Scienze e tecnologie

INTERVIEW WITH GAVIN NEATE

WelcoMe and Button: the two apps for accessibility
A cura di Marta Bello
24 Nov 2023

Gavin, could you tell me something about you? I know that you’ve worked for years with dogs who help blind people; could you tell me more?

My name is Gavin Neate, and I am the CEO and founder of a company called Neatbox, which has two products. I am not a normal technologist: I didn’t go to the university, and I did not study it. Other people introduced me to technology and its potential, so I became excited by it. A little bit about me: in 1997, after 10 years in the military as a police dog handler training attack dogs, I started to train guide dogs to help blind people.I became a mobility dog instructor in 1996, I completed my training in 1999, and I totally loved it.

I worked for guide dogs for 18 years, and in total, I was a dog trainer for 28 years, but in 2006 something happened that totally changed my life. I saw that disabled people interacted with the phone in a way I had never seen before. I started to introduce technology in training, and then things happened.

How did the idea of technology come to your mind?

One day I was in front of a pedestrian crossing, and I thought, “Wouldn’t it be good if instead of having to find the button with my hand, I could press the bottom with my mobile phone?”. It comes to mind that it could be something useful, and by 2020, I invented the world’s first smartphone-operated pedestrian crossing.

My brain became open to many different things: if the phone can press a button for pedestrian crossing, it would be possible that it can also open a door. This means that disable people can have the same access as a person who can open it physically.

Furthermore, one of the problems I’ve seen as a mobility instructor is that when disabled people walk into a building, they are guessing and hoping that the staff they are going to meet can understand their needs. The problem is that it depends on the training of the staff Wel-co.me29 DIVERCITY MAGAZINE | SETTEMBRE 2023 | NUMERO 20 SCIENZE E TECNOLOGIE list of venues and see all the information and accessibility—for example, is there parking for disabled people? In this way, they can choose consciously. After this, the venue receives information about the person they are going to receive; in this way, the customer service could be more “prepared” to help that specific person with specific needs.

Of course, they can talk to each other through the app before: the venue can ask questions and the person can answer, and vice versa. There are more than 200 venues registered on the app.

After this (that could be very many things: a visit to the doctor, to buy in a shop, to stay at a hotel, and many other things), I will get an e-mail that says how well the staff do, and so I can fill out feedback that goes to the venue to let them know how well the staff did, and so on.

After this (that could be very many things: a visit to the doctor, to buy in a shop, to stay at a hotel, and many other things), I will get an e-mail that says how well the staff do, and so I can fill out feedback that goes to the venue to let them know how well the staff did, and so on.

Why could technology be very important in helping with inclusion?

I think the question itself can be confusing. For me, technology is a way to connect with distant people, but the risk is communicating with a neighbor without seeing each other face-to-face. So, it can also be a barrier, but I wanted to make sure that technology was a bridge for human interactions. With “WelcoMe” the phone stays in your pocket, and the fact that you use it means that the stuff member interacts with you as a human better. I was very aware of this when I started in 2009: 1 in 20 people has a mobile phone; today it’s the opposite: 1 in 20 people doesn’t have a mobile phone. But that person too deserves a solution. In the same way that people who forgot their phone at home or had no battery.

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