping time zone where they can be connected.
And it is true that we are today in 150
countries in 90 different languages.
We have these 490,000 that we are up to now and just under 34,000
blind and visually impaired users.
We launched on January 15, 2015.
And we had definitely not expected to reach either this
or just the results we had in the first few days the
morning after.
When I looked at the development plans
about going to Germany in the fall,
we had to consider what to do.
It was a fairly traditional plan.
But something that was done smart and that we can look back
on now is that we made it possible to make the translations.
We speak maybe 3
-4 languages in a day at the office.
But we made it possible that it would
be translated by our own language.
So
we used a service called CrowdIn to translate all the translations.
And as soon as there was enough that had vouched for that translation
was good enough and there was no traffic jam and all that,
we launched it as a language and then we got people to use it.
So we had enormous confidence in our community from the start
which made it possible that we got this international launch.
I remember the morning after the launch.
We had worked closely with the Danish blind community and
knew that there was a need and a desire to use the app.
But the incentive for us as volunteers to use
time and resources on this, we had very little.
The problem with asking people is that you ask
them if they think the wrong thing and they say yes
and then they don't really know what they said.
So all those who stood there and said,
yes of course I will do that.
We were a little curious if it was true.
But it turns out that the morning after we had 1000 blind people
signed up and 10,000 volunteers.
And we said,
okay,
now we have our place on earth.
Let's see where we are.
And very quickly we started to get out of it.
But some of what we are using it for today is
especially grouped into these six categories.
All of what is called getting a letter
or reading something aloud.
And not being able to understand why we can't get into this shop.
Because I'll be back in five minutes.
All of these small daily readouts.
The difference between putting clothes together.
We save all video sessions and have all the data from there.
And see them through for abuse cases.
But also to optimize both the algorithm
and the quality and everything.
And sometimes there are some nice stories.
And there was for example a woman who
subscribed to a clothing subscription order.
Where she gets something every month.
And she is then matched with a man who will
help her explain what this clothing is.
And it goes fine.
We run punctually, factually what this is.
Until he then says,
she asks,
will you help me match it?
And you could hear that his skills were a bit challenging.
But they of course also got a happy moment of understanding that.
And he not only put the earring on and the lower part and all that.
So we were lucky to get through that.
Shopping.
It is to find the products you are looking for in the store.
And then when you come back and find out what they are again.
Because the next thing with this with the
difference between two identical products.
It is undoubtedly a very, very different rule.
Depending on which can you put in.
But you are open to finding out about it.
And so there is a lot in this difference from the tactile.
Food making in general.
And then especially tech assistance.
It is very funny because
when we design something with UX and UI.
It is always the visual we have in mind.
But when you are making something for blind or the weak.
Then it really has to be intuitive and natural.
So that it makes sense.
And then we can sometimes see how even those who
are working and making accessibility features.
Maybe forget the end user for a while.
And then leave them in a
corner where they simply cannot get out of.
So at one point we won
a prize together with Windows 10.
And we are very,
very proud to be on the list together with them.
But I could not deny myself to say that
we know quite well about Windows 10.
Because the last two months I have got 20% of our call.
It has been especially on one buck in Windows 10.
So we would very much like to help them
to make their accessibility better.
But there is a lot in this.
But there are of course also the more like.
Oh.
Then you got both.
So these stories we have never dreamed of.
For example a blind father who can now assist his son in his lecture.
Because he can tell what the task sounds like.
Which I have to help you through.
And even the results of the gravity test.
And there we have both
the heartwarming news.
Should tell someone that they should be parents again.
Or
those who do not want this result to be positive.
And it was first when one of our blind
brothers told me how important it is.
So if you want the result to be negative.
Then you have your reasons for it to be negative.
And then you will perhaps especially
avoid asking friends or family about this.
So our blind partner said that this is the first time that
we blind people have a completely closed anonymous space.
Where we go in and then get the visual distance
we need to solve a given visual challenge.
One of the things we focus on from now on.
Is that there is possibly a equal amount of need.
For going online and assisting in the online world.
Most of the internet is not accessible for the blind and the weak.
And what we will focus on is the basic
where we can take the same principles.
To invite volunteers and assist.
Of course we can not do that as soon
as we deal with purchases and sales.
And signatures and CPR numbers.
But we work closely with customer software producers.
To find out how best we can.
And how best we can solve this task.
So we have a reliable
representative in the other end.
Who can help you
solve your task.
I would also like to say very quickly.
A little about our BMI is completely free.
And has been all the time.
And this has been our design approach from the start.
Everybody wins only when nobody loses.
So everyone wins when no one loses.
But it is first when no one loses.
Because had we made commercialization on the basis of.
As it is today.
If we could keep the service free.
And then spam it with ads.
Then we would have done it on the basis of the scenes.
Or allowed us to do it at the expense of them.
And we just did not like that.
So when we launched we said.
Okay now we go up the hood.
Now we give this for free.
Now we see if it has a place on earth.
And then we have to find out how to monetize along the way.
And it has also shown that there are other ways to it.
Which has surprised us a lot.
That it is not just the traditional.
Necessarily the premium we should go out in.
We work a lot with our data.
And also with making some white label.
Because this is of course not the only segment.
That needs this micro volunteering setup.
It is all about getting some knowledge.
From someone who knows something.
To someone who needs it.
In an acute moment.
And how much they know each other is not so crucial.
So we are starting with some other small pilots.
To see how we can get it out.
This was actually the very first slide we had.
On Startup Weekend.
When we launched in 2000.
Or when we started in late 2013.
That was also the business model slide.
We said it is just about love.
And to get it out to the people.
And in this there is a lot of compassion.
And now we have just come back to Aarhus.
Because I think both there is a lot.
The Danish good old basic values.
There is a lot of Danish in Be My Eyes.
But at times Denmark might also need some Be My Eyes.
As we have done lately.
But this is about looking for a model.
Where it has to be able to give more synergy.
Than just the traditional way we do it.
That has been an aspiration we have strived for from the start.
And it is definitely not fun to be on an accelerator.
We were the first batch at Singularity University.
In California.
To come in on NASA.
Where they say bang good.
In the next 10 years we will impact a billion people.
From Jutland.
Just in Robo.
But where they demanded so much from us.
And it was definitely not fun to sit on Demodag.
And not have an answer to what the business model should be.
Other than to say.
We can just say.
As long as we keep growing.
And as long as we keep creating value.
And this data is valuable.
And we do not sell out.
Then we can do Purpose and Profit.
And we will probably find out how we do it.
And then the will of course.
Just a couple of weeks after it was over.
We found out.
This is just in front of us.
That we are going online.
We are of course going online.
And get them.
Invited the blind and the blind.
With on board.
In the digital world too.
And this is not.
Oh sorry.
It's not just a small local problem.
There are 285 million blind and the blind.
In the world.
So we have not even touched the top of the iceberg yet.
And even though we have been framed.
As the largest global community.
For blind and the blind.
Just with the relatively small group.
We have so far.
90% of these live in low income areas.
And that means.
That when.
That part of the world goes online.
Then we also have a task.
And a responsibility.
For that they can come in.
In the digital.
In the digital world.
I really like that.
That framing.
To say that the internet.
Is our common awareness.
Where we can.
Go in and add something.
And experience something.
And lay something.
And someone can come and get it.
So
a mind.
Or a subject.
Or a knowledge.
Or information.
And it's not just.
All this.
Third world area.
That goes into ours.
We have to go as far into theirs.
And when you look at.
An area.
Where you.
Maybe.
Is very, very low.
In poverty.
Well then.
That means.
More.
Assistance.
From family and friends.
That may mean.
Less food and drink.
For the whole family.
So we focus.
A lot on.
Making some partnerships.
That can make it possible.
That we can give some devices.
To those who need it.
But that is.
It's a little more.
Ioan.
Pushck from Saab.
From Falkland.
Those who need it
I would really, really like.
So this was made possible.
Because we've had some.
Amazing.
Adv carbgo.
Advocates.
Dear.
I hope.
Their products are really.
Might be important.
And.
They're.
SoonFSB
You know.
Oh.
But otherwise I will leave and hopefully have time for questions.
Thank you for coming.
