Show notes:

Are there people who inspire you, make you want to be better and do better?

I have been fortunate to meet with amazing and inspirational people from all walks of life through my podcast The Elephant in the Room. Individuals who refuse to be defined by their circumstances or the challenges they encounter in life.

Akashdeep Bansal, CEO of SaralX, and my guest for the 134th episode of the podcast is one such person. Diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa at a young age, Akash's path took an unexpected turn when a conversation with his master's supervisor prompted him to consider the challenges faced by visually impaired individuals in pursuing STEM education. This pivotal moment not only reshaped his academic trajectory but also inspired the creation of SaralX, a startup focused on enhancing digital accessibility for people with disabilities.

In this episode we spoke about 👇🏾👇🏾👇🏾

👉🏾 How this led to the setting up of a collaborative network aimed at breaking barriers and fostering inclusion

👉🏾 Discovering purpose and becoming an entrepreneur advocating for inclusivity in the digital realm

👉🏾 Misconceptions that digital accessibility is solely for people with visual impairments, emphasizing that it encompasses a diverse array of disabilities, including motor impairments, cognitive challenges, auditory limitations……

👉🏾 The need to shift from a complaint-driven approach to accessibility towards one that inherently integrates inclusive practices into the foundational design of products and services.

👉🏾 Societal awareness and acceptance in facilitating a truly inclusive environment for all individuals, regardless of their abilities.

We also spoke about stigma, role models and what motivates him. Akash believes that it is not just one person who inspired his journey, it is the collective influence of those he has engaged with on his journey. His commitment to creating awareness and fostering inclusivity with SaralX is rooted in the notion that true empowerment stems from dismantling societal barriers rather than imposing limitations on those who are excluded.

Thank you @Prateek Madhav, Assistech Foundation for the introduction 🙏🏾🙏🏾🙏🏾

To learn more about Akash’s inspirational journey head to the podcast 👇🏾👇🏾👇🏾

Episode Transcript

Sudha: Good morning, Akash. Wonderful to have you as a guest on The Elephant in The Room Podcast today.

Akash: Good morning, Sudha. It's my pleasure to be here.

Sudha: Brilliant. So let's get started with a quick introduction to who you are and what you do. I heard a little bit from Prateek of AssisTech Foundation. Let's hear from you.

Akash: What I can say about myself is, right now I'm doing this startup called SaralX, where we are basically helping in making the digital world inclusive for person with disabilities. Prior to this, I've done my master and PhD from IIT Delhi And I'm born and brought up in a small town which is called Gango, which comes under the district xxxx.

So that a small brief about me.

Sudha: Oh, wow. From UP straight to Bangalore. That's good.

Akash: Yeah,

Sudha: It requires a fair amount of bravery to become an entrepreneur. Did you have an aha moment and what propelled you to get into this journey?

Akash: Okay. So I can tell you like how I ended up in entrepreneurship.

There was no plan, when I was in childhood there was no plan that I will be doing any sort of entrepreneurship. If you met me 10 years back and asked me what I want to be in the future, my answer at that time should have been, I want to be in the teaching profession. I want to be a professor. So I did my BTech in electronics and communication. Then I got admission at IIT Delhi for Mtech. So when I was pursuing my master's at IIT Delhi, the same question was asked by my Master's supervisor. He asked me what do you want to be in the future?

So I told him like, I want to be the professor.

He then said, okay, that's fair enough, I can give you another problem statement. As you're doing your master's thesis, you can continue the work in the similar domain and you can pursue the PhD. I'll be happy to take you as a PhD student.

So one background is that I got diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa in 2003 when I was just 10-year-old. Due to which, I was losing my eyesight gradually. And when my Master’s supervisor asked me, tell me one thing, what will happen if during your PhD you are not able to read anything on the printed documents or anything on the computer screen?

How will you continue your research work? And at the time I was dealing with equations, which used to be three to four lines, even when you are typing on a A4 size sheet.

My Masters was related to electromagnetics EM wave, if you've heard about.

He asked me how will you manage you're dealing with such a complex equation right now. how will you continue working on your research during your PhD itself, if you lose your eyesight? And that was a trigger point for me.

I was not having any answer at that time. I said, give some time. Let me think about it. And then after a couple of days, I revisited him. I asked him sir can I do PhD with a topic that, how a blind person can do electrical engineering?

So then he said, yeah, that sounds a good topic, but I am not from this domain, so let us talk to someone who works in this domain.

So then we met another supervisor.

He immediately accepted me as a PhD student. He said, if you want to work on this problem, how equations can be read out for a person with blindness, I will be happy to take you as a PhD student. So that's how I entered the PhD.

I started networking with multiple persons with disabilities, multiple NGOs to understand what kind of challenges they're facing, what kind of practices they're adopting right now.

To pursue the different STEM content, like equations, tables. Yeah. What kind of practices are there and what kind of challenges are there? So, at the time we formed an informal group of different persons with disabilities who were doing engineering from ITTs, or even the foreign universities.

We started catching up on monthly basis. Basically we used to help out each other and I used to join that call to understand, these are the alternatives everyone is adopting. And this is the gap, which is there.

So, during the conversations which we used to have on monthly basis a discussion came up, the point was, we eight or nine people are able to help each other We somehow was able to break the barriers and able to come to the engineering domain.

But we know the ground reality. Even if you go to a lot of NGOs the blind person is always guided that you shouldn't pursue STEM education. Because that is not something which is accessible to you. You should one of the arts subjects. So then we thought, okay, let's join hands and maybe enter into some sort of an organisation where we can collectively work towards and utilize our own technical abilities and do something for the entire xxxxxxx

So that was a moment when we switched into an entrepreneurship mode, four of us we started first company, we ran it for around three years. We learned a lot of things, we did a couple of things for the community. And then during this time itself, there was a time when my eyesight reached to that level that now I can't read anything on the computer screen.

 I needed to rely on the assistive technologies. I was the one who used to manage everything online in my family. Like if my father wants anything, I was the go-to person. But in 2021 when I lost my eye sight to the level that now I can't read anything on the computer screen, I felt like I lost my freedom.

Now I need to even rely on someone else to get the things done. So that was the trigger point. And then I said, okay I need to solve this problem. Anyway during the PhD I learned about all different kind of digital accessibility, like let's solve this problem at a larger scale. And that's led to the development of this service

Sudha: Wow, that's quite a story, quite an experience for anyone. So you've said about, why you started SaralX and it is about accessibility, for people with disabilities visual impairment probably, or anything that they have.

So what is your ambition for SaralX and how did you get to the name SaralX?

Akash: Before answering your question, I just want you to help with one thing because that is something which I find a myth. That people think digital accessibility is just for visual impaired. But that is not true. Digital accessibility is for multiple disabilities. In the visual disability, you can understand blindness, low vision, colour contrast.

Now let's talk about the other spectrum. Think about a person with deafness. You're posting an audio - video content, like you're posting this podcast now. Now think about a deaf person.

Think about a person who is a XXXXXXXXXX disabled, but the problems are in the upper body parts. Like maybe hands are not there or the fingers is not there, or the movement is very limited or the hands are always shaking to which they can't use the mouse pointer.

Then comes to the Neuro divergent spectrum. So in the neuro divergent spectrum, think about the dyslexia, you may be able to recall the movie Taare Zameen Par. If you remember that movie there was a child that child, whenever that child was trying to read anything in the book, all the characters were dancing, due to which he was not able to make out. what is the text written. So same problem a person with dyslexia is going to face when they're reading something on the digital screen.

So now what kind of things can be done for them so that they can easily read whatever is coming on their mobile screen or the laptop screen? So it's not just visual impairment. It's actually a very wide spectrum which get affected due to digital and in accessibilities.

Now, if I try to answer your question why the name SaralX.  So SaralX is basically a combination of Saral and X. Saral means easy, it's Hindi word. Now X is a variable, it may be accessibility, it may be experience, so what we're saying is we are making the accessibility process easy. We are making the experiences.  So that's how we came to this name SaralX.

Sudha: And what have been some of your biggest learnings on the journey?

Because I can't imagine that it has been very easy. A couple of years in, are their things you would have done differently and what are some of the biggest learnings from this?

Akash: So, one of the learning is you have to be patient.

You have to keep patient in what you're doing. If I even tell you, like when I started SaralX, the first one year even I myself was in a fear that will the company be sustaining or not? Will I be able to pay next month or not? But then a turning point happened, due to which the company got changed.

Now we are already into the growth stage. Where we are rapidly growing the team. every month. Every week the new members are joining in the team. So that kind of growth is what like one is like you have to keep patience You have to put the hard work. If you believe in your idea, just keep patience and things will happen. Other thing which I learned about this space specifically talk about the disability space. So the point there is, try to think of a B2B business model.

That was a mistake in my first startup This is basically the second startup. We were doing one mistake that we were focusing more on a B2C model. And in India, when you are trying to focus in a B2C model, that is something which is very hard. But if you can change your business model to a B2B model, then things can change drastically. That is what I even used to share with everyone else who are working in this space, that whether you have a product for a B2C, but still try to think of a B2B one, don't directly just focus on B2C. So that is one thing which I learned during my entrepreneurship journey.

Sudha: If you want to be sustainable, I think that is something that you have to think of. So I've heard about the social definition of disability and a couple of years back I've worked in the disability space as the chair of the PRCA, Equity and Inclusion Advisory Board. but at that stage I was still using people first definition of disability and then there is this organisation in the UK that they'd posted something and I wrote to the CEO then we had a conversation post that and she spoke about the social definition of disability So I knew about it, but I didn't know how important it was for people to adopt that model.

So, for our listeners, what is it exactly, and why is it important for you? Because I have seen in some of your, articles that I've read about the social model for definition of disability.

Akash: So point comes as when you're looking at disability, there are two faces of it.

One is you're seeing the problems which are there with the person. Another way is the barriers which are there in the infrastructure. Now, if you can remove those barriers in the infrastructure, the person who is not able to do the task right now will be able to do that.

I came across a video I'll narrate this by explaining video which I saw around a year back, in which what they displayed is - there was a town in which the only persons who sit on the wheelchair were staying. There was no one who walks or ran, without the wheelchair. So all the infrastructure, which was built in that town, was as per the requirement of the person with wheel chair. Like all the ceilings were not that high. Now then what happens is, when there was a person who was not having any disability, that person came to this town and was trying to enter into the house he was not able to, because ceiling was too low for him. His head was continuously getting struck with the ceiling. In this environment, what we call is a person not disabled, that person got disabled?

That person is not able to travel in this infrastructure. But the person who's sitting on the wheelchair has no problem. They can go around, they can do everything. There is no barrier for them because the infrastructure was designed, only keeping persons was on the wheelchair in the mind not everyone else.

So the same thing is there, like if you are designing any infrastructure, if you start thinking about everyone and you come up with a universal design of everything, whether it's a product, whether it's a software, whether it's infrastructure, then even a person, if there are problems in the different body parts, they will be able to do the things independently, and they'll be able to live independently without, depending on anyone else.

So that is what my learning from the social disability model, that it is not just putting the burden on the person. But putting the burden also on the society, because that is what is making them disabled.

Sudha: It is not catering to their specific requirements, so it's excluding people.

Akashdeep, what are your thoughts on the state of accessibility in India? How can we accelerate change? I know there is a lot of conversation and policies, etcetera but a lot of things don't translate from policy into real action, we are not seeing the change happen as rapidly as it should in order to enable everyone to participate in our society,

Akash: So, the bigger problem there is in India right now, the condition is improving, but I won't say it's very good. There's significant work which need to be done. The initial step which is happening is due to the legal pressure. There are a lot of lawsuits happening against the different organisations due to which they are putting effort and trying to make their systems accessible.

But if you see, what happens is when something is happening due to the pressure or due to the legal combats, that may happen for a month but that will not survive.

As soon as someone gives a green signal, they will stop focusing on it.

But if you can make it more sort of a sustainable model for them, make a more sort of business model for them.

Why they need to focus on disability, where they need to make sure that, their infrastructure or their digital infrastructure or physical infrastructure, whatever it is, that should be accessible, then this will go up. So you have to think beyond legal. Legal will push for a moment. And it'll get done for a moment, but it'll not survive. What I generally say is, when I discuss anything about digital accessibility with anyone. I generally ask them to think about when you are making your digital infrastructure accessible, first you need to get outta that met that the person with disabilities are very less because the census data is very inappropriate. Census data says that hardly, 2.2% of the population of India is a person with disability, which is highly inaccurate. There are multiple records which says that at least 10% of the Indian population is a person with disabilities,

That changes the narrative. That 2%, the 10%, if you're not focusing on accessibility.

Then the question comes as is you improving the user experience for that or also for everyone else? So the question is, it improves the user experience for everyone. The one simple example, which I generally give to the people is many of us nowadays started using the dark...