You’re listening to a Community Story from Be My Eyes. Hi everyone! My name is Michal Nowicki, and I’m happy to have this opportunity to share my experiences using Be My Eyes. But before I get into Be My Eyes, I would like to tell you a little bit about myself. I’m originally from Poland, I moved to the US when I was a child, and I’ve lived in the US since that time. I live in Chicago, and I’m currently a lawyer. I graduated from law school in 2018, and now I work for a firm called Marashlian & Donahue, PLLC. I do telecom, data privacy and technology law. On the telecom side, I do both regulatory and transactional work. I have been totally blind all my life, and as a result have developed a strong passion for assistive technology. I use a wide variety of assistive technology products both mainstream and specialist technology, I have a braille note taker, I use screen readers like JAWS and VoiceOver. Recently, I started using Be My Eyes. I heard about Be My Eyes from various sources. I’ve been a long-time member of the National Federation of the Blind of Illinois, in which I currently chair the affiliate advocacy committee, and I’m also preparing to become the affiliate treasurer. At first, when I heard about Be My Eyes, I thought why not go ahead and try this app and see what it actually does. I got an excellent opportunity to do that through a study conducted by a class at one of the local universities in Chicago. So, I installed the app and tried it out, did a couple of calls, and I really realised how enormous of a potential this app has. Now, at this point, some of you may wonder how this app can benefit me as a telecom attorney, and there are several ways. One example I’d like to share is when I was doing work dealing with fraudulent call traffic. I was dealing with complex graphs and charts in a PowerPoint presentation that were basically depicting the flow of international telecommunication traffic, and as you might expect those charts are not all that accessible. So, what I decided to do was to call the first available volunteer at Be My Eyes and ask the volunteer to describe the graphics that were on the screen of my computer to me. Now, I have to say that holding the phone steady and getting the camera positioned was a bit of a challenge for me, but the volunteer was very helpful, she gave me very specific instructions until we got it into a position where she was able to describe the graphics for me. Other than my experiences using the first available volunteer feature, I would also like to specifically draw attention to the Specialized Help feature in Be My Eyes, and one thing I noticed immediately. I have a lot of experiences with the Microsoft Disability Answer Desk, and before I started using Be My Eyes, I would always call the 800-number to reach the specialized answer desk. Now, when I call the 800-number, sometimes I would have to wait as long as 2-3 minutes for an agent to answer the call. When I called using the Specialized Help feature in Be My Eyes an agent picked up I would say within 5-10 seconds. So, that alone is a great advantage of contacting the Microsoft Disability Answer Desk through Be My Eyes rather than using the 1-800-number, it’s just much faster and more efficient. There’s one other specific experience with Be My Eyes that I would like to share, and this also relates to inaccessible content on a computer screen. I was filling out an online application that had one of those dreaded CAPTCHAs, and unfortunately for this one there was no audio option. But thankfully a Be My Eyes volunteer was readily available and was able to read the CAPTCHA to me, and I was able to get past it successfully. So in short, Be My Eyes is a very wonderful tool for the blind. I would recommend it to anyone who needs visual assistance that is otherwise not readily available, and all of us blind people are in that situation, perhaps more often than we’d like to be. The best thing about this app also is that we can get this assistance for free thanks to the generosity of very helpful volunteers. Video version: Thank you for listening to this Community Story from Be My Eyes. You can share your story too, send it to this email. Be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel, download our app, or visit our website for more. Audio version: Thank you for listening to this Community Story from Be My Eyes. You can share your story too, send it to mystory@bemyeyes.com. Be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel, download our app, or visit www.bemyeyes.com/community-stories for more.