Hi there! I’m Lisa Dalton. I originally created CanDos 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 containers.
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 time consuming apps, and I knew his busy schedule didn’t allow time for either.
So 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 decided to start candoable and make reusable braille labels available to everyone who needs them.
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 label products for your home, school, workplace, program, or convention, please contact me (Lisa Dalton) at hello@candoable.co.