Technology inspired by the love between father and daughter | Carlos Pereira | TEDxUnisinos

I'd like to start by saying
that some days can change history.

For example, on September 11th.

On that day, a series of terrible events
changed the history of the world forever.

Maybe it's just a coincidence,

but also on September 11th,
my daughter Clara was born.

On that day, a series of terrible events
left her with cerebral palsy.

This is my family, my wife Aline
and our daughter Clara,

and due to a medical error
that happened to my daughter,

she cannot walk or talk.

And from the moment I learned
what had happened to my daughter,

empowering people with disabilities
became my passion.

We started working to change lives,
not just for my daughter,

but for thousands of people
with disabilities in Brazil, and abroad.

Imagine the worst kind of prison.
Would it be solitary confinement?

For millions of people with disabilities,
their bodies are a prison.

There is no worse prison
than your own body.

Just like my daughter, many people
are aware, intelligent,

but they're trapped inside bodies
which don't obey their commands.

How do these people
communicate these days?

Usually they communicate using cards,

that was how I'd communicate
with my daughter.

If she wanted an apple, for example,

I had to make a card
with the drawing of an apple

so she could sort of point to it.

This was very complicated.

That's when we decided to create Livox.

It's a software, a platform,

that allows people with disabilities
to communicate and also learn.

For the first time in history,

artificial intelligence
and contextual awareness were used

to create intelligent algorithms specially
made for people with disabilities.

Livox has intelligent algorithms

for motor, cognitive
and visual disabilities.

Regardless of the level of
motor, cognitive or visual disability,

Livox adjusts itself for each
of these types of disabilities.

Let me give you an example.

Unfortunately, there isn't enough time
to show all the algorithms that Livox has,

but one of the examples
I can tell you is in relation to touch.

People with disabilities
cannot touch the tablet like we do.

They hit the screen,
swipe their hand, touch it incorrectly,

They cannot aim exactly
where they want to touch.

This was a very serious problem.

So one of Livox algorithms we created
is an algorithm called Intellitouch,

If someone who has no disability
touches the tablet screen,

Livox knows that this person
has no disability, and so does nothing.

But, if a disabled person
touches the tablet screen,

Livox calculates how many fingers
are touching the screen, for how long,

if that person is dragging
their hand over it, or not.

How likely are they to click on a certain
item according to the time and location,

and it corrects the imperfect touch
of the disabled person.

One of the most interesting things
in Livox is that you can create profiles.

I'm also the director
of a large physical therapy clinic,

and we've tested Livox
on thousands of disabled people.

And we were able
to transform this knowledge,

this know-how that we have
with disabled people, in algorithms.

So Livox has been widely used,
for example, in schools.

Here we can see the profiles.
For example: high-functioning autism

Clara Pereira, visual impairment
andcerebral palsy.

So imagine
a teacher, for example,

who has just got a student
with a disability, who has autism,

if she selects autism in Livox,

Livox will adjust itself
for the visual,

cognitive and motor characteristics
of someone who has autism.

If she receives another student
with cerebral palsy

and she chooses cerebral palsy,

Livox will adjust itself
for visual,

cognitive and motor characteristics of someone
with cerebral palsy,

characteristics which are totally
different from autism, for example.

There are no limits for deficiencies
for Livox.

You can create
endless diagnostic profiles

for endless types of disabilities.

People with disabilities
through Livox,

besides communicating, they can
do much more.

They can, for example,

play instruments
in music classes at school,

they can learn to read, write,
listen to music, watch videos,

use in therapies, learn difficult concepts
such as mathematics.

Now, stop and think for a moment.

Until recently, these people
couldn't even communicate.

Imagine the impact on daily life,
in the daily lives of these people

now they can do so much more.

How many people need Livox?

Brazil has about 50 million
people with disabilities.

Of these 50 million people
with disabilities,

15 million, which is roughly equivalent
to the population of New York and London,

are people who, here in Brazil,
need Livox.

They are people with cerebral palsy,
stroke sequelae,

amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, autism,

and other diseases and deficiencies
that hinder the speech process.

Now imagine the whole world.

According to the World Health Organization
World Health,

there are about one billion people
with disabilities across the planet.

They are the largest minority in the world.

We know this,
and that's why we created Livox

to speak 25 thousand languages,

and we already cater for
about 10 thousand people with disabilities

throughout Brazil.

People always ask me
what do I talk about with my daughter?

We've talked a lot through Livox,
although she can not speak orally.

And people always ask me what did
she speak that moved me the most.

This photo that you can see
is a very recent photo of her,

and was a photo for a document,
and I said to her:

"Clara, this is for a document,
it's for a passport. Be serious."

This was the most serious photo
that I managed to take of her.

But anyway, she has watched
all the Disney movies. All of them.

And through Livox, I asked her
which Disney princess is she,

because, after all,
this is a fantasy of every girl.

Which Disney princess
do you think she said she was?

Who's going to help me? You're all too shy!

Who said Ariel? You got full points!
Very good. She said she was Ariel.

Has anyone here watched the movie
of Ariel? Raise your hands.

I watched it about 200 times only yesterday.

But anyway, what moved me the most
was why she said she was Ariel.

I'm going to show a part of the movie

which shows a little
why she said she was Ariel.

(Video) Prince: Oh! Oh, I see.

(Yapping)

Are you OK, miss?
I'm sorry if this knucklehead scared you.

He's harmless, really...

you seem very familiar...
to me. Have we met?

(Yapping)

We have met! I knew it!
You're the one I've been looking for!

What's your name?

What's wrong? What is it?

You can't speak?

Oh, then you couldn't be who I thought.

(Video ends)

Carlos Pereira: Amazing, right?

She told me she was Ariel,

because whoever has seen the movie knows that
most of the time Ariel doesn't speak.

But towards the end of the film
some magic happens and Ariel is able to speak again.

Unfortunately, our lives
aren't like a Walt Disney movie.

But that doesn't mean
we cannot do certain magical things,

and we're happy
to have created something magical

that is giving a voice,
not only to my daughter,

but also to thousands
of people with disabilities.

throughout Brazil, and the world.

So when we know
what goes on in the minds of our children

we can make dreams come true,
and I took her to Disney

and she met Ariel,
and dressed up like Ariel.

Look at her face!
She couldn't believe

she was finally seeing
the princess she so wanted to be.

She told me afterwards
that she had fulfilled a dream

to finally meet Ariel.

Well, the work we're doing
is of real social inclusion.

In Brazil alone we've traveled
over 400 thousand kilometers,

in all the states

That's sufficient of doing more than
ten laps around the world.

I've been here several times
to Rio Grande do Sul

in several cities here inside the state,
bringing technology and social inclusion.

Our work has also
been recognized several times.

In December 2014,
I was in Washington,

where we received a prize
from the Inter-American Development Bank,

as the technological innovation
with the greatest impact in 2014.

Besides this, in February,
we were in Abu Dhabi

where we received the UN award for the best
social inclusion app in the world.

We competed among thousands
of apps from 178 countries,

and we were very pleased to bring
this award here to Brazil.

We also have important partners,
like SAP, for example,

and we've just closed
a joint venture deal

with partners of companies in the Arab League.
This is me in Riyadh.

Livox has already been translated
and localized into Arabic.

In two weeks time
I'll be returning to Saudi Arabia again

for a final
technical meeting and its deployment

in the Middle East and North Africa.

Google... Google got to know
about us

and sent a team

to film our story
to present it in a global event,

called Google I/O.

I'd like to show you
something about it

in this video.

[Google I/O. San Francisco,
May 28, 2015]

[Recife, Brazil]

(Video) (English) If you
have a good idea,

no matter where you are.

We are proving
that it's possible to make money

and doing social good too!

I first met my wife

I think about 17, 18 years ago.

We did all we could

so that my wife
could had a good pregnancy

When my daughter was born,

she didn't cry,

something was very wrong!

Although my daughter
has a disability,

I saw that my daughter
was trying to communicate.

I needed to do something.

I'm a developer

and that's why I criated Livox.

It's an application that allows
people with severe disabilities

to communicate and learn.

Through Livox
she can read and write.

There are about one billion people
with disabilities on the planet.

Livox is not a product
only for Brazil.

It's a product for the whole world!

[Continue building.]

(Applause)

(Video) (English) So these aren't
only powerful stories.

These are also small examples

of developers who are having
a substantial impact around the world.

We are also pleased that Carlos
and his family are here with us today!

(Applause)

(Video ends)

Carlos Pereira: This was broadcast
live around the world

and I am happy to tell you
that after this

we started a partnership with Google

and we're working
with new incredible algorithms

that will change forever

the lives of millions of people
with disabilities around the world.

And why did Google
call me to go there?

They wanted to highlight businesses

that are giving a substantial impact
around the world.

I'd also like to say
that Livox is real.

It's not just an idea, not just a prototype,

and it's already changing the lives
of thousands of people with disabilities.

I'd love to tell you
about each of their stories,

each of these thousands of people,

but unfortunately that's not possible.

So I'd like to show you

the story of three people
with very different disabilities,

and how Livox
is liberating these people.

This is the last video.

(Video) (English) Although Clara
can't write by herself,

through Livox she's managed
to write her first story

which was published in a book.

Maybe she'll be a future writer.

(Livox voice) (English) I'm a doll
who can speak and write.

(Livox voice) (English) Mouth cancer
didn't break my will to live.

Livox helped me overcome
this difficult time in my life.

(Livox voice) (English) Although my body
is a prison to me,

I always wanted to be free.

With Livox I am able
to realize my dreams.

And now...

I am free.

(Video ends)

CP: Incredible!

You allow a girl
who is eight years old,

you cannot pick up a pencil and paper,

to become literate
and write a story

which was published in a book,
which was the case of my daughter in case,

allow a person
who had mouth cancer,

who lost all of his teeth,
his tongue and jaw,

- these can't grow back again -

that person can communicate

and even attend to his customers
by phone through Livox,

It also allows a man
who uses Livox with this feet,

who was living a limited life,
to now go out partying,

to say he wants to have a beer,

say that he wants to jump with a parachute

and really jump with a parachute,
experiment a real sense of freedom ...

And the change in the life of this man,
who parachuted was so big

that he recently
found a girlfriend and got married.

So, it's an incredible change
in their lives of these people.

I'd like to end
by leaving you with a phrase

from the American Senator Daniel Webster,
when he said the following:

"If all my possessions
were taken from me

with one exception,

I would choose
to keep the power of communication,

for by it
I would soon regain all the rest."

Thank you very much.

(Applause)