David Schleppenbach, Tactile Solutions, President

David Schleppenbach produces a braille computer for people who need tactile or haptic input. He gives a quick tour of the product and manufacturing facility. As an instructor at Purdue University, he began supporting blind students by creating a better learning environment. This led to participating in the tech entrepreneurship program at Purdue and the start of his accessibility company.  

Mentioned in this episode:

Info about Accessibility at Blink

(dramatic music)

- Hello, this is Digital Accessibility,

The People Behind the Progress.

I'm Joe Wilinski, the Creator and Host of this series,

and as an accessibility professional myself,

I find it very interesting as to how others

have found their way into this profession.

So let's meet one of those people right now

and hear about their journey.

(dramatic music resumes)

All right, well, here we go with another episode,

where I have the great opportunity

to meet with an accessibility professional,

and today, I am talking with David Schleppenbach.

Hello, David, how are you today?

- Doing great, Joe.

Thanks for taking the time to talk to me today.

- Yeah, it's good to have a chance to chat with you.

I'm located in my home office of Vashon Island,

which is near Blink's Seattle headquarters.

Where are you talking to us from?

- I'm coming today from Lafayette, Indiana,

at our corporate headquarters and factory

near Purdue University.

- All right, well, I've been there,

been to campus.

It's West Lafayette for the campus, right?

- That's right, yeah,

the two are separated by the Wabash River.

- Okay.

Well, yeah, it's good to have a chance to chat with you,

and probably the best place to start

is if you'd talk a little bit about

what you're involved with today.

- No problem, and I appreciate that.

My project that I'm working on right now

involves a braille tablet computer

for blind and visually impaired people,

as well as people with other types

of specialized disabilities

that need tactile or haptic input.

And, this is sort of an extension

of work I've been doing for the past 25 to 30 years or so,

to try to help teach people with disabilities

topics like science and math

and other advanced technical topics.

- And so,

with that type of work,

can you talk a little bit

about the technology that's involved

and maybe something about what a day in the life

or a week in the life is like for you?

- Sure, no problem.

To talk about the technology,

probably the simplest thing I can do

is just very quickly demonstrate it.

So I'm just gonna flip my view here,

and what you'll be seeing on my screen

is the computer code that we have written

to control the technology,

and then here I have an example of the tablet product.

And what we have here

are actually four separate small tablets.

These are each about the size and shape of an iPhone,

and they connect together by Bluetooth to do various things.

And in this case,

I'm actually navigating through some menus, picking things,

and I'll just pick a simple illustration,

which is a screensaver,

and this is a tactile bouncing ball screensaver,

which just is the same thing as a screensaver would be

for a TV or a phone.

The idea is that we have thousands of pins

that move up and down and make a tactile feeling

that a user can feel with their fingers,

and each one is like a pixel would be

on a regular phone or tablet computer.

So in a nutshell, that's exactly what we're doing.

The reason that this is so difficult is,

to make a dense object,

that has all of these pixels that a blind person could feel,

requires pushing the boundaries of physics,

and manufacturing, and computer science.

And we've had to really innovate in a lotta different areas

to get to the point that we're located at,

including building a high tech automated assembly factory,

which I happen to be standing in right now.

And if it's okay with you,

I could very quickly show what that looks like.

- Yeah, definitely, please do that.

- All right, again, I'll flip the camera.

And so, this is just an example

of various pieces of equipment we have in our facility.

And as an example of how this works,

each of these individual components

that go into this tablet device are small modules.

Each module has the equivalent of 32 pixels,

and these are assembled using a high tech assembly system,

which is a series of robots

that do automated robotic assembly.

I'm showing a table now where this assembly is done.

So the individual components are manufactured

throughout the state of Indiana largely.

95% of our components are either manufactured

here in this facility or in our supply chain,

which is spread throughout the state of Indiana.

We have a few other US-based providers

for the remaining parts.

These individual components are then put together

to create this tablet that I showed.

And as an example,

these modules basically snap onto a circuit board,

and then from this circuit board,

we have the ability to control

how these pins move up and down,

and that's what the user actually feels.

So this is all done,

from the modular assembly,

all the way to the product assembly,

for the end user.

The reason we went this route is,

when we came up with the basic idea,

which dates back, interestingly enough,

to over 25 years ago,

the base technology wasn't there to do a project like this.

So in addition to developing that base technology,

we had to develop everything from that point forward.

So we came up with the idea,

then we had to develop the parts to make the thing work.

We had to develop the robots to make the parts,

the procedures to run the robots,

then we had to develop the software

to run the device, everything.

So this has been a real odyssey, a real challenge,

and I've been in the assistive technology field now

for around 25 years,

and this is by far the most technically challenging project

I've ever been involved with.

- Well, it's really good to be able to see

the inner workings there.

With most of the guests on the program,

we talk about digital accessibility, but ultimately,

all of that digital accessibility work

is all about being able to

have devices like yours

lock into that and be able to interpret that information.

So it's great to,

see some of that from your end.

And then, also when I go to conferences, like CSUN,

walk around the exhibit area and look at it,

it's just amazing the breadth and variety

of assistive technologies that are available.

- Yeah, that's absolutely right.

I'm a big believer in application of mainstream technology

to help people with disabilities.

We all work, as assistive technology professionals,

with the concept of Universal Design for Learning,

which is to design things from the ground up

to have accessibility features built in,

and in assistive technology,

one challenge is that we tend to make products

for smaller market niches

than the consumer electronics world.

For example, if you're marketing a product

for mobility impairment or learning disability

or visual impairment,

you may be reaching a fraction of the population

that normally would purchase a particular device,

and that's a challenge for startup companies in this space,

because acquiring funding,

convincing financial institutions to back you,

making sure that you can scale your production facilities,

those are all things that would be much easier

if you had a larger volume.

So when you can piggyback those two things,

when you can utilize mainstream tech in a new way

or put together in new ways,

to benefit a person with disabilities,

suddenly the economy of scale benefits you as well,

and then this whole process gets easier.

And that was a key focus when we started this.

We decided that we were gonna go with mainstream, high tech,

automated assembly manufacturing techniques.

We're gonna work with top level technicians and scientists.

My background is in science.

We were gonna use mainstream programming techniques.

Everything we did would be done,

as if we were operating as a company like Apple

and making a mainstream consumer product,

and that would result

in the best quality product for the user,

as well as the lowest possible cost.

And I was very fortunate and blessed to have partners,

that agreed to go into this journey with me and help me,

together with institutional investment

and supportive organizations,

like Purdue and the state of Indiana to get to this point.

- Well, I definitely wanna ask you a few more questions

about your work and your product,

but one of the things

that we always like to do in this program

is to find out how people made their way

to where they are today,

different circuitous, serendipitous paths.

So, what was it for you?

Maybe go back in time and talk about some of the milestones

that started to move you to where you are today.

- Very good.

It's interesting, when you talk to people in this field,

I'm sure you come up with this all the time,

you'll find that there are so many people

that have a personal connection,

which drew them in to help people with disabilities.

I think we all have a story somewhere in our life,

and I have a number of those.

I've been very fortunate over the years

to work with thousands of blind and visually impaired people

and hundreds of people with other types of disabilities.

And, I could tell so many anecdotes,

but to go back to the start of this,

I actually came to Purdue University for graduate school,

in what was called the Chemical Physics Program,

so I was in a very technical field.

And I had some exposure to disabilities.

My first wife, who passed from cancer in the 2010s,

was visually impaired and was a braille reader.

So when I came to Purdue, I was teaching chemistry,

and if you know anything about large universities,

General Chemistry for freshmen and sophomores,

there were literally 5,000 students in the class, okay.

- No, don't even get me.

I went to university of Illinois, that was one of the worst.

Those large classes were one of my worst experiences ever.

- That's right, so 5,000 students in the class,

I was assigned to teach some of them.

And as it turned out,

we had three blind students

enrolled in that chemistry class,

which was really sort of a first for Purdue.

And as I discovered later, this is in the 1990s,

it was really sort of a first for the country.

I mean, there weren't a lot of blind students

pursuing those technical fields.

So I got assigned to teach those blind students chemistry,

because I was the guy that knew something,

because I knew one slight notch more than everybody else.

So I started to do research in the area and said,

okay, well, there must be some program

or technology or techniques, and what I discovered is,

there really wasn't a lot of such technology or techniques,

and we had to develop some on our own.

So I ended up starting a research program at Purdue,

which was called the Visions Lab.

We developed a lot of techniques and methods

for helping teach science and math

to students with disabilities, primarily visual impairment,

and along the way,

I sort of drifted from going into

academic research in the sciences as a career,

into assistive technology as a career,

because I just found the problem so interesting,

so challenging, so much detail, and a very human touch.

When I was studying the mysteries of the universe,

so to speak, it was helpful to humanity,

but we didn't really impact anyone's life directly.

I was doing laser spectroscopy, computational chemistry,

things that are pretty esoteric, quantum mechanics.

Whereas when I would give a blind student a braille book,

or I would help them learn how to use a computer,

I would see their life change right in front of me,

and that was hard to pass up on.

So as it turns out, the President of Purdue,

Dr. Jischke at the time,

started a Tech Transfer and Entrepreneurship Program,

and he approached me and said,

"Hey, I think you might be good at being an entrepreneur.

"How would you like to do that?"

Well, I thought, how hard could it be (laughs)?

If I only knew then what I know now.

So, I went through their Accelerator and Incubator Program.

Purdue had one of the

first such programs in the country,

which are now commonplace at universities.

And my initial company that I started, around the year 2000,

I had three different ideas,

that I presented to my investors,

one of which had to do with accessibility,

and that's the one they liked the most.

I was funded by a group of farmers,

who had actually sold their grain elevators

to a larger company and were looking to invest in tech,

and they thought that helping disabled people

was really cool.

I was very lucky to meet them.

So they funded our company with a small investment

and away we went,

and since then I have been a serial entrepreneur,

so to speak,

which probably means I know

where the bodies are buried, right,

and I've been in the assistive technology field ever since.

- And,

so, in the time that you went from university

to being involved

in all of your business enterprise activities,

were there,

did you discover accessibility,

as being a profession,

or was it just because you were enmeshed in it,

sometimes, you don't see the broader things going.

- Yeah. - Going around.

What was that experience like for you?

- Well, there's a lot of pitfalls,

I think I would say, in transitioning,

and it was really two factors.

One is transitioning from being an academic

to being in business.

I was very fortunate to have a lot of good advisors.

Purdue provided a lot of these folks,

some of which I still use as advisors and mentors today,

still work with me today.

And they sort of helped guide me to understand

how different the business world is than the academic world,

completely different pace, different priorities,

different resources and funding mechanisms.

And I actually, in turn,

tried to help mentor academics,

who want to transition into business.

And then more specifically, with assistive technology,

when I dove into this in the '90s,

there were people doing this,

but it was largely done by nonprofit organizations,

NGOs and foundations, government agencies.

There were some businesses, of course,

but at the time,

there wasn't even really a formal industry association.

I was one of the founding board members

of the Assistive Technology Industry Association,

which started with just a very small group of companies,

and now today,

is quite a big organization, has a conference annually.

And there are people that come together

to talk about assistive technology as a field.

As you know from your work,

the idea of an assistive technology professional,

having certifications and certificates

and being able to demonstrate competencies,

that's all stuff that's relatively new for our industry.

It maybe dates back 10 years, 15 years at the most.

And not something like, if you went into manufacturing,

or if you went into information technology,

where this has been an established field,

where there's a lot of money and attention.

So I'm very glad to have seen

the industry develop to where it is now.

I've recently worked with some younger academics,

who are wanting to transition

into the assistive technology business space,

and hearing their stories and listening to them,

I can say, "Here is a possibility

"for where you can get some funding.

"Here are some people that can give you advice

"about your legal or financial matters.

"Here are some business consulting that you can draw from.

"Here are industry resources in the AT field

"that you can draw from

"for statistics, data, market research."

None of that existed

before these various groups came together

and helped create that.

And I have to say,

I'm kinda proud of our industry for doing it,

because what it's done

is it's made the field more professional

and given all of us collectively,

a better ability to help people with disabilities

in a professional way.

And the work that was done prior to this,

with the nonprofits and the governments was fantastic,

but nothing takes the place

of high tech companies producing products

directly to consumers and getting that feedback,

that they can iterate on quickly

to make those products better and better.

I said at the beginning,

we wanted to emulate a company,

like an Apple or a Microsoft or a Google,

and try to accomplish our goal that way,

and I still believe very much in that model,

as long as it's tempered with the understanding,

that whatever the company is doing,

it must always be done for social good.

And that means you have to be selective

with your investment.

If you just go to a bank and ask for traditional financing,

they're not gonna understand what you're doing,

so collecting investment,

setting up your business structure,

those are things that are a little bit different

in the assistive technology space,

still done professionally,

but done with people who are like-minded

and not just in this to make money.

- Well,

one of the things I've enjoyed about

being involved in accessibility

is it's a great community of practitioners,

openly sharing information.

In fact,

the building of our knowledge base,

just continues every day.

People are so generous with their time to add to that,

so we really have a great repository of content.

And as you mentioned, the certification opportunities.

I constantly see more and more people

with that appended to their LinkedIn profile,

that they have one certification or another,

and it's great to see all of that.

For me personally, I got involved early on,

when the Web Accessibility Initiative was just beginning,

with the WCCC,

and today, those of us involved in digital accessibility,

essentially, we look to the WCAG

as our recipe book of recommendations.

So theoretically,

if you follow along with these things,

the idea is that assistive devices

will be able to be successful.

But what's it like from your end,

where you're an organization

developing assistive technologies,

and you're relying on that to be built in?

Kind of an open ended question,

but how do you feel about where things are today with that?

- Well, it's a great question.

I spend a lot of time on standards bodies and committees

myself over the years, and you're right.

In terms of the source content, so to speak,

we have some pretty good specifications now

from WCCC and other standards bodies that say,

"Okay, here is how a publisher should create content,

"so that it's available

"for the assistive technology products to hook onto."

However, what I've seen is,

unfortunately, we don't have quite as robust

specifications or standards on the actual product side,

but there's many that are in development.

We have some from the mainstream that we borrow,

for example, hardware products would have FCC certification,

UL or CE, RoHS, Bluetooth, and USB, et cetera.

So those are helpful,

but those are really just talking about

how the device as a whole interoperates

with general technology.

We don't have a very good and robust specification

for something like a product UI or UX.

How should a hardware device be featured,

so that it has the appropriate buttons, dials, knobs,

whatever you want to call it, for a user.

There's a lot of that stuff

is home brewed by individual companies,

and I think it's a bit of a shame,

because we could all benefit

from collective knowledge and wisdom in that area.

If I'm a user, and I move from one device to another,

I would sure appreciate a common interface,

so there's not so much of a learning curve.

And likewise,

the method by which the data

from a publisher repository and so forth

is intaked into the device

and converted into some output format.

There's still a few gaps, I think, in that,

I'll call it the pipeline, of how that actually happens.

As an example,

if you follow the appropriate WCAG standards on a website,

have your ARIA role attributes set and so forth,

all the details taken care of,

it's still a little bit open-ended

how an assistive technology software product

or hardware device would render that to the user.

Maybe we need more robust and direct

and clearer specifications on how rendering should happen.

Maybe it's okay to let it be something

where the user can decide.

Maybe the user should decide within a range of parameters.

I don't know the answer.

I just think it's worth talkin' about as a community.

And if you look at the mainstream browser world,

for example, there are some general guidelines,

that browser manufacturers

really sorta have to stay within.

They've left room for them to be creative,

so that a Microsoft Edge has certain features

different than say Chrome, right, but at the same time,

it's understood or expected,

that users will generally have a similar experience,

if they're using one browser or another.

And so I think some tightening of the specs

could be a benefit in that area

to the actual product manufacturers.

- Well, looking at where you're at with your product

and what you see in the industry,

what are your thoughts or hopes about moving forward?

Are there any areas that you're passionate about

in exploring for the future?

Any things you can give us

to maybe look forward to that we haven't thought about?

- Yes, absolutely.

The biggest thing for me is thinking about

changing the life of someone

with a visual impairment directly.

And when you think about

how technology works for all of us nowadays,

it's a lifestyle companion.

We don't just use our technology

to sit at a desk and do work,

we carry it with us everywhere.

It's ubiquitous, and it affects every aspect of our life.

And I know from my own personal experience,

when you're a blind individual,

you don't just set aside all of your blindness, so to speak,

when you're done with your job or your school,

you carry it with you everywhere.

You have a need that permeates your life,

and we wanna help benefit that.

And I think of specific examples,

a blind person can struggle using appliances,

like a washing machine or a microwave,

because they're flat touch screens

with buttons that are hard to feel,

and you can't see the information on the screen.

Why shouldn't your device be a personal information hub

that connects to that and helps you with that?

All the appliances now

are Internet of things enabled anyway.

Another example would be going to a store,

and trying to differentiate products on a shelf,

picking out your clothing for the day,

and making sure that your colored coordination

is where you want it to be.

Being able to read a book while you're waiting for the bus,

which you're probably taking,

because you rely on public transportation,

navigating a map to get on that bus, get on the right bus,

make the transfer to the correct bus,

get to your place of employment,

or wherever it is that you were trying to go,

going to a doctor's office or a hospital,

trying to navigate your medical records,

trying to read the disclaimers

on the medications that you're taking,

so that you have informed consent

for whatever procedures that you need to have,

trying to watch a movie on Netflix,

trying to listen to a baseball game.

If you're a senior citizen and your vision is failing,

being able to read a newspaper to your grandchild or a book.

What about being able to play tic-tac-toe,

as a parent of a blind child, with your child?

All of these are things,

that we wanna enable with this

pocket size, portable life companion.

It's not just about building another braille display,

that helps you access text on a computer,

it's about changing your life.

And one of the things,

that I think is so amazing about our industry,

when I go to these conferences you mentioned,

like the CSUN Conference, or ATIA, or Closing the Gap,

or all the other ones that are out there,

you see these variety of products,

that really are designed to change someone's lifestyle,

and I think consumer electronics

could take a bit of a clue from us, right.

Sometimes we live our lives

in spite of our consumer technology,

instead of our consumer technology enabling our lifestyle,

and that's where we're headed with what we're doing,

is it's not just about

the piece of hardware you carry with you,

it's about what you can do with that.

- Well, you just went through so many great examples.

It's clear that you're

just always thinking about these new opportunities

and gives me a lot of things personally to think about

that I hadn't considered before.

So I appreciate that,

and I appreciate you taking the time to chat with me

in this conversation.

I think we covered quite a lotta things

in a short amount of time, but I really enjoyed it.

And I appreciate you taking the time to talk to us about it.

- It's no problem, I appreciate being here.

And I would just like to offer on a side note,

if any of your listeners

are new to the assistive technology field,

or have questions,

or would like to learn a little bit more

about what it might take to be an entrepreneur in this area,

I would be happy to have them reach out to me offline,

and maybe I can answer some of their questions.

I was very, very fortunate and blessed

to have so many advisors give of their time to me,

as I was learning,

and I really believe in paying that forward.

It's a small enough industry as it is,

we should all help each other.

- And we do end up including show notes along with this,

so I'll make sure we get any relevant links

and things from you attached to that as well.

- Very good.

- All right, thanks a lot, David.

It was nice to chat with you.

Hopefully, we can meet

at one of those physical events that we talked about.

- I would love to see you there.

Thank you so much and goodbye to all the listeners.