Mateo Salvatto: Talking with the deaf | Mateo Salvatto | TEDxJoven@RíodelaPlata

Why do they put cucumber in the hamburgers? Did you ever ask yourselves? This question drives me a little crazy, because I don't get it. Like the raisin in the meat empanada, the fruit filling in the alfajor. Where does all this come from? Who is the villain behind these things? Every time I go to a local fast food I do the same: I ask, please, the burger without cucumber. And, clearly, every time I grab the first bite there it is, the cucumber, the disgusting cucumber, always there; always. I know I'm a bit picky, I admit it, but there are two slices of cucumber, I mean, I'm not asking much either. I studied Electronics. But contrary to popular belief, those who study electronics don't fix washing machines. Well, not all the time. For example, in our school we got together every Friday to assemble fighting robots. I love saying that because it sounds like badass Transformers, right? beating each other with super cool weapons. In fact, the kind of fighting robot we make with my friends looks like this. It's not so great as it sounds, but they are good and they really fight, hah! So, we could say that ours' is sports robotics, right? And that's another thing we love to say, because it makes us feel as if we were athletes. People who train, works out, people who eat healthy. It couldn't be further from the truth. In fact, we spend all night soldering and drinking soda. But it's a sport, seriously: they are called "sumo fights." Like the fat guys pushing each other out of a circle, but with small robots. And I'm already used to putting together and programming small robots like Vader, which is this one here, but it wasn't always like this. About four years ago, I didn't have the slightest idea what programming or electronics were about, none of all this. I basically started trying: trial and error, trial and error, and breaking a lot of things until it worked out and I learned. Today I can tell you that with my friend Matías, we won a robotics international championship in Israel. (Applause) Thank you, thank you very much. And it was incredible, you can imagine. It was the first time Argentina won it. But before that, I lost around 20 to 25 competitions. Without going any farther, I lost one in San Nicolás last week; I was fifth. So the habit of losing never leaves me. Back to the point I want to make, it's not that I suddenly started and I won the championship; I lost 50 times before I could win. And there were other issues to overcome, because, in fact, losing was the least important. For example, once I was to connect the battery of Yoda, my robot -- I don't like Star Wars -- Now, this is confidential, don't tell my school headmaster, I admit I didn't connect it quite right, I put it to charge and let's say that the battery blew up, almost setting on fire me and the classroom. I almost set my classmates on fire, I was given quite a reprimand. But, hey! I learned how to connect a battery. (Laughter) Now I don't go wrong anymore, believe me. I get along very well with technology, when it doesn't try to kill me, but my family is the other way around. My dad is an accountant, my brother is graduated in Political Sciences and my mom is a teacher of deaf people. That is, imagine a family dinner with one talking about the stock market going up or down, the other with sign language, the killer robots or international politics; quite a normal family. And today, I am going to talk about my mom, right? My mom likes her job so much, but so much, that not happy with drilling my head all my life with the deaf, the sign language and all that world, she would take me to work with her when I was a boy. Surely this happened to you. And I had to go, right? Against my will, but finally I'd end up having fun: I'd play with the kids, they'd teach me sign language, and mock me when I'd go wrong. In fact, they still mock me because I'm not that good. So I got used to living with the deaf. It's nice and I love it, but there's a sad side to it. Getting used to living with the deaf, I also got used to seeing them in quite sad situations. I realized that they have a hard time with things that for us are basic or everyday life: from following a procedure or going to the doctor, to asking for directions on the street, the truth is that they have a bad time, and that always made me very sad. For example, a deaf guy was seven hours sitting in the hospital waiting to be called because they shouted his name and he didn't know. Without going any farther, a friend of my mom was I don't even know how many hours at the police station trying to figure out where she had to look for her car that the tow truck had taken away. So, imagine you want to ask for a burger without cucumber, a disaster! And I'm laughing now, right? But in fact it's very sad and it always made me very sad. And I listen to these stories all the time, while growing up and I keep listening to them. And that's why, as I am an electronic technician and I fix washing machines, when my mom would tell me one of these stories I'd answer the same: "But, mom, how can it be that there is no electronic device, some device that helps them to speak and listen, or do better in every day life?" It seemed illogical to me because if you think of it, we are planning to put people on Mars by 2030 while a deaf guy has to wait seven hours in a hospital. For me that never made sense. Let me tell you something: when we returned from Israel with Matías, I started thinking about an idea I want to share with you. I realized that there was no need to be big to do big things, I realized that there was no need to be a scientist or an engineer to do something super cool; it was enough to get burned a couple of times, and lose a couple of competitions. So, convinced that even boys could do big things and tired of seeing deaf people having such a hard time, I said: "I have to make that device," and I set it as a goal. And there I started, you can imagine, with prototypes, the electronics, the cables, totally crazy ... taking apart, modifying. Until after some time thinking and checking with my mom, I came to the solution that I want to share with you today. I introduce to you "Háblalo!" -- Say it! (Applause) Thank you. Don't ask me why it's in neutral Spanish, I think I wanted to look international and the name remained like that. Today this application is helping more than 13,000 people in the world. How does it work? It's like a real-time translator: the deaf writes what they mean so their phone plays it and others can listen to it. And when we answer or anyone around says something that is transformed into text so they can read it. The application can be used in phones up to six years old, it doesn't need connectivity and it's free. So it is meant -- (Applause) Thank you. So it's meant to be really accessible. But, there is something very nice in this project: I tell you there are 13,000 people, but there are not just 13,000 deaf people who use the application. In the development process messages came in and I was realizing that many people can take advantage of the application: from autistic kids to people with tracheotomies, or problems in their vocal cords, a lot of people that I didn't even imagine because I meant it for the deaf. And there is one story that makes me most proud and I love telling. One day a deaf boy sent me a message telling me that with "Háblalo!" he can communicate better with his sister who is blind. At the time, when I read it I was like, "What are you talking about?," but then I thought again: "He is deaf and writes, his sister listens to what he wrote, and when she answers him, he reads it." It's mind-blowing, but it really works. (Applause) Thank you. And it was unintentionally, totally, I hadn't thought about it at all. In fact, "Háblalo!" is a very nice project, not only for that and for all the people it helps, but because it is a collaborative project. I don't program it alone, I'm not the only one who works on this. But all the users, all the people who use it around the world develop the application with me, because they send me messages, suggestions, changes, things they want to add, and I meet with them, I read their messages and together we define how will the app end up being. Then they create their own application. In fact, the application you've just seen, for the people who know "Háblalo!" and have seen it, they surely thought, that's not "Háblalo!" And it's true, the application you just saw on the screen is not "Háblalo!" It's "Háblalo! 2.0" the new version of the application that we launched ... 5 minutes ago, really. (Applause) Thank you very much. It has many visible improvements. As I was telling you, this is a super collaborative project. I love that, really. It's something that makes me super happy. But that is not all. I want to tell you that it's very important that you know it, even if you are not deaf, or don't have deaf relatives because, when we are on the street and we see a blind person or an old lady trying to cross the road: what do we do? We reach out to offer our arm, without a doubt. With the deaf, this doesn't happen, they suffer a lot in the street because when they talk they do some guttural sounds, then people out there suddenly try to look as if they didn't hear anything, and keep walking and can you imagine how awful is something like that? I received messages from deaf people telling me that they don't want to go out afraid of what may happen. I believe that "Háblalo!" can help them a lot, and help them become a lot more independent, but ... what happens if they don't have it, don't know about it or don't have a phone? If we have the app installed, that's a way of giving our arm to the deaf, that they know that we are going to be there. When they go out, and if they get lost, that some listener will use the app, and will not ignore them. And for me, that is very valuable. And I know that it helps them to improve a lot the way they live. (Applause) Thank you very much. My idea is that "Háblalo!" keeps growing big. I want to add surround sounds detection so they know what happens around them, I want to add communication with emergency services so that they can call an ambulance, the police or the firemen when they need it. I want to add many other features. So this is just the beginning, there is a lot of work to be done. And I don't know if "Háblalo!" will be used by a million people around the world, if I'm going to manage to do all that I say I want to do, if it's going to stay as it is or what is going to happen, but today it helps deaf people find their way on the street, or to go alone to a doctor, to do a procedure, what they need. But there is one thing that makes me proud and very happy: Now the deaf people who are so picky with food like me will be able to order the burger without that disgusting cucumber much faster. Thank you very much. (Applause)