 |
 |
|
Serotek in the News
Mike Calvo Interview, AccessWorldVisually impaired kids get wired
Mike Calvo Interview, AccessWorldFrom Street Kid to CEO: An Interview with Mike CalvoBy Deborah Kendrick
He was a kid on the streets in Miami, growing up in the center of gang life and the drug trade. Today, he describes himself as an entrepreneur, not ashamed that he is a high school dropout and proud that he is doing something to benefit a community that he did not know existed until he was well into his 20s--a community of like-minded, intelligent people who are blind, who enjoy the Internet and the power of technology as much as he does. As the only blind CEO among the most talked-about companies that provide screen access to people who are blind, Mike Calvo knows business and knows people. He is smart; articulate; and, most would say, hyper.
I caught up with him during a packed travel schedule this summer and learned about the man, the company, and past and future highlights of his product. Like many busy professionals, his hotel suite bore the signs of multitasking. The remains of his breakfast were carried away as we spoke, and his laptop on the desk chimed the arrival of new e-mail messages every little while, yet, he was relaxed, casual, and never interrupted our conversation for telephone calls or e-mail messages. He stopped only once to answer a knock at the door and to ask the representatives of another company if their meeting might be delayed an hour to give me more time. Calvo, a born storyteller, talks rapidly, and his language is colorful--in the sense of being peppered with slang and vernacular and filled with analogies and parables.
Calvo is the founder and CEO of Serotek Corporation, the company that launched the product formerly known as FreedomBox, a product that has evolved dramatically and is now called the System Access Mobile Network. A series of coincidences--or, as he calls them, moments when God chose to be anonymous--led him to a string of successful ventures and, ultimately, to develop a product that, although used by only a few hundred people five years ago, is now enjoying a virtual explosion in sales.
Love Affair with the Internet
Calvo's first foray into a product to benefit people who are blind was one that did not start out that way. As a teenager and young adult, Calvo says he did what every Latin kid (he is Cuban American) did on the streets of Miami. But a combination of marriage, religion, and a certain kind of growing up changed all that. In school and his early jobs, he recalled an unsettling assessment that he heard all too often from teachers and employers--a message of low expectations, the subtle reminder that he, as a person who is blind, should not aim too high. Unrealistic goals, he was told, would lead to disappointment. "I was a rebel without a cause," he said of himself in his early 20s. His response was to start his own company, a company that trained and placed over 400 people who are blind in competitive jobs with such corporate entities as Ryder Trucks, American Express, American Airlines, FedEx, and Marriott. His conviction that computers are a must for every person who is blind grew steadily more ardent, and, eventually, that certitude evolved into a love affair with the Internet. The Internet, Calvo came to believe, was the single force that could give people who are blind opportunities that are equal to those of sighted people.
In 1999, Calvo's best friend (a fellow high schooldropout and successful entrepreneur) gave him an FM transmitter that allowed Calvo to listen to radio stations broadcast on his computer while he kept his wife company when she watched television. It was not long before Calvo's first Internet-related business venture, Radio Webcaster, was launched. With an FM transmitter connected to the computer, software to tune into thousands of radio stations, and an FM remote control that worked through walls, a person could listen to any radio station (or anything else on the computer) through any FM radio and do it from the comfort of the living room or patio.
Radio Webcaster was featured in Playboy magazine and, in 2000, was hailed by CNN as a flagship product of the new millennium. The way that the product was assembled and shipped provides an excellent example of Calvo's ability to form connections with a wide variety of people and then connect the dots, so to speak, to make these connections productive. The transmitters were built in Indiana, the FM remote controls came from California, and the software CDs were burned in Miami. Calvo's friend in a Mailboxes Etc. location received orders, assembled the various components of a Radio Webcaster package, and shipped them. Meanwhile, payment went to Calvo's bank account, and word was spreading not only among sighted Internet radio enthusiasts, but among the blind community, about this great new product.
"I started realizing that there were hundreds, maybe thousands, of blind people who were professionals, who were party animals, who smelled good, and dressed well," Calvo said. "They were people who were cool, and they had money to spend just like sighted people." Through electronic discussion groups, where people talked about audio, music, and assistive technology, and through his growing customer base, he realized that there were many blind people who saw things the way he did.
The Next Step
One good idea sparks another, and Calvo soon began dreaming about another product that he wanted to create. What he envisioned was, as he playfully described it, "A kind of AOL meets WebTV for blind people." In other words, whereas Radio Webcaster gave people who are blind a taste of the breadth of radio stations that are available through Internet connections, it did not give them the easy access to news, entertainment, shopping, instant messaging, and more that sighted people enjoyed with easily accessed commercial interfaces.
Once the idea was rooted in his brain, Calvo began to post to various electronic discussion groups to find the kind of collaboration he needed, and, as he put it, "This 20-year-old kid from Kansas, a typical geek who then spoke in three-word sentences, said he could do what I needed." That "kid" was Matt Campbell, and their relationship led to the development of software that, in January 2007, was demonstrated as the first access to Windows Vista for people who are blind.
"I write the road maps," Calvo explained, "but I don't know a lick of code. Matt is the one who makes the magic." Although Calvo lives in Orlando and Campbell lives in Kansas, the two are in constant contact, talking back and forth via Skype as though they were both zipping around in the same office space. "Sometimes it seems like I spend more time with Matt than with my wife and family," Calvo quipped. (Calvo has five children.)
The first FreedomBox product was designed with "technophobes" and people with limited dexterity in mind. The product was driven mainly by voice commands and offered an extensive web browser, providing instant access to e-mail, radio stations, news, entertainment, and instant messaging--in short, everything that sighted people with limited technical expertise were already enjoying.
Calvo recognized that this new business could not be operated alone and sought investors. One contact in the Minneapolis area led to another, and Serotek Corporation was formed. When the Serotek board involved Michael Fox, a consultant who specializes in business turnarounds, the company saw growth.
"Michael Fox polished me up, shaved me down, and taught me how to speak in the business world," Calvo said. (For AccessWorld readers who may remember hearing him on Internet radio programs back when Radio Webcaster was new, however, Calvo has clearly always had a decidedly engaging style and charming way of communicating his point.)
No Overnight Success
Sadly, as Calvo sees it, except for the few hundred early customers who discovered the first-generation FreedomBox, people who are blind were not quick to trust a product that did not cost much. (Access to the then FreedomBox Network--now SA Mobile Network--originally cost $99 a year or $9.95 a month.) Gradually, Calvo and Campbell started adding features of interest to more sophisticated users. The price was raised to $499, and sales increased exponentially.
When System Access became an integral part of the product--thus enabling a user who is blind to access such popular applications as Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, some of the most serious--and savviest--blind computer users started paying close attention. With the software on a USB drive, a person could have access to the features of the network from any computer.
A lawsuit claiming trademark infringement inspired a change in the product's name this past June. The new name, SA Mobile Network, is, Calvo said, actually more reflective of where the product is headed. The latest development, called SA to Go , affords computer users who are blind the opportunity to render any computer accessible simply by launching the web site. The SA Mobile Network continues to evolve; blogging, podcasts, RSS feeds, and more have been added to its original smorgasbord of shopping, entertainment, and news, and more features are on the horizon.
In January 2007, Serotek demonstrated System Access with Windows Vista at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, the same venue in which Microsoft rolled out Vista itself. The product will soon offer braille access and Java compatibility, Calvo said.
Serotek Corporation and its SA Mobile Network are gaining momentum and recognition in the assistive technology arena, and Calvo is giddy with the news that the product he loves and uses every day is gaining popularity. But "at the end of the day," as he said, he is first and foremost an entrepreneur.
"I feel called to do what I'm doing right now," he said, "but my major interest is facilitating the needs of my customers. Right now my customers are blind consumers, and I wake up each day to facilitate customers who want to open their wallets and put their credit cards on the virtual counter."
Visually impaired kids get wiredCamp introduces computer features that make online world more accessible
By Deborah Kendrick · Cincinnati Enquirer · August 1, 2008
His mother died when he was a baby. His congenital glaucoma has led to countless surgeries and blindness. He and his aunt, Cynthia Clark, (who stepped into the role of mother when her sister died, after having raised four children of her own) live in Winton Place on a fixed income.
But Quentin is bright - reading two Braille books a week - enthusiastic, and inquisitive. The fourth-grader at College Hill Academy is one of 12 lucky kids participating in a first-of-its-kind technology camp, which concludes today.
Larry Klug, a computer skills instructor for the Clovernook Center for the Blind in North College Hill, met Mike Calvo, the CEO of Florida-based Serotek Corp., at a conference on technology and disability in March. What began as a basic introduction to computer keyboards blossomed into inspired immersion in possibilities for 12 visually impaired children.
Calvo attracted generous donations from corporations such as Lenovo and Microsoft - contributing hardware and software for 14 complete work stations - and financial support from the Accessibility is a Right (AIR) Foundation. His own company, Serotek, is providing the System Access software, the accessible "glue" that pulls it all together.
With System Access, camp participants are introduced to basic computer functions - e-mail, word processing and games. Kids hear all screen information through headsets or see it with the System Access magnification function on screen.
At this week's camp, these 12 blind or visually impaired kids: learned how to send and receive e-mail; downloaded books that can be listened to on the computer or read on a Braille-aware device; played audio computer games; and went to lunch at Panera to experience the flexibility of a Wi-Fi environment.
They have traveled to Columbus to visit the showroom of an assistive technology company owned by a successful entrepreneur who is visually impaired, and they have taken a walk with a talking GPS device. At a studio in Evendale, they learned to create an audio book with a Batman theme.
For Haley Thurston, 8, a third-grader at Wilson Elementary in Anderson Township, computers are de rigueur at home. Her parents - one a Spanish teacher at Summit Country Day School and the other an economist for the EPA - are technologically savvy.
For others, like Quentin, the camp is an initial immersion in the possibilities assistive technology has to offer.
"We're just planting as many seeds as we can," said Karen Schoenharl, a Clovernook computer skills instructor. They may not know the intricacies of everything they have been exposed to in this single week, but they know what the options are.''
Calvo and Serotek are seeing to it that exploring those options is attainable for all campers when they go home. Each student will be presented with a Serotek key at the end of camp today. As part of the Keys for K-12 program the company launched this summer, each of the camp participants is receiving a USB jump drive loaded with the System Access software. With this "key," any computer - at school, the library, or a friend's house - is instantly rendered accessible with text-to-speech and magnification capabilities.
Campers have heard what Klug calls the "wow stories" of various blind adults for whom technology has played a significant role in success.
For example, there's Calvo, who instructed kids at the opening of the camp. He's blind, too, he told them, and introduced his guide dog along with some cool features in his company's System Access Mobile Network, an online content smorgasbord where kids can download music, news, games, movies and TV programs with descriptive narration of the parts they can't see.
This week's tech camp at Clovernook offered these 12 children the chance to learn about the tools that can put them on a level playing field (or sometimes a step ahead) of their sighted classmates.
System Access technology
Serotek Corp.'s flagship product, System Access, brings access to any computer for a user who is blind or visually impaired.
With clear text-to-speech voices and screen magnification, popular applications such as Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook+ and Internet Explorer are easily navigated without seeing the screen.
The System Access Mobile Network augments basic software by bringing varied content in an easily navigated environment.
In July, Serotek launched its Keys for K-12 program, making available at no charge the System Access software to any legally blind elementary or high school student. To use the software, kids need a U3-enabled USB jump drive (available anywhere computer products are sold.) The software is downloaded to the drive, providing the student with a "key" to access that can be plugged into any computer anywhere for instant access.
Through the work of the Accessibility is a Right (AIR) Foundation, one version of the software is actually available free to anyone anywhere in the world with access to the Internet. Called SA to Go (www.satogo.com), the software can be run from any computer with an Internet connection, rendering it immediately accessible to a blind user. When the computer is turned off, all traces of SA to Go disappear.
|
Quentin Thomas has had more than a few bumps in the road in his first 10 years of life.
Here's the "wow" factor: System Access can be carried on a USB jump drive, on a key ring or in a backpack pocket, thus enabling any computer anywhere to be accessible to a blind or visually impaired user.