Be #PeopleSmart Founder, Jodie Greer chats with Ishan Jha, CEO and Founder at Travel Hands.

Jodie and Ishan are busting the myths that:

"Visually impaired people can't use technology," and

"Visually impaired people don't like to shop."

Hear why Travel Hands was created, and why Ishan uses the term VIP.

Travel Hands doesn't just offer an enabling solution for people who are blind or have low vision, they offer rewarding volunteering opportunities and great ways for companies to get involved.

You can find Ishan on LinkedIn and you can find Travel Hands on LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube.

Find out more about Be #PeopleSmart via our website.

Accessible transcript documents, with thanks to our partners Just: Access, are available via our podcast web page.

Please leave us a rating, we love to know what you think. And why not subscribe? There are even more great guest speakers to come.

Be #PeopleSmart, enabling organisations and individuals to be disability inclusive and accessible.

Hello, everybody. And welcome to another podcast episode for be people smart. My name's Jodie Greer. I'm the founder of Be People Smart and as always, I'm your host. So today I'm gonna be busting some more myths, and I'm really pleased to be joined by another brilliant guest speaker, Ishan Jha. So Ishan, can I ask you to give us an introduction to you, please?

Thank you. Thank you, Jodie, for this opportunity. So, I am the CEO and founder of Travel Hands. Travel Hands is an app which pairs visually impaired people with sighted and verified volunteers to go from point A to point B. Imagine something like Uber. Myself, I am originally from Nepal. I came to London five years ago as a student. I have been practising, and I did Master's in the subject called service design, which is based on human centric design approach and Travel Hands came out of my thesis project, so there you go.

Wonderful. Thank you. And it might not surprise people to know that our myths we're busting today will link very closely to Travel Hands and what you're aiming to achieve. So, the two myths, primarily, because we know there's always other ones that will come up, that we are busting today are that visually impaired people cannot use technology and that visually impaired people don't like to shop. So, I have actually heard these as well. So, I'm glad that you picked these ones Ishan. So, let's start, about Travel Hands, and it's all gonna lead back into these myths. But what made you start Travel Hands?

Well, as I as I mentioned, I was working on my thesis project related to officially impaired people. And I volunteered with a charity called Blind Date, which is based in central London. And I went there to understand my users, how do they live? How do they operate? How do they use technology? Even if they do? And to my surprise, visually impaired people are VIP as I like to call them. They were very into tech. And they use technology as any other person would, and Travel Hands was born out of one of those evenings when I called up a bunch of my VIP friends to go out on a pub crawl. And I did that because I remember it was December and all of my friends went back home, I was quite lonely. I was feeling bored and I thought, Why I just go out with my VIP friends, and maybe if I assist them, you know, they would go out, that would make it easy for them. So we went out on a pub crawl, had a good time, and while returning back home when I was dropping someone home, they said, Oh, you have been a good Uber human being, thank you for giving us your eyes and your hand and leg to go around the city. And he further told me that usually when a VIP goes out, it's the mind that gets tired before the legs. And that didn't happen this time, which is great because they could just, they relied, they felt safe that I was there and I was helping them out to go from point A to point B. And yeah, that was how Travel Hands was born.

So, I think it's absolutely brilliant. I think the initiative is just fantastic. I've got to ask you first, though, before we continue, when you use the term VIP is it just because it's an acronym? Or did you purposely play on words? And for anyone listening who's not aware, in English we often use the term VIP for very important person, so it's actually, it's a lovely term. But I'm just wondering if you did that intentionally or if it's just coincidence.

Yeah, I mean, it was intentional because, there were challenges in addressing the user group. So if I mentioned blind, it may sound rude or not so comfortable to a lot of the users who were especially partially sighted. So technically, statistically as well, about 80% of visually impaired people are partially sighted, so they can see slightly in their own different way, and about 20% are completely blind. So addressing a VIP with a blind or a partially sighted, can be tricky. And I was facing that issue a lot. And then, there was the challenge of, how do I really make it sound interesting, make it make it more memorable for the audience. And one of the VIP's actually recommended having VIP as a name because it really -- people just remembered it. And, you know, everyone who just hears about VIP -- most of the people right now in the beginning, especially, they didn't remember Travel Hands, but they remember, Oh, the VIP thing that you do. So that was the need or the catch that we got, having a VIP as an acronym.

No, I think it's great. And for the rest of this episode, we will use that term. So, we will talk about VIP's, and so on that actually, thinking about VIP's how many have actually signed up to Travel Hands so far?

So, my idea was to first of all, test the concept with a small group of people, see if it really makes sense. So we started with a small focus group in the beginning, it was 20 people, 20 of my friends in and around who really loved the idea. But they had, like, there were a lot of questions in the beginning. Of course, you can imagine especially safety, and so on. So it was March 2020 right before the lockdowns that I had my first discussion with a group of people, VIP's, I mean. And then we were about 12 people there. And now, at the moment, we have about 170 VIP's who have signed up and are using Travel Hands in different boroughs of London. Honestly, we have kept it, we have still tried to keep it small in a sense, we are trying to identify if we can serve all these people, but I think I'll further elaborate how we're gonna scale, as we speak.

Oh, that'd be wonderful. So obviously a big part of this are the volunteers who actually enable Travel Hands to happen. So how many volunteers do you have so far?

So, we have about, 70 odd volunteers who are active with us. We have had about 200 signups, plus, 200 plus sign ups. Well, we learn, we will learn from the initial experiences of how to really onboard and how to make it easy, convenient, the whole training induction process. And I think in the last two or three months, we have seen a surge and increase in the number of sign ups of volunteers as well.

Yeah, I think that's great. And the other thing you talk about actually, the training element, and one thing that I took as a real positive when we spoke before is there's actually, it's not just about educating people about supporting VIP's. There's also a safeguarding element, isn't there? So can you tell us a bit about what that training contains, what people have to do to be able to become a Travel Hands volunteer?

Yeah. So once a sighted person signs up to volunteer with us, we have the option of giving them, they can either book an induction with our team directly, and they have to go through enhanced DBS verifications. So, we have a third-party collaboration with whom we verify the background checks with them, enhanced DBS. We pay for it. So, the user just has to share the information, followed with training. So the training we have tried to create it, we have created an online training which is simple to understand, has a PDF document basically, which is filled pictures and instructions on how to really hold the VIP, how to walk when they are entering a train or helping them to enter a bus, use a lift, different scenarios, basically. And, we also have a video, we have made a 4.5 minute video, which covers all the things that I mentioned in the document. And what we found is that people who completed the quiz that follows this training text and video, are aware of all the small nitty gritties and are aware of the challenges they may face. And that has resulted in very good experiences both for the VIP and for the volunteers. So, in summary, it's DBS checks, going through the training material, which could be done while they book the induction with our backend team, and then doing the quiz to qualify and be active on the ground with our VIP's.

No, I like it because I think it's thorough, but it's also as simple as possible. So it doesn't feel like, you're sitting an exam or something, but it enables you to enable someone else. So, yeah, I think you've got a really good balance there.

Yeah, we've tried to keep it simple, and we are improving every time, we're trying to -- so with the mobile app, we have kept the whole training module, in the app itself, so people can go back. And if they want to review, they can just quickly get a hold of all the information they need.

Yeah. No, it's brilliant. And I know obviously this came off of you being out and about with some of your VIP friends. But you've actually also acted as a volunteer yourself, haven't you?

Oh, yeah. I mean that story where I went on a pub crawl with my VIP friends, it was like assisting my friends. But then I replicate, I did that again and again because I felt good. I felt like, I'm adding value to someone, and then it made me feel a bit more important, a bit more, I mean, it just made me feel like, if this guy can laugh and live his or her life, with all the challenges they face, I am perfectly able to handle all the things and not feel sorry about anything. And that was the biggest feeling that I got from this experience.

Yeah, absolutely. And I think it's interesting going back to one of the myths because you talked about the fact that visually impaired people don't like to shop being a myth. And of course, that is a myth. But you had direct experience, didn't you, of being part of that shopping experience.

Yeah. I mean, whenever I get a chance to volunteer, I do it myself, and it's very good in the sense that it's nice to hear my users’ feedback directly and also just to try to understand what's happening. And one of these journeys, was I went to Stratford with a couple of ladies, and there was one other volunteer who was asked to come. So these two ladies, friends they were catching up after a while and they were so excited to just go out and shop. And to our surprise, to my and the other volunteers surprise, we just stood there and looked at them, looked at the happiness that came out of that experience. They went to the different shops. They were asking questions. They were touching different things, asking the colours. I mean, as a guy, colours for me are seven colours. And then beyond that, it's all bonus. But they were aware of all the different types of colours, and I was so surprised. I thought I didn't really think that they would be so particular. But yeah, they wanted to know how do they look when they wear and try different clothes or bags or shoes. And they felt they wanted to feel comfortable. They wanted to feel it was a lot on touch that they relied to assess different things in the shops. But I must say, it was, it was just fun to watch, to be honest.

Yeah. So, are there any tips you would actually give to businesses to improve shopping experiences for VIP's?

Well, there are two aspects to it, right? So, one of them being, the online experience which covers the accessibility aspects, and how well do the businesses describe the pictures, describe the products so that it is inclusive for the VIP community. In terms of in person experiences, I would say, I felt that some of the shops, the staff there, they were not, they were very intrigued in answering questions or were a bit more, not prepared, I would say. And probably if businesses just add one more, maybe a line of instruction, just make the staff aware that VIP audience would come to shop and would like to try out different things. And they would focus on maybe touching things a bit more. Or you could explain colours or things in a bit more descriptive manner, that would actually make the VIP more comfortable. And they shocked the two ladies I'm sharing about. They were happy to spend the money. They were looking forward to buying different things. So, I feel that there is this huge group of audience who would love to explore things, buy things. They have the money, I feel, it's just how the businesses can adapt to their needs.

Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, from a digital perspective, you hit the nail on the head with most of it anyway. But I often speak to retail type businesses and often actually very small businesses that put their products online. And I say these things because it does surprise people, and it always surprises me that this is a surprise. But it does surprise people that VIP's care about their appearance. And from my experience, it does not differ that the care about appearance doesn't differ between people with perfect vision and VIP's. But it does often really surprise people that they care about their clothes matching. They care about what colours they're wearing. So, yeah, those descriptions are so important. And that comes back to, of course, VIP's being able to use technology because they absolutely can, but only if you're actually creating your initial technical solutions, but certainly the content with accessibility in mind.

Yeah, 100%. There's so many benefits on providing accessible content to VIP's. But that really makes it so much more easier for a wider audience for any business. And I mean statistically, technically, it's said that if a business designs properly for a blind user, they actually cover 90 to 95% of accessible needs of different kinds of people with disabilities. So, it's a win win for the businesses. And I strongly vouch for creating accessible digital content at this age.

Yeah, definitely. I mean previously, it's been a while, actually, since I've been called on, but previously I used to be an active volunteer for the RNIB. So, the Royal National Institute for the Blind here in the UK and basically, they're technical volunteers. What you do, you go out to people in your local community who need your help. It may be because they've got a new iPad and they're not sure how to activate it. Or there may be certain components within their laptop that they don't know how to use or they need some help with. It can be literally anything, but that was also really rewarding. And it also really opened your eyes to how some small adjustments can make such a massive difference. And it's not just from that, but because, learning so much over the years about digital accessibility, is why Be People Smart have digital accessibility guidelines because we want to make it easy for people to actually make this a reality.

Well, it's important and it has a lot of benefits. I mean, I can't really -- watch if you just google the benefits of being accessible, having an accessible website, you actually get a, you can reach out to a wider audience. So any anybody who is 60 plus can have a better user experience. Google appreciates the accessible websites or apps, and they rank them higher on the list, and so on and on. And to be honest, it just needs to be, it's not an intervention that they need to really spend a lot of money as well. It's just something that, like you said, small interventions lead into a lot of benefits.

Absolutely. So, I mean, we're talking about obviously people volunteering and being enablers. But of course, organisations also play a big part in this and I know that travel hands can actually work hand in hand, pardon the pun, with corporate. So can you tell us a bit about what organisations can do?

Yeah, so we wanted to provide some kind of rewards to the volunteers who are helping us. The volunteers who join us, they find the experience flexible. They were encouraging them to walk more, use more public transportation with the VIP. Whereas VIP's have a freedom pass, which gives them free access to the various transportation services, except the taxis. And with the help of volunteers, they can go around freely. Now on the volunteer side, if you wanted to give them some kind of rewards, and the time they spend with the VIP, the distance they walk is converted to points and points can be redeemed as rewards from our app. And the corporates can give discounts, offers, which will incentivise the volunteers to be more active. Something we feel especially helps younger volunteers, students, who would like to at least get let's say, a free coffee for two journeys in a day, would definitely add some value to them.

So how do organisations actually find out how they can play their part?

Well, the proposition is that if companies can provide us goodies or discounts on their services. So, for example, we were tested with a couple of coffee shops and providing an extra free coffee for a volunteer doesn't really cost them a lot. But then having their name in the app, being able to buy that brand in the app or showing the story of how they're supporting this inclusive mission that we are on really helps the brand as well as really helps them to contribute in their local community to promote better health, cohesive society, and really lead to a happier place, to be honest.

Yeah, definitely. I hear so many benefits. I also hear the benefit that it literally encourages people to get active, which is always a bonus. But where do organisations go if they're like, do you know what? Sign me up. I really wanna get involved.

So the organisations and companies can contribute by partnering with us and they can reach us out through our website, or, if they want to directly reach out to me, my email is Ishan@vipworldservices.com. So, yeah, that's how I can be reached. And we are looking eagerly to partner with various brands to join our inclusive mission.

Wonderful. So, if you're an organisation with a presence in London at the moment, definitely reach out. I think it's gonna be a win win for everyone. And it's also really good for corporate social responsibility. So have a think about how you can get involved, how your organisation can play your part. Talking of London, Ishan, so I know that you wanted to walk before you run, but it is only available in London at the moment, isn't it? So, what's needed to stretch travel hands elsewhere?

Well, we wanted to test and identify all the challenges before we really expand to other cities around the UK, first of all. How we started was in a borough, so we started with Suffolk and Lambeth just to see if the concept really gels well. And then we got requests from all different boroughs in London, and then we had to just expand, as well as we have requests from different cities at the moment from all over the UK where they hear about Travel Hands. Or if some of the VIP's who travel to London, they're very happy to use Travel Hands to go around the city. So, and what is required to expand in other cities? Well, I think the biggest challenge we have is to ensure safety of our participants. And, what we feel is, we are testing this model of having partnerships with different charities around different cities so that we can at least ensure that when a VIP is in a journey, that journey is being tracked by them. And if there is an issue, our team from London can contact there and just ensure that the support is provided if required. At the moment, we haven't had any issue, fingers crossed, where VIP or a volunteer have shared whatever they need on call to our backend team and that has been resolved. But in case we need some kind of physical assistance, we would definitely require our partner charities to reach out to them and help them out.

Wonderful. Thank you. I think my expectation is in the next few years, I'm gonna see it in loads more cities in the UK. But it's too much of a positive service for people to not want to get more involved in it. But I will wait and see. What I do want to ask you is a practical question. What's the cost to the user?

So, at the moment, we require at least 24 hours to match the VIP request with the right volunteer, and we have kept the pricing to £3 for up to three hours of volunteer assistance and £5 for a 24-hour window. So in that £5 they can actually go to a place, a venue with a volunteer and spend time or do whatever activity. And if they require another volunteer assistance or the same volunteer, if they're available, they can come back to their residence. And these pricings, we kind of tested with our community, try to understand what value they get from the service and warranty assistance up to three hours sounded pretty average. So VIP, if they have to go to an appointment, if they have to go for a walk, let's say three hours was more than enough. Go and come back, spend some time outdoors, or for a shopping experience, yeah, that's how we designed these two modules. But in the future, as I said, when we start matching people fairly quickly, maybe less than 24 hours, we will definitely change the pricing or increase the pricing depending on the urgency of the journeys.

Yeah, I mean, that's only fair, but I have to say it is just -- it's more than commendable the fact that you've kept the cost as low as possible, particularly, you know, of course, we all talk about cost of living crisis, and many of us understand that that can have a bigger impact on disabled people. So enabling people to have more independence, have fun and all of that stuff at a low cost, I mean, that's another win.

Yeah, 100%. I mean, we, one of the things I feel is like we love to party. We would love the whole city to come and join us. And there are 43,000 VIPs in London who have had a horrible time in the pandemic being subjected to isolation. And the effects are still there, a lot of these users still feel not so confident in going out and having a good time or exploring things. And we want to change that. And one of the things is, we've kept the pricing affordable to every user and actually mastered with the -- so they have to pay £2.50 minimum to book a taxi ride, and that covers at least 2 to 3 miles for each user. So, we try to match that price and keep it affordable for everyone so that everyone can come and join our party.

Absolutely. I think joining the party is the way to go. And I love the fact you've been able to take some of the contents of your mind that makes a difference and make it a reality. Hearing these stories always puts a big smile on my face because clever people like you make a massive difference. I want to ask you my magic question because I think you're a bit magic anyway. But because I'm a big Harry Potter fan, I ask this of all of my guests. As you may know, but I'm gonna give you a magic one now. I can't really, unfortunately, but let's just pretend. And so, there's no limitations because it's magic, and you can wave it and change something to make the world more inclusive. What would you do?

Well, I always feel that if we all had Iron Man suits, it could fly everywhere. Everybody could feel more easy, but yeah, unfortunately, Iron Man suits won't be so easy to get for everyone at least until the next 20 years. But I do feel that if we listen, if we become good listeners, that itself changes so much, it's just that, give a chance to others to speak up. It's just that extra moment of silence just to be ready to listen more. Try to give them a platform, and we want a change. We're trying to do that with Travel Hands. We're actually making them go out so that they can share more. They can actually tell people, what do they want? What are they thinking about? What are they exploring? And I feel that the brands, companies, even places tourist spots, government, everybody, we just need to accept them and invite them and just give them a chance to share what's going on in their mind.

I absolutely love that answer, partly because active listening is so important and something we can all do from today, but partly because I really want that Iron Man suit. I genuinely do. I really like that answer. So, you've shared so much with us about Travel Hands and obviously the brilliance behind the solution and also how organisations can really make a difference and get involved. What would you really like people to take away from this episode?

Well, I think, one thing I would really say is that, visually impaired people or VIP are ready to go out and Travel Hands is gonna make them explore things, try out things, share a laughter. And I think the brands, companies, volunteers, Londoners, everybody should be ready to see a lot of VIP's walking around the city, travelling and exploring different things. And to be very -- one of the things that we really felt by creating Travel Hands is that it creates wonderful, happy stories. It affects the volunteers so much, positively to really have a wonderful, gratitude filled experience, really enhances a person's day. And also, it just provides services, businesses, the accessibility aspect, you can see VIP on the streets interacting with your service and that itself creates awareness around accessibility, inclusiveness, and I just request everybody to be acceptable and try to help us contribute in this mission.

Definitely. I love that. So, I just want to recap a couple of things. One, as a VIP in London, how would I register?

So, they can call us on our free call centre. The number is 02039661650. Or they can go onto our website, Travel Hands dot co dot UK. Um, if they have any issues finding the website, you can just google, we are at the top of the search listings, one of the benefits of being an accessible website, again. If not, I totally believe that all the charities that work for the benefit of VIP in London at least are aware of Travel Hands and they have been kind enough to signpost. And if they have any questions, they can just go out and talk about Travel Hands with anyone, and they can get the number, contacts to reach us out. Lastly, we are launching the mobile app as well as the web application so they can interact, they can book the journeys, look for volunteers through the app itself or the web base too, which will make it a bit more personalised and easy for them.

Brilliant. And as a volunteer, do I register the same way?

So, the volunteer register is fairly quickly. We have we have a form which takes less than one minute. It takes one minute. And they can book an induction with us. Once they sign up, they get all the instructions, step by step, what needs to be done and how the process is. If they have any questions, we also call them just to clarify all the doubts and get them registered quickly.

So, one final question I just want to ask from a volunteer perspective. So a lot of people may be listening to this and thinking, you know, I'd love to get involved, and I'd love to do something, and I'd love to help some people with their journeys, but my time is limited. So is it possible to get involved if you can only spare, an hour here and there? Or do you have to have a minimum time commitment?

Well, well, that's the beauty of Travel Hands, right? So every volunteer can schedule their availability on the calendar in their app, and that's gonna help them, whenever they are available, whatever time window they have or whenever they want to assist, they can put that in the calendar. As our operations run seven days a week from, from 9 AM to 9 PM. So that's the time we know that people can use the journeys. We have kept that window because our backend team can support in those times. And people can book the journeys at the moment from Monday to Friday, 9 to 6 PM.

Wonderful. I mean, I've said it to you before, but I literally think Travel Hands is just such a fantastic service. It's just gonna make such a difference. I still hold out for the days when it's in every city. Well, say around the world to be fair because I think it's gonna make a massive difference to so many people. But that's my magic wand. But I'm sure it's gonna grow because you've got a brilliant solution here. So, I just want to thank you for coming on today, taking the time to share with us and to educate people on not only Travel Hands, but how they can get involved, how it can help them and how it can actually help their organisations as well.

Thank you. Thanks Jodie, for this opportunity, I love to -- there's so many stories we have and I really feel that we can really share what has come out of the experiences of the 350 journeys we have done until now. And a lot more to go in the next few years.

Wonderful. Thank you so much. I'm sure there are a lot of people listening who have maybe learned about Travel Hands for the first time, or you're just in awe at such a brilliant, yet simple in a sense, solution that can make a massive difference. So, take a look. If you're in London, why not get involved. But thank you for listening. I hope you did enjoy this. Look Ishan up on LinkedIn. Check out the website. Get in touch. Reach out to me if you've got any comments on anything. So, until next time for more myth busting, take care, everyone.

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