Hi there! I’m Lisa Dalton. I originally created CanDo reusable braille labels for a fellow collaborative workspace member Bryan, who became blind many years ago after a motorcycle accident as a teen.
In June 2018, I shuffled the cans in his pantry while helping him make a grocery list, and I was promptly introduced to a problem that so many visually impaired people face: handsy people, and unreadable container labels.
Since cans and jars are essentially identical to each other and unreadable by the blind or visually impaired, by moving his items around, I essentially lost them for him.
After apologizing profusely, I privately set out to find a braille food labeling solution to try and right my wrong. Options included brailling index cards and using rubber bands to hold them on, or buying expensive tech equipment or time consuming apps, and I knew none of these were practical options for him.
Using my 3D printing knowledge, I engineered, 3D printed, and presented him with a reusable braille label set of my own design. Seeing how easily they worked for him, I was encouraged to start candoable and make reusable braille labels available to everyone who needs them. So, that’s what I’m doing.
Feedback on candoable’s mission has been only positive. Candoable was fortunate enough to be nominated for a surprise pop-up champagne party from the CO+HOOTS Foundation. Soon after, I was the subject of a great little write up on the CO+HOOTS Foundation blog, and then won 3rd place (and $1500 for candoable) in Pitch Gangplank 2018 held at the Chandler Gangplank.
Even more incredibly, in February 2019 I was featured on NPR’s How I Built This podcast. You read that right. Listen to the full episode with JetBlue’s founder David Neeleman below or on your favorite podcast app –and if you want to hear just my portion skip to the last 5 minutes.
I’m excited to get the word out about CanDos and hopefully inspire more people to create solutions to problems they encounter.
CanDo braille labels are 3D printed at Gangplank Queen Creek, a collaborative workspace in the heart of downtown Queen Creek, Arizona. To learn more about our community, and the incredible people that made candoable possible, check out Gangplank Queen Creek here.
For more information, or to request custom braille labels for your home, school, workplace, program, or convention, please contact me (Lisa Dalton) at hello@candoable.co.