How Samantha Johnson And Tatum Robotics Want To Make The World More Accessible … – Forbes

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How Samantha Johnson And Tatum Robotics Want To Make The World More Accessible To Deaf-Blind People Everywhere

Steven Aquino
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Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own.

Steven covers accessibility and assistive technologies.

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Mar 25, 2024,05:43pm EDT

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Tatum Robotics uses robots to make communication more accessible to Deaf-blind people.

Tatum Robotics

Tatum Robotics founder and chief executive officer Samantha Johnson told me in an interview earlier this month her company began as a byproduct of her Master’s thesis while at Northeastern. As she explained, as an undergrad student, she took an American Sign Language, or ASL, class and part of the curriculum was going out into the community and find Deaf people with whom to practice signing and become more immersed in Deaf culture. It was then when Johnson met a Deaf-blind woman and began talking about how the woman communicates.

According to Johnson, the woman told her she didn’t have access to independent communication and could not talk to anyone unless someone were directly beside her. This is because, Johnson said, many in the Deaf-blind community rely on touch by way of tactile signing; this method [...]