11 Jun 2025

On FOCAL POINT:

• Bill Dengler, working for Microsoft, chatted about his journey to this point as well as Microsoft’s commitment to accessibility.
• Rebecca Young, CEO for Access 2 Arts, with an employment opportunity as Operations Manager at A2A, and a number of generous funding opportunities as well as audio described events coming up.
• Rebecca Chen, from Zoomax, and Peter Cracknell, from Quantum RLV, launched the Snow Pad in Australia - a clever portable magnifier that works seamlessly with your personal iPad,
• Maureen O'Reilly from the Vision Australia Library invited all to meet some Narrators, attend online write your family history sessions and hear  Erik Weihenmayer, who has appeared on the cover of Time Magazine,

Resources:

• Microsoft Accessibility Insights: https://accessibilityinsights.io/
• Access 2 Arts: http://www.access2arts.org.au
• Information on the Snow Pad: http://www.zoomax.com
• Quantum RLV: http://www.quantumrlv.com.au
• Vision Australia Library: http://www.visionaustralia.org/library

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

S1 (00:15):
Good evening and welcome to Focal Point here on Vicious Radio.
Radio 1190 7 a.m. Adelaide, online at Via radio, via
Radio Digital and Adelaide and Darwin through the Community Radio
Plus app. Look for Vision Australia, Radio Adelaide, also through
the Reading Radio Network. Peter Greco on behalf of Phillip Napier,
saying thank you so much for joining us. This program

(00:37):
coming to you from Garner Land come to you very shortly.
We'll meet Bill dangler. Bill works at Microsoft. How did
he get to this particular role and what does this
role entail? We'll find out very soon. Rebecca Young from
Access to Arts will join us. All the latest news
in audio description. Also a chance for you to work
for access to arts. Also a chance for you to

(01:00):
maybe avail yourself of some funding opportunities. Lots of funding opportunities.
Rebecca will tell us about that. Rebecca Chen from zoom
Max will join us, as will Peter Cracknell from quantum.
Talk about the snow pad. If you love the iPad,
you'll love it even more. And you'll love snow Pad
as well. We'll also be joined by Maureen O'Reilly from

(01:21):
the library, the Vision Australia Library, of course, talking about, uh,
a chance for you to learn more about writing your
family history. Meet someone who was on time magazine, and
also an opportunity to meet some of the narrators. If
you're listening through 1190 7 a.m. in Adelaide at 8:00
for your listening pleasure. Lucy and Sam are here with

(01:42):
Studio One just before we hear what's on their program.
Great news. Peter Granleese from, um. The act was recognised
in the King's Birthday Honours. Peter, congratulations to you. Also, uh,
the BCA convention happening this weekend from Friday the 13th.
Nothing will go wrong. Hopefully you can take part in that.

(02:03):
And from the SA branch of Appliances Australia, their next
catch up is coming up on Saturday the 28th of June, 1230.
They're going to the Wellington Hotel, this time at North Adelaide.
If you'd like to find out more one 800 0360 1800036 zero.
Let us find out what's on studio one tonight.

S2 (02:26):
We catch up with Storm Menzies, creator of By Storm Beauty.

S3 (02:30):
So join us at eight for Studio One.

S1 (02:34):
I'm really delighted to go all the way to Seattle
and speak to Bill dangler, who works for Microsoft. And
in fact, he's part of the Access Insights team at Microsoft. Bill,
great to meet you. Thanks so much for your time.
Welcome to Vision Australia Radio.

S4 (02:46):
Thanks. Nice to talk to you. And nice to say
hello to everyone here. I have lots of friends in Australia,
probably in Western Australia, but long story as to how
that happened. But I was actually just there in December
of 24. January of 25. Got to have my first
summer Christmas so that was fun. Not often I get

(03:07):
to go halfway across the world, so it was definitely
a cool experience.

S5 (03:10):
It was a real Christmas present, a real Christmas gift.

S1 (03:13):
Just a bit about your role at Microsoft. It sounds fascinating.
What does it involve?

S4 (03:18):
Yeah, so a lot is changing, as we all know
in the world of AI and of just the world
of technology. But I am a software engineer on the
Accessibility Insights team, and we have created a couple of
different tools for different types of software and applications that

(03:38):
engineers inside of Microsoft and also people outside of the company.
So anybody can go and download and grab this and
test it. Anybody outside of the company or inside of
the company can use to verify the accessibility of their
software that they're building. We have Accessibility Insights for web,
which is a extension for the Chrome browser that can
be used to test websites and web applications. We have

(04:01):
accessibility insights for windows, which is really my sort of
area of specialty, and that is used to test the
accessibility of windows applications. And we also have some kind
of internal facing tools for different types of things. But
that's what's out there and available. Accessibility insights.io is the

(04:24):
website and we're all open source on GitHub, at least
in terms of the web and the windows tool.

S1 (04:29):
And when you say available to everyone. So this is
for the individual users, but also to say organizations that
want what might want to be more accessible to their
clients or patients or whatever target audience they have.

S4 (04:42):
Yeah. So it is designed for a developer audience, right?
So somebody who is designing software, building software, testing software,
it's designed really to aid them. I suppose that an
advanced user if, say, they see an accessibility problem, I
suppose you could use something like Accessibility Insights to really

(05:05):
highlight and say, here is a visualization of where that
problem is. But really it's designed for developers.

S1 (05:13):
What about your lived experience? Bill, what sort of role
does that play in it and what sort of what's
the word cloud? How loud is your voice in the
organization for your lived experience and making things more accessible
for us mere mortals out here?

S4 (05:27):
So it definitely helps. So I was born totally blind,
and I think being able to bring that to discussions
and say, hey, what about this? Or what about that
definitely really helps. And I've had a lot of conversations
internally with different accessibility teams or in some of the
things that we design, I think they often like to
put me on certain things because, oh, you don't use

(05:51):
a mouse, you use a keyboard all the time for everything.
You are somebody that can really identify certain edge cases
or certain things.

S1 (05:58):
So would it be fair to say that accessibility is
very much in the DNA of Microsoft?

S4 (06:03):
I would say so. I think in recent years accessibility
has has picked up more. I will say certainly under
recent leadership, I think there's more and more talk about accessibility.
And I think that's partially due to different laws. I
know in in the EU they have certain accessibility directives

(06:27):
that are coming into force. And certainly different governments around
the world have a big role in that in terms
of making accessibility happen. For if certain software is not accessible,
then governments won't use it. And Microsoft of course, wants
to remain used in governments. And so that's where accessibility

(06:48):
really becomes important.

S1 (06:50):
What about in terms of how inexpensive it is or
how expensive it is. We often hear about websites or
apps or whatever. If they're designed with accessibility from the
ground up, it's much easier to kind of renovate it.

S4 (07:01):
Correct? Yeah, I think it's definitely easier to make it
accessible from the beginning.

S1 (07:07):
What about as far as getting this role with Microsoft?
I think you've been there a little while now, haven't you?

S4 (07:12):
Yeah. So I joined full time in August of 2022,
right after my undergrad. I did an internship with them
between my third and final year of undergraduate study. So
that was in the Northern hemisphere, right from May to
August of 2021, because we oftentimes do our internships in

(07:34):
the summer, not always, but that's generally. And in the US,
things like sandwich years are not generally common practice. It
is a thing that sometimes happens, but we usually have
four years of undergrad and then internships during the summers
and things like that.

S1 (07:50):
What set you on this path. Were you always a
person that liked to muck around with technology? You know,
from a very young age.

S4 (07:55):
Oh, yeah. For sure. Yeah. And I can go into
the ins and outs of how that happened, because it
does actually connect somewhat to an Australian organization. So maybe
that would be interesting.

S1 (08:06):
But we're always Bill.

S4 (08:08):
Yeah. So at the end of my first year of undergrad,
I was really sort of I want to do some
kind of undergraduate research or some kind of something because.
So where I studied, we had 1500 undergrad students at
the entire university, no postgraduates at all. It's it was

(08:31):
an undergraduate kind of teaching focused institution. And so my
thought was, you know, I know my lecturers, they know me. Whatever.
Maybe there's an opportunity for me to go and do
some kind of undergraduate research in something and then turn
that into an item that maybe in my second year
I can go off and get an internship. And so

(08:52):
I talked to my lab lecturer for it was Intro
to Computer Systems, and she basically said to me something
along the lines of, I would vouch for you to
do research, but we usually give that to third year students.
I think you would actually be best served by doing
the Google Summer of code. And I was like, oh wow,

(09:13):
Google Summer of code. That's that's intense because there's lots
of lots of applications for that program, and it's very
hard to get into. But through a series of conversations,
I got in touch with NV access, who develop a
popular screen reader, desktop access, which was actually developed in Australia.

(09:35):
And I talked to them about, hey, what can I
do in terms of this? Or are you interested in
maybe doing the Google Summer of code? And turns out
that they, in fact were. So they signed on and
I signed on. And ultimately I ended up doing some
work improving the Nvda screen readers support for command line applications.

(10:00):
And that ultimately turned into me being included in a
GitHub conversation with some engineers on the Microsoft Terminal and
Console team. And we went back and forth for a while,
and in that time I did an internship at a
different company, totally not accessibility related, and found in that
I said, I really this was great. I really want

(10:21):
to do more in accessibility. And so the engineer that
I've been working with, kind of in that time, in
the interim, I talked to him and I said, hey,
I'm a third year student. I'm really interested in accessibility.
Is there any opportunity at Microsoft for something like that?
And he goes, you're a student. I thought you were.
I thought you worked for NV access. I go, no.

(10:41):
So I ended up going through some interview processes and
going through some things and ultimately landed on the Accessibility
Insights team. That's the short version.

S1 (10:49):
Yeah. Of course. So a full disclosure, bill. I'm an
Nvidia user and very happy with it. I'm not a
very good Nvidia user. I think that's my problem, not theirs.
It's good to know that connection. And we've kind of
followed Michael and Jamie's progress literally from literally from their
ground up. It's been a wonderful thing. And it's one
of those things where I think in many respects, Nvidia
is probably better known and more highly regarded outside Australia

(11:12):
than in Australia, I reckon.

S4 (11:13):
Yeah. No, in Australia that's a hard I can't say I.

S1 (11:16):
Know just a bit of an observation. Other people, other
a lot of people tend to use that other screen
reader whose name we won't mention. Yeah. And so the,
the sort of tinkering around from a very young age,
where did that come from? Were you encouraged or did
you just stumble across a piece of technology? How did
that happen?

S4 (11:35):
That's a that's a story. So when I was very little,
my mother noticed that I was very drawn to like
the sound of a dial up modem? You know, when
I dial up on the computer.

S1 (11:48):
I remember that.

S4 (11:49):
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. And, uh, she reached out to
a local blindness organization, and we got a demo disc
for a piece of software called Zoomtext, which is actually
more a magnifier than a screen reader, but it does
have some limited speech capability in it. And four year

(12:10):
old me played around with that and then ended up
we ended up getting a demo disc for a commercial
screen reader called Jaws Job Access with speech. And the
problem with that was you could only run it for
40 minutes at a time, and then or it was
a 1200 US dollar license fee. School did pay for

(12:32):
until we got a computer that was too new for it.
And so that's where I ended up moving to Nvda,
because it was just as good, if not better, than
the commercial product at the time, and was something that
I had access to and just basically never looked back.

S1 (12:50):
So that's not uncommon. Is the technology moving a bit
quicker than the custom made screen reader or application for
people who are blind or have low vision?

S4 (12:59):
For sure. Yeah. And I think that really moving in
that direction and then but I guess it was to
go back to your question about was I encouraged or
was it something I found on my own? I guess both.
I was certainly there were opportunities that were given to me,
but I also ran with them. And I think seeing

(13:21):
if we go back to the story of me getting
to Microsoft, I think there's been a lot of that
going on over the years with me, with different things
where I've seen something and ran with it and ran
with it and ran with it and took it ten
steps further.

S1 (13:33):
Well, no, it's probably hackneyed cliche, but certainly the world
needs more people like you in terms of making the
world more accessible. And I guess the other thing is
often with a lot of these things, you know, people
who are blind or low vision can also benefit from it,
even if it just might be people who might be
getting on in age and their eyes don't work as
well as they used to, that sort of thing.

S4 (13:51):
Yeah. For sure.

S1 (13:52):
But we're out of time. But I'm so glad we
made contact with you. And I must say, a very
big shout out and hello to Graham Pearce, who I
know is a great mate of yours over in Western Australia.
I met Graham earlier in the year with his mum Linda,
and we had a lovely lunch and he told me
a little bit about you and I said, do you reckon?
He mentioned to me on the radio and he said,
I'm sure he would. And you haven't let us down, Bill.

(14:12):
It'd be good to get you back, because maybe when
things happen at the Microsoft level, or be good to
go right to the source, if I can put it
that way, to get get it right, right from the
horse's mouth.

S4 (14:21):
Thanks.

S1 (14:22):
Alright. Just to give us that website again. If people
do want to find out more, either individuals or organisations,
or maybe just want to be a bit nosey and
check it out. What's the website again?

S4 (14:31):
Yeah, the website is Accessibility insights.io.

S1 (14:36):
Terrific. Alright, we'll put that up with our show notes
as well. Bill, thank you so much for speaking to us.
Great to know a little bit about you. Keep up
the great work and I look forward to catching up
with you again in the future. Thanks to Bill dangler,
who's with the Access Insights team at Microsoft. Wonderful of
you to join us all the way from Seattle. To

(14:58):
talk about entertainment, arts, showbiz. The Tonys were announced throughout
the week. I was a bit surprised that Rebecca Young
wasn't amongst those winners. Rebecca Young, who's the CEO for
Access to Us? Good to catch up again.

S6 (15:11):
Thank you Peter, it's good to catch up to I
don't know what they'd give me a Tony for maybe
just wrangling people, I think.

S1 (15:17):
Well, you know, that's an art itself.

S6 (15:20):
It is.

S1 (15:20):
Especially if you're successful.

S6 (15:22):
Well, the busier you get, the more wrangling there is to.

S1 (15:25):
All right. The the wrangler Rebecca Young joins us. But
just before we start. Well, there's so much to talk about. Um,
you've got a new position, uh, opened at access to
us that people can apply for.

S6 (15:36):
We do, we do. My fellow people, Wrangler Jude is, um,
heading off mid-year to, uh, continue some of her creative practice.
So I'm looking for an operations manager to co wrangle
with me.

S1 (15:51):
Oh, well, good luck Jude. I mean she's been wonderful
to us, particularly off I think we've spoken to her
maybe on air once or twice but certainly off air.
Jude has been great with uh, information that we need
or arranging people for us to speak to. So, uh,
we wish her well. She'll be missed.

S6 (16:04):
I'm sure she absolutely will. Um, but we do have, uh,
the lovely Ruth, who is one of our audio describers,
who is coming in to audio description Wrangler. So that
will be really fantastic to have her.

S1 (16:16):
Right. Right rangle is the theme for tonight's interview, I bet. Um,
so what does the job that Jude is, uh, leaving from? What?
What does that kind of involve? And, uh, you've got
a ten or so days to apply.

S6 (16:29):
Yeah. So applications closed next week, and, um, looking for
someone to, um, really help me keep the office running. So, um,
operations manager will do everything from sort of coordinating services
and working with the team to helping me with it

(16:49):
and marketing and all sorts of bits and pieces. So, um, yeah,
really someone who's a bit of an all rounder who
can just, uh, work with me to keep everything running smoothly.

S1 (17:00):
If you often say on the programme, there's only a
small group of you, but a very select group, but
you're a great group to work with. And, I mean,
I've known you before, your access to arts days. So
I can certainly testify that you'd be a very good
person to work with. So if anyone is thinking about
applying for a job like this, certainly working with Beck
and an organisation like Access to Arts, I think you'll be, uh,

(17:21):
you'll be very, very happy and, uh, be made to
feel very, very welcome.

S6 (17:25):
Absolutely. We are a wonderful little team. Um, and we
can offer lots of flexibility. And we're very good with
access supports. Um, but it is a busy little role,
but it is really rewarding and interesting and fun work.

S1 (17:40):
And of course, it's a paid job, which you point
that out. So you're going to get paid the, uh,
the rate that you deserve. So that's very important as well,
particularly in this day and age.

S6 (17:47):
Absolutely. Um, we are very fortunate to have a volunteer board,
and we will be looking for some new board members
soon as well. But yeah, our board's volunteer, but our staff,
we definitely pay. This is very important to give people, um,
gainful employment.

S1 (18:03):
Indeed. Now, as I said, already happening. I mean, often
we talk to you about grants that are available or
different scholarships or awards that are available on the on slate.
Fall award is open. I can remember talking about this
in the very early days of, uh, the radio station
back in the early 90s. So this has been around
for a long, long time.

S6 (18:22):
It has absolutely been around for a long time. And
we're really pleased to, um, work with the Dawn Slate
Fall Board to help promote those awards because they're really,
really useful. And it's, um, you know, it's a good
amount of prize money to help with your. Practice.

S1 (18:39):
But I guess one of those things is the fact that, yes,
you get the money and we'll talk about that in
a second. But, you know, the, um, I guess the
prestige and the, uh, history of an award like this,
it's a good thing to have on your CV.

S6 (18:51):
It certainly is. And it definitely helps with connections and
raising profile and all of those wonderful things that help
people really develop their creative practice.

S1 (19:01):
And as I say, it's not an insignificant amount of
money that you could, uh, potentially be coming into.

S6 (19:07):
No, not at all. Um, and there are also some
national arts and disability awards and, um, the National Arts
and Disability uh initiative through Creative Australia open at the moment.
So we would encourage people to also consider applying for.
And that is quite a significant amount of money too.

S1 (19:26):
I know it's awfully competitive out there, their, uh, you know,
in the arts world. And maybe sometimes there seems to
be a feeling that perhaps particularly in South Australia, sport
seems to get a lot of the attention. But is it?
You know, there's lots of opportunities for us if you
know where to look. Is that probably the best way
to put it?

S6 (19:42):
Yeah, no, absolutely. Lots of opportunities for arts if you
know where to look. And, uh, you know, with the new, um,
federal disability arts plan called equity, they're definitely putting some
attention into disability arts at the moment, which is really fantastic.
And we at Access to Arts are leading our national
peak body as well. So I'm working really closely with
the CEOs of all of the other state arts and

(20:05):
disability organisations to support Creative Australia in some of their
fantastic arts and disability work, and also really from my
side of things, working to try and bring more attention to, um,
those of us in smaller states and in regional areas
to make sure that it's not just, um, all the
eastern seaboard.

S1 (20:25):
That's a great point, isn't it? that because often Melbourne
and Sydney centric can be the cry from, uh, you know,
the less populated states but equally important states?

S6 (20:34):
Absolutely. So it's important that we continue doing a lot
of that work here, so that we do bring the
spotlight away from those bigger capital cities and into some
of our other, more interesting areas.

S1 (20:49):
Oh very good. And you talked about the regional areas.
I mean, I guess again, they probably feel a little
bit like, uh, us in the smaller cities that they
probably get left out. And that shouldn't be the case
because a there are people with disabilities in those areas.
B there are people who have got very talented artistic
talents that should be recognised as well.

S6 (21:06):
Absolutely. And, you know, that's why we took our, um,
little flagship creative project, exquisite familiar over to the Eyre
Peninsula last year and, you know, hoping to bring that
to some other regional areas this year so that we can, um,
start doing some more work with regional disabled artists and
giving them some great opportunities for learning, but also for

(21:26):
collaboration and building networks and getting to know each other
and build their practice that way.

S1 (21:32):
Now, being nationally recognized, that kind of is your audio
description courses that you run. You've got another sort of
intake coming up soon.

S6 (21:40):
We absolutely do. We have a course starting in July
that we're very excited to be running. We love running
audio description training and we love having lots of audio
describers around.

S1 (21:50):
It comes along with these, uh, how well is audio
description known now in the arts area say compared to
when you first started and you know, when audio description started,
I mean, maybe there might have been a time when the, um,
sort of, uh, artists or art people involved with that
in the not disabled area might not have known about it.

(22:10):
I mean, surely nearly everyone knows about it now in
the arts world or, I think, a bit optimistic.

S6 (22:17):
Maybe a little optimistic. Look, lots of people definitely do
know about it, but it's still, uh, really raising profile,
and I'm so pleased that there's now audio description on
ABC and SBS, because I think that's a really great
first introduction to all of the people that might not
know about audio description more broadly.

S1 (22:35):
It's interesting that you laughed at that a bit, because
I guess we tend to those of us that live
with disability or talk a lot about it in this sector,
we kind of maybe are in a bit of an
echo chamber and we think, well, we know about it.
Of course, the whole world does. But I guess it's
when you get out and about and trying to spread
the word and people say, well, what is it that
you kind of or maybe the reality bites, if I
can put it that way?

S6 (22:56):
Absolutely, absolutely. And that, you know, that's a big part
of what I do is spend, spend my days going
around knocking on doors to talk to people about different
access services in the arts and what they could and
should be doing. Um, and, you know, I've been fortunate
to be having some, um, conversations at Parliament House in
the last week or two and some of that. So,

(23:18):
you know, really, um, really great to be talking to
people in those state leadership roles about accessibility as well.

S1 (23:25):
Can you let us into any of those discussions and
what they might have been there, going, which track they
might have been going down?

S6 (23:31):
Oh, absolutely. Well, um, so we, uh, obviously try and
put submissions in when they're the government calls out for
people to provide information or feedback on, um, certain things.
And one of the things we put a submission in
to last year was the local and live Creative Venues Review,
which came about in part over potential closure of, um,

(23:56):
some venues in the city. So we were, um, talking
to the review committee there to chat about why it's
so important to make sure that we have accessible venues
around the city.

S1 (24:06):
You get a good hearing.

S6 (24:07):
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. They're, um, very keen to to understand
our perspective. And, you know, we hope that, you know,
the more that we are in talking to, um, politicians
and people in Parliament. The more that when big state
government projects happen, um, they are paying attention to what's
happening in access.

S1 (24:28):
What is happening in the area, of the area of
audio description in terms of either shows or events coming up?

S6 (24:34):
Well, we're all just coming off of a high from
last weekend with, um, about 25 people heading along to
see the audio described. Beauty and the beast.

S1 (24:44):
Brilliant.

S6 (24:44):
So great to have the opportunity to describe such an
incredible Disney flagship show, along with obviously a touch tour
with a lot of the costumes. Um, which was, yeah,
I think the biggest turnout we've had and really fantastic.
Really brilliant. Um, but we do have some more things
coming up for people. We do have our wonderful annual

(25:09):
illuminate tours coming up for City Lights. They will be
on Tuesday the 15th of July. Um, bookings will be
opening for them very shortly. So we have an audio
described tour. A deaf Auslan tour. And this year we'll
also have an accessible seniors tour.

S1 (25:26):
Oh, fantastic.

S6 (25:27):
Yeah, certainly. Yes. So um, and we're also working, um,
illuminate to put together a, an evening of writing sessions
for their Night Visions program in the Botanic Gardens. That's
going to be really fantastic. And that will be on
the 14th of July.

S1 (25:45):
Terrific. Alright, we're out of time, but, uh, people get
more information from you and we'll give those details in
a second. Of course. Probably the next time we speak
will might have to or I might have to. We
would like to preview maybe a few of the performances
because of course August is synonymous with Salah.

S6 (26:01):
Absolutely, absolutely. Yeah. Lots of aid coming up.

S1 (26:05):
Alright. How can we find more information?

S6 (26:07):
Definitely subscribe to the Access Arts newsletter to find out
about all of the audio description, um, and accessible arts
activities and that is via our website, which is access
to arts with the number two. Or you can call
the office and leave us a message if you like. Um,
our phone number is 84631689 back.

S1 (26:30):
We'll let you go do a bit more wrangling. You
do it so well, and you do it in such
a nice way that people don't realize they're being wrangled.
That's what I like about it. Secret wrangler.

S6 (26:40):
Oh, that's me.

S1 (26:41):
Very cool. It's great to catch up.

S6 (26:42):
Wonderful. Thanks, Peter.

S1 (26:43):
Becky young there from Access to Arts. And if you
would like to go and work for them, get in
touch and find out a bit more about that role.
I promise you you'll be very, very satisfied. You're listening
to Focal.

S7 (26:55):
Point on beating Australia Radio 1190 7 a.m. via radio,
Digital and online at Via radio.org.

S1 (27:06):
Well, it's really great to welcome Rebecca Chan, who saw
the way here from China from an organisation called Zmax. Rebecca,
lovely to meet you. Thank you for your time.

S2 (27:14):
Hello.

S1 (27:15):
Thank you for speaking to us.

S8 (27:16):
Yeah, yeah. Okay. So, uh. Hello, everyone. So I would
like to talk a little bit about some technology. Zoom technology,
located in Hangzhou city. It is near Shanghai. So we
have been in this in this industry for about 13 years.
And I actually work for this company for 13 years, too.
So we are a manufacturer, so we design everything in

(27:40):
our company. We design, produce and do quality check and
also provide a very professional service to the customers all
over the world. We now work with many, many dealers.
About 200 dealers in 80 countries. And the key market
are like the United States, Japan and European countries. We

(28:02):
have a lot of professional and very, very kind partners
all over the world. They provide a super good service
to the users in their countries. And now we also
have our own factory in our R&D team in the company.
There were more than 15 engineers in the R&D team.

(28:24):
They do ID design, software design and also the hardware work. So, uh,
we know the product very well because we create it
and we know everything from the very beginning. We get
everything under control. And in the factory, they, uh, do
a lot of, um, quality check. For example, the incoming

(28:46):
material check. And they do the production check. They do
after production check. And also the quality check before shipment.
So just to make sure we get the best product
for our users and to make sure that we offer
the assurance to our, uh, dealers, and they can be

(29:07):
happy working with us. So in the company we also
have like more than 60 patents, product patents, some national,
some international, just to protect our product. Right. And we
also have our own technology. For example, we use the
low power chips and also the high efficiency uh processing unit. Um,

(29:31):
those things are, uh, very important for make sure we
provide the very, uh, image quality, very good image quality
in the video magnifier, because what we do is electronic magnifier,
and they have to be, uh, very good. Uh, I mean,
the very good product when you use in your daily

(29:53):
life and we are also, um, have a launching a
new product called Snow Pad. It can connect to your
iPad and later Samsung tablet. It is the only one
product on now on the market that compatible with your tablet,
and it maximizes the benefit of the iPad. And it

(30:15):
is a very good product in the classroom. So Peter
would do a little bit introduction later for this product.
But we have a very important protocol for this product
to make sure it connects with any size of the tablet. Yeah,
those things are very important for us because we um,
we just want to make sure we keep pace with

(30:36):
the market. And now more and more users, they are
so smart. They are like the new tech. So we
are trying to make sure that low vision aids, they
looks more helpful in their daily life. Now this is
the uh, key things from Max. And we are proud

(30:56):
of our technology, our company, although we are a little
young compared to other competitors, but we are very confident
in the future and in Australian market. We like working
with Quantum and Vision Australia so much. You are very
professional and we want to continue the cooperation here to

(31:18):
support you, and we hope to have a win win
business here, and we also hope we can have more
and more happy users here.

S1 (31:26):
Rebecca, that's really great. Thanks for that background. Now, as
you said that you've just launched the scope out here
in Australia. And Peter, you were right at the forefront
of this last week. In fact, last Friday I think,
wasn't it. Yes.

S9 (31:37):
Thank you so much, Peter. Peter Cracknell here from quantum.
So we've had a great pleasure of inviting Rebecca from, uh,
zoom to do a sort of a brief Australian tour.
We've whisked her around Sydney and, uh, Brisbane and, uh, now,
of course, Adelaide, and then later in the week to

(31:57):
to Melbourne. So it's been a real pleasure working with
Rebecca over the last year and a half, uh, trying
to get this product and other products into Australia? Yes.
So the one that we're really looking at at the
moment is the snow pad, as Rebecca mentioned.

S1 (32:14):
Okay. It's got a cool name. Well, tell us a
bit about what it looks like, how it feels and
what it actually does do.

S9 (32:19):
Okay. So I think the thing is that a lot
of electronic magnifiers have had their own built in screens
and so on. This is unique in the sense that
you actually bring your own iPad. Also, perhaps in the
future shortly a Samsung tablet and and possibly even later
a windows tablet. But at the moment, the iPad itself

(32:41):
is such a popular device and it has excellent electronics
and cameras and so on in it. So why not
use the iPad as both your screen and your camera?
So what the iPad is, it's a frame that fills
out and suspends your iPad above your documents and whatever
you're reading or writing or packaging or anything that you're

(33:02):
looking at so that it's a comfortable angle, then it's
suspended above that your work so that your hands are
free to move the the book or the document or
write or whatever. And the iPad is above this at
a comfortable reading angle. Now, in addition to that is,
inside this notepad frame are some clever electronics that zoom

(33:26):
have developed to optimize all the image processing. And this
is you don't really notice it unless you compare it
to some other older devices. There's absolutely no lag when
you're writing or looking at or moving books or whatever.
There's no visual lag. The image is really sharp and clear.
And then to top it all, it has a really

(33:48):
great distance camera. This is mounted at the top of
the frame and it's very small. It's a very small
distance camera but very powerful. And this can look at
distances of, you know, ten And 15m with a massive,
really clear magnification. And of course, the principal use of
that is imagine you're a student and you wanted to

(34:10):
look at the whiteboard, or you wanted to look at
the teacher's face, or perhaps you're in a chemistry class
and you wanted to look at retorts and dials or
some equipment. This can zoom in and provide really sharp
images at these sorts of distances, all on your iPad.
Then the other thing that's really clever is you can

(34:30):
split the screen so that you can have like a
bit of the work that you're working on on your
iPad and obviously the, say, the distance camera or whatever
documents you're working with all on one screen. So this
makes it very practical. It means that you can actually
carry around and it folds up really neatly, including the
iPad inside the frame. You can carry it around very easily.

(34:52):
It's only two and a half kilos. It's got a
got a backpack. You can take it from class to
class or from room to room and aside, obviously students
will have a huge benefit, especially primary school students, but
also people at home. Loads of people have iPads at home,
but they're difficult to hold whilst you're working on things.
So this is really you can imagine you're looking at

(35:15):
a recipe in the kitchen, so it's really easy. You
just pop the book under your iPad and your hands
are free to work. So. Great point.

S1 (35:24):
Yeah, I noticed in the advice you sent out that
people also say watch television.

S9 (35:29):
Yes. It's an interesting, uh, thing watching television. And if
you've got low vision, I mean, obviously one thing you
could do is just get really close to the television,
but then you block the view for your partner. Uh,
and just as you're watching the, you know, the, the
NRL or the AFL or whatever, your head's in the
way and they're yelling at you to get out of

(35:51):
the way. But, you know, um, so this could be
an option for people to sit in their, their regular armchair,
and perhaps with a small, uh, like a TV dinner
tray type thing or an overhead trolley. They could have
the snow pad and they could just zoom in on,
you know, maybe the weather or the cricket cricket score
or whatever as they require. But then also look at

(36:12):
the TV guide, uh, just to, uh, to look at that.
So that could be an option for people who can't
get closer to the TV or who want to be
doing some other activities from their from their comfortable chair.

S1 (36:24):
But also speak a bit about that.

S9 (36:27):
Yes it has. Apart from the electronic magnification, with all
the usual controls you'd expect in an electronic magnifier, it has, um,
text to speech. And the really I think it's quite
astounding thing about this text to speech is the speed
at which it processes it. It's literally about a second
and it's ready to read you simply. Yeah, you simply

(36:50):
place your document. You just minimize the zoom as much
as you can and tap the on screen button for
a text to speech. And literally within a second it's
it's ready to read. And it uses whatever voices you
have available in your iPad, which we've got some wonderful
Australian voices now. So yeah, it's that's the other thing, Peter,

(37:12):
is that because it uses typical iPad conventions, uh, typical
iPad symbols and just the ways of managing settings, it
will be very familiar to anybody that's used an iPad
for only a little while, how to operate it. And
it's actually got, um, links to some how to videos
actually within the application, that application. Yeah. And that little

(37:35):
YouTube clips that show you how to change this feature
or how to, um, you know, how to rearrange the icons,
how to split screen, all of those things. And we
find today that a lot of people find short video
clips really, really helpful compared to massive documents and manuals.

S1 (37:51):
Yeah, 2025 isn't it? Hey, Peter, what about in terms
of using it? I mean, how skilled would you have
to be at using something like this? And I guess
it takes a little bit of learning if you like,
but in terms of your kind of general knowledge of technology,
would it be high level or.

S9 (38:07):
Well, no. But some people who've never used an iPad
might really struggle if they if they can't do taps
and swipes and that sort of thing. This is not
an app or a device for people who are totally blind.
It's for people with low vision. Sure. So it's really
intended for older people who are already using an iPad

(38:29):
for other things, and younger people who are using them
for school and entertainment. For people that are brand new
to these things, yes, there would definitely be a learning curve,
just as there would be if they were learning to
use an iPhone or an iPad. And of course, a
lot of people can tap into the service services provided
by people like See Differently and Vision Australia and Guide

(38:51):
Dogs training services to teach people to use iPads. So that's,
that's that's something that you're right. If you're fresh to
this then you'd need some instruction for sure.

S1 (39:02):
Rebecca, did you use the, um, are people who are
blind or low vision to kind of do some of
your testing? You talked about your research and development. Did
you use people who had low vision to work on
this as well through through the process?

S8 (39:17):
Yes, sure. Peter. So we are actually, you know, we
work with many dealers around the world. So before we
launch the product, we give some light snow pack to
the dealers and they do the field test. For example,
here we work with Peter since last August. Right, Peter. Yeah,
we have many units, uh, used by the students at school.

(39:39):
Maybe Peter can, uh, share a little bit information later.
But we also work with dealers in UK. We work
with a dealer there since last night and they do
a lot. They did a lot of tests with the
student at school, and we also work with the dealer
in Germany, in Norway, in Austria. So those countries, we

(40:00):
work with more people in China because we also have
a lot of German people in China. Every time when
we launch the product, we do the field test to
make sure every function work well, and we also collect
the feedback from the users to make the improvement. It
takes months for the improvements, actually, before we launch. Finally launch.

S1 (40:23):
Is it fair to ask the price?

S9 (40:25):
Yes. Of course.

S1 (40:26):
So anyway.

S9 (40:28):
Yeah. No no no no the price the price in
Australia is $3,295. And that does not include the iPad
because we're not supplying it with an iPad. We assume
that people bring their own iPad. But yeah, 3295. All
that information is available on the quantum Website and also

(40:49):
comparison to other devices and so on. So in the
same sort of category.

S1 (40:53):
Well, we're out of time. Tom always goes too quickly,
but thank you both so much for speaking to us.
We'll put details up on our show notes about the
device and also how people can find out more. But
it's been great speaking to you both and thanks for
spending some time with us. And Rebecca, again, welcome to Australia.

S10 (41:09):
Oh, thank you so much Peter.

S1 (41:11):
Both Rebecca and from Max, we'll put details up about
zoom Max as well on our website and our show notes.
And also Peter Cracknell from quantum.

S9 (41:20):
Thank you.

S10 (41:21):
Thank you.

S11 (41:23):
Yo what up. What up with you. What we gonna say.
What we gonna do. Where we gonna go? Where we
gonna see? We're going to the library.

S1 (41:32):
Let's get down to the library and chat. All things
library matters with Maureen O'Reilly. Maureen. Welcome back. Good to
have you back with us again.

S6 (41:41):
Yes.

S10 (41:41):
It's always.

S6 (41:42):
A.

S12 (41:42):
Pleasure to be back. This is one of my favorite
times of the month.

S1 (41:45):
Ah, you always say that you say that everyone heard you.

S12 (41:50):
I do say that because it's true.

S1 (41:52):
Ah, well, as I often say, we only speak the
truth on this program. Otherwise you don't get through. Now, um,
you are wanting to put a bit of focus on
the writers.

S12 (42:01):
I do indeed. We have a brand new program that
we're doing in the library and we're very excited about.
And it is our Meet the Vision Australian writers. So
those people with the gorgeous voices that guide you through
all your audio books. And a lot of these people
are clients have grown up with, I mean, they remember

(42:23):
journeying through their literary journey of romance fiction through to
maybe crime fiction through to horror, and they spend the
people that kept them company. And, you know, when they weren't, well,
were on the couch with them, rugged up in a blanket,
reading to them. So it's not like they're their nearly

(42:44):
personal friends for them. So we had a lot of
requests from people saying they'd like the opportunity to actually
meet these narrators. So we are always listening to the
feedback we get, and that's where this program has come from.

S1 (42:58):
Okay, so people get a chance to do that.

S12 (43:00):
They do. On the 12th of June, which is this week.
So you need to get organized. 11:30 a.m. Eastern Standard Time.
We have the wonderful Marilyn Barkley that's going to join us.
And Marilyn has been with Vision Australia since 2016, and
she does some radio shows, but she also has narrated

(43:23):
nearly 50 books for the library. So it's a wonderful
opportunity for people to join us online. It's a free
online session. Ask Marilyn all the questions you like. And
then what we're letting Marilyn do is to actually choose
her own book to narrate. So normally she's told what
she needs to know, so she has chosen This is

(43:46):
Happiness by Niall Williams. So that's a book that she
hasn't narrated for the library, but it's one of her
favourite books and she's going to treat us to a
about the 20 minute reading from that book. So we
all get to sit back, listen to our beautiful dulcet tones,
and then we get to fire a wealth of questions

(44:07):
at her. So I'd encourage everyone, when they register to
pop some questions in the registration for me to ask
Marilyn on your behalf, or during the webinar, you can
put them in the chat function and we will fire
all these questions at Marilyn. Everything you always wanted to know,
but never had the opportunity to ask.

S1 (44:28):
Will give people the details as to how they can
find out more. But before we wrap up now, family
history is such an important thing and I guess the
older we get, the more we become curious and want
to know more about it. You're helping to satisfy that hunger.

S12 (44:42):
We are. We have traditionally run a lot of, I suppose,
memoir writing courses or sort of write their life courses
where people write about excerpts of their own history, maybe
travels they did, maybe illnesses they went through. Often they're quite, um,
not necessarily traumatic, but very notable experiences in their life.

(45:04):
This course on family history is quite different. We ran
it a couple of years ago with the same facilitator,
in fact, with Jonathan Butler. And it's more about how
to write a family history. So where do you begin?
Where do you source your facts from? How can you
fill in those big gaps to the sitting in the

(45:26):
knowledge bank that you've got from either parents or grandparents
or great grandparents as a child? And the framework that
you sort of work in to write an actual family history.
So Jonathan Ran is closed with this a couple of
years ago. And it was really, really popular because it
really just gives people that structure when they've got this

(45:48):
wealth of, I suppose, isolated little incidents on how to
pull them all together into a family history.

S1 (45:55):
But it's such a great point that word structure is
so important, isn't it? Because you can kind of jot
down things or, you know, sort of rustle up some
things in your mind and put them on paper. But
to have that structure is just so much more convenient
and I guess less chance of missing stuff or things
not quite going chronologically as you might like.

S13 (46:13):
And I think it's really the difference.

S12 (46:15):
Between writing a memoir when you write about a lot
of personal experiences that don't always necessarily have to have
context to them either, and writing a family history, which
is a lot more fact driven and requires a lot
of research.

S1 (46:31):
Terrific. Now, do people need to or I'm sure people
need to register for that.

S13 (46:35):
They do.

S12 (46:36):
Indeed. It is a three week course that we're running
and it commences on Monday, July 14th and it's from
11 a.m. till 12:30 p.m. Australian Eastern Standard Time, and
then it will run on three consecutive Mondays. So we
do have a limited number of spots in the course,
so I encourage everyone to register. My belief is that

(46:59):
everyone has a family story and there's always some skeletons
in the closet. And there's also often very, very inspirational
characters in there, particularly in Australia. The large majority of
people are immigrants or refugees, and the journey as to

(47:20):
why they've left or why they've come, and whether they
went back and came back, I mean, they're really they're
quite inspirational.

S1 (47:28):
Of course, depending on the, I guess, the availability and
the information having been kept well enough by record keepers
in the past. You know, you can find out a
lot of stuff that you had no idea about.

S13 (47:40):
Well, there are.

S12 (47:40):
Definite little fonts of information you can go to. My
mother is an avid family history writer, and she got
a lot of the missing facts and the links that
pulled everything together from shipping records, because in Australia a
lot of people came out on boats, births, deaths and marriages.
There's a lot that's sitting there in the registration office,

(48:03):
but also in churches. So she actually went on a
her one big holiday with my father and dragged him
around all the churches in Ireland, I think, to find births, deaths, marriages,
because the churches have a lot of that information that
isn't sitting anywhere else.

S1 (48:24):
Don't go too much off into the weeds, but I'm
always amazed at how much record keeping generations of the
past and organizations, even governments of the past, had, as
you say, things like war records and you touched on churches,
you know, births and deaths, etc.. I mean, there's an
incredible amount of record keeping, and kudos to those people

(48:44):
who thought of keeping this stuff because, you know, I
probably would say, oh, look, we don't need that. Toss
it out or don't worry about keeping that. We can
live without it. But, you know, then 50 years later,
I think it would have been nice to have known.

S12 (48:56):
Well, the other thing that is really to me quite
remarkable is how accessible it is. So you can get
access to shipping records of people coming right back to, um,
the convicts and the first, I suppose, colonial boat since
the convicts. And there's often there's misspellings of names and there's,

(49:18):
you know, bits that are missing and not everybody is
on there. But on the whole, they're really quite accurate.
And there's a lot of information in there.

S1 (49:27):
Very true. Now you have got someone very, very special
that people can get to hear from someone who's actually
featured on the on the cover of time.

S12 (49:36):
That's exactly right. We are very privileged, and this has
actually been a year in the making. So this is
one of those things that good thing comes to those
who wait. So we had Erik Weihenmayer who is joining
us on the 8th of July. Now Erik is just
an inspiring person. He is an adventurer climber. He climbed Everest.

(50:01):
But then he thought that wasn't quite enough, and he
went and climbed the highest peak on each of the
seven continents. And he's also kayaked through the Grand Canyon.
And he has climbed the Rockies and pretty much everywhere,
which in itself is phenomenal enough, except that Eric's blind.
So Eric lost his vision at the age of 14,

(50:26):
and that was when he actually took up rock climbing.
So he's very, very inspirational. He has written, uh, he's
written four books, actually, and they're all about his. Not
so much his climbing as in, you know, I climbed
this mountain. Isn't that a phenomenal achievement? But it's very

(50:46):
much about overcoming adversity and breaking through barriers and really well.
The name of his first book was barriers. Our second book, sorry.
And No Barriers A Blind Man's Journey to Kayak the
Grand Canyon. So he's very much about setting yourself goals,
however big or small they may be, and not letting

(51:09):
anyone tell you or not letting yourself convince you that
it can't be done.

S1 (51:15):
That's a great point. Now, Maureen, you've got a.

S12 (51:17):
Very, very interesting to listen to. And David Tredinnick is
going to interview Eric for us, which will be helpful.

S1 (51:25):
I love David. He's a character in himself. So you're
getting two for the price of one there. David's a
very charismatic, and he's got a bit of a quirky
sense of humor, young David. So that'll be a good fun. Now,
that said July the 8th.

S12 (51:36):
That is correct. So that is online. So that's a
free event. And that's from 12 noon to 1 p.m.
Australian Eastern Standard Time. So we would love everyone to
join us. I mean, Dave is a fabulous interviewer and
I think Eric's just going to be incredibly inspiring to
listen to. I'm really looking forward to it.

S1 (51:56):
It should be great. Now you've got a server happening.
At the moment I do.

S12 (52:00):
So the library has put out a survey. It is
actually quite a while since we've done a survey of
this magnitude to all of our members. So our members
should all have received an email, and it has a
link to a Qualtrics survey in it. And it's your
opportunity to actually give us feedback on what you think

(52:22):
of the library, how it's working for you, how it
could be improved, what else you'd like to see incorporated,
and really put your ideas and experiences into shaping the library.
And it's one of the things that I always say
to people because we do surveys, just short little ones
after all of our programs and events. And I say

(52:43):
to them, it's your feedback that shapes our calendar for
next year, which is where the Vision Australia Library Narrators
program came from, and it's where the book chat program
came from. So we really value the feedback that we receive.
And then this is an opportunity to take that feedback

(53:05):
beyond just the programs and events we run. And actually
looking at the library as a whole, looking at the
catalog and what it is that you'd like to see
more of or less of, or telling us as a
member how it is or it isn't suiting your needs.

S1 (53:22):
Now, people might have started the survey and sort of said, oh,
I might come back to it. If they do that,
they can resume where they left off.

S12 (53:30):
That's exactly right. And that's one of the big messages
I'm wanting to get out, because although we've had a
fabulous response, we've also got a lot of people who
started the survey. And then because they perhaps had somewhere
else to be, their stomach started telling them it was
dinner time or just because it is a little bit
lengthy have left it incomplete. So I would love those

(53:54):
people to go back to their survey. It will let
them resume where they left off, so you won't lose
all that work that you've done, and then to complete
the survey and submit it, because you've already put some
of the time in there, you've already opened it, you've
had a look at it. We would really love to
know what you think about the library, and we'd like

(54:15):
some help in making sure that this is the library
that addresses your needs and your wants.

S1 (54:21):
Horrific, Maureen. How can we find out more about any
of the things you've spoken about this evening with us?

S12 (54:26):
We would love everyone to hop onto our website, which
is Vision Australia Forward slash. And if you scan down
that library homepage, you'll get to the What's On section,
which has all our upcoming events there for both June
and July. And all of those are free online events.

(54:47):
So you just need to register and you'll get a
link to be able to join us on the day,
which would be fabulous. And if you are unable to
join us, for example, for Ericsson Conversation, if you register
then you will get a recording of that, so you
can always listen to it at a later time. Now,
if you did, uh, receive your survey or you're not

(55:10):
sure where you put it or it's just lost in
the bottom of an overflowing inbox, which is a little
bit like what mine looks like most of the time,
you can reach out to the library, and we will
then provide you with a new one so you can, uh,
contact us at Vision Australia's library at Vision Australia, or

(55:32):
people are welcome to phone the library as well. And
to phone us, it's 1300 654 656 and we will send you
a link to a new survey. If you can't find
the email that had your original one on it.

S1 (55:49):
Well, thanks for that. We'll catch up again soon.

S10 (55:52):
Yeah, have a wonderful journey.

S12 (55:54):
Stay warm and I look forward to talking to you
in the new financial year.

S1 (55:59):
Of course, it's a Maureen O'Riley there from Vision Australia library.
Our audio described show of the week is coming up
this Sunday morning, 1145 on the Mnet TV channel. Part
of the SBS network. The ant bully. This features a young,
tormented boy who takes out his anger on an anthill

(56:22):
by spraying them with his water gun. The ants released
their secret potion and fight back and make him shrink
to the size of an ant. That's the ant bully.
1145 this Saturday morning on ITV. Rated G with audio description.
Now some birthdays before we go. Happy birthday to Jennifer Parry.

(56:44):
We spoke to Jennifer a couple of weeks ago because
performing at the 50th convention for BCA this weekend with
the music group. So happy birthday to you, Jennifer. Lachlan
Wallace having a birthday. Mr. Cricket, if you don't mind.
That's a great work promoting and playing blind cricket. So
happy birthday to you lucky. And speaking about cricket, Abby
Jayasuriya having a birthday distantly related perhaps to Sanath Jayasuriya,

(57:09):
that tremendous Sri Lankan cricketer. So Abby, we spoke to
Abby last year during Cyber Monday sales and the importance
of access. Digital access for shopping for people who are
blind or low vision. So, Abby, keep up doing that.
Great work in the area of advocacy and access and technology.
A very big happy birthday to you Abby Jayasuriya. That's

(57:32):
it for the program. Sam Rickard, thanks so much for
your help. Pan-green. Thanks so much for yours. Reminding you
that Focal Point is available on your favorite podcast platform.
Please tell your friends about the show. Always room for
one more listener. Be kind to yourselves. Be thoughtful and
look out for others. All being well. Focal point back
at the same time next week on behalf of Philip Napier,

(57:55):
this is Peter Greco saying Focal Point is available on
your favorite podcast platform and also through the Reading Radio Network.