Glassnik

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My previous tech startup took me around the world, from Australia to Europe and the United States for months at a time as part of accelerator programs. During those extended stays, I travelled constantly across countries and between cities, meeting with investors, potential customers, partners and others who could help us grow. I also regularly represented the company at major international events around the world, such as the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas and Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona.

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Along the way, I saw and experienced some incredible things — from mind-blowing new robots and technologies being unveiled at trade shows to meetings with potential investors on rooftops overlooking unfamiliar cities, and countless people, places and moments in between.

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But capturing it was another story. While I was in Europe, the UK and the United States, the travelling rarely stopped. There were short-haul flights, trains, buses, taxis, airport transfers, luggage and unfamiliar cities — often moving on again within days for the next meeting or event.

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Once there, my days were spent rushing between meetings, exhibition stands and presentations. My phone was usually being used for work, and stopping everything to hold it up and film something amazing happening around me rarely felt practical — or natural. I was experiencing an incredible amount of the world, but capturing very little of what it actually felt like to be there.

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For some of us, being able to travel is something we can easily take for granted. I learnt not to. Earlier in my life, I spent three years working as a disability support worker for Tony Doyle, an artistic director whose eyesight had been deteriorating since childhood.

 

Through Tony, I became fascinated by his work bringing together technology, the arts and accessibility, and by his belief in how technology could make a difference in the lives of people with disabilities.

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In 2004, that fascination led me to produce a short film about Tony called 'A Sound Vision'. I made the film to help raise awareness of accessibility and the possibilities technology could create for people with disabilities, and entered it into the Big Issue Film Festival.

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When travelling with Tony for his work, I saw first-hand how limited sight could turn the basics of travel into challenges — finding luggage, reading departure boards and directional signs, locating the right gate or navigating an unfamiliar airport, hotel or city. As Tony's sight continued to deteriorate and he grew older, travelling became increasingly difficult for him, and eventually he stopped doing much of it altogether.

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After returning to Australia from the accelerator programs, I bought a pair of smart glasses with a built-in video camera and started recording places and events around my hometown.

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As I used the smart glasses, I kept thinking back to all those years travelling with my startup and with Tony. I thought about the incredible things I'd seen over years of attending CES, MWC and many other technology trade shows and events, the places I'd travelled through across Europe and the United States, and how much of it I'd never really captured.

 

I also thought about Tony, the ideas about technology and accessibility that had fascinated me years earlier, and how something I'd once taken for granted — simply being able to go somewhere new and experience it — had become increasingly difficult for him.

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And the more I used the glasses, the more I realised what a difference capturing the world through smart-glasses Eye-POV video could have made to all those experiences — and what it might make possible for people who can't easily travel because of distance, cost, mobility or circumstances beyond their control.

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Here was a camera sitting beside my eyes. Instead of reaching for my phone, stopping what I was doing and holding it up to film, I just had to say, “Record video.” I could keep travelling, exploring, entering places and experiencing what was happening around me while the glasses captured it naturally from almost the same perspective as my eyes.

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And that led to a much bigger question. Tony had shown me years earlier that the freedom to go somewhere and experience it for yourself isn't something everyone has. What if smart-glasses Eye-POV videos could bring people closer to places and experiences they might otherwise never be able to experience for themselves?

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Not just the Eiffel Tower or Times Square. The world in between. Arriving somewhere new. Entering a restaurant. Moving through a huge international event. Exploring a neighbourhood. Getting on a train. Wandering through a market. Seeing everyday life somewhere you've never been — all from the natural perspective of someone actually there.

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That’s how Glassnik was born. A way to capture the real world through smart-glasses Eye-POV videos and turn those videos into immersive experiences — opening up more of the world to more people.