[Doug]: Hello, everyone. Welcome to episode 30 of Feeling Through Live. I'm joined here today by Jason Corning of Three Monkeys Communication. We're going to be talking about deafblind access and independence and a whole host of other topics. But Jason, since you were just mentioning it, specifically around your shirt color, why don't you talk about whatever you wanted to mention around that?
[Jason]: Hi everyone. My name is Jason Corning and my sign name is JC and we have an interpreter here. So I'm a white man, so that, for that reason I have a dark shirt. So it would contrast the color of my skin and I'm wearing black glasses and I'm smiling. I tend to be a very happy go lucky person and I'm really honored to be here and joining this conversation with Doug. I just wanted to briefly mention the shirt to help all the deafblind individuals out there to be able to get full access to all the information. And so that's the reason I'm explaining all this information. So the deafblind community knows what I look like. I'm 30 years old, I'm a white male and I'm wearing a dark brown, black shirt. And I'm also wearing sunglasses that are black and I have short brown hair.
[Doug]: And Jason, thank you for that, you're setting the right tone for this conversation, certainly. So you know, there's a lot to discuss today, but I'd love to start at the beginning. Jason, you're someone who's very accomplished. You have multiple degrees, you're a business owner. Can you tell us a little bit about how you got there in the sense of what your early education was like and your childhood?
[Jason]: This is Jason. Sure. So I grew up in Wisconsin. I went to Wisconsin School for the Deaf K through sixth grade and they said, my parents said at that time, that school for the deaf, it was really challenging. No, they didn't really have large print books or interpreters. It was a, it was a hard time and the blackboard was far away. So overall the education was okay, but there were some challenges there. But then at that point in seventh grade, I got placed at a blind school and that school had much more accessibility equipment. The teachers worked more closely with you. They sat closer. They had equipment to enlarge the print. There was guide dogs. So it was much more advanced equipment to encourage independent living. You know, we had mobility training, we went out shopping. So there were just so much equipment that was already in place to help us succeed in the future, which was different from a little bit different from my experience at the school for the deaf. You know, we were involved in football, track, swimming. We had the same experiences that sighted individuals. And then during high school, I transitioned to, I joined the transition program so that I could get ready for college. And at that point I wasn't really sure what to expect. You know, once I got out into the real world and in high school, you know, I wasn't, I had been in this small community of deaf and deafblind individuals. So going into a public high school, I wasn't so sure what to expect. And 11th and 12th grade, I went to a local tech institute nearby. And the purpose of that was to get a sense of what college education was like. And we had a, I took a psychology class that discussed the behavior with different sexes and that sometimes with those topics, I was a little embarrassed because I wasn't sure of the appropriate terminology to use and all that. But over time I got used to that type of college-level environment. So that experience at the tech institute really helped me in 11th and 12th grade. And I actually gained credits for college in high school and that tech institute to apply it to my undergrad. So once I applied the undergraduate university, so, oh, you already have credits. That's great. And I didn't do so great on the ACT, but because the college saw I have some of those credits and had some experience, they thought, you know, this might be an opportunity, perhaps we'll try it out for two semesters, see how you do. And if you keep a 3.5 GPA, you're able to stay in the program. So I really strived to keep that GPA and my really pushed me to be involved in the community. And from that I actually start to give different presentations at different schools during my college years. And I taught individuals how to advocate for themselves. I really pushed individuals and children at an early age to really advocate because it's really hard if you don't learn these skills at a young age to then be able to advocate yourself when you're older. So my education, originally, I did internship in IT business and with an IT department in my home area. And there was also with a focus on security and travel security with the TSA. And that really helped me understand how the government works because I never worked for the government before. You know, I really, I thought that all these experiences was, you know, just the legislation, the Congress, but there's so many different departments within the government. So I learned so much at that opportunity, the federal government, there's just so many different aspects that I didn't realize. So after my BA degree, excuse me, while I do my BA degree, I had an internship with the TSA, with the Department of Security, Homeland Security. And this was a really different experience for me, you know? And at this point also I moved far away from my parents. I wasn't used to this living on my own, being able to support myself. It was all just so new for me, You know, and I started to make new friends near my town and my employer provided different services. So I start to feel comfortable as an adult in the real world. And someone at that point suggested that I should go fir my masters. So I kind of searched in the Maryland community where might be the best IT department, IT and business in conjunction, those two programs. And I found John Hopkins University and, you know, many people ask me, oh, so you're going to become a doctor. You're going to be in the medical field, but now they do have a small school of business called the Carey School of Business. So I did four years of my master's. I really just took my time there with my master's. I took classes at night and I took the three different campuses in Baltimore and in Washington. So I really took as much credit as I could, took my time and got my masters. So that's kind of, so my work experience that you asked about, I don't know if that answered your question.
[Doug]: Yes, certainly. Not only does it answer my question it runs through a lot of topics that I definitely want to go back and talk more specifically about, but thank you for that overview. You know, I want to just go back. You said you initially went to the Wisconsin School for the Deaf and then ended up going to a school for the blind. Can you tell me as a deafblind person, the difference between being in a school for the deaf versus a school for the blind? I know you started to talk about the technology, but from a culture standpoint, did you find one to be better than the other from your vantage point, or did you find them to have different pluses and minuses?
[Jason]: And this is Jason signing. I'm happy that you asked me that question, you know, all over the US there's many different programs. And most of the hearing, sighted schools, the level of education is better than the schools to the deaf and schools to the blind. You know, all the technology, the pace, the competition it's often better. And with an interpreter that obviously kind of equals the playing field a little bit, but as far as culture, the cultures are not the same, you know, often it's like they're in these solar groups, you know, this is the deaf group, this is the blind group. This is the hearing group. They have these different cliques. So there's the deaf culture group. There's the blind culture group. So often for example, the deaf culture group, they'd be signing to each other, but I had no idea if they were communicating with me or trying to have me involved in their conversation because there's really this solar group of like four friends who would sit at the cafeteria together, chat at the dorm together. So it was a very, very cliquey type of environment and that there was really two to three deaf people at that. So that was the deaf part of that.
[Doug]: You know, I find it interesting in the sense that, you know, you going to, initially a deaf school than a blind school, but not a deafblind school. I know later on that you, you know, you studied the Helen Keller National Center and perhaps other spaces that focus on deafblind. Do you know of any early education that's specifically catered to deafblind children, you know, from a school standpoint or is that something that's not really around yet?
[Jason]: I know there are very few state schools that have deafblind programs. Often the students are mainstreamed with the blind program, for example, my best friend who I grew up with, he was blind and really his educational experience was quite lagged and he would join some of the middle school classes. But he was really still at an elementary level. So they really couldn't set up a class for the two of us because we are at much different levels educationally. I really think it's important for all States in the US to have that accessibility and not to automatically say, oh, you're deafblind, so let me put you in with the teacher and you'll just play games and you'll drop pictures. You know, that's not the perspective that we want to have of the deafblind community. We need to give them opportunities, the same opportunities. And often what would happen in these IP meetings with interpreters there, you know, we would try to encourage to have individuals be placed in regular classes in mainstream classes. Because how else are we going to be able to be successful in high school and in college, if we're not challenged at the same level of our hearing sighted peers? So really there's still so many deafblind individuals who are struggling and not having the success meeting their expectations of success that could happen.
[Doug]: As someone like yourself who has a bachelor's degree, a master's degree, is a business owner and is deafblind, what do you most attribute your personal success to?
[Jason]: So really I attributed to my master's degree to my involvement in the community, to my support system, my family, my friends. You know, they really encouraged me to get out there and to do everything that anyone else would do. And I had great access. So that really led to my success in life without that access. And without that support system, I would've have had much more barriers in my life.
[Doug]: I want to pick up from where we left off in your story. So you said you worked for quite a while in government. At what point did you decide to start your own business and what motivated that decision?
[Jason]: Sure. Yeah. I'd love to answer that. So when I worked on the Department of Defense, I worked there for eight years, my first two bosses were unbelievable. They were great bosses. They really encouraged an accessible environment. And it was a very fast paced work environment, but they really empowered their employees and imply and empowered me too. It was a very empowering environment. They didn't just give me everything and tell me what to do and really like, hold my hand. It was quite an empowering, compelling environment. And I really had the opportunity to try out different offices within that department. And, you know, often with providing interpreters, you can't always get an interpreter last minute. You know, it's not always so available. So my experience was that they really made things available. And when that didn't happen, we had complained to the EEO and, you know, I am a very positive individual, I have the house, I take care of myself. So I really decided to kind of apply for that business license to get the EEO. It took three or four years for that EEO finally to get approved. And also to get a full-time interpreter and an SSP and pro-tactile interpreter. It really took time to get all the accessibility pieces in place and to get all the contracts in place. And a lot of interpreters don't have that pro-tactile experience. So it's really a new experience for everybody. And sometimes they don't have the exact match for the interpreter who has that deafblind experience. Hold on one second, Doug. So, you know, often, sometimes we have to communicate through writing. There's just sometimes the communication's a little challenging, so we make that work through writing, or if the interpreter is not well-versed in the communication, then we kind of figure out ways to make it work with the deafblind community.
[Doug]: You know, I think one thing that's really interesting that you're bringing, Oh, sorry, go ahead, Jason.
[Jason]: I just wanted to add to my comments and clarify, and I just want to make sure that we're all caught up with everything here with the interpreters. So my point here is that for different individuals, you know, for example, there might be a math problem, and everybody approaches that math problem more easily. So for a hearing person, they might have a certain approach, but with the deafblind person, there's a different approach. So that really has quite the impact on the communities. Maybe feeling that anxious about having the appropriate services and having job placements and really as a person like, do I want to keep continuing fighting for my rights as a deafblind individual, or do I want to find a position where I'm happy and content. And this is the, hold on one second. I just want to catch up. So my point is that in my previous job with the government, I was doing a lot of fighting for accessibility. So at that point, I really wanted to take a moment and I didn't want to fight as much. I wanted to set up a business where there would be full accessibility. So that's how that all started. Thank you for allowing the interpreter to clarify. So that's why I wanted to start my business. So I applied for, you know, excuse me, I'm really motivated. I was really motivated to get that business going. So for two years, we built the trust of the community and really worked on setting everything up with the business, all the fine details. And we wanted to make sure that this business had accessibility, it had the technology, it had advocacy and all the data systems. So it was a lot of work and a lot of honestly still fighting to make sure that we had everything in place.
[Doug]: So like a lot of great business ideas, you identified something that needed to change or be bettered and you started it yourself. Like you were mentioning, you noted that accessibility for someone who is deafblind, like yourself at your previous jobs was sometimes, challenging or not coordinated in the best way. And that you felt like you could do that better and provide a service for other people who are in that position. What is it like starting your first business? You'd mentioned that there were certain things that were challenging, but did you have anyone who was mentoring you or how did you go about figuring out all the things that you needed to do in order to start a business?
[Jason]: Yeah, that's fine. So I've been married for six years now and we traveled to many different countries and while traveling me and my partner, we're out really trying to figure out, you know, how can we make this work. We like to help people. We've seen so many problems within the government, with interpreters, with having accessibility, with accessibility issues and to so many different things within the government that needs to be improved. And there's been so many different lawsuits. So we're really, you know, getting our hands dirty and trying to improve upon the system. So that's really how it all started. Just with the discussion with my partner. Our goal for the business was to spread worldwide accessibility. So Europe is really ahead of us. They really cherish the diversity in their communities and the differently-abled, disability communities, communities with different races. You know, Europe is really way ahead of, the right way ahead of everyone else. And you know, me and my partner, we are in the gay community and, you know, in all these different countries and Japan and all of these countries that I visited, we noticed that often individuals in that in the LGBT community were kind of hidden. So we decided to start this company called Three Monkeys Communication based on the Japanese figures, you know, the hear no evil, see no evil, feel no evil. So that's kinda how it started. The inspiration was seeing the Japan, those figurines. And then we kind of looked at ourselves and we figured out what our tagline would be. And then we decided the tagline would be that we want people to be able to see, we won't be able to hear and be able to feel. So kind of similar to that. The three monkeys, those figurines of the three monkeys that are very famous in Japan. So we created, excuse me, interpreter is just catching up. So this app was to really make the world more accessible. And that was the start with the company, the Three Monkeys Communication. And when we traveled, we looked for individuals within those countries that could provide services and provide accessibility within those countries. So, and the three apps that we are in the process of developing are Mizaru, Kikazaru, and Iwazaru. And that was the name of the three monkeys. So those, those are the products that are in development. And instead of those names, we're actually using those names similar to touch with pro-tactile for feeling, and then for deafblind, that's another name, another app that we're developing. And then also for hearing, we're having another app to make everything more accessible. So while we're in Australia, we got some experience there, traveling, coming up with ideas for how to make it accessible. And we, can you tell him to hold on one second? So while traveling in Australia, you know, we had this experience of trying to figure out how we can make our experience more accessible for traveling. So this also inspired the idea of these different apps. And so that's those three apps that I was mentioning that were in development. We're caught up now.
[Doug]: Great. You know, Jason, I'm wondering, you had mentioned that Europe is really far ahead in certain ways around accessibility and accessible practices. Can you speak a little bit more specifically about the ways in which they're ahead of the United States?
[Jason]: Sure. Yeah, so many of my friends worked for the government and also many of my friends are paying for SSPs, support providers, and interpreters. They're paying for them themselves with their own finance. Now in other countries, individuals who live in a country, they pay taxes. So that way those funds are available and that the consumers are not paying for it themselves. Now, another example from Brazil, you know, Brazil really cherishes their history and they cherish senior citizens. And Brazil is still in the process also of creating accessibility with interpreters. So those countries are still working on those levels. And same with Americans in America. We don't use taxes to provide services for the deafblind community, which I think is a really great incentive that they have in Europe.
[Doug]: Are there people in the United States that are advocating to function in the way that Europe is functioning in? And do you see that as a possibility for the United States at some point,
[Jason]: No, the US is improving. We now have captions. We have interpreters, sorry. The interpreter is just clarifying information. And so I can't see the chat box here. So we have Universal Studios, oh, excuse me. In Florida, Universal Studios, you know, the company Universal Studios? Yep. So I just want to comment something about that. They provide interpreters. They have VIP passes for individuals who are deaf and deafblind, and they have different lines set up that are accessible so that people can tour and experience Universal Studios, you know, easily. So I think we kind of need to set up that same process overall in America to make just everything more accessible. And so in America you can get interpreters anywhere you go. It's really easy to find interpreters because there's so many different agencies. So, can you just, I'm sorry, can you just clarify that as he saying that interpreter? So for example, you know, the alcohol Jameson, they won't provide interpreters for traveling, you know, they have interpreters in America for traveling very available.
[Doug]: So Jason, going back to Three, Monkeys Communication for a moment, and by the way, I love the inspiration for the name that you described. You started to talk about, you know, what your company does. I know there's a lot of different facets to it. So can you kind of just summarize the main components of Three Monkeys Communication?
[Jason]: Sure. So we offer a keynote presentations. We offer keynote presentations to schools, to businesses, to companies, same as we're doing today. And I share my experiences of how we can make the world more accessible and I try to provide a different perspective. And the purpose is kind of that with the topic of, I've never thought of this. So how can I become more aware of this? And we also provide trainings for companies. For example, we provide pro-tactal trainings. We provide inclusion and diversity training. . So if, for example, some companies want more GDPs. So we help create an app or we might help develop an app to solve those problems. And we do consulting to basically make their businesses more accessible for the deafblind community. We also offer mentorship that includes interpreting and to make sure that we have qualified interpreters and pro-tactile interpreters. We want deafblind individuals to be as independent as possible so that they can travel the world so that they can be involved in businesses so they can be, have real discourse with companies. So we really teach a wide range and a wide range of trainings. We do consulting. So for example, if you have a website or an app that you're creating, and you want us to give you an analysis report, we can do that too so that we can offer suggestions and ways to make your apps more accessible for the deafblind and blind communities. Plus, we have two products, one's called Mizaru, and he was just showing the sign name for it. And that's an app that focuses on deafblind traveling. So if they're going out of the country, often you might need an SSP. So we offer trainings for the SSPs for specifically with traveling. Can you take the names again? So there's Uber there's Airbnb. So we also offer some trainings on how to make those apps more accessible for those companies. Now, lastly, the monkey, Iwazaru, that one. We have different trainings and interviews that we do on YouTube with deafblind individuals and their experience with traveling around the country. And we're actually making videos and have made videos of people's traveling because we want people to see that, you know, deafblind individuals, we can travel, we can experience the world just like everybody else. So that's part of our business is showing the world and doing the videos that include deafblind individuals traveling throughout the world.
[Doug]: Jason, you had mentioned before the topic of advocacy. And I know that's something that comes up often on this platform. I know that it can take many different forms. One thing just in connecting with you over the last few weeks, the topic of advocacy around communication comes up for me. You know, I know that you're someone who's really good at making sure ahead of time that the communication that we are going to have is going to be facilitated in the right way. I think sometimes people assume that, you know, we just have interpreters and we just hop on here and that's it. We're just ready to go. But obviously there's sometimes a little bit more back and forth and work involved in that. And certainly you are really good at advocating for yourself around that and making sure that the communication is going to be facilitated in the best way. Can you talk a little bit about first, specifically how we facilitate our communication to be here and have this conversation today and why it's important for individuals who are deafblind or anyone who's working with interpreters to advocate for themselves around communication?
[Jason]: Yeah, sure. So I just want to add one little little side comment. I am an adjunct professor and for each class I need to have an interpreter. So I have to prepare, I have to prepare my PowerPoints, all the vocab that the students need to learn. And often the interpreters show up late or right on time. And there's no time for prep and they don't know what's going to be discussed in the class. And I have some students who actually are taking ASL five and sometimes the students will actually tell me that the interpreter said the wrong thing. So that really bothered me and I never forgot that moment. So from that moment on, I made sure that I had all the prep materials ready for the interpreter so that once they entered my class they knew the topic and the content that I was going to be discussing. Now, for example, with this zoom call, I asked Doug if we could chat prior with the interpreters and I wanted a man talking so that it emulated me as a man also. And we also made sure that we pinned the correct interpreter. So we had everything in place prior so that we had as much accessibility as possible. And we reviewed terminology with the interpreters. We checked that the backgrounds were in place and that the backgrounds were accessible for myself and for the deafblind individuals watching, because we want everything to look professional. Most of the time, from my experience, growing up with my teachers, with my parents, it seems like too much to ask or people feel like it's too much to ask. But what I want to say is it's okay, it's all right. And you need to do those things. Be brave, be confident advocate for yourself. Now, if you need changes with the interpreter or the color of the interpreter's shirt, you know, ask for what you need. I've been doing zoom presentations for a while, and I'm very comfortable with them. But the one negative with zoom is that sometimes it's a little hard to see the interpreter for clarification. You know, there's not really thst facial expression, being able to be read as easily on zoom. So of course with coronavirus, as things are more challenging and we do the best, we can.
[Doug]: Obviously your company deals with creating more accessibility and more accessible environments for people who are deafblind. What would you say to people who might say something like, well, it's just not financially feasible or practical to always have, you know, as many interpreters as you might need or SSPs as you might need. Like sure, in an ideal world that would be great but it's not practical or it's not feasible. What would you say to someone who might say something like that?
[Jason]: You know, most of us, we think it's a really, people think it's a really complicated situation. And we're often too concerned for the interpreter, the person to like us as an individual and then people that like your personality and they like you, then they might be willing to make more adaptations for you. So I noticed that approach works. If you build that connection first, if you right off the bat, like, oh, this is what I need, and you try to convince people that, oh my God, I need this, you need to give me this, you need to provide that, it doesn't work. You can't be pushy. If you ask them nicely in a professional, personal manner, like, okay, this is the situation, can we brainstorm together and work together as a team to make the most of our time together? You know, we can discuss, perhaps we spotlight the interpreters and really talk about it in a way that's more team oriented, you know, maybe suggesting different fonts or different modalities, you know, and also, you know, we use, we use zoom, so there's different creative ways to solve problems, but really it's so important to work together as a team. So we did, we try the best we can to make it work. And I have a background in teaching. So what I do is I make sure I send the PowerPoints ahead of time. And then if there's any problems we're prepared and sometimes my students will email me and let me know if there's an issue with the PowerPoint or something needs to be changed. And my interpreters during class will give me a little reminders like, oh, you pressed too far ahead. Or, you know, they'll give me those visual cues. And in my master's program, we had to be quite quite creative. For example, with Adobe Connect, we had the movies, the PowerPoints, everything on Adobe Connect. And we had to make those add up to adaptations to make that work. But for the interpreter it was challenging because they were looking at the PowerPoint and they're looking back at me. So that's why we had to make those adaptations to then use Adobe Connect. So really, the purpose is we need to be creative to make adaptations that works for the individual and work together as a team and not force and convince the individuals to do something.
[Doug]: So certainly, you know, you're speaking to a certain level of accommodation that you need to make on your end in that if you were to just outright say all the things you needed without first building a rapport, you said it might run the risk of being off-putting to someone and making it harder to facilitate the accessibility that's needed. Do you imagine a world in the future where you don't necessarily need to be so accommodating to other people about your own accommodations, but rather that will just be a more widely instituted practice and that people will have more understanding of what it means to facilitate accessible conversations and just have that be a part of the planning of all conversations? So I guess in short, I know that was kind of a long way of saying, do you imagine that at some point in the future, people will just be better about providing accessibility without someone like yourself needing to negotiate that situation so much?
[Jason]: That is my goal. And my goal also with my company is to create, or to have this YouTube channel that I have set up that I know how to approach these situations. And also so that the sighted individuals with their businesses, they can look on the YouTube channel and have more background knowledge about what to do. And they can see it in action on the YouTube channel, our deafblind experience. And that way, when they hire an individual, they will know what to do. And sometimes hiring somebody for captioning is just too much money. It takes too much time. So it's just easier to have it ready on there for, you know, YouTube do the automatic captioning. And sometimes that's a fact of, and sometimes it's not. So we're trying to make that we're trying to solve that problem and that you should, by solving that problem by solving that problem, I'm suggesting that we have the words already on the video instead of using the YouTube captioning, because sometimes that's not completely accurate. So that's one suggestion that I do with my YouTube channel, and we know that YouTube does have this new, the subtitles automatically transcribed. So that's really great access for the deafblind community for the accessibility there for that piece. Oh, excuse me. This is an interpreter error. I'm just suggesting people don't subtitle. I think you should use the YouTube automatic transcription because that saves money and that saves staffing. I don't suggest to have the words right on the video. And the reason for that is people who are using braille equipment, won't be able to read it. And now if you use the YouTube transcription, they can read the braille and at home it's easy for them because they can adjust the font to their liking. But if you already have the words on the video set up and the captions on the video that can't connect it with their braille devices.
[Doug]: And that's a good point that you make, Jason. I mean, every platform is a little different in that way. So for instance, in YouTube, or say Facebook, like you mentioned, where you can pretty easily upload a captions file, that's better to do than burning the captions in because it allows someone on the other end to have a degree of flexibility of how that looks. Certain platforms like Instagram or Twitter, where you can as easily upload caption files, you might want to consider burning in the captions just because it's better to have them there than not have any access to them at all. So yeah, it definitely varies on a platform to platform basis.
[Jason]: Right. Exactly. Now YouTube and Facebook, they do have those accessible, you know, they already have it available. You can transcribe it live. So that's really nice.
[Doug]: Yeah, no, they're getting way better with that too. I know, even in the time that we've been doing these broadcasts that the automatic, live captions have gotten way better than they used to be. So it's nice to see technology being used to help create progress around accessibility. And certainly I imagine in the future there'll be even more technology to support a lot of the accessibility initiatives that you are undertaking with your company.
[Jason]: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Many states have the resources and they're ready to get that started, but some companies don't have the finances. For example, in Maryland, we have something called the RCC and I'm trying to remember what that stands for. I forget what the acronym stands for, but they have these three resources available for meetings and the host doesn't pay anything and it already adds the transcription. So we do, like you were saying, we do have some of these apps available, but some states are still catching up.
[Doug]: So Jason, with the last five minutes or so that we have here, you know, I know that you've mentioned a couple of times during this broadcast and also when we've spoken prior about traveling. Can you talk to me a little bit more about your personal passion for traveling and also maybe tell a little bit more about how you as a person who is deafblind travels?
[Jason]: Sure. Yeah. Yeah, I'd love to. I Have two stories to tell you, actually three, but maybe I'll just pick two to save time. So I've traveled to the Philippines and I was searching for an SSP in the Philippines. I made all these calls, tried to make contacts because people in the Philippines had never worked with a deaf individual before. And you know, Philippines culture food, I wasn't so familiar with all that. Oh, excuse me, interpreting error. So the person who I had hired, the deaf individual, they weren't familiar with Philippines culture. So I wanted to find somebody locally who could show me around and be a quote unquote SSP, a support provider for me. So I found a friend who wanted to learn, was willing to learn. And my friend created an app that made the world more accessible for the deafblind community. So rather than spending all your money to fly another person out, why not find someone locally? And I also know a hearing, sighted person who was, had a lot of experience with traveling. They had been to Australia and we, and myself, we climbed the bridge in Australia, the Harbor Bridge. And I was really concerned about that. But, you know, with the SSP that I found in Australia, we, you know, we were like, oh, it's really dangerous. Not sure how we can make it work, but we did it. It was a success. I couldn't imagine I would ever be able to climb that Harbor Bridge, but we did it, you know, with the SSP and it was quite an inspiring opportunity for me. So that was really one of the best experiences I've had. It's really important for deafblind individuals to get out there, to have those experiences, to see the world, to touch the world.
[Doug]: And, you know, I think it relates so much to your overall mission of just, you know, part of fostering an environment that is more accessible-friendly and that breaks down barriers between say the deafblind community and the general public is more interaction between those two communities, more visibility. And I think, you know, when I listened to you talk about traveling and your passion for travel, that's what comes to mind for me. Is that not only is it obviously great for you personally, to be able to experience the world and see all these new things and have all these new experiences, but also it's nice I think for people who maybe have never met or seen anyone who is deafblind, to see them out in the world, enjoying the world, just like anyone else would. So I think it's, it feels like it has that extra impact. Do you feel like that's been the case when you've met people while traveling?
[Jason]: Oh yes, yes. Yes. Definitely. My goal in this world is if I can do it, any of you can do it. Any of you, deafblind and blind individuals who are viewing this video and watching you can do it. Come on, let's do it, let's see the world. You can get jobs, you can have the career you want, you can travel the world. You can have the life you want and the opportunities that you want. So that's really my goal in this life and in this world. And it's my responsibility to encourage deafblind people to do that.
[Doug]: Well, Jason, on that note, you know, I think that's a perfect sentiment to wrap up today's episode. Thank you so much for joining us today, for sharing everything that you did.
[Jason]: Thank you so much, Doug, for inviting me on today. I really appreciate it. And I'm honored.
[Doug]: Yes. And it was, it was an absolute pleasure. And I look forward to staying in touch with you, hearing more about Three Monkeys Communication. And, please do keep me posted on everything you're doing.
[Jason]: Will do.
[Doug]: And thank you to all of you who joined us today. We'll be back next week, same time, same place, with another episode of Feeling Through Live. Until then have an amazing weekend and week ahead. We'll see you then. Bye, everyone.