NCBI, National Council for the Blind of Ireland, has today announced the
launch of myNCBI Smart Hub Skill on Alexa and Google Home, the very first
innovative voice-based platform of its scale within the charity sector.
myNCBI Smart Hub is a voice assistant AI based skill that's available on
Alexa-enabled devices and Google Home. It allows service users and their
families to have access to the latest information on sight loss and a full
suite of features. To start simply ask 'Alexa launch myNCBI' to open the
Skill, and then use a range of additional commands such as "Alexa, tell me
about the symptoms of Nystagmus" or "Alexa, play a podcast". From accessing
information on NCBI support services, sight loss conditions, NCBI Labs
technology services and advocacy to the NCBI podcast and library access to
hear the latest articles from national newspapers and magazines, it also
allows users to request a referral or a call back from an NCBI staff member.
Whilst there are approximately 55,000 people who are blind or visually
impaired in Ireland, with that number rising as the population ages, a
portion of the demographic are often isolated and may not have access or the
skills (orientation and mobility, white cane skills) currently to avail of
assessments, training, referrals and detailed medical information on sight
loss and its conditions. This coupled with Covid lockdowns further increased
the need for NCBI to provide alternative avenues to its services.
Kyran O'Mahoney, Chief Technology Officer at NCBI, says: "This is the first
time an innovative voice-based platform of scale such as this has been
developed in the charity sector. There are many barriers for people with
disabilities and we wanted to remove some financial and location
restrictions to our services and supports. From research, we knew that most
of our service users have either an Alexa-enabled or Google device in their
home already so we opted to design and build the myNCBI Smart Hub to allow
us to assist them directly on these platforms, whilst also creating a 'path
of least resistance' to technology for the older generation who are
predominately new to sight loss."
"The use of disruptive technology enables us to expand and further reach and
help people who are blind or live with visual impairments. The launch of
myNCBI Smart Hub will have profound impacts to support people with
disabilities world-wide."
"The myNCBI Smart Hub is not built to be used just by NCBI. The NCBI Labs
technology team developed this concept to be completely white labelled and
so that it can be implemented across multiple charities cheaply and quickly.
We also chose to partner with Irish-based Cation Consulting as the AWS
Conversational AI Partner who worked with our team to enable us to deliver
our services in an easy-to-use conversational manner for our service users."
Dennis Stansbury, Alexa UK Country Manager, said: "We're delighted that
customers in Ireland can now access myNCBI through Alexa. The myNCBI skill
is another great way that Alexa is helping our blind or vision impaired
customers feel more independent and connected by simply using voice
commands."
In celebration of Global Accessibility Awareness Day, NCBI are giving away
500 ECHO DOT (4th Gen) with Alexa devices to support those with disabilities
and their families. Offered on a first come first served basis, email:
Smarthub@xxxxxxx <mailto:Smarthub@xxxxxxx>
to avail and to hear more about how to access and use myNCBI Smart Skill.
For those with access to an Alexa-enabled device or Google Home device,
myNCBI Smart Hub can easily be enabled from the Amazon Skill section of the
Amazon app or the Google Action section of the Google App. Once enabled, the
full suite of features can be accessed for free by linking the skill to a
myNCBI account.
For more information on Smart Hub visit
https://www.ncbi.ie/smarthub
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