The Neurospicy Techie

 In this inspiring episode, we speak with Robert James Gabriel, founder of the accessibility tool Helperbird, who shares his personal journey from struggling with undiagnosed dyslexia to becoming a tech innovator. Robert opens up about the challenges he faced in school, where he was nearly taken out of mainstream education, and the life-changing moment he was finally diagnosed. Robert created a Chrome extension to help dyslexic users, which evolved into Helperbird—now used by over 1.8 million people globally. Robert discusses the growth of the platform, its customizable reading tools, and his mission to make digital content accessible for everyone. This episode is a powerful reminder of how timely support, inclusive tech, and determination can completely transform lives. 

Transcript

 Hi Robert. Nice to meet you. I'm Bannu. Pleasure to meet you, bannu. Thank you so much for having me on.

Where are you at the moment? I'm based in, Arkansas, in, hot Springs, Arkansas. Home Place of Bill and Hillary Clinton. Even the name Hot Springs, sounds so nice. It does. It's very much like, Blarney in Cork, that kind of touristy field.

Small but big. So it's a nice little place. I'm based out of cold wind Maow. Yes, I know it. I have, relatives up there, so I, I know us well. I know. And I'm, as you know, in the middle of nowhere, well, actually I'm in England at the moment. I'm not even in Ireland. Yeah, I've come over here.

Oh, I'm not even gonna bother explaining Robert. It is therapod podcast, which is specifically, to help people with their understanding of how they can help. They're kids, with neurodiversity or, or learners. So it could be parents, it could be teachers, it could be, any professionals.

It's a really specific and, much needed podcast in my view. No, absolutely. I hadn't get the opportunity to listen to your episodes, but it's on my, I do a walk every day, so it's on my list of what to listen to next. Perfect. The secret is I don't listen to the podcast. All I can seem to be, listening to is murders and all these true crime things.

I have to say I love Nordic. As well. Isn't it weird how we all love, serial killers and, seriously screwed up murders in really dark countries, anyway, you might love this.

It's kind of related. My, mother-in-law is from California and as American as they come, she's discovered that TV show. She's obsessed. She's asking me a million different things about the Dublin gangster life.

Surely you're Irish and you should know these things. Hello? Absolutely. Robert Roberts from Blarney as you've heard, and went to Blaney Secretary School, which is where, we've been doing the workshops of Thea Island. I first heard about Robert when I was reading an article.

I think it was in the Sunday Times. The headline was, cork Man gives free assistive technology to all the kids in Ireland. I was like, who is this guy? Read the article. It talked about helper bird. I didn't even think that I'd ever meet him. I went on, I found helper bird, and then I got stuck somewhere and I got, I technically, I am not strong.

I got into a chat box and then lo and behold, it was Robert at the other end. I remember this now. You were like, listen, if you are the coordinator of the dyslexia workshops, let me sign them all up for free helper. I was like, what? And then it went on from there.

We had a coffee and discovered both had similar interests. That was three years ago. That has blown my mind. Time flies. So I suppose this is our season four, Robert. Third podcast. This season it's the Neuro Spicy Life.

And we want to hear stories. Stories of what life was like not just challenges, but your strengths and, the wins as well. Yeah, that sounds good. .

It'd be nice to know your journey. We start there. And you might get interrupted with questions. Yeah, that sounds perfect.

 Thank you so much for having me. For anyone who doesn't know me, my name is Robert James Gabriel, and I'm the founder of, an accessibility tool.

But a lot of people don't know I have dyslexia myself throughout my life I had trouble or struggled through schools and education. And that can range from just not liking school or being kind of reserved in myself. And, and I have a story that goes from, overcoming my dyslexia to finding what I really like in life.

We'll start back when I was much younger. I'm 31 now. Throughout school I always did okay. Right up until I got into secondary school up to that point, I had kind of failed. I'd always get the equivalent of DS or 40 percents. I was never the star student.

I never did. Spending amazing. And that's okay. Not, you don't always have to excelled in, in school. But when I came to my junior, when I came to my, junior pres, I had a, my teachers at the time told my parents at a parent-teacher meeting that I should consider being taken outta school and put into a trade because they thought I was struggling so much with my reading and writing.

That there should be interventions to make a decision. And I'll just say, just say that for anyone who's not an island, the Junior Certs pre is done around the age of 15. Yep. 14, 15, depending if you're on the younger or older side. I was 15 going into age 16 at that point.

A nice way to put it was my mom, originally from Massachusetts turned into Mama Bear. She always had. The thing is that we had to all finish school at least, and wanted to talk to the principal, wanted to talk to the teachers to see, to get my te, get her son checked or tested, just to see was there something there that would explain his poor handwriting.

'cause looking back. The, the signs were there, especially with my headman ship in writing, but they had to make that decision I was kind of aging out and they didn't have a lot of funding they'd rather spend the funding on someone coming in who'd get the full six years of support and train.

And those are tough decisions, especially when, you know, budgets are tight and you can't make that decision. But. Is persistent is a nice way to put it. And, a couple of months later and to a great, teacher, Ann Mead, who was at the Baring school, about three to four months later, they were able to get me tested after a lot of back and forth and grant work and a shot to know, and I had dyslexia.

And, a few things happened once I had that diagnosis. One I got to drop Irish. Which was a, godsend because when you're struggling with English and you have to learn this other language, it makes it more difficult. So you've been studying Irish all the way up to the age of 1415. Bombing.

It is a nice way to, yeah. Bombing, bombing studying. Yeah, I, I couldn't speak a word of it. During written tests, I always remember, I would just remember the words I couldn't spell and then write the rest in English, so it wouldn't make much sense. I also got, exempt from my grammar and spelling, which was a huge one, and I got the opportunity to use a computer, but also, a recorder.

During exams, I could speak what I wanted to and they would take that as my written exams, which was a huge opportunity. The writing on Word, was huge as well. Once that happened, my grades improved dramatically I actually did, higher level or AP English I got the equivalent of an A in higher level English. Again, it shocked everyone considering what happened six months earlier. And it kind of just changed 'cause the pressure of having to kinda deal with my dyslexia was now I. Removed my grades, improved my personality, kind of, I hate using the term, but blossomed.

I was more social, I was more outgoing. And it, that, that moment in particular really changed myself, from having that diagnosis, getting that support. And I always think back, what would've happened if I never got that testing or extra support? Do you remember how you felt after that?

I wish, like most kids, I didn't appreciate it at the time until about a year later when I realized that I actually enjoyed going to school. I enjoyed doing homework. I enjoyed being challenged, and I kind of discovered that kind of re-appreciate science and, computers at the same time 'cause that the, the custodian.

I was throwing out a computer roughly around the same time of Dre, and I asked for them and he gave them to me, and I took apart that computer and realized, what is this magical box? And put it back together. It was a real lightning in the bottle moment of finding a computer and finding the hobby itself.

Am I right in thinking, Robert, that. At the same time you were given this dyslexia diagnosis and the inclusion of assistive technology, the custodian gave you this computer that he was throwing away, you reconfigured the computer and didn't you take the computer in with you to the exams?

Have I got that right or was that for later on? That was later on we might leave that off I've been advised just because of the climate over here to leave that story off. Oh, really?

Until, the administration is over oh, really? Interesting. Alright. We'll say that the computer was a great help to you. I'll explain after this is recorded, but I have to leave that little, part out, I'll explain after yeah, stuff is a little rough over here, let's put it that way. But, at the same time I discovered computers and it was a real, changing point. I believe it's still going on, there was a fest, which is a science competition in cork around Ireland.

I had entered that with the computer. The custodian gave to me I took it apart, made it way shorter, and made it into a touchscreen tablet that was about 10 inches thick, super heavy. But the fact is that you were able to work on it, touch on it, and I came at runner up and I wanted two different categories with it, and.

I got a bunch of money, which was great for me. It was like 200 euro, but to me that was millions. And I got a hoodie that I wore until it was shredded then I entered the young scientist that next year. When we went into transition year, I built. What was the equivalent of, networking software, which I had no idea what actually was.

I came, , won my category, won run up or in another category and won I think three other different spot awards, which got the school about 8,000 euro or $10,000. That went back to get more kids tested, more software and more things. It was like a nice circle moment right there.

Fantastic. Love that. And it was through that you found this confidence to go into the IT world, wasn't it? Yeah. And then it was actually drawing that where I had lecturers, up at the RDS. If the young scientists is still at, at LO location, come up and say to me that if you're doing this, you won't have an issue until you get to fort year of college.

I was like, I think I'm, it was that moment I started thinking about college and realizing I might have a career in it. I was at that point just doing it for fun on the side of things that I love to do. And then after I finished my leaving C start, I was able to get into, CIT or MTU,

yeah. I did the course of web development in computer science. That's such an amazing story it could have just gone another way completely. Absolutely. I always think of it, it could have gone either way if there wasn't an intervention, but my parents stepped up or there was not enough funding in the school.

When we get into about help revert, why we do things a little different, I always hate that, but we try to make it affordable for situations where students teachers or parents just can't afford or don't have that money to get the official diagnosis. So we try to make it afford.

So if they didn't have a diagnosis, can you still use help report? A lot of things have changed, since my time where most kids now have laptops or they have Chromebooks or iPads in the classroom. From our side, we've seen a lot of schools just enabled it for everyone that rather everyone have access to accessibility tools than no one have access to accessibility tools.

So I think technology is catching up with IDE standards and accessibility standards across the board. It's still taking place a little bit slower in some schools, but it's catching up across the board Robert, could you just tell us, what help a bird is and, how you came to founding Help a bird.

Absolutely. So this is what I like to describe the, the third step in this, in this story. So after I finished, transition year, for anyone who doesn't know, you start prepping for your college exams or college entrance exams, or also known as a leaving cert. It's kinda like your high school diploma and it's kind of based over two years.

So you do 50 year and then six years where you really get. Down and dirty. At that point, I always wanted to do computer science, so I hedged my bets. I did College of Comm, which, is considered like community college, which allows you to do a year or two there, get your level six, and then if you wish, you can continue on into university.

I also put down, CIT. Because when I did that SciFest, it was hosted there and the lectures were so nice to me they explained what they did. It was more hands-on, and that's what I wanted, especially with the dyslexia. I didn't want my head in a book. I wanted real life experiences.

And this is not just a marketing sell for CIT. It is a fantastic college. I was lucky. I did my exams. I had a bit of help. I got in, I got CIT, which is my first choice. During that time, I did my first two years of course, and everyone went good. And then during the third year, you do a six to nine month placement with a software company.

And I was very lucky at that point that my hacking reputation had caught up with me and I had a lot of different options. Long story short, I had a lot of different options. There was a startup at the time called, digital Crew or Teamwork, and they had offered it to me and they were based in Blackpool.

So I took it and during the first month. They said to make whatever you wanted, just get familiar with our codes, what you could do this is not college, you're in the workplace so you need to follow our guidelines I decided to make a Chrome extension because at the time I just wanted to make something small that I can make over a week or two and publish.

So I made a Chrome extension. And people who aren't familiar with a Chrome extension, they are very much like. Like gr Grammarly's a good example. Honey's a good example or an ad blocker. They're a piece of software that fits in your browser and works as you browse. So I decided to make one.

I wanted one that would change the font on any webpage to open the Dyslexic, which is a font. If people aren't familiar, that is designed with the purpose of helping people with dyslexia by having the bottom of the font weighted so it doesn't move around. So I made it, I had to think of a name, so I just chew on Helper Bird.

I wish there was a better reason for this. I took an origami logo. I uploaded it, taught nothing of it, used it myself, was very proud with this little code I made. And then a friend came up about a month later and asked me to, help him with something. I checked the usage of it and it had 2000 users in about a month.

Oh my goodness. Just by shock. And then the reviews started coming in, and this was in 2015. They started asking for more. The first one was being able to toggle it on and off so that it wouldn't always be on. I did that and then they got more suggestions of different colors, which was great.

In 2016, it had reached about 10,000 users just organically, internationally. Mostly in the us which I found interesting. At that point, the creator of Open Dyslexic reached out and said, would you mind upgrading our official one? So I did as well.

So if you've ever used the open dyslexic Chrome extension, that's me behind the scenes as well. And that one currently has about a million plus users using it, at that point I finished college. I finished the internship. They offered me part-time throughout college and then a full-time job when I was finished.

I go back to college. Keep updating it every few months, responding to emails. When I went back to teamwork, it was at, about 40,000 users, give or take. And then I went back, I was a software engineer under their, on their marketing slash website team, and we're getting to the point where help work really kicks in.

And then about a year and a half in, I, like most people, I loved my job. I didn't do a good work life balance. Looking back, I really admit this, I wasn't really sleeping 'cause I always loved working and I kind of got burnt out is a nice way to put it. So I decided I needed a break. I asked if I could resign, and I just needed time.

They offered me a sabbatical as well, and a job would always be there if I wanted to. Oh, they must have liked you. I was at Gold Furniture. I was always there. I think, they would always find a place for me there. A very good company. But at the same time, I decided to travel with my wife then girlfriend, and I said, I can't not do anything.

So I decided to work on Help Bird and it just. Took off when I started putting more focus on it, like putting a website together, tweaking, putting a little paywall behind a few features. This was in 2018. By 2019 it had about 80,000 users. And once the pandemic hit it just.

Ignite. It went from 200,000 users to about 1.4, where we're sitting now at like 1.8 steady users monthly using it and to explain what helper actually is. It's a set of accessibility tools that sit on your browser, that help you with reading, writing, and general accessibility. And what do I actually mean by that?

Every person, including myself, has a different journey when it comes to accessibility. So helper tries to adapt and tailor the web experience to their own needs. 'cause there is no solution for dyslexia. As you know, Georgie, there's only guidelines and training that you can offer. So what we try to do is give many features.

We have over 41 now, and we can mix and match these to do your own setup. An example being you've got a red font, green background. You could have, picture dictionaries built in. You could have natural sounding text speech. A big one of ours is integration with, Mercer Reader by Microsoft and their set of standards.

Another huge one is the ability to use OCR technology in exams and classroom environments. It will take text. From an image or a video and make it readable. So if you took a photo of a whiteboard and it was all handwritten, you could open it up and help a bird.

And we'll take that text and make it selectable. Readable, and very handy, especially when a teacher photocopies a book. It's technically an image of a book. It's not selectable text. So we can finally make that interactable, readable. It's, making exams very easy for students.

And that's called OCR, optimal character recognition. We call it extract text. Screenshot reader might be another name. Some people call it, or a text grabber is what, apple calls it. Another thing that, that, I've noticed is, you can break words into syllables.

Yes, that's a fantastic one, particularly those with phonological, difficulties, which a lot of dyslexics have. And also if you have English as an additional language or learning grammar, it breaks sentences into nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs. I think it's those four categories, which are the main four categories.

It's just incredible. It has so many helpful aids for not just the neurodiverse, but anyone who is wanting to use language accurately and correctly. Correctly. And am I right in thinking a lot of businesses by into Help a Bird as a way of giving access to all their employers

exactly. And just before I answer that one, another big one is, it's a little hidden in the settings simplify or reword what a lot of secondary language users or people who just don't wanna read academia papers every day, style writing is that it will simplify to the age of a 10-year-old. So you'll still get the idea of what the writing is, but it's way easier to read without less complicated wording.

And that, that's a feature in helper calls that. Simplified, and then you just select your text and we'll grab it and then it'll take a second and we'll just say, this is more simplified English, more human sounding instead of overly complicated. That is brilliant. And yeah.

That is so amazing. I can see that it's something that can be used across. Needs, sometimes it's there and I know I have the capacity to read it, but I'm too tired and, just want to know what it says. I know it's a very simplistic way to put it, but Exactly.

And that's the way, and kind of going on with George said too, what we found from our side is that a lot more businesses have been installing helper word to have the idea that, you know. Give everyone the opportunity to use these tools instead of just a select few. 'cause it's better to support these people who mightn't be, I don't like, I'm not ashamed, but employees who might be ashamed to talk to HR to get those tools and be different.

They would rather have it installed and even if only a fraction of their whole staff use it, it's better than no one using it so they can do their best work. We have some big names who use Helper word now, and it's very kind of proud. We have people from, Microsoft, use them directly.

Uber, rockstar Games who make, the Grant Theft Auto Series use it for their support staff as well. Shell, so they're some of the, the nice, there's a few others, but we don't count them if there's only like three or four, we have probably one from every major college here, but it's only like one or two individual students.

I was like, you can't really count them. It's just the B2C don't count. Yeah. But it is great seeing that the landscape is changing, for some, businesses as well, being more adaptive, realizing it's better to cover everyone. How for that support then offer no support or only having an employee to go through paperwork and kind of come forward with their, difficulty.

And so does that sometimes feel like it's a tick box exercise or is that, well intentioned? Yes, it does. Sometimes it's just them checking a figure to have it look good on a KPI, they might only need it for a hundred people.

But it looks better to cover everyone. They see it from a marketing perspective i'm not saying that about every business, but I do see it from quite a few schools and businesses it's just better and easier to have it for everyone yeah. But that's the reality as well. You'll have these champions in these businesses and schools that will do that, but I think it's better than nothing. It's better than not. Covering everyone. Yeah, absolutely. And Robert, what does the future hold? Have you got other plans with this?

Or is it more about growing, helper bird? Like have you got some, developments as I see too, and I've talked to friends, there is always a plateau With anything with business or just any software, there is a point where it will always level out I think it's doing the world so good that I think I'll be involved in helper in every part of the rest of my life we're always making sure that it's there. And. Evolving with the times and websites as well. So, yeah, it's going around for a long time. Is a nice way to put it. Sorry, go on. I wanted to ask, like, how did you decide what features come first and what features come?

Because the way I see it, there's so much to do when you go into, an area like accessibility. That's a great question. A lot of it is. I wish there was, an official guideline I followed. It was just adding it as people started emailing me. And that's the one criticism helper does get, is that when they move from a set of tools that might have less features, it's a little overwhelming and it's something I'm always trying to evolve and change to make it easier to use.

It was just as they were coming, I thought those ideas were good. And I like to use the phrase that if an issue is a problem for one person, it's an issue for a thousand people, including bug fixes and features. So, it was just listening to people. It was just doing our own research. We do get some ideas that are so niche to a particular person that.

It doesn't make sense adding it 'cause it'll add a layer of confusion. But what I do sometimes, if it's a nice enough idea, is I might make just a free side project and upload it to the store and point them in that direction. Great. And do you do most of your own, building and coding or is there a team.

No, it's just myself. So the one thing with the coding too is that when it comes to privacy, especially in the United States and in Europe, it's very important. So there's no tracking, no, databases, no outsized code. From a security perspective,

we passed audits that we are not doing anything shady. All the code is written. By hand and, it just makes it easier across the board because. You have to be very careful, especially when you're dealing with a lot of young kids as well.

Who might be using this software. Plus I enjoy it. I love the problem solving. I can see it in your face and hear it in your voice that how much enjoy it, you know? It absolutely does. I have firsthand experience, of that. Robert, how would someone access Helper Bird?

What's the process? For anyone, no matter the age is, the easiest way is to go on to, helper bird.com. And then on the top right hand corner, there will be a download or get It button. If you click there, a popup will appear and you'll have different platforms.

So from all major browsers such as Chrome, Firefox Edge, iPad, iPhone, Android. Google Docs, Google Slides, and Google Drive. And then you could pick which one and you install it. It'll, sorry. It'll bring you to the store and then you can install it and it'll be sitting in your browser.

If anyone wants to reach out to the live chat where Georgie first discovered me, and mention this podcast, I'll make sure you get set up with a free. Account, thank you. If you wanted to mention it in the description or anything, you can mention that as well.

So, do I need to give out a code or anything? No. If you wanna make up a code, happy to accept that as well. Fantastic. Rob, that's so generous of you. And of course when I first heard of you, you were giving it, for free to all the kids with dyslexia in Ireland, and it was just unbelievable.

I just was like, who does that? But you do. Yeah. We still do it if someone signs up from Ireland I can't afford a man, but, I have to keep the lights on. If I see someone who comes in and signs up for Maryland, I'll change their account to free, automatically email them.

So we don't publicize it as much, because we had a lot of people changing their VPNV pn Yeah. To be in Ireland. Yeah. And, oh my God, I wouldn't even know how to do that. How do you know? There was, there was little things like they would sign it, they would show up as Ireland.

There would be a few things that were a little off there might be people who speak different languages or they would show up as in between two countries and back and forth. I was like, okay, we need to verify this a little differently.

So interesting. There's naughty people out there, aren't there? I got one little fun story, a little hacking story. This got me a bit briefly. I was in the first year of college and most people know what an Xbox is. One of the great features is that you can take screenshots, but you can also, record your gameplay and then share it with your friends.

Only with your friends. And one night I was watching the UFC, this was like two in the morning and I wanted to see what some popular people online were recording long story short, I was snooping around the code of the Xbox website and found a certain unsecured API to, to someone like me is, so sorry.

My apologies. So, an API is, so if you imagine your website as your front door, and when you ring that doorbell, the API is the electronics. Ringing the inside. I ring the bell. Okay. So it's kind of like the connecting from the front, the front side of the website to the backend. Where all the information is stored.

Yeah. Normally they're just links and then you make a call to that link, by clicking it or sending something up to it. I noticed that, with about two hours of figuring out what that link actually did I could put any username in there. And get links to all their videos or photos I write blogs on my personal site so people can look up the screenshots long story short, in the next couple hours while watching the fights and I made a little website that you'd type in someone's name, username, it would pull down all their videos and I posted it on a subreddit. It went semi viral.

And then there was a very popular community manager at Microsoft called Major Nelson. People kept calling him in the comments and then eventually he showed up. He, because while impressive, I don't think our team's gonna be very happy about this. A day later, it got patched and fixed.

A few days later, I got a letter in the mail. I have it framed basically just saying congratulations on the bug. Our team acknowledges, thanks so much. It was, very nice, I got one more for you. This is not as much hacking, but it's a funnier story.

My dad's an avid gardener he. Rushed inside and showed us a tomato plant shaped like a duck. It had the bottom and it had like a head attached and a little beak. It really did look like a little duck. I took a photo of it and posted it I thought it was interesting. An hour later I checked my phone. My phone was dead, and it was fully charged an hour ago. And then I went to a friend's, when I came back I think it ended up with two like 19,000 up votes or comments and people accusing me of being the world's worst son because my dad had dirty fingernails and dirty hands from all the hard work they were accusing me of Photoshopping the duck or stealing the duck.

Oh good. It was so funny. And he goes on to it occasionally and just looks at all the comments. You are world's worst son. Your dad's. Digging up these tomatoes and you're posting on the internet. Why aren't you out helping em? Are you serious? Like, I can't believe people do this sort of stuff.

Dan, what we all learned in those comments is that it is common for tomato plants to turn into ducks. Occasionally they will make the shape of a dump. You serious? Yeah. There's quite a few incidences of it showing up. I'm now gonna look out for duck.

I'll have to look for the picture now. I'll send it to you after. My mom very smart, so I'm gonna have to check it out. I have a bunch of these little funny, moments of doing stuff like this as well, I got in a lot of trouble when I was younger and this is, before I was diagnosed, but my parents always knew, I was better at my hands.

I think I was like 12 or 13. I got my first phone and I took it apart probably within a month of owning it. I wanted to customize it. I got in so much trouble. It's far the worst, most trouble I ever got. 'cause I had, I had taken it apart to phone, painted it. I had had custom buttons that I did.

It looked horrible. But it was the fact I took it apart and my parents spent all that money on it. They said, looking back. They realized I was just that technology minded. They thought, at the time they're like, they, he took apart as a hundred euro phone and rectus and stuff.

And Robert does your dyslexia, do you think you have found a route. Going forward has reduced enormous amounts of stress that dyslexia had caused you in your earlier years. Like, do you feel that actually by creating help a bird, everything you do online is just so much easier?

Or you've chosen a path where all of your strengths, you know, you really flourish? Or do you still experience some of the kind of. Di, you know, difficulties that dyslexic can have when it comes to, overwhelming amounts of text, or do you feel like you've just kind of, you've, you've got the tools now you can just move forward?

That's a great question I do think part of it was being lucky that the intervention happened when it did. At the time, technology wasn't really used per se in schools versus where they are now. Can I answer your question? I think a part of it was not to credit my own work but it allowed me to use my own tooling to find my way to be an adult in a sense where, you know, I have to read documents, I have to sign documents, but I also think it comes with like maturity as I grew out old and have accepted and not try to hide my disability

I don't need to be ashamed. I ask my wife how to spell stuff occasionally or I'll Google stuff, how to do it. So it's a mixture of both. I wanna be more confident in myself, but also find my unique situation and path to make it more easier. There is still good days and bad days where i's just, I don't wanna reply to people, with emails and I might take a day I think that's okay as long as they aren't urgent.

Yeah. It's all about and everyone's different. When I have kids and if I notice them, struggling the way I was, I do know it. It's about supporting them, giving 'em the tools and that letting them find themselves as long as they aren't hurting themselves either, and kind of pushing 'em in the right direction.

Yeah, a hundred percent. That's an amazing journey. Thank you so much for sharing that with us. I'm gonna go now look up, help and see how it can help me. Of course. And there's another fun one that, I think a lot of teachers or kids use, I launched one the other day.

Called cursor parity. I was stuck in a house with no internet. So what it does, and people might enjoy this just as a bit of fun, it gives you different cursors. So if you don't want the boring white one, you can have one that gives you a clock or had text or add a little emoji that follow you.

Yes. You created this when you were bored? It was more kind of, I was in a house that had no internet, and we were just messing around. But the other one that I think a lot of kids or, quirky people will use is, when you click, it can just shoot confetti everywhere. So if you click on a link, it'll shoot confetti.

If you click there, shoot bunch of confetti. And the reason I bring this up, is that even with someone who does have dyslexia, it's just about having a bit of fun. The reason I tell that to people even on this podcast, but with others, is it's all about having fun because if you create something and finish it, even if it's partially done, it's something that you can use as a CV piece or an introduction piece for networking

and I know college isn't for everyone, but the real, key with college, and you don't have to go to college for this, is the networking. Just by going out to meetups, at your local community or hobby shops, you never know who you're gonna bump into. And that might lead to a career or different opportunities be it the online groups or like d and d, which I see is a huge popularity again.

It's all about getting out there. Especially if you have difficulty and don't like school, you'll find your group of people, which will lead to better things. You'll find your tribe. One of my American friends says, it's not who you know, it's who they know.

I'm like, okay. And as I tell people, if you email me, I will get back to you. I always try to respond to everyone. 'cause it's always about trying to help. And I, I know I've told so many stories here, but that one you mentioned about being in the paper, I had so many stories that came outta that or people emailing me about they weren't diagnosed till they were 45 or 50 and that they didn't know what was.

Wrong with them until they had that diagnosis and it helped them understand who they were and that it wasn't just because they were, you know, not the smartest. It was actually a reason for it. And it that, I think that's the, if anyone who listens to this gets out of, your podcast, but even my own speak here it's all about

finding out who you are and adapting to it. Everyone is different even if they don't show it. It's important that people are talking about their different backgrounds and diversity it's such a good time to be there, you know, with technology catching up, be becoming more affordable and just, it's a great landscape.

And I know there's also challenges with that, with always being online and technology and things, but. You don't need to be in the shadows anymore. Yeah. And technology, all that, we, you know, the, the bad rapid gets, it does make things accessible. Yes. And, and that's a big thing. You can now jump on the web and find anything and also have the tools to reel it back to you as well.

Yeah, that's true. And, one thing I would say to people, and this is not caution, is just make sure you. Understand what you're installing on your computer a lot of people overlook, even with helper. Just make sure you're comfortable with installing it.

We don't do anything, but I've had support tickets before of people installing other extensions very sketchy looking ones, and they were running havoc on their computer. So it's just to make sure you understand what you're installing, you're comfortable with it, that be it on your phone anywhere.

That's a good advice. Yeah. Yeah. It's just make sure you understand what you're installing. Thank you, Robert. Thank you. Fantastic. It's a lovely conversation. You were brilliant as always. It was a pleasure Robert. We'll take you up on that offer to give our listeners a free, trial off helper bird. Absolutely. And thank you so much for having me. If they want to either email me or reach out on the live chat and mention this podcast, I'll make sure they're taken care of.

Yeah. Para Pod podcast, that's going to be the code. Thank you so much for having me. Thank you. You take care. Bye Robert.