Technological Innovations
Karine Garnier, Board Member, chaired a panel on technology.
Sylvain Denoncin, founder and CEO of Okeenea in France and an expert in accessibility, spoke about his work creating inclusive smart cities and buildings. His group of four small Okeenea companies worked in the fields of
• Accessible buildings
• Online store for accessibility products
• Smart audio signage for visually impaired people
• Digital solutions for inclusive mobility
The company had won a tender to make inclusive and multisensory signage in the Olympic and Paralympic Village for the 2024 Paris Games. They would be installing visual signage, tactile flooring and tactile maps.
He described his companies’ ambition for “Phigital and Universal Accessibility” a blend of physical and digital. Work on accessible pedestrian signals (APS) had started 30 years previously with an audio signal. The latest generation of APS, called aBeacon, featured sound signage that was remote and on demand. Rather than pressing a button that sent a radio signal to all devices nearby, one could access individual crossings. It was a system with speakers installed and accessed via existing push buttons or a smartphone app. Because it also worked with headphones, there was no need to hand-carry a phone.
Navigueo was a complementary system of audio beacons that could give more information about venues, for example, how to find the ticket machine in a train station. There were 1,600 installed in Paris metros and 4,500 in train stations across France.
Evelity was their first indoor wayfinding GPS app that guided disabled people in transportation and complex venues, aimed at bridging the gap between building owners and their disabled users. It could enable one to
• Prepare a journey
• Reach the destination according to an individual profile
• Discover the services of the venue with guided tours
• Call for help
This inside technology was designed to be low cost and could be installed in a large hotel in about two weeks for about €5,000.
Sylvain concluded by saying, “Let’s together make pedestrian wayfinding an obvious tool for people with disabilities in everyday life”.
Sean Dilley asked how they could reduce development costs when Sylvain and Gavin Neate were doing similar work and Sylvain replied that it was important that they made standards work and updated them every five years.
Stephen Anderson asked how he could get a remote device when visiting France and Sylvain replied that tourist offices in many cities would lend him one.
Gavin Neate from Neatbox had been attending the conference but had tested positive for Covid so presented his talk from his room in the hotel. He had the concept for his app in 2002 when he was working as a mobility instructor at Guide Dogs UK and observed a blind person using a talking mobile phone. He was excited but unsure where this idea would take him.
In 2012 he had started using the technology to develop pedestrian-operated crossing. By 2015 he had realised he could communicate with any button and his app could figuratively and literally open doors. He left Guide Dogs to develop the idea that his app could contact the people inside the building to be advised that someone was arriving soon.
His focus was on customer service. He knew that when staff were trained in customer service, 75% of the training was gone within 24 hours, and completely gone when staff left the company. He felt that the best disability training was delivered by the disabled themselves to the staff just as it was needed. In 2018 he launched his app WelcoMe, based on these concepts.
Gavin provided a demonstration of his app, with someone making a booking at a venue for a specific time and date. He aimed to provide the WeocoMe app free to the disabled users, from whom no data or credit card information would be collected or stored. Income would come from the venues providing the service, who would pay a modest monthly fee.
With WelcoMe the disabled person was in charge and could determine how they were treated. Users could request a venue on their app and WelcoMe would then approach the venue to subscribe. He said there were 160 installations with more joining each month.
Fritz Kumb, Business development manager at Avery Dennison in Switzerland talked about the innovative products in their Smartrac Pet Identification division. In a brief history he explained that Mr. Avery invented the first self-adhesive label, started the Avery Adhesives company in 1935, merged with Dennison
Manufacturing in 1990 and over 86 years grew from one bright idea into a global Fortune 500 company that continued to innovate in materials science.
He introduced the delegates to their NFC (Near-field communication) dongle for dog identification, which used the same technology as payment cards.
If a dog was lost, the person who found it could scan the dongle with their mobile phone. The finder’s location and mobile number would be sent to a database. An email would be immediately sent to the owner who could recover the dog. The microchip in the tag had a unique ID which was stored in the database. The dog finder would be directed to a database where further support was offered. The dongle could contain further information about food, medication, and vaccination which could be helpful for the lost dog.
The dongle was attached to the dog’s collar and worked even if the dog had been in water. It could be read by a smartphone at 10 cm distance.
Other products in their portfolio for pet identification comprised glass transponder tags to identify fish with a microchip and syringes to deliver the transponder.
He said that his company worked with the European Commission and national governments on identification of pets and livestock. This device could protect against gangs trying to steal young guide dogs.