Speaker 0 00:00:00 <inaudible>
Speaker 1 00:00:55 Good evening. Thank you for joining disability and progress, where we bring you insights into ideas about and discussions on disability topics. My name is Sam. I'm the host of the show. Charlene does my research one, thanks to Annie Harbo for engineering tonight. We have a couple people with us, um, or one who was coming in soon. Uh, we'll be Bryan, Bishop, or Ryan, Bishop, sorry, an Aira user. And he also runs the customer care team and other important operations. And also Troy, Attilio the CEO of IRA, and we'll be talking about IRA and about who they are or what they are and how they work. Thanks for being on.
Speaker 2 00:01:37 Thanks Sam. And however one, I'm really excited to be on the show. I didn't know I was going to be here until probably a week or two ago. And you know, this is a great, this is something different and I love talking, uh, you know, about Iram and AR and to anyone. Yeah. So thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 00:01:53 You're welcome. Um, could you give me a little bit of background on you and what you did before you came to IRA?
Speaker 2 00:02:02 Oh, wow. Sure. Um, so right now I'm talking to you from San Diego, California in my house because I don't need to explain why we don't work in offices at the moment. Um, but, uh, but G um, you know, I'll start kind of in the middle and how I got associated with Iran. And then I'll tell you the background before that I, uh, I was working at Intuit. They make QuickBooks and TurboTax because, you know, and, um, it was a technology leader, you know, that's fun stuff. And one of the guys who worked for me was <inaudible> who ended up being the founder and CEO of IRA. And he and I, you know, we became fast friends because I was kind of an entrepreneur at heart. And Simone was, um, not only working on Intuit during the day, but he was getting his MBA. And he also had a friend named Matt Brock and Matt was, um, blind and they became friends and it was through that friendship and someones connection with technology that he got introduced to IRA.
Speaker 2 00:03:08 But if I back up from there, um, I'm actually, uh, grew up in San Jose, California, you know, Silicon Valley before it was Silicon Valley. I grew up when there were cherry orchards, uh, there, I hadn't from, uh, um, I ha I had, um, my parents, uh, both work. We were kind of, you know, modest means. And, um, and I was, I fell in love with computers, went to Cal poly San Luis Obispo. And I came out of school there with a computer science degree at a fortunate time when, you know, that was just taking off. And I, and you know, all the way up until the 2002 working about, at about five startups, well, at the same time, got married, had three daughters, still have three daughters and out of the house, um, you know, and all that stuff. But in 2002 is when, when I moved from the Bay area, which is a wonderful place, but getting a little bit crazy, uh, to San Diego. And that's when I started into it. So I kinda kinda went, uh, start in the middle. Um, but yeah, my background is, um, a lot of tech companies, but I really like leadership. I really like being creative and, um, uh, hopefully, you know, for people to know IRA, my philosophy in running it now is, um, because I only became the CEO on February pragmatism and transparency, come on the show. So
Speaker 1 00:04:33 How did you, like, that's pretty bold move is coming into something like this, was it just
Speaker 2 00:04:42 From the start or
Speaker 1 00:04:44 Just from, you know, in February and taking the reins there. And so, well,
Speaker 2 00:04:51 You know, as the chief operating officer at IRS since basically the beginning, so I was Simone's right hand man. Right. Um, during the operational stuff, um, I knew the company really well. Um, we, in, in February, we, we had some needs to kind of change our business model. Um, and so, you know, it's a business story, but as a venture back company, um, and you can read this online. It's not, it's public information had raised $34 million, right. To fund this noble cause to, you know, see what we could do, um, based on really listening, uh, to the needs or to the wants of people are blind division pair. This wasn't some, some tech solutions in this space and not to say it's the wrong thing, but, you know, it's, it's an idea that someone has about a need that might not be there, like an idea to solve a problem that might not be the biggest problem.
Speaker 2 00:05:47 And that's, that's fine. We all do that. Right. I mean, you've got a great idea and you don't know if it's going to solve a problem, but this company I wrote was started really by listening and, um, practicing, um, you know, what we call innovation design. But, um, so I'm the CEO, Oh, the whole time this thing is going, I know the company really well. And the opportunity presented itself to run the company at a more pragmatic, sustainable fashion. And it just, I was lucky a lot of things in my life. And I think all of our lives, like it just was the right thing at the right time until COVID hit like, Oh, this is going to be great. Like, I'm so excited. And then, but you know, we're persevering and you know, everyone's persevering as best they can, but yeah, it was a little, you know, serendipity and I can tell you, uh, my most, um, stressful day that I'd had in the LA in many decades was that first day of being CEO, because, you know, you can talk about it, you can think about it, but then when you realize, yeah, you got to do it and people are counting on you, and then you got to get, you're looking at your soul.
Speaker 2 00:06:56 Like, can I do this? And you know, I'm going to tell you it, you know, it took a little self-coaching to, to get over that day. Yeah.
Speaker 1 00:07:04 Yeah. Did, did Brian join us yet?
Speaker 2 00:07:09 He does not. Okay. I'll let you know when he joins, he's finishing another, um,
Speaker 1 00:07:14 Let's talk a little bit about what era, um, what is era and how did it pretty much get it start? You told me about who started it and he decided, you know, what, what year was that when it started?
Speaker 2 00:07:28 Yeah. Um, and I'm going to help you sound like we, all, everyone who joins IRA struggles with this name, like <inaudible> IRA. And by the way, I misspelled it a lot. When I first joined, it was like, it's a, it's a fun word. It actually stands for artificial intelligence, remote assistance. And when I tell people just as for fun, like, you know, if you have an IRA that you invest in the way you say it, even though the age of silent, um, so how did it get started? When did it get started? Um, it officially launched in 2015. That's when, you know, someone got his first check from, uh, Larry Bock, who was the initial investor little side story. There is a very famous as a venture capitalist having started multiple companies, one of them being Illumina. Um, but we'll get to that. Um, where it started is what I kind of hinted at.
Speaker 2 00:08:26 Um, Samaan knew this, uh, had his friend, Matt Brock, B R O C K, not related to Larry Bock now Brock, uh, was Simone's neighbor. Someone lived in a, um, in a condo, a high rise condo in San Diego, and they just became friends and, uh, Matt was blind and, and at some point, Matt and his wife moved away moved. I think if I could, yeah. It was called somewhere in Colorado, in a rural area. And that was calling some on and they were talking and Matt was like, gosh, I don't know this neighborhood. I really want to, I think this is a true story, this very romantic it's like, I want to go get some flowers for my wife, but I don't know where to go. I don't know where to go. I don't know what my backyard looks like. And someone's like, Hey, let's FaceTime.
Speaker 2 00:09:16 And why don't you turn the camera to point outward, right? Like face away from you. And I'll tell you what I see. Right. And that, along with the fact that he and I are working at Intuit, and, um, we were experimenting with Google glass for Intuit. He just got this, this, you know, what might be a crazy idea? Like the, the idea is like the challenge here is not that folks are blind or vision impaired. The challenge is they don't have access to this information. And what if we augmented their census by providing a remote person who can interpret that visual information. And so with that idea, he, um, he got more passionate about it. He did a lot of research. How big is the market that a lot of MBAs MBA stuff. And he also pulled together a technical team to create a prototype and basically pitched that to Larry Bock.
Speaker 2 00:10:12 That's a whole nother story. And Larry loved it so much and led by Larry was losing his vision and was very wealthy. So he could afford all of these devices, magnification device. And he's like, this is the first solution that I is in conspicuous. It doesn't stay, I don't stand out, but it works. And so that's how it gets started. Starting 2015 with Larry Bock providing, you know, what you call seed capital, like a, an initial check. I think it was for 200,000 or something like that to basically allow some on and a couple of engineers to, you know, work at a very low salary to like begin to build the core.
Speaker 1 00:10:49 Gotcha. I'm wondering, um, I think if I remember, right, IRA started out with glasses that you could get a pair of glasses. Um, how did that work? And did they, I think they dropped that now. Did they? If they, if so, why?
Speaker 2 00:11:05 Yeah. And they was, uh, was, was myself and the team. So I'm going to tell everyone that we're not done with this journey. Like there will be what we call head-mounted, um, or, you know, camera ability that, that extends beyond what today we provide, we are deployed on, which is just your mobile phone, but we started with Google glass, right? The very early version of those. It wasn't the one that got really famous, um, because it was really creepy and people were bringing them into bars and like, you know, fights, whatever. Like people will ask ads over, by the way. It sounds funny. And maybe not even funny in today's world, like back then, that was something to get, you know, really in arms about. But anyway, um, we, we got the Google glass because we wanted to give this hands-free experience and we had the app running on your iPhone. And we just found a lot of challenges with the technical setup, like getting the, he had to have the glasses charged to glasses, paired to your phone, you know, hardest to pair things,
Speaker 1 00:12:17 Pretty convoluted. It sounded,
Speaker 2 00:12:19 You know, and then you have to have all these things together. And what we learned is a lot of our customers just wanted to use the phone as well. Cause they always have the phone. You always know where your phone is always charged the snoot thing, a little more challenging. So we actually went through about four iterations of what I'll call it, glass hardware ending with our last attempt where we built our own. Like we were, we were very ambitious company, um, still are, but we said, you know, none of these devices are suitable. The Google glass has a camera. That's great, but it also has a display don't need it. Um, also has a really weird charging cable that isn't really, um, convenient for our users because it's magnetic and it's hard to use. Anyway, we built our own and ultimately still what we saw even after deploying it is a declining number of calls on the glass.
Speaker 2 00:13:13 And when we investigated further, the phone is just so more convenient, the, the glass and like having to carry it, um, having to have it, you know, ready. It's just, it's not the ultimate solution. Um, and I'll stop after this and we can, um, introduce Ryan here in a second, the ultimate solution that will happen, right? Like, um, I think if anything, um, it's been proven in the last five, 10 years, like we are seeing, you know, uh, leaps in technology in especially wearables that we haven't seen before, but eventually there will be a pair of glasses that will also have a wifi, not even have a wifi in, we'll be able to connect to the mobile network directly, not through a phone, but will be your phone. Like, it will be what you, if you want put on, I don't have to pair it with my phone. It's connected to the mobile network and it's running IRA and other apps and I can either touch a button or talk to it. And now I'm invoking IRA and that'll get away from this whole pairing and having two things powered up problem. When that happens, we're going to be there.
Speaker 1 00:14:21 Excellent. Um, we're going to take a short break and we'll be right back. Okay.
Speaker 0 00:14:26 <inaudible>
Speaker 1 00:14:37 Gotcha. All right. This is disability and progress. My name is Sam and we are speaking with Troy <inaudible> and also Ryan Bishop, Ryan just came in and Ryan is an era user and who also runs the customer care team and some other important operations. Apparently. Good evening, Ryan. Hello. Thank you so much for joining us. Um, let's see. I don't know if you're kind of quiet, so if you can get a little bit closer to your mic. Okay. And so why don't you give me some brief history about what you did before you came to era IRA? Sorry.
Speaker 3 00:15:20 Absolutely you. Yeah. Um, my name is Ryan and I was previously in the technology field before I came to IRA. I did a lot of things with the national Federation of the blind. Um, went into, uh, a lot of different, uh, technology-based companies. I was actually working on getting a degree and, uh, cybersecurity, um, when I ended up finding, uh, IRA at the CSUN conference in 2018, uh, and I became an Explorer. Um, I tried IRA out for a couple of months and absolutely fell in love with the service. Um, at first I wasn't really sure what to use it for. And then you started to becoming more used to it as I kept, uh, experiencing the agents and getting to see kind of what the service was all about. Um, and then about July of 2018, took a leap of faith on the careers page at IRA, uh, at their customer care page and, uh, was like, Hmm. You know, I guess I'll try it. And here I am today. So I was happy to, you know, get in and
Speaker 1 00:16:34 Excellent. Um, so I, I understand, I, I will say I'll tell people, I, I just used IRA for the first time today. Um, and I too was wondering, I mean, you hear all about what are you gonna use it for? And, but I did, I pulled something out of my freezer and I called someone and had to read it to me and read me the instructions and it worked great. I'm like, Oh, this is scary. I could get addicted.
Speaker 3 00:17:06 No, really it's true though.
Speaker 1 00:17:09 How large is the customer care team?
Speaker 3 00:17:14 Our customer care team is a pretty good size team. So we have our customer care team broken up into three separate teams. I almost said four, and then I forgot we don't ship anything anymore. Um, it was so, uh, we have, uh, three teams. Our customer code team is broken up into our information department, which gives general information about the Iris service. Um, generally the person that you would talk to you, if you have questions about our access offers, um, how I wrote works, um, are then we have our technical support team. They deal with all of our apps. What, uh, helps you get signed in if you're having trouble with your application. And then we have our billing department, which does all of our B2C, uh, uh, subscription payments and handles, um, all of your bill date, minute purchases, um, minute credit requests and all that. So, uh, it's a pretty good size team.
Speaker 1 00:18:10 So how let's talk about the training of the customer care team, especially the ones that answer the phone and tell you what answer, whatever question you've asked. Tell, talk to me about how they're trained.
Speaker 3 00:18:27 So I always say that training at IRA, you know, especially in our agent department and our customer care department is pretty rigorous. Um, you go in, uh, when you first come in as a customer care agent and you have, uh, documents to read, um, you also have a one-on-one buddy partnering where you work with another person to, in customer care to learn about the app and go over, uh, certain aspects that you're not familiar with. Um, we also have, uh, fake accounts that you can look at, especially if you're doing billing to be able to do, uh, to learn how our system works about during the second week. You get to watch, uh, calls of from other customer care agents and kind of see how those calls, uh, uh, run and get answers to questions. Um, and then, you know, I always say this you're never done learning.
Speaker 3 00:19:24 Um, so as you go through, there's always something new to learn about an account new processes. And so we always, uh, have in our weekly meetings, uh, different, uh, different things that you can learn, um, and always, uh, each team lead, um, each manager of each department will come and teach a different thing each week about, uh, something in their, in their department. So really our customer care team is always learning and always adapting. And of course always in communication with the rest of the company. So it's such a great, wonderful team to work for and be a part of
Speaker 1 00:20:02 Is IRA just for the United States.
Speaker 3 00:20:05 So we are in five different countries now. Um, we just recently launched our partnership in the UK. Um, we are in United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and now the UK. So totally, absolutely happy to be in the UK now
Speaker 1 00:20:24 And can one use them 24 seven.
Speaker 3 00:20:28 So I read as an agent to, uh, to get an agent in 24 seven. Um, our customer care department is only from 6:00 AM to 6:00 PM Pacific seven days a week. Um, but to get an agent on your application that is 24 hours a day, um, something to just like, I know for a lot of folks care
Speaker 2 00:20:48 And agent that's kind of synonymous, but we really do have to get two pools of, of, of resources of people, um, both delightful, super smart, but obviously different tasks. And so, yeah, our, our services 24 seven, um, and the, and the agent training is, uh, is, is different from the care training, but in both, both have training, but the, the services 24 seven, it's been that way, I think for almost three years now, um, it was, uh, November of 2018. So yeah,
Speaker 1 00:21:23 The difference then is one just the billing and stuff and the other one's the description.
Speaker 2 00:21:29 Yeah. Um, basic. Yeah. Yeah. That's absolutely right. So, um, care is also, um, yeah, care, care takes over when you either need new service. It's, you know, transactional and I want, I want, I want new paid service. I'm having technical trouble have a question. Um, I know a business that I'd like you guys to con you'd like IRA to consider or approach for access. It's all of those support. So we say care, what, you know, you might say customer support is another term, and then there's the agent service, right? Not as that core experience, um, with the agents who go through, you know, 25 hours of training and ongoing training. And, um, and there's a whole, there's a whole universe there that, that we've built and invested in, invested in, in continue to develop.
Speaker 1 00:22:21 So how, first of all, where do you find people that want to do something like this? And secondly, what kind of things do you have as far as, I mean, I would imagine that a lot of different things are asked of these care people or, or agents, I guess, there's care people. How do you deal with the privacy part of it?
Speaker 2 00:22:42 Right. So, so we'll kind of go those sort of those, uh, one at a time you asked a little bit, like, what, what, where do we find agents, not the care side, but the agent side, the experience side, where do we find them? You know, who are these people? What do they do? Um, by the way, there's some really fun videos that are out on our IRA, YouTube. And one of them, my favorite is, um, I am an IRA agent and it's all the words I'm gonna use here will not do justice to like the insight you'll get from listening and, and look, you know, talking to these agents, but I'll give you some fun demographics. Um, you know, we're very proud of our agents. Our customers love our agents and, you know, that's important, uh, because that is the service. Um, first I'll talk about some of the demographics. So 93% of our agents are college educated and 10% of undergraduate degree. Um, 70% are women. So, um,
Speaker 1 00:23:39 I guess that doesn't surprise me actually.
Speaker 2 00:23:42 Uh, I, I'm not surprised that I worked here. I can actually, but it did a little bit. I knew that we had a lot of, um, female agents. I just didn't know it was at that percentage. Um, here's another one 50% of our agents are veterans or, or, you know, spouses of someone in the military. Oh, wow. And that's in part because it's interesting. Yeah. Isn't it like, and that's in part, because this is a very friendly, easy work from home experience. So imagine if you're the military, what do you know you're going to be moving around? And so a lot of jobs are not, you know, set up for someone who's going to move around. And, um, you know, another one is, uh, you know, we have about 12% of our current Asian population is multilingual. So, and we have good diversity too. Um, 17% of our agents staff is black or African-American, and that's something, you know, in today's environment we had to look at, um, and, and consider, right.
Speaker 2 00:24:43 Cause I think this is the time for every business to, you know, embrace, embrace this movement and do something for it. But ultimately that's, that's our agent pool. Um, another thing we're proud of, like, I think, yeah, no, I know we're probably this, when we turn on the job application, so right now you can go to IRA, you can see that there's a jobs, but our application is not open there's, we're not accepting new agents at this time, but when we do open it up, we get about a thousand applicants per day. Wow. Pretty amazing. Which makes sense. Anyone can work an IRA. I mean, there's some minimum requirements from a hardware perspective and there's some really difficult requirements to make the cut. We only hire about 1.3% of those people who apply. So it's harder to get into IRA than many Ivy league schools. Um, so that's one reason perhaps why, you know, everyone loves this service, uh, is because, you know, we got a great pool of applicants and we have great training and ultimately, um, you know, a great base of folks that are growing with IRA.
Speaker 1 00:25:53 It's interesting. Um, the female part, I guess that doesn't surprise me, that you have such a large population of women who do the description part, because if you think about it, I guess in my line of doing this show, I've discovered in general, women are caretakers. Not that this is a quote caretaker thing, but it does kind of fall under that. I will help you, you know? Um, so I think that that falls right in line with things I'm wondering, what are the most common things, if you could say three common things that people call IRA to ask, what are they
Speaker 2 00:26:35 I'm going to name one or two, but Ryan Muir, you use the service, you know, when you talk to our agents, um, what I'm going to say generally, as everyone thinks of IRA is a navigation tool. Like, Oh, this is something that I use the airport. This is something I use when I'm out and about. Um, fun pack. It's only makes up about 20 to 30% of our calls, the navigation. Um, one of the most common task is some form of an online task, whether it's shopping, um, and then I'll just pick shopping. So a lot of folks are shopping online these days, and there's a lot of information on the web, but at the same time, many pictures, images be fair on Airbnb. Like think of all the sites that as a visual person, like I get all this extra information because you know, the, the images is, um, describe, you know, mascot there, or folks are learning new tools because they're working from home, learning from home and not all those tools are fully accessible. So we get a lot of calls for that online. Ryan, what are some of the ones that come to mind for you
Speaker 3 00:27:42 Say some of them are common ones, a male reading, a lot of people will call IRA to read a letter that they got in the mail. Um, a lot of people use IRA as a shopper's assistant inside stores. Um, and I would say my third one, um, just general kitchen tasks or what people do in cooking, you know, call IRA to read a box and in your freezer as I did today. Um, I think that's, it's pretty common. I think you'll see a lot of people. I know sometimes for me, it's, it's really that quick little bit of information like, Hey, is this set, right? I know some people call to get their instant pot red, um, which is a pretty common one. Um, so I think it's really that quick, a little bit of visual information. Um, I think the male's task for me is the big one. I've always used that as an example, when I'm doing things, uh, you know, it's that big stack of mail and I'll just call it and get it read by an agent and I don't have to scan it.
Speaker 1 00:28:42 Yeah. Yeah. Well, and I was explaining to somebody who said, she's like, well, I don't, I don't really need to use it. And I said, well, you know, you never know you should just try it. But the other thing is it does make a difference. I think if you have some sight or no site, especially when you're talking about mining up a camera and getting it in the center and making sure all sides are, you know, seen. So I think that that makes a big difference. Then if you go to maybe a five minute job to a 25 minute job or 20 minute job, you know, it's like, I'm an, I like efficiency. So I, I'm going to take the fastest route.
Speaker 3 00:29:27 That's, what's so brilliant about our agents, uh, you know, being when you call in, um, because, and I'll admit it, you know, before I used IRA, I was not the greatest at pointing a camera anywhere. Uh, you know, and then getting in and talking to an, uh,
Speaker 1 00:29:42 You, they can quickly tell you, Hey, point the camera a little bit to the left, right. Or pointing, you know, a little down. And what kind of like what you said, you know, and they're accurate five minute task, two minute task, right. In during the, we got to do it. Okay. During the COVID time, did you notice any change both on the user base and then how did things change for you guys as a company?
Speaker 2 00:30:11 Sure. Um, so yeah, a lot changed. Um, but I think at the metal level, when you look at what we don't reveal, um, you know, all the sessions that we take are private and then none of this is shared, um, as individual data outside of IRA. So we take our privacy very seriously, but what we can talk about is kind of, you know, macro, um, data. So like the, you know, if you look at the, uh, kind of our four food groups, sometimes they call it like navigating, describing reading and online tasks, um, shopping. So there's really five and then other, so maybe that's six. Um, but if you look at those food groups, we definitely saw, um, the ranking of navigating in terms of the volume of calls or the length of those calls, um, that drops significantly and significantly. It could be like a few percentage points or a little more like five. Um, and we saw online tasks and reading go up. Right. So, so that that's that's right there. And by the way, um,
Speaker 1 00:31:15 Because people probably lost their readers if they had them.
Speaker 2 00:31:18 Yeah. And you're just not going out and about like a lot of folks use it in conjunction with work. Right. So whether it's work, travel, or, um, you know, going, uh, navigating, uh, between on a, on a large campus, like, like Microsoft, like people, you know, they're not at work, they're not navigating. Right. And they're at home, they're, they're doing what I said. They're, they're, we're all like, you know, we're now all proficient at zoom. Right. But like, there's that learning curve and then there's an ongoing need. And so we saw that change. That was a big change. Um, I think all of us had to like do a gut check on our expenses. We have a free service, we have a paid service. And so we saw, you know, some, some, uh, you know, decline in our paid user base for awhile. But what's interesting with all of this macro data in the last two months, um, we've seen a reversal of these trends, um, in, in, you know, we're seeing more navigation, we're seeing more users who are, you know, um, opting in for a paid subscription.
Speaker 2 00:32:22 Um, we're even in our business side, uh, which, um, is a whole nother topic, but, um, businesses who pay for IRA, uh, you know, like, like target or Intuit or 57 airports, et cetera, et cetera. Um, we saw some decline or in the decision-making about those. And now we're now we're seeing new municipalities, new businesses step up and, and deploy IRS. So it really tested our faith in that we have a valuable service and that we can, you know, continue as a, as an entity, like all businesses. And, um, I think that what was wonderful is I think everyone here, like Ryan, like everyone is so dedicated to the outcome, uh, because we can touch it and we can feel it. We can see it, right. These calls, um, you know, whether they're people talking about it online, or if you're privy to the private call log, like I am like, you hear that, you know, the excitement and these, uh, user's voices and that just, that just drives you on every day.
Speaker 1 00:33:28 We need to take another short station break and we'll be right back <inaudible>. And this is cafe 90.3 FM Minneapolis. And KFI that O R G and disability and progress is a show. My name is Sam. We're speaking with Ryan Bishop. Who's an IRA user who also runs customer care team and other various operations. And also Troy Attilio, who's the CEO and we're talking about IRA. And so we can't mention any, um, pricing for the exception of free, but, but, um, and, and you can say if it's paid, but can we talk, there is an interesting deal you have with like some businesses I know into it's one of them, uh, talk a little bit about them.
Speaker 2 00:34:24 Sure. Uh, so again, this is the, this is an idea that, um, kind of came about, um, much after IRR could develop our first business plan or our go to market business plan was, uh, basically to charge subscribers. Um, for their minutes, there was no free and we were looking to grow a paid service. And along the way, uh, we discovered at the Sam even even talked about this, like a lot of folks are, are this service doesn't really exist in the form, um, that we haven't like it's new. And so folks don't even understand. It's like, I think back to, um, you know, pre iPhone, right. Or even if you go back as far as, as I'm, I'm old enough to be pre Blackberry and even pre cell phone. And all of those, if you think about those, like in my experience, it was always like, kinda that's, that's a cool device and someone else has it and that other someone else I think has more money than me.
Speaker 2 00:35:25 And they probably have a bigger need that I don't have in my life. Right. And then eventually you get that new thing and you're like, how did I live without it? Right. So, but in the same is true for IRA. Um, but nonetheless, we know that not everyone can afford IRA. And so, um, we were scratching our heads. Like, what else can we do? And we're, we're working with the, uh, different, you know, government angles. And that's still a difficult road because visual interpretation is not a, you know, Medicaid, Medicare doesn't necessarily think of it as, um, you know, loss of eyesight as a condition I'm told, this is my understanding that that would then require government assistance. So we're struggling to figure out, and then we got the thinking like, well, shouldn't a business, want to like, invite a more diverse group into their, um, you know, as a customer in, into their premise on, on, you know, like make it more accessible. And then, gosh, now I don't remember. I don't remember how we got started in airports, but I guess because I know why most of our calls, a lot of our calls early days were in the airport and
Speaker 4 00:36:34 Think about it. I could understand that it is a stressful thing, right? Like where's my gate, where's my,
Speaker 2 00:36:41 And you, you've got to hit that tee that gets a time crunch, right? Like it's not as stressful, but time matters. And, um, and yeah, you gotta find your luggage. I mean, there's just a lot that can go wrong in an airport. And so definitely, you know, we, we, um, I think we approached, uh, a couple of airports. Um, credit go has to, uh, Memphis, Tennessee is the first ever higher access airport and that cool. And they were very proud and we're still very proud of them and with them, but, you know, we, we came to this idea that we will create, um, it's called the geo-fence it's technical, but basically just like, um, you know, use Uber Lyft. And you can kind of know when your cars close or Google maps with GPS in the phone, we know where you are and we know who you are.
Speaker 2 00:37:38 And so, um, when you're an access, when you're an Explorer, when you get near a access partner, you get a little notification on your phone. So if you're walking past the target near a Walgreens, near a bank America near a Walmart near, you know, a bunch of these businesses who have opted into provide IRA, um, you as the end-user can now use IRA for free for as long as you want while you're in that location, as well as online. So that's pretty sure to your airport, I believe is an IRA access zone as well. Um, bank of America is another one. Like I can fact I gotta be careful. Like I got to talk about Al we have 165 partners, right. And I'm not gonna list them all, but, um, there's just so many of them that it's becoming, um, you know, almost a, I don't wanna say an expectation, but it's, it's becoming easier and easier for these companies rationalize and understand because you know, their, um, whether it's a competitor or they're, you know, another company like them are deploying IRA. And so, um, they're a growing number across about 11 industries. I think the one that, um, comes to mind, uh, that, you know, we're seeing a lot of usage, every mentioned a couple of times as target. I mentioned Intuit. Um, we have a lot of universities by the way. Um, in the last month here at IRA, we don't reveal a lot of the, I can't reveal the name chat because they're not live, but we, we literally had five different universities purchase HIRA for their campus and their online experiences.
Speaker 1 00:39:20 And so can these people use that service even if they're not paid subscribers.
Speaker 2 00:39:26 Exactly. Yeah. So I'll give you this example when, when you go to Starbucks or other places, you get free wifi, when you go to any of these locations, you get free IRA. It's the same concept.
Speaker 1 00:39:41 Okay. You know, it's so fantastic that you're doing this because I mean, I, even, I, at first, when IRA came out, thought of it as an kind of, out of my league, that it was more of a prestigious, you know, maybe some people had excellent jobs and they can afford to toss X amount of money per month. Not that I didn't, wouldn't like something like that, but, you know, you, you gauge like, okay, how did I, did I die without it before? No, I didn't. So I probably don't have to have it. And I'm doing okay, but boy, to make it more attainable for the average person or even, you know, somebody who is lower income in some ways, if you can afford a cell phone, that is what's spectacular because, you know, that's, I think that just grows the not only the thing that gets you guys known, but also just helps the community in general and helps independence. Does Arab work both on an iPhone or an Android? Correct? What's that? Yep. Correct. So both iPhone and Android. Okay, cool. Um, and so I know you have various places that support IRA, um, for, you know, because they pay into the service. So it sounds like, so when you're at those places, you can use it. Is there a list of places on your website that people can go to and look at to see where they can use it?
Speaker 2 00:41:26 Right. I'll call it that. Yeah. There's definitely the website. And then the better way, another way, I think it's the better way is you can just download the app right now. It's free to download. You can sign up for free, it's free to join. And then once you have the app we've designed the interface so that you can find the locations that are near you, like really physical.
Speaker 4 00:41:49 Ah, I see. Okay. So you can search for the free location. Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:41:55 And then in addition to the physical locations, there's a separate section in the app, or it's in that same area, you can go explore the various, um, we call them offer or promotions one. We didn't talk about Sam. I don't know if we, you know, um, was we have, what's called a job seeker promotion. Yeah. This is something that, uh, IRA developed in combination with our partners, NFB, ACB, and AFP. Um, in fact, when we, when we launched it, uh, we, we, we had a press release in the IRR office with, with the leaders of those organizations were quite proud about it. We still are. The job seeker, um, promotion is there to, um, reduce the unemployment rate. Um, you know, there's very sources for this information, but the unemployment rate for people who are blind region pairs is, you know, very, very high. And, um, and we decided that what IRA could do, um, within a BACB and AFP would be to fund the calls that are used for someone in their job seeking efforts, whether it's finding first-time employment or new employment, you literally can download the app for free.
Speaker 2 00:43:13 And, you know, you're doing something that's job seeking related. You click on the job seeker app and you're connected to an agent. And what does it use for, um, whether it's, uh, you know, everything from tailoring your resume to perhaps reading and filling out an inaccessible form. Maybe it's a paper form searching online, getting dressed for your interview, getting to the interview, finding the front door of the place you're at. Um, and it can be very effective as a way to explain to your employer, like how it is that, um, you know, that you are going to achieve some of the goals like knowing employers, you know, we did a whole research on this kind of a sad and an unspoken, uh, element here is a lot of employers are afraid to ask.
Speaker 4 00:43:56 Yes. Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 2 00:43:59 Yeah. But ultimately this is a tool that can be used and, and job seekers, our way of like promoting, um, employment is as best we can, uh, close with. And I know that you asked a more general question, but, um, we have a report, uh, that we'll soon be publishing on our website that talks about the results of our job seeker program, because we studied individuals over a one year period. Um, and, and I can tell you the outcome is, is very promising, um, relative to other approaches. So anyway, yeah. Um, access is a huge part of our business. You can tell I'm very passionate about it.
Speaker 1 00:44:38 What types of tasks is IRA limited to doing? So what are some tasks that are more difficult for someone to help with?
Speaker 2 00:44:49 Uh, first I'll say we have, like all mobile applications are online, um, website, suite, we have a terms of service that, that includes a privacy policy. And, uh, you know, it's written to be as simple and clear as possible, um, yet, you know, there's a lot to it. And, but part of it is this kind of agreement with the Explorer about what, what you can use IRA for and whatnot, and maybe stating with is obvious. You can't use it to do illegal activities. So you can't hold it up,
Speaker 1 00:45:22 Imagine that
Speaker 2 00:45:23 You can't use it to, you know, buy illegal, uh, items. Um, you know, and, and you're gonna imagine what that list is. Ultimately, the agents are humans, right? They're, they're, you know, empathetic and, and, you know, they deserve respect and we have a term service. So if, if in rare cases, there's some really bad behavior, um, you know, treating agents with disrespect, we will suspend service. And we've done that. We've had to do that a few times, um, as far as what tasks, um, I may sound kind of, well, the answer is as long as there's enough light for the agent to see, or it's an online task for the, where the agent can do the research and there's a network there's network connectivity, we can help with it. Ryan, you might have a better answer to that on what tasks, um, do not work as well with IRA.
Speaker 3 00:46:15 One of our agent, uh, agent training specialists, when I say no task is really too big or too small for an IRA agent to do, um, as long as it is legal, uh, the IRA agents, um, come from such a diverse background. You know, you have agents from, uh, all over the United States who do so many different things. Uh, we have agents who are in, who have so many different backgrounds and can, can accomplish really any tasks, uh, that, that an Explorer will call in for, I mean, we've had, uh, tasks from the more online to the technical, to the more, uh, the, the joys of guide dog ownership to the, you know, really and everything foreign in between, um, traveling, uh, street crossing is, uh, so there's really been, uh, you name it. We've probably had it. Um,
Speaker 1 00:47:18 I'm going to stop you there a minute. I want to know, cause you guys did change your street crossing, um, thing a little while back, talk about that change. Did you change it from,
Speaker 3 00:47:30 And what did you change it to? So previously, um, in our street crossing policy, we had a rule that whatever you approached net or section, um, an agent would say the phrase I am going to remain silent while you cross, and the agent would not speak. Um, in fact, they would use a new button and not say anything at all while you cross the street. Um, and that really was a, a safety precaution as well as, you know, many other reasons. But we, we, we, we spoke to a lot of the, a lot of gotten a lot of feedback, uh, throughout the years, we've gotten a lot of, uh, uh, just a lot of surveys. Um, and we had a lot of people saying they want to get a little bit more information. Um, you know, people really did use IRA for navigation. Um, even 30% of our calls, I believe it is the, is the number was for traveling navigation.
Speaker 3 00:48:32 And so a lot of these, uh, a lot of these people wanting to get more information on street crossing is whether, um, the especially veering or, you know, what, what that street looks like. Um, so we changed the street crossing policy to be more like our parking lot policy, which says that you can ask questions, uh, within regards to the street, uh, you can gain more visual information. So really, as long as the agent can see it, the agent can tell you, okay, now I preface that by saying, you know, there's definitely a lot of, uh, information that goes into a street crossing, um, and a lot of, uh, information that you, that you can gather from being able to even see the street, you know, whether or not how many lanes it is, how many lanes of traffic, how much, uh, how much time do you seem to have, uh, when crossing. And so, as long as the agent can see that's based on cellular connection, of course, based on, and the agents of course will let you know. Um, and they're very good at that. If they don't feel like they have a good enough connection to tell you, uh, that objective information. Um, so we need to take one more station break and we'll be right back.
Speaker 5 00:49:56 Hi, there it's me CRC. In addition to being the guy talking to you right now, did you know, I also serve on cafe content advisory committee. It's true. I was elected in 2019. The kind of advisory committee works the cafe as senior staff to guide decisions related to cafes programming. The committee includes cafes, general manager and program director, along with the board of directors, liaison and volunteers elected by the cafe community. That's you, any donor, a volunteer member is eligible to serve on the content advisory committee. We meet once a month for a couple of hours. If you're passionate about community radio and would like to realize our vision of diversity inclusion and equity, please consider candidacy for the content advisory committee. Applications will be accepted through Saturday, November 14th at 5:00 PM. Committee members elected will serve a one-year term through 2020. One more information is available at cafe.org/elections.
Speaker 1 00:50:46 <inaudible> the 0.3 FM Minneapolis, and KFA dot O R G a. This is disability and progress. We're speaking with Ryan Bishop and Troy <inaudible>. And we're talking about IRA. So we're talking about street crossings, but I want to go and talk, you know, a little bit more about what new things are coming up from IRA. You only got a couple minutes, so, um, make sure you leave time for your website easily to get carried away.
Speaker 2 00:51:31 So new things that are well, one thing we're proud of is the pace of innovation at IRS since, um, since it was founded and forever more, we're always going to be adding, uh, new capabilities, different plans, and certainly more access partners, right? Like you will always hear like every month, I'll be one to five in someday hundreds of new access partners per month. Um, and so on the roadmap, I can't tell you which access partners are coming, but there's, um, if we're successful, you will have heard it here. First. There's a couple of rather large brands with lots of locations that, uh, that we'll be announcing. We're pretty excited about. There's a couple of, um, a state that is considering IRA. So we'll, we'll see if that goes through can't, um, can't promise, uh, that there's a state that's looking at like their entire transportation network and essential such as, uh, getting food and medicine. So that's pretty
Speaker 1 00:52:31 Exciting, really cool,
Speaker 2 00:52:33 But I can't promise it because it's counting.
Speaker 1 00:52:39 So can you give us your website? Absolutely. Sorry.
Speaker 5 00:52:43 That is ira.io and that's a, I R a.com.
Speaker 1 00:52:50 And so I presume that is also where you go, if somebody would like to get involved with doing description, you know, billing
Speaker 2 00:53:00 Go to the website there. And the other thing to remember is just, you, you don't have to even go to the website. You can just get your phone right now, type in a, I R a into the app store into the, you know, the play store, download it for free you'll you can take a call within, like, by the time I finished talking to you, you would have already been connected. We connect to calls within under 10 seconds on average. So, um, you know, start there, start with the app.
Speaker 1 00:53:28 So, um, just say for me, I got started, I did the five minute free thing. You can do that. Um, how often can you do that? How are you limited? Are you limited one per 24 hours or,
Speaker 3 00:53:44 Correct? Yeah. So when you first download the app, if you don't have a plan here limited to one every 24 hours.
Speaker 1 00:53:50 Okay. And, um, what kind of feedback have you gotten from your care team? Like how has this changed their life and the, the idea of what type of job they're doing now? What, what has this done for them?
Speaker 3 00:54:05 A lot of our agents are super positive. Um, I think we've gotten, uh, some of the best sayings of this is one of the greatest places to work. Um, I'm so happy to be a part of such a, you know, a wonderful company. I mean, I think there's overall massive, uh, uh, positivity. And I think one of the greatest things that we've heard as well, um, and, and I'll end with this, you know, on this one, but the agents have always said that they enjoy getting to travel along, uh, virtually with their explorers as, or, uh, different places from going to different cities, to different States, being all over the place. Um, the agents just really enjoy that, uh, outward experience and getting to live life through other people's eyes and getting to see that
Speaker 1 00:55:00 Do any of them have to sign any type of privacy thing? I mean, I imagine that there's sometimes asked to read some fairly personal or private things,
Speaker 2 00:55:12 Explorers choose the, I mean, it's their, it's their choice completely on what they, they do approve the term service just to be clear, but we've had explorers opt into reading prescriptions, legal information banking. We've been to funerals, we've read pregnancy tests on you name it. You know, we've had probably a call by now. And ultimately privacy is at the core of IRA, whether it's our infrastructure being secure, but also our agents, we go through a lot of background checks and they have to sign their life away in terms of, um, you know, agreeing to this privacy statements. So you do do background checks. Absolutely. Yes.
Speaker 3 00:55:51 Non-disclosure agreements, privacies background checks, you name it,
Speaker 2 00:55:55 Then we monitor with calls as well. So, you know,
Speaker 1 00:55:58 It's so interesting now because, um, I read something somewhere just for, you know, that they said you would be surprised how many people either are felons or cannot pass a background check. Um, and you would be, you probably know some, and you w you wouldn't think that. And I was like, really? Who do I know I found that almost a scary statistic. Like, is it that easy to do something horrible? What is that? Uh, so if I can ask you real quick, what is your, what would you like to see for IRA in the future? Troy
Speaker 2 00:56:37 Boy, I would just like to see it get in the hands of more people like yourself. So I made a small step today. I got, I got one more. This one's going to explore. It's seriously. Like, you know, and what I see in the future is with, by listening to our customers and also working in their access partners, et cetera, it sounds mom and pop, you know, but a Apple pie, but ultimately broadening the usage and making it even more convenient, having IRA and more places. Imagine IRA, you know, if you want it on your Alexa, imagine IRA in those glasses that no one has built yet. Um, it will be there. Um, imagine IRA, like you can use it right from your desktop. Imagine IRA and other applications it's right there. So I'm, I'm shopping on Amazon on the app and I can just press a button and boom I'm. I can use IRA when I need it. Um, that's just a few of the ideas, um, or the vision, but it's, it's just more people, more efficient and more useful, you know, for everyone at a lower cost.
Speaker 1 00:57:41 Excellent. Well, we need to say good night and I just want to thank you both so much for coming on. Um, it's been great and I'm so happy to have been able to talk with you about this.
Speaker 2 00:57:53 Well, we look forward to coming back. Thanks so much for having me.
Speaker 1 00:57:56 Thank you. This has been disability and progress. The views expressed on this show are not necessarily those of KPI or its board of directors. My name is Sam. I'm the host of this show. Charlene dolls, my research woman, Annie horrible is my engineer. Thank you, Annie. This is KPI 90.3 FM
[email protected]. We were speaking with Brian Bishop who an IRA user, and also runs the customer care team. Also, we were speaking with Troy or Teleo, um, who is the CEO of IRA. We were talking about IRA, fresh fruit is up next. Thank you so much for listening. Good night.
