ATU689 – Index Braille with Mikael Vikman Sunna

Hi, this is Mikael Vikman Sunna, and I am the CEO of Index Braille Sweden. And this is your Assistive Technology Update.

Hello, and welcome to your Assistive Technology Update, a weekly dose of information that keeps you up to date on the latest developments in the field of technology designed to assist individuals with disabilities and special needs. I’m your host, Josh Anderson with the INDATA Project at Easterseals Crossroads in beautiful Indianapolis, Indiana. Welcome to episode 689 of Assistive Technology Update. It is scheduled to be released on August 9th, 2024. On today’s show we are super excited to be joined by Mikael Vikman Sunna, the CEO of Index Braille, and he’s here to tell us all about their embossers, the importance of braille and all the really great things that they offer. Listeners, as always, we’re super excited that you’re listening to us today. And don’t forget, you can always reach out to us. Just drop us a line. You can give us a call at (317) 721-7124 or shoot us an email at tech@eastersealscrossroads.org.

But without any further ado, folks, let’s go ahead and get on with the show. Folks, if you’re listening to this show, it’s obvious that you like assistive technology and you love podcasts. Well, if you like assistive technology and podcasts have I got a treat for you, Assistive Technology Update is not our only podcast here at the INDATA Project at Easterseals Crossroads, no, we actually have two others. Assistive Technology Frequently Asked Questions, or ATFAQ, is a question and answer show where we take your questions as well as questions that we receive through our other programs and do our best to answer those with our panel of experts. I use that word very loosely, but usually it’s myself, Brian Norton, and other members of our team sitting in to try to answer your questions. This show relies on our listeners not just for our questions, but sometimes for the answers.

Let’s not lie, we do not know everything that there is to know, so we always kind of try to throw those questions out and sometimes our listeners feedback, well, we get to learn stuff as well which is always a great thing. Or if perhaps you’re short on time, we also have Accessibility Minute. Now, Accessibility Minute is just a little taster. It’s going to give you just a little bit of information about a new piece of assistive technology. A new app, program, or something else cool that might be able to help individuals with disabilities, and they give you some resources where you can go and check out more about it on your own. So remember, if you like this show, if you like assistive technology and you like podcasts, check out our other shows, Assistive Technology Frequently Asked Questions and Accessibility Minute to Go along with Assistive Technology Update, which you’re listening to right now.

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So if you’re interested in assistive technology, artificial intelligence, robots, virtual reality, adaptive gaming, the internet of things, and all these other just amazing technological advances, please, please, please do sign up to attend our August full day training here at INDATA on innovative assistive technology. Coming up on August 22nd from 9:00 AM to 3:00 PM. CEUs are available for this event. So if you need those to keep a certification or just for anything else, those are available, but you do have to register. There are not a lot of spots left, so make sure that you register very soon. We’ll put a link down in the show notes that it’s very easy to just click right over there and do it. Again, this is all online. So if you ever want to join us for one of our full days, if you’ve joined us before, or are just looking to maybe have the first time joining us for a full day training, again, join us for innovative assistive technology full day training on August 22nd from 9:00 AM to 3:00 PM eastern online via Zoom. Check out the show notes for how to register and sign up for the training. Listeners today we are super excited to welcome Mikael Vikman Sunna from Index Braille to the show to tell us all about the cool items that they offer and how they can help the individuals that they serve. Mikael, welcome to the show.

Ah, thank you very much. Thank you.

Yeah, I am really excited. I know we’ve been trying to get together for a while to learn more about Index Braille, but before we do that, could you tell our listeners a little bit about yourself?

Yeah, I can do that. I am actually the CEO of Index Braille, and I’ve been working with this company for, I think it’s about 32 years now actually. So it’s been a while. So I’ve been in the industry for quite a while. Started out as sort of a mistake, I wasn’t supposed to do this, I was actually a photographer. I tried to make my living as a photographer and it was kind of hard so I figured I need something to make some cash for building up my photo studio, and I stumbled on this job as a technician at the Index Braille back in 1990. So that’s how it started. So I started as a technician and been working here ever since. And it’s a great company. Many people who starts working here, they don’t ever quit. They’re kind of happy to be within the company.

And I can tell you a little bit about the company. Back then, it was owned by the founder, Bjorn Lofstedt, and he started this in the early ’80s and was the sole owner of Index. And a couple of years ago we got the opportunity to buy the company from him. So it’s actually new ownership since a little more than two years now. So it shifted to the old management team who has actually been running the company the last year. And now we’ve got the opportunity to actually take over and run Index in the direction that we want to do and it’s great.

That’s awesome. And I love you said two things. One, that the leaders have a personal stake, not just in the success of the company for that’s part of the job, but also as the ownership part. And then also I love that longevity, talking about folks that come and just never leave. That’s what I always look for in my team, and I take a lot of pride in knowing that I sit there and meet with members of my team and talk about them being new, and I realize they’ve been here three to five years, but compared to other folks, that is kind of new.

That’s kind of new.

Yeah. It is kind of new, but it’s always just you know you’re doing something right if folks really stick around and-

Yeah, we do actually… Yeah, sorry to interrupt you. But I mean Index, it’s known for being quite, it’s not a family business, but it’s the feeling of the company is really warm and friendly and all the people who works there think of Index as they’re part of their family actually. And I think that’s really, really great. But I mean, we’re a relatively small company and we try to handle everything in-house and all the people here are multi talented and do not only one thing only. I think that’s one of the keys to be happy at work, I mean, do a lot of different things. Yeah.

Yeah. It definitely gives you more of a personal stake pretty much no matter where you are in the company for sure. And I’m sure as a CEO, that’s a great thing for you to not have to hire and be to be able to hold onto those good folks for a long time. Well, I guess-

Yeah, it is.

… And I guess we got to dig in a little bit of just, we know some of the backstory and everything else about Index Braille, but what does Index Braille make or do?

Well, Index Braille is actually one of a few companies in the world who makes braille embossers and we’ve been doing this and only this for, I mean since the company was started actually. And one of two big companies in the world actually providing, I don’t know the percentage, but we have a large part of the world market with our products. But the core thing is braille embossers and also the software side of it and that’s what we do. Some accessories also, we got some acoustic cabinets and we got some staples and so accessories to these braille embossers. But that’s what we do. And we got four different types of embossers all the way from small tabletop embossers for personal use, up to really large machines that are for large scale production and so on. And it’s both for two lines, you say got one for tractor-fed paper, and also we cover the cut-sheet paper market.

Oh, nice.

And that differs all around the world. It’s some parts of the world, they prefer the cut-sheet paper because it’s cheaper and easier to get. And other parts of the world they prefer tractor-fed paper or continuous paper.

Nice. And you said you have four main different ones. Is the main difference just the size and the kind of paper, or are there other differences between the different models of embossers?

Yeah. I mean, they’re quite different in size and look of it, but also the speed. I mean the large-scale production embossers are much faster than the smaller ones, of course. So that’s mainly the difference. But all four what’s the same for it, it’s the same software and it’s the same… So recognize everything. If you have the smallest one or the biggest one, you handle the embossers and the printouts in a similar way. So if you know one of the embossers, you know them all.

Nice.

You can say that. Yeah.

Nice. And I’m sure that helps probably on the service side from your side, but then also from the user experience. So, Mikael, tell me a little bit about the software. I think there’s a belief out there that if I need things made in braille, I just send you a document and that’s pretty much it. But I know there’s so much more that goes on the back end, behind the scenes, in order to do everything. So could you describe the software to us a little bit?

Yeah. The history of the braille making from the beginning has been, I mean, it’s not been easy to make braille. You have to have some kind of a knowledge and you also have to have some sort of translation software and external programs that you have to buy for a lot of money and so on. And it’s actually still like that. But for Index, we have been working quite long with implementing the software within the embosser. What I mean by that is when you buy an Index embosser, you don’t need to buy any additional software or anything else. It’s all there built in the machine. So you can cover most of your printing needs with an Index embosser without having to buy anything else. But if you need to print music or if you need to print advanced maths, then you need some special software. And that is, I mean, that’s the only thing actually, everything else is there from the start. So it’s all built in the machines. Yeah.

Very, very cool. And I know you said you’re one of the main major braille embosser manufacturers, dealers, kind of everything out there. What really sets Index Braille apart?

I think it’s a couple of things actually. One is that they’re really beautiful. Yeah, they are. We take a lot of pride in the design work with them. And we got actually one embosser or two embossers actually that won a lot of big design awards all around the world. One of the big one was a couple of years ago won the Red Dot Award, which is world-famous. And also German Design Awards and Swedish Design Awards and so on. So they’re really good looking. It’s not a piece of gray box sitting in the corner, this is actually embossers that are pretty beautiful. So that’s one thing. The other thing is that, as I said, everything is included when you buy them, and also they are really high technical level on it. And one thing that people really love about them is that they’re really easy to use.

And we have that as a statement, “braille printing made easy”. We think that it should be easy to print braille, and that is one thing. And also for the service part of it, we handle service trainings there at the company and so on for our distributors. Invite them up to the northern parts of Sweden to be able to really get to know the embossers and how to take care of them. And they’re really easy to service and support. I think that’s mainly what differs our embossers from our competitors-

Nice.

… I would say.

Nice. That’s awesome. Now, a lot of our listeners have probably never seen an embosser, and we kind of mentioned this at the beginning of some of the things you offer. Can you describe what an acoustic cabinet and maybe even the table-based hood are and why they’re important? Now we have an embosser here, so I know why these things are important, but for those folks who’ve maybe never seen a braille embosser or seen what kind of working, what are they and why are those pieces important?

Yeah, they’re really important in some parts. I mean, large-scale production centers often have a separate room where they have their embossers when they print a lot of braille because printing braille makes noise. When you print on paper, the paper is like a membrane and it enhances the sound actually from the making of the dots. So it’s kind of loud, but our biggest embossers they are like capsules so the noise is canceled inside the construction of the embosser.

Nice.

It’s like a sound cabinet itself. But the smaller ones makes a lot of noise and for that reason, we have a couple of different acoustic cabinets, which it’s actually a cabinet where you put your embosser and you close the door and you print from there. And that way you can really decrease the sound or the noise from the printing process.

And like you said, if you don’t have a full separate room, those are pretty darn important because man, it just sounds like that thing is beating that paper to death when it’s putting those braille dots on there sometimes. And if you’re doing much work it can get a little annoying after some time, especially if you’ve got to work kind of close to it.

Yeah, of course. You’re not the most popular guy at the office, that’s for sure.

That is definitely for sure. Well, Mikael, I know at least here in the States, and I know some places there was, I want to say maybe not an intentional, but kind of a move away from braille, and then I know that things are moving back to braille just because of the importance of the communication and everything. But could you kind of tell us in our opinion why you think maybe braille is important and why access to the braille print is important for individuals?

I’ve been hearing this for about 10, 15 years now that braille is losing market share, or what you say the demand for braille is going to go away and so on. Printed braille I’m talking about now. But we actually experience the opposite. I mean, we have an increasing demand for written braille on paper, and I think that’s because it’s a cheap way of making braille documents for schools and for individuals all over, and for the learning process and so on. It’s a really cheap way. I mean, for one school you can actually, if you buy one braille embosser, you can provide material for a whole school. If you got tablets and so on you need actually, well, at least 10 times as much and so on in order, at least I think. But it’s a compliment. I think both are needed.

I mean, it depends on the usage and which part of the world and so on. So what we see now is that it’s an increasing amount for written braille on paper in many parts of the world. Africa, for instance, and Asia and so on, it’s increasing for us. So it’s a good way. But I mean all equipment that helps people to be able to learn and read and write and get the opportunity to get a better life and a better job and so on are good. Some wants to have written braille on paper and others could use a braille display and other stuff. So I mean, it’s a compliment and what people say that written braille on paper is becoming more less and less important. I think we not experiencing that at all.

Nice.

So for us, it’s the complete opposite. And I think it’s also an easy way to produce braille for those who doesn’t need it every day. I mean, if you’re looking at hotels and restaurants and so on, if they have a braille ambassador they can just print the menu or whatever on the bond actually. If a customer requires a menu in braille, then if you got a braille ambassador at the hotel, the receptionist can easily print out the menu in just a few seconds actually. But both are needed, both refreshable braille and braille on paper.

And that’s actually very refreshing to hear because I think over the years, as I’ve kind of heard, oh, paper braille might be going away, I feel like it’s never been someone who actually uses braille that says that.

No.

I think it’s more of a speculatory thing. So I’m very glad to hear that that has definitely not the case. Well, Mikael, you’ve been there for quite a few years. Do you have kind of a story about someone that you guys were able to help by utilizing your equipment and maybe how that was able to make a little bit of a difference for either them, for their company, or just make a little bit of a difference for the folks that they served or were able to assist?

Well, we got a lot of different examples of that, and we get regular comments from people who uses our embossers. I was in, I think it was in Tokyo last year, and I met a woman who was, I think she was about 80 or something, and she came up to me and said in a really bad English, but she said that “I really loved the Index embosser” and she wanted to hear what was new about them. So I showed her the latest models and she said, “Okay, they’re looking good, but I’m really happy with mine”. And I asked her about the embossers and she said that, “Well, I bought this in 1991, it still runs like clockwork”. So she had no need for buying another one. And she has been using this every day since ’91 or ’92, something like that. She was really, really happy with it, and it’s really nice to hear those things. The people are really, really happy with the quality also so.

Yeah, that does make it really nice. Makes it a lot easier to show up for work when you’re making something quality that people can actually use. And it sounds like everybody really, really enjoys working there as well. Mikael, if our listeners would want to find out more about your embossers, about Index Braille, about the other things that you all offer, what’s good ways for them to do that?

Well, easiest way is to actually visit our website, indexbraille.com. That’s an old version that we’ve been having for a lot of years up and running, but we will actually launch a new website in, I think it’s maybe in one or two months I hope.

Nice.

That will be fresh and new, but you can find everything that you need actually on our website. And also, I mean you can contact me or anyone else at the company if you got some more detailed questions. You got my email addresses there.

Awesome.

And also you can visit us. We travel a lot throughout the world and we’re going to visit the States as usual, we’re going to visit two exhibitions, CSUN of course, and also WallSight City in Germany, CSUN in Los Angeles, and the one in Florida.

ATIA down there?

ATIA, yeah.

Awesome, awesome, awesome.

So you can visit us there also and have a look at the stuff and just have a chat.

Very, very cool. Well, Mikael, we thank you so much for coming on today for telling us all about Index Braille, all the great things that you guys do. Like I said, it’s very, very good to hear that braille is still running strong. Thank you so much, and I’ll make sure to stop by and say hi at ATIA down in Florida when we’re-

Yeah, do that. Please do. Yeah, please do that.

All right, well definitely. Thank you again, Mikael. Take care.

Yeah. Thank you, Josh.

Do you have a question about assistive technology? Do you have a suggestion for someone we should interview on Assistive Technology Update? If so, call our listener line at (317) 721-7124. Send us an email at tech@eastersealscrossroads.org or shoot us a note on Twitter @INDATAproject. Our captions and transcripts for the show are sponsored by the Indiana Telephone Relay Access Corporation, or In TRAC, You can find out more about In TRAC at relayindiana.com. A special thanks to Nicole Prieto for scheduling our amazing guests and making a mess of my schedule. Today’s show is produced, edited, hosted, and fraught over by yours truly. The opinions expressed by our guests are their own and may or may not reflect those of the INDATA Project, Easterseals Crossroads, our supporting partners, or this host. This was your Assistive Technology Update, I’m Josh Anderson with the INDATA Project at Easterseals Crossroads in beautiful Indianapolis, Indiana. We look forward to seeing you next time. Bye-bye.