Tech is brilliant but so is the human touch.

In this episode of Gear, Gadgets and Gizmos, Nigel Lewis talks about his passion for IT and how it can transform the lives of disabled and older people. He also reminds us there is still much to do to ensure that technology is accessible, inclusive and available to all.

His career began in software development, and he has since worked in many aspects of IT services over the years.

Nigel Lewis was the London regional director for Fujitsu Services before he joined AbilityNet as their CEO in 2007.

AbilityNet is a charity specialising in assistive technology and making technology accessible for all, especially disabled and older people, and during his time at AbilityNet, he saw massive changes in IT and other enabling devices and software.

He once described tech as "the great enabler", which should benefit excluded groups". Since leaving Ability Net in 2020, he has worked for another charity providing employment for disabled people. 

Since May 2021, he supposedly retired but is now interim CEO for 2 charities, one a small natural history museum and the other a charity that provides equipment for disabled children and support for their families.

Links
AbilityNet
British Consumer Society (BCS)

Transcript

Phil Friend  0:11  
Well, hello everybody, and welcome to the latest edition of Gear, Gadgets and Gizmos, the show where we talk about all things disability, particularly in relation to tech and other things that disabled people use to overcome the barriers that they face in everyday life. Now today is slightly different in that I'm talking to somebody who I've known. I'm going to ask him in a minute how long it is. But his name is Nigel Lewis he was the London Regional Director for Fujitsu services before he joined an organisation called Ability Net as their CEO in 2007. His career actually began in software development, and he's since worked in many aspects of IT services over the years. Ability Net is a charity specialising in assistive technology and making technology accessible for all, especially disabled people. And during his time at AbilityNet, he saw massive changes in IT and other enabling devices and software. We'll get into some of that, he once described tech as "the great enabler", which would benefit excluded groups. And since leaving AbilityNet in 2017 he has worked for another charity providing employment for disabled people. And since May 2021, Nigel "allegedly retired," but he is now the interim CEO for two charities, one a small natural history museum, and the other a charity that provides equipment for disabled children and support for their families. So welcome, welcome Nigel. It's great to see you again. And thank you for joining me today. How are you doing?

Nigel Lewis  1:48  
Thanks, Phil; I'm doing really well on this actually sunny but chilly day. 

Phil Friend  1:53  
Yeah, it's great to see you again. It's been while autumn is upon us, is it not?

Nigel Lewis  1:57  
It is? Yeah.

Phil Friend  1:59  
Okay. Well, obviously, I think the two places we really need to start before we perhaps open up and talk about other things. My understanding is you're not a disabled person yourself. But maybe that's changed.

Nigel Lewis  2:13  
I'm getting older, though. So yeah.

Phil Friend  2:16  
But you spent all of the time I've known you working around the field of disability, but what was it? Or what is it that makes that really where you want to spend your time, the disability issue stuff?

Nigel Lewis  2:28  
Yeah, so you probably know this, but for the audience, I have a very severely disabled son. He who is nearly 37 goodness me. So he was born disabled. He's, he's very severely disabled, cerebral palsy can't see because of his brain injury can't move, etc. So early on, realised that, you know, technology can help him in, in just helping him to enjoy his life. And so that's, I guess, really, where my true disability journey and passion started with him. And how, how it affects his day to day life?

Phil Friend  3:16  
What was the first? Can you remember then? You know, tech helped him what's one thing you recall all those years, all those 37 years ago that helped him?

Nigel Lewis  3:26  
Well, we didn't quite start 37 years ago, but there was an amazing piece of technology. And it's and it might be a bit of a surprise, it was a it was basically a wooden platform that he could lay on, and you could hook it in to a switch and music and lights and it would vibrate. And he loved it. So it at that time when he could still move his head with purpose, he could turn his head and hit a switch. And it would set off some lights or some music and it would trigger the vibrating bed. And that feedback and interaction. He just loved it. It would make him smile and giggle and it was it was beautiful.

Phil Friend  4:08  
It's fabulous, isn't it? some of the tech that we talk about on this show actually is incredibly low tech you know it's not mega bucks and stuff although that at the time was probably quite innovative. Wasn't it?

Nigel Lewis  4:22  
It was and he was probably known joining it up and you know you will have experienced it and lots of people who listen to this podcast we'll have probably experienced the the joining up of the different bits of tech that nobody has ever thought about to join a head switch with a piece of music to a vibrating wooden bed who would have ever thought that and figured out how to do that got his soldering iron out to do it.

Phil Friend  4:51  
Okay, so Okay, so that explains the first bit your passion comes from personal experience as a dad and and obviously now he's a grown adult, but still very dependent on you and your family, I'm guessing for what he gets and what he needs. So that takes you to AbilityNet. Now I know about AbilityNet. It's one of my favourite organisations, the charity. And in many ways, a lot of my reason for liking it so much comes because I've known you there and all the work you did, but just explain to our listeners a bit about AbilityNet. I know you haven't been there for a while, 

Nigel Lewis  5:26  
Yeah, no, I haven't been there for I left in 2017. So five years. But for me, I mean, what what took me is, you know, that passion for disability and, and my previous career was in technology. So I worked in IT for 25 years, delivering it. And, you know, I got to this point in my career where I wanted to do something more meaningful. And so this job popped up advertised for a CEO and AbilityNet was, for me, it was it was a job made in heaven, this beautiful mix of technology and supporting disabled people. So AbilityNet exists to make the world of technology more accessible and more inclusive for disabled people. And I'd also say for other people, predominantly older people as well. So we've all experienced the frustration of trying to use technology. And so how to make the websites, the mobile apps, the applications, and the physical technology itself, more accessible for anybody, but especially people with disabilities. That's, that's their mission that they've been around to deliver for over 30 years now. And that landscape has changed hugely. Over that time, even when I was with them for 11 years, you know, from what they were doing to what we ended up doing. And what I see that they're doing today is incredible.

Phil Friend  6:58  
And they started I think, didn't they IBM didn't IBM fund the initial startup kind of thing?

Nigel Lewis  7:04  
Yeah. So the IBM and the BCS, the British Computer Society were two of the original corporate trustees. And, and Microsoft, as well, so helped fund them, give them premises give them access to technology real, a real support to a charity that, you know, you can't underestimate how useful and beneficial that was. And still, I assume is I'm not involved in the kind of governance and anything, obviously, anymore. But yeah.

Phil Friend  7:40  
I mean, what, it's a beautiful symmetry in a way, because they start off doing that helping the charity grow and develop, and where it where it is now, or what, as far as I'm aware, still is now is part of its mission, of course, is to help disabled people get into work, so that they use technology in the commercial, commercial world. And of course, IBM and Microsoft, and others, all have a vested interest in attracting talent. So it's so nice synergy, but now, it's some, as you say, it's it's been an incredible journey over the last 30 years, what we've seen go on, and I suppose that leads to thinking about in your time there, what, two, three things do you think really transformed the landscape for from a tech point of view for people in whatever way be vibrating beds or?

Nigel Lewis  8:36  
Yeah, so yeah, so this is obviously going to be my personal view of what I think I think, for me, I think some of the really major step forwards was the mobile revolution, and apps. And that might sound a bit odd, but that revolution in the mobile market had a tremendous impact into the provision of assistive technology for people. So it it broadens what was available, and it really changed the cost basis, you Phil will know how costly assistive technology was, and some of it can still be quite expensive, you know, if you need even you look at powered wheelchairs or something, they can be hideously expensive. But if you look at eye gaze, you know, an eye tracking in order to be able to use technology, it was probably 20,000 pounds a system when I started and now it's probably hundreds of pounds. So that has revolutionised how people thought about the provision of technology. And it kind of put it into bite sized simple chunks. So that was one thing I think has been truly transformational. I think I would say this Second thing is, what I would say is mainstreaming technology as in embedding it into the operating systems, the gadgets that we buy. And I think there's been you know, Apple was leading the way, obviously with their inbuilt Microsoft have now done a huge step up and with things like Alexa, Google Home, etc, what's built in the box and built into the applications for transcribe being voice into text etc, that again has done a major step forward in improving the accessibility for disabled people. And the third thing that I'm going to pick on, which isn't really tech. And it's, it's often got me into a lot of trouble saying this. So here we go again, is is, if you like, and this is not meant to be derogatory to anybody working in the accessibility world, but is providing a framework of professionalising, though, for people who do work so that they have the credentials, and the structure, and the symmetry of how to make things accessible through the IAAP, the International accessibility association of professionals. And it's sorry, you know, it's like, you know, becoming a Microsoft professional, you can become an accessibility professional.

Phil Friend  11:34  
I'm interested in this as I know you are because back in those days, certainly early days, there was no thought at all about making things accessible. Software was Microsoft Word, or whatever it was, Apple, as you rightly say, lead the way. But I think you and I spent an awful lot of time trying to convince people to write software that actually built in and the professionals who were doing that didn't seem to get it, did they somehow?

Nigel Lewis  12:04  
No, no, they certainly didn't, because it wasn't on, it wasn't a business agenda. I think this is what I mean, about mainstreaming as well is, you know, if you were in an organisation who were writing an app, or a product, or whatever it might be back in the day, accessibility was not part of the design process. You know, it wasn't even thought about when the marketing department thought, let's have one of these things. So there's been a move in that direction. And it's not just the technology, people that need to understand accessibility is the business people have when you are going to build a new product, design a new app, change your website, create literature, documents, whatever it might be that we use, your even your processes, like recruitment, we touched on about recruitment, you've got to bake in accessibility and inclusion right up front. And I think that landscape has changed. But it's still got a long way to go.

Phil Friend  13:15  
Yeah, I mean, there used to be an old adage didn't lay that, you know, as we develop new technologies, so we disabled more people. A blind person following a plough horse is one thing, but working in a factory if you couldn't see the machinery was quite another, and it and the same is true of tech. You know, I think parties have a lot of people on this show, who got major sight impairments of one sort or another. We've come to rely hugely on the technology now that's available to them. Many of them also talk about how they're disabled by it, because they can't.

Nigel Lewis  13:48  
Yeah, it hasn't been designed properly, or inclusively. And it's not, it's not rocket science, this stuff. And if you do it upfront, like anything else, you would design as well. you'd hope you design a system with security in mind. Not always, but most of the time, you would hope now that we would design a system that's inclusive and accessible for the widest audience possible. Yeah, whether that was sight loss, hearing loss, learning, anxiety, mental health, whatever it might be, you know, we need to be thinking of that broad audience. Because it's a massive audience.

Phil Friend  14:30  
Yes, sure. I suppose. Could part of the defence of the industry be I know it certainly was in the early days that we just didn't have the memory or the speed or the sophistication in the chips those kinds of excuses is probably no longer there. The processing power of my wristwatch is God knows what you know the old first Sinclair's Do you remember the first Yeah,

Nigel Lewis  14:57  
I do. Yes. Oh, yeah, I do and the BBC Micro and all those sorts of things, there's probably more processing power in your washing machine or your fridge. Yeah, than those days that no, the technology is not an excuse. There's, you know, there's, there's enough CPU, there's enough memory, there's enough everything. And there's enough tech that exists in order to deliver this stuff. It's, it's more about the will the knowledge and the understanding of people and organisations to make it happen. You know, there's, there's great examples of, and you will know this, Phil, about, you know, organisations have been made to change their mindset by one or two really dedicated people within them who are willing to potentially stake their career sometimes because they're willing to stand up and go, this is not right. This, we cannot do this. It's not just it's not right. To further if you like, disable the most vulnerable within our society, because we're not willing to just include this. And it's not hard if you do it upfront, it's not more time consuming. And often, it makes life simpler for everybody. You know, an accessible solution is a good solution for everyone. It's not just for the disabled people.

Phil Friend  16:27  
Yeah. Yeah. No, that's, that's absolutely true. I often use as an example, you don't see too many people walking through a door, they have to open themselves if there's an automatic door right next to it.

Nigel Lewis  16:38  
Correct. And I do all the time. Press the button. Yeah, exactly.

Phil Friend  16:44  
I know that you're still very much involved in the world of disability, clearly you are through your son, but also doing the work you're doing with another charity now, as your allegedly retired? Rubbish. So you're still in touch, obviously. So thinking, what are the challenges then that we still need to confront? What are the sorts of two three things that come to your mind when you think about, we've come an enormous distance? It's so much better than they used to be? We can't argue that, yeah, there are still some really difficult things going on that don't appear to have shifted, or maybe they're new because of the technology we've got, what was your thinking around.

Nigel Lewis  17:27  
So I don't know whether there's anything new, because it's very rare that you actually find anything new, I think it's probably just the scale of it, and the pace of it. So I think there's still fundamentally a lot of organisations and a lot of people out there that still don't understand or even know about the argument of accessibility. So it's not that people go out of their way to design or build an inaccessible solution, whether that's a website and app, a process or service. It's, it's so they just don't know that they should be doing it. And I think that is still one of the big fundamental challenges that exists. I still meet loads of people, I still talk to loads of people who just don't understand that we should be doing this, you know, 20 years on, in, in this agenda, and that, that is a real fundamental issue, because how can you expect people to deliver these solutions? If they don't know about it? So we've got to fix the awareness? You know, and I, I used when I presented a lot on this stuff, I always equated it to the the issue about climate change. You know, if you go back to the 70s, and 80s, there were probably a few people who were talking about climate change. And now we all get it. We all understand it. Not unnecessarily. There are still people that don't agree with it, bizarrely. But there you go. That's their choice. But every if you asked anybody about climate change, they could tell you about it. If you asked people about accessibility of technology, very I still think very few people could actually gives you a great answer unless you're in a conference about accessibility. So I think that's still a fundamental barrier to providing good, inclusive solutions. I think we still have this and it's increasing in a way because the text moving so fast about the knowledge and the willingness and this overcoming the scariness of technology, and I think, you know, the skill base is still a massive issue for people and I think that's accelerated because if one thing COVID has done, it's driven pretty much everything online. I you know, I had my I had to go to the doctors for the first one. I didn't go to the doctors. I had my first telephone conversation consultation With the doctor, and that I was offered a video consultation. So if you're not comfortable, or want to use the tech, then I think that's a massive, massive barrier. And I think, you know, we've always had this conversation about, you know, or there's been this thought about, well, you know, the older generation will die off, and the younger generation will take their place, but there'll be used to tech. And I'm probably part of that older generation about to die off now. But actually, the tech is changing. And actually, some of the new tech is probably becoming scary for me. So it's this ongoing issue of how do we, how do we make? How do we make people comfortable with and have the skill set to be able to use the technology that's available for them? And then I think the last thing, it still comes down to access to the technology, you know, people can't avoid, necessarily afford to buy it, it moves so quickly, and everything goes out of date, and it's not supported anymore, or, you know, your mobile phone slows down because it's five years old, and you can't hardly get it to do anything. It's how do people maintain the access to the technology that will enable their lives?

Phil Friend  21:21  
I can't have anything to add? I mean, that accessibility conversation. I'm struck by how you and I, when we first met all those years ago, yeah, we're still staggered that we have to have the same conversation. Yeah, I go to the same meetings. And very often, you're sitting there thinking, Yeah, you didn't do this stuff?

Nigel Lewis  21:42  
Well, you and I have been in the same meetings with the clients, you know, having this conversation with new people that have come to the table. And we're still asking the same question. So, you know, did you design in accessibility into this app? Have you tested it, to ensure that it has a level of accessibility and inclusion? And you know, it's a bit depressing in a way, because we are having those same conversations, you're also

Phil Friend  22:11  
somebody that at any meeting I've been at will be one of the first to remind everybody that not everybody can use this stuff. Not everybody can afford this is mentioned that as well. And that there are a lot of people and I don't mean a lot of people, we're talking million million people who for whatever reason, maybe cost, maybe skill, maybe accessibility, can't use this stuff. And I know you're very concerned about how do we keep them included? So we're back in a sense to your son and his board? low tech world? Yes. Well, in which tech is low tech, but it's still really important. Your son's board was vital to him at that point. Yeah. What's your thought? If you've got any thoughts now as you look at the landscape, but how do we keep engaged people who are suspicious of this stuff, or just simply can't use it? For whatever reason?

Nigel Lewis  23:08  
I think we mustn't forget that, you know, if you like the tried and tested technology that people are used to. So the telephone, you know, the good old fashioned telephone. For those, you know, there will be some people that can't use it. But you know, and we shouldn't, we can't forget the face to face as well. You know, people like to go and meet other people and discuss so whether that's walking into a shop or going into maybe your Local Authority Office, or whatever it is that personal interaction, I think, because we've, I think this is what has really accelerated, you know, over the last two years with COVID is it's really hard to meet anybody. It's or talk to anybody. You know, it's all gone online. It's all chat with robots. It's all of this. And I think there is an essence of, we've lost that personal touch, and especially for people, disabled people, older people. I think that ability to have the time, I did something today, because I've just got a new phone. And I had, I had a code sent to me to renable an app. And it said, this code is only valid for 45 seconds. And I think if I if I had a learning difficulty or a dexterity difficulty, you know, I'd be forever pressing the refresh button because it wouldn't I wouldn't be able to get to it within 45 seconds. So yeah, we were losing the personal touch. And I think that really, really worries me and we need to try and keep that balance somehow.

Phil Friend  24:56  
It's it's that I don't know how much of AbilityNet now does it? It certainly used to do it and I used it a lot was the old newsletter. So the personal touch and using, in quote, "old tech", like a biro on a paper might just the way to do it for some Yeah,

Nigel Lewis  25:15  
for some people, you know, and it's not maybe what people want to do, but it's what's necessary. I know, one thing that ability still does is they, they have a group of volunteers, tech volunteers who go into people's homes, to help them solve their problems. Because I think that's the other issue, isn't it? You know, when your tech goes wrong, and, and you're not working for a company who you could turn to for a bit of private support? is who do you turn to who helps you because the, you know, I've used tech all my career, and I still get frustrated and challenged by when my technology goes wrong. So if you're not used to it, where do you go? And I know that there are other, you know, other charities out there that provide that invaluable support for people, you know, because yeah, how often does the damn thing not work as it did yesterday? Because something's happened or you forgotten? Or, you know, it's changed without you realising?

Phil Friend  26:14  
Yeah. And I think I mean, mean was we draw our conversation to a close, it's interesting, where we've ended up isn't it, which is where you and I both sit on a group that BT use to think about what they're doing and how they're developing how they maintain a real accessible input for disabled people, customers. And one of the things they've been talking a lot about with us, is somebody calling at your house and coming in and fixing it for you? Yes. Which is what you're talking about? Yeah. And in many ways, if you are using high tech stuff, you don't have to know how it works. If there's somebody you can call to come in and just fix Yeah, if you don't have a son or a daughter or a family, man. Yeah. It's interesting, isn't it? So for all the tech, wherever we arrive, we finished the thing, Nigel, let's say that we're all the world we live in, which is fantastic. Without doubt. Yeah, those of us that can use it and before Yeah, yeah. But there is a real place still for that human to human conversation. Which perhaps, we've lost sight of.

Nigel Lewis  27:19  
Yeah, absolutely. The the human contact and, and the friendly face, that can help you when you need it most.

Phil Friend  27:26  
Well, there you are what a lovely place to end this conversation. Nigel, I'm really grateful to you. Thank you very much. I know you've got 53 charities to go and run in a minute. So we'll always a pleasure. So thanks very much indeed.

Nigel Lewis  27:41  
Thank you, Phil. It's been it's been a pleasure and an honour to be able to do this. I really appreciate it.

Phil Friend  27:46  
If you'd like to share your stories about how you use technology to overcome some of the barriers that your disability puts in your way, then please contact me at brinkburn@gmail.com Or you can look up the Research Institute for Disabled Consumers details on their website, which is www.ridc.org.uk Thanks very much and I look forward to hearing from you

Transcribed by https://otter.ai