BE MY EYES! Let’s See the World Together. Hans Jørgen Wiberg

This episode is dedicated to Gaelin of Germany.

Gaelin you are going through so much with your 21 year old son's cancer diagnosis yet you

find time volunteering, helping others in need.

And you also find time to listen to my show and then share this amazing service with me Be My Eyes.

Thank you.

Hugs to you in Germany and Gaelin, thank you for your own positive imprints

hello, this is Catherine, your host of the podcast, your positive imprint, the variety show,

featuring people all over the world whose positive achievements, inspire positive thought and action.

Exceptional people rise to the challenge.

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What's your P.I.?.

Let's see the world together.

Danish furniture, craftsman Hans Jørgen Wiberg had a vision and idea that became

reality for millions around the world.

Be my eyes.

Hans sees the world with no land borders, but rather all of us as citizens of the world.

With that engraved in his heart, mind, and soul, he presented an idea that would

bring the world together with helping eyes.

Be my eyes is a hands-on way to rise to the challenge with your own positive imprints.

And this is so incredibly interesting.

Hans, you are truly amazing.

Thank you so much and welcome to the show.

Wow.

It's fantastic.

Well, you know, it was a listener, a friend that sent me the information about you and this fabulous

app, be my eyes, which we will definitely get to.

But you have this very interesting background that has absolutely nothing to do with

the app and this idea that you have.

And so you're a furniture craftsman.

And before you go into that, I do have to say that some of my absolute favorite furniture

that we have in our home is from Denmark.

Hans,, furniture craftsmanship is so different from be my eyes app.

So how did this come about?

Well, I kind of married into it actually I'm born and raised on a farm and I was set

out to become a farmer because that was kind of what I wanted to but then when I was 25 and actually, yeah.

The whole farming education and all of that, and was talking to my dad about taking over the farm and so on.

Then I discovered this eye disease.

I realized that, that my vision would just be worse and worse over time.

So it would not be a good thing to start driving the tractor and taking over a farm.

At that point,I didn't really know what to do.

, so I went back to school, , and, , I got into the university in Denmark

and I started to study, philosophy.

And in that period I met my wife, , who is, , upholsterer.

she puts new fabrics on old furnitures, , Then, , we got married and we got some kids and

then, , she wanted to have her own furniture, repair business, and I was helping her there

and I really got into this, , furniture thing.

So, so that's how it all started.

It is something that I do together with my wife and it's her business.

So I'm helping her when I'm not totally sure.

Busy doing be my eyes.

So that's kind of the story of it.

Oh, that's so interesting.

And to me, it's just kind of a romance story because you get into doing these things

together and you love being together and working together and you enjoy the work.

I'm so happy for you.

So what is the name of her shop?

it is, , Wiberg's Weaving and Upholstery B usiness if you translate it into English.

Wibergs Flette- & Polstreværksted it's called in Danish.

We have been, , married since, , 98.

, and for the first, I don't know, 10 years, we were basically together day and night because we were yeah.

Living.

Course, but we were also working in the same room.

It was only when we went to the toilet and we were not together.

So, so, so we have really spent a lot of time together.

So, I think we have straightened out what you need to do now that, so it's been absolutely

wonderful, but I have also very much enjoy

, going more and more into working with, be my eyes.

So, so we're not working that much together.

But I'm still working at home and she has her shop where we live.

So whenever she needs a hand, I can go out and help her and the other way around.

So it works out perfectly fine.

So that's wonderful.

Well, I applaud the upholstery business the reupholstering business and that is something

that we need more of throughout the world.

Reupholstering because it is much more sustainable with regard to furniture.

And it reminds me of repair cafe and you've heard of repair cafe, right?

It started over in Europe.

Yeah.

Not too far from you down in the Netherlands.

And it has hit worldwide.

And I think repair cafe is something that truly, and it doesn't have to be, you know, the

trademark recare pat recare repair cafe, but that type of notion, which is what you're doing.

And you're basically doing what I think is really set for sustainability for the future and to keep things

out of our dumps out of our landfills world wide.

Yeah.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah.

And you know, we also have fashion changes with fabrics for upholstery.

And interestingly, , now, and that this has happened within the last, I think

five, maybe a little more years that now you can get, , fabrics that are made out of old fabrics.

And that's super, super interesting.

, and you can get , ecological, grown fabrics and all that you could not before.

, and people are asking about that.

, and also it's not cheap to have new fabrics on your old furniture.

So people really think about it and, , it's

a big decision for for a lot of people.

But , for me, and especially for my wife, who's doing this, it's a wonderful

thing to kind of have this, process.

Yes.

With the customers.

They come in and they'll look at the furniture and they look at the fabrics and they, sometimes

they bring it home and then they come back.

Yeah.

We want this one then when can you do it?

And what's the price and all that.

And then you do it and they come back.

Yeah.

Yeah.

They are very happy about the result.

We have been doing this for now, , more than 20 years.

A few times we have met the same chair twice because they have been using it and worn it

down and now they want to have it done again.

That's kind of a funny thing.

, and so that's absolutely wonderful to be in this process.

The people that come to us they really think about that this is something, , that is worth doing and so on.

They don't just want to throw it out.

Sometimes they could even get a cheaper chair, , if they'd just throw it out and bought a new one.

, but they love this chair and that's also, some of these, , architect design chairs.

And they have a high price, , it's meaningful to kind of put money into havethem renewed once in

awhile, every 20 or 30 years or something like that.

It's a wonderful business to be in because it's so meaningful, , in, in many ways.

Oh, my gosh.

Yes, Hans.

Absolutely.

And it's perfect for another podcast episode.

. So let's move on to be my eyes.

Your heart, your mind, and your soul went into this idea and how it took off is just amazing to me that

there are so many millions and millions of volunteers

and users of this app.

Thank

you.

It is amazing.

And it has also surprised me and the whole team.

Well the story is that, , as I mentioned before that, , I was starting to lose my

vision, , and I didn't know what to do.

And then, I got into this philosophy and I worked together for my wife.

And then at some point I got.

Just a few hours a week, , a small part-time job for the Danish blind association where I was, , visiting,

, other blind and low vision people in my area.

, so I got to know a lot of blind people.

And at some point I got this idea that we should make a group of volunteers who you could make a video call to

so when you need some, visual assistant and , there was no one around you.

many blind people live alone or they they live together with someone, but the other person is at

work or, and then, yeah, you'd need a pair of eyes maybe only for 20 seconds or something like that.

And you can make a FaceTime call or Skype or something like that.

But then you would have to call a specific person and then you have to think is

this person at work or can I call him now?

Or did I call her yesterday or all that?

, but if you have a group of volunteer, you can just make your call.

, so, so that's kind of the idea.

I'm not a technical guy.

I have no clue how to make an app or anything.

So I really didn't know what to do with this idea.

I knew it was possible, but I didn't know how to get there.

And then I I learned about a event called Startup Weekend where you can basically walk in from the

street and present an idea and hopefully somebody else also likes the idea and want to join your team.

, I was lucky that I think there was seven other people who joined my little group there.

And then we yeah, we won this award.

You can say this weekend for the most innovative idea that there was no money in that.

So, so we were all fired up, but we didn't have any money or anything.

So we started to write applications to foundations in Denmark.

And so on to see if we could get some support to kind of try out this idea.

After quite a while we got $300,000, , from one of the biggest foundations in Denmark.

Oh, wow.

Congratulations.

Yeah,

we could start to hire people who could actually do the coding and so on.

We didn't know what to expect.

And we had 10,000 volunteers sign up , I clearly remember my, server guy, , called me and was kind

of freaked out because we were not ready for that kind of downloads and, it got even worse from there,

because within, I think the next two weeks we had a 100,000 volunteers signed up and 10,000 blind people.

So we really got a amazing start.

And

and so before you go on, the a hundred thousand volunteers that you got so quickly,

were they from Denmark or were they worldwide?

In the very beginning they were from Denmark but very soon after,

I cannot really explain how, but people are using Facebook or Twitter and so on.

And it, it spread like I don't know what and also we w were picked up by, , some of the tech

media, , and they started to write very small pieces about this exciting new startup in Denmark.

They have many of those small super small short articles.

But it seemed to kind of spread

like, I dunno what and my CEO and myself was interviewed, , I dunno for two months in a

row, on a daily basis, , it was totally crazy.

You can see now six years later we have, , I think we have 4.8 million volunteers all over

the world, , in 185 different languages and in basically all countries in the whole world.

, and we have not spent any marketing money simply because we didn't have any.

So, that was very easy.

, but people has been so excited about being able to help in an easy way.

It's super easy to download the app and say, yeah I'm volunteering here.

And we only ask people to, as the name says to be someone's eyes and

common use of be my eyes is that you are in your kitchen and you are cooking something

and you need to know exactly, , the recipe or, , what can is what, or have I set my

oven to this, number of degrees and so on.

And I mean, , anybody can do that.

we have many calls that are, , 20 seconds.

Have I set my oven to 300 degrees?

Yes, you have.

Thank you so much.

Okay.

It can also be an hour long call when you need to restart your computer and all that.

, or if you are out and about and or you have lost something on the floor

or you cannot find it then and so on.

So all those tasks but basically anyone can do it.

It can be a little, , difficult sometime too to navigate, as you will have to tell the blind

person to move the phone a little to the right, a little to the left and then a little closer,

and it's a little dark here and all that.

, but you talk about it and you work it out.

And people simply love it and they are posting about it on Twitter and Facebook afterwards,

and then we get even more volunteers.

So that's how it has spread all over the world.

So.

So incredible.

And I interrupted you when you were talking about the grant when you first started it.

So if you want to backtrack and go back to when you initially put it out.

And then you start getting the volunteers in case you had something important that

you wanted to share and I interrupted you.

Well,

It was kind of interesting because , we have no idea.

Basically.We thought it would be maybe a little difficult to find enough volunteers.

, we even made, kind of a gamification elements that you would earn some point if you have

been helping a blind person, you could not use the point for anything but points are good.

, but soon it turned out it was similarly difficult even to get a call because there were so many volunteers.

So, so this gamification didn't make any sense.

So removed that after a period of time.

But of course, when I think about it now, it makes sense that I mean, everybody.

Pretty much once to help if they can.

And especially if it is, , in an easy way.

I, myself not completely blind, but I'm using the white cane when I'm out and about.

And.

If I'm standing somewhere and, , trying to get across the street or something, I don't have to

stand there very long before someone asked me, oh, do you need help to get across the street?

Or can I do something for you?

And so on?

So my experience from my own life is that pretty much everybody wants to help it is

something that they can do in an easy way.

, we are all busy.

And it's difficult for a lot of people to sign up to volunteer to do something.

But with Be My Eyes you can just sign up and if you're busy, you can just ignore the call.

And if you have time, you'll say yes.

And then, you will be connected with this, , blind person maybe, across the world.

we use the time zones and to our advantage.

If I need help, , four o'clock in the morning, we don't call anybody in

Denmark, four o'clock in the morning.

, then we find someone who speaks Danish or English.

, in another time zone, and this means that, you might get a call, early in the morning or something

like that, because I'm in another time zone.

So, so that's how we can provide help 24 7 without disturbing our volunteers 24 7.

The amazing thing is that when you have 4.8 million volunteers many of them speak more than one language.

Then you always have, even in a small language like the Danish.

it is so amazing.

Yeah.

that so many, volunteers actually, it's not amazing because positive imprints are all over

the place and we meet them every single day.

Like you meet them at a traffic light and you may only meet them for 20 seconds.

And.

They've left a positive imprint and people do rise to the challenge.

I joke about that I'm not quite sure who am I helping the most, , because the

volunteers seem so excited about being able to, , to do this little thing you can say but impactful, at

least, a blind person who needs to set the oven,

that's not a big deal, but for this volunteer who has maybe been waiting for a month to get this

call and finally get, and many of the volunteers, they don't know a blind person they read about

this on Facebook or Tik TOK or something like that.

And then they say, oh, I can do that..

and then they pretty much forget about it and suddenly one day tingling and then oh,

now I'm a volunteer and then they get all excited and they post about it and so on.

So it's pretty amazing how happy people are getting.

And it really impacts both, , of course the blind users, but very much also the volunteers.

So, so that's a wonderful feeling to have.

Oh, absolutely.

I think that whenever anybody uses or owns their own positive imprint for a better word it is rewarding.

I received my first call, but I didn't know what the ring was.

What is my phone doing?

Cause it's a different ring, which is good

that it sounds different because now I know that ring.

I picked up and then finally I saw the notification.

I clicked on it and I got excited.

Like you say.

And then of course, by that time, several other volunteers were clicking

and so on, which is a good thing.

And it is easy to use . It's so, so user-friendly, it took less than a minute to sign

up.

We have put a lot of effort into making the App as accessible as possible, both for the sighted,

but especially for the blind people of course.

You have to verify your email and so on.

We cannot skip that part.

And also, when you have a signed up, then there is only two buttons in the app, which

is also something we're very proud of.

And one of them is Call First Available Volunteer.

, and that's where you get a volunteer and the second button is called Specialized Help

and in that you can call, , a company to get, , some special assistance from Google or Microsoft and so on.

. Catherine: Do you collect any of the data?

Nope.

No we don't we, we just to see when we are connecting a stranger so, and we like to know

what's going on and especially if there's some complaint about something and we record the videos

so we can go back and see what really happened.

, so in that sense, we are collecting some data, but we're not sharing it with anybody.

So it's it just for the sector.

Yeah, that's

good.

Yes.

If you sign up as a blindperson, we to make sure that you, , understand how to use it.

And we also give people ideas for how they can use it and make sure they know , it's a free service

and, but you also have to behave in a certain way.

We do give the blind users more information than the volunteers, simply because they are the ones who are,

In front of it., so to speak, so, right,

I clicked the learn more and it was a video that was short and it was to the point.

This video the app provides is, I think it was which one is red.

I can't remember.

And then it tells you, you would say it's the one on your left so the blind person or

the person who is visually impaired or color blind, , will know which one is the red one.

So it was very easy.

And so as a volunteer, you're not giving your life information or watching,

you know, three, four hours of video

And also kind of to underline that it's not rocket science.

It's just your eyes that we need.

Because the blind people, they know exactly what they are doing.

So, so you don't have to be their brain.

You just have to be their eyes for a little while.

And this is of course super, super important.

Some somebody may ask you, oh, would you.

Go with this color.

And then yeah, you can say well, I don't know.

, but I wouldn't do that.

Or, but if you are a young hipster myFICO for you or something like that so, so you might be asked something

like that, but then you can absolutely feel free to say, well, I'd rather not have any opinion about that.

Or if you are comfortable many are oh, I don't think, , this color goes with this car.

, sometimes they even ask, oh, but what color are your shoes?

Can I see them?

And then they get into this whole conversation.

Yeah.

What is going with with what?

that is super interesting.

I have no clue what they're talking about.

But

so that's funny.

We even have people who are using, be my eyes when they putting on because all

the different whatever you put on the containers, it is in, , pretty much the same, all of them.

And maybe you have, , three or five or six different colors and it's impossible

to kind of keep them apart and all that.

That's a very personal interaction you have with another person putting on makeup there.

I sometimes get emails about that.

Oh, I actually help this person get ready for a job interview or something like that.

So it's yeah, sometimes it's really important stuff you're doing so.

You are alone and your wife is not there and you are in this job interview and yeah, I want to make sure

that this shirt kind of fits the rest of it and so on.

And then they can use the, be my eyes for that.

it's not only for, , for blind people.

We also have, dyslexic people who, scan something and have it read to you, but sometimes yeah dyslexic

person needs a person to, read it, to understand it.

Volunteers are happy to do that as well.

So.

I am so glad that you offer that.

And I didn't think of that.

I'm a teacher and I work with students with dyslexia and they need help and they need

that extra eyes and orally they can process a lot but visually they have a hard time,

I met one who said that sometime I simply need a human being to

read to me instead of a computer because, It doesn't make sense when the computer does that

I think that your idea is so phenomenal and I'm so glad that you were able to get it

off of the ground and get it developed into this remarkable app that is so easy to use.

So now you mentioned Google and Microsoft.

So how did their involvement play in all of this?

Part of the history is that from day one, we decided that Be My Eyes should

be a free service, simply because, , no matter what country you live in, , Blind people in that

country are most likely in the low income end.

, we could see that the 90% of the blind people in this world, they live in India and Africa and other low

income areas, and they might get a smartphone but we cannot charge them to not have as much or anything.

So we decided that eyesight should be free.

And then we had to find another business model and that is what we are doing.

The second button, as I mentioned is called specialized help.

And when you pressed up one, you can find a number of companies.

And then for instance, you can call Microsoft.

And then when you press that button, We sent the call to Microsoft, but they know it's coming from,

be my eyes so they can make sure that those, I don't know, 10 or 15 people at Microsoft who know about

what kind of program the blind people are using,

that those people are the ones who is answering those calls.

So it's way easier for the support people.

I mean they have a huge circle center.

I dunno somewhere in the world would maybe thousand people but very few of them know anything about being

blind, but they do have some experts in this and those people are the ones answering the calls, coming

from, be my eyes and they also get the video part.

So it's way easier for Persons in this call, the blind person and the support person to have

this conversation because they can simply show the person what's on the screen now and so on.

And this is Microsoft and Google and Proctor and Gamble and the pharmacies and a number

of other companies are so happy about this.

So they are willing to pay, be my eyes to be on our platform.

And you can say that we are helping the companies be better companies for the blind customers.

And so we we have this it's from a postcard I believe this motto ' everybody wins only when nobody loses.'

And this is kind of what is driving our business model.

And we strongly believe that the companies are getting absolutely value for their money

because they have a easy way to step up to the responsibility for all of that customers.

Also the blind customers.

It's difficult to give support to a blind person when the technology is not working.

And that's the only reason why theystarted calling or they have issues with signing

up with Google or something like that.

But now they can actually get help from someone who knows exactly what's going on.

And that's super, super valuable for both for the company but especially of course for the blind users.

Wow.

You have done so much for the visually impaired around the world.

And I'm impressed.

I am so impressed with all of the different pieces that you worked on to make sure that they're

being served in all of the positive ways and yeah.

And to do this with the companies.

Wow.

Can you imagine the questions that people, I mean, I have questions, but I couldn't even imagine, you know,

Yeah.

Oh, I just love this app

Nobody has done this before, so, so we could not kind of copy

anyone or look at the, oh, they are doing good.

. And also this last month has been

totally amazing because we, we won the Webby award and

oh,

congratulations picked up a apple design award, which is a super big deal.

And maybe especially for the developers and designers on my team was super, super excited about I am as well.

Of course.

And then.

Pretty much the same week

we got a Helen Keller award, which is the biggest award in the blind community.

So this month has been over the top.

Absolutely.

So, we are super, super happy that we get this recognition from, I mean, apple, they have millions.

Apple apps in the app store.

And then they pick be my eyes and six others, I believe and give this design award

which is, yeah, that's a pretty big deal.

It is a very big deal.

Well, like I said, I was impressed with your design.

I was very impressed with the design and the ease, just user friendly.

Absolutely.

You are so deserving of the recognition because I think, yes.

Oh, absolutely.

And it, this is such an amazing positive imprint and it's worldwide and you are

helping so many people, not just the visually impaired, but the volunteers are enthralled

and their mindset is changed because of you.

Well,

that is a great thing.

We gaining people on our side because as I said before, many people don't know a blind person

and they just read like, you, they read about this on Facebook and think, oh, I can do that.

But then suddenly they are one-to-one with a blind person.

Doing something that actually means something to, to the blind person.

And suddenly they look at their washing machine with totally new eyes and say, this cannot

be right that these washing machines doesn't.

To us or our so impossible, if you could not see.

And we need to do something about that.

And certainly we have ambassadors out there speaking to the more inclusive world and so on.

And that's I think that makes me very proud when I get the emails like that from people who have gets afired

up and say, , we have to do something about this.

Yes.

Thank you.

And

And so you're changing the world and it's not just changing the world for

the people that are visually impaired.

It's going to change the world.

But I think that as word continues to spread and as this grows, which already has, and maybe some

of these companies, like you mentioned, the washing machine company, are looking into now sound.

So it doesn't matter that a piece of equipment is accessible if it is not

financially accessible, then it's not accessible.

And this is that don't get me started on that one.

When we start to talk with Microsoft I mean, their accessiblity the team was maybe one or two people,

and I believe they have maybe 100 people now in accessibility looking into whatever they are doing.

And Microsoft is doing a amazing job, making their whole organization think about accessibility.

Most people, at some point in their life, suddenly they are impaired and, or they will hopefully

grow old and start to lose some of their hearing

. Everybody at some point in their life has

It is really smart if you are accessible to all kinds of handicaps and so on.

And Microsoft is really thinking about that.

And that's also why they together with be my eyes,.

Microsoft also got a Helen Keller award simply because they are acting, stepping up to this they

are active how can we make this work for everybody.

And not only thinking about blind people here, but also deaf and even deaf, blind and so on.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's really encouraging to see, and we see it is active becoming a department , in some of

the big companies and that's really encouraging

. So, so I am somewhat hopeful that

It is.

And there's also yeah legal stuff being put in place.

So they actually have to do this but even legal stuff you can make a lot, then 10 years later, not

everybody is following that but it seems to be moving in these years and that's very encouraging to see.

This is very impressive.

And it's one of the things that does go through my mind when I do my podcast is that we humans around

the world have to do so much for our tomorrows.

And sometimes that just doesn't feel right and just that we have to work so hard for tomorrow

and for the future, you know, that things should already have been in place for life in the future.

But, you know, that's of course my optimism saying, you know, well, that's how life really is, but it's not.

And that's why we have people like you who do rise to the challenge and you, because of your app,

you are bringing opportunity to people around the world as volunteers to rise to the challenges.

And providing such a phenomenal service to the visually impaired.

And I, so thank you for that.

So is there anything else that you have forgotten to share before we get

into the last segment of this episode?

I think we have touched a lot of things, so, but I'm happy to answer

any questions also from your listeners.

If they have anything, they can just reach out.

And I am more than happy to answer.

Okay.

And we'll get that information here right now.

So first of all, the website, Hans is BeMyEyes.com

the email that you can reach us is info@BeMyEyes and then myself or some of my

colleagues will answer the questions, maybe not right away, but we try to do it as fast as we can.

So.

So, my last segment is of course, your last inspiring words that you would like to share.

Oh,

I didn't think about that.

But

Take a little bit and think about inspiring words that you'd like to share.

It reminds me of another award that we got and the appy award.

And I had seven words to give a a speech by the end.

And I said "volunteering makes our world beautiful.

Thank you.".

And that was seven words and it was kind of fun too, to make that super short speech.

But I really believe that the fact that people can volunteer and we like also to, . So use the word

micro volunteering, because it is most calls are less than three minutes and they really make a

difference and it's super easy for you to do that.

So, so I really believe that the world gets a little more beautiful when you

can volunteer in, in this easy way.

So, yeah.

Hans Jørgen Wiberg, you are an amazing positive imprint that has allowed the

flourishing of volunteers around the world

to use, to show, to implement their own positive imprints, but even more so your positive

imprint is bringing a service and bringing happiness, bringing joy to people who are

visually impaired and something that I just, I love your phrase that you have on your website.

'Let's see the world together.' And I love that there are no borders.

, I love that.

And so BeMyEyes.com and thank you so much for developing this idea into reality

Hans Jørgen Wiberg, thank you for your positive imprints, your positive imprint.