Reel: Blind Soccer Player

SAMANTHA GOUGH: Hi, I’m Samantha. I’m a full-time blind athlete playing blind football for England and also rowing on the GB para pathway. Alongside that I’m also a social media content creator. Thank you for having me and also for highlighting assistive technology. I’m so glad to participate in Sight Tech Global. As a full-time blind athlete and content creator, this is how I use technology. Let’s start with an iPhone. An iPhone is what I use every single day to help me access the world. Using VoiceOver to film videos and edit videos. I’m not a paid influencer and film all my own content. Being a blind influencer is really difficult because it comes with its own challenges, with not having accessible editing apps. Some of the editing apps I do use are only partly accessible, which is why I have to go from multiple apps just to get one video done. Next up, I love using Be My Eyes and the Be My AI feature on Be My Eyes. This has brought a new level of independence to my life. Being able to be told what is around me by one. Next up, as for my training, I use a rowing machine Concept2 Erg and use the ErgData app on my iPhone to be able to get all the information I need for splits and rates. I connect this to my Bluetooth speaker and you’ll hear it right now. My iPhone is the way to be able to access my heart rate monitor, as well as other training apps that I use, as well. I also use an Apple Watch that I can track my schedule and also using it to do timers. Alexa, what’s the weather like outside? At the side of my bed, I have an Amazon Alexa that I use for all sorts, like music, tracking my diary, and I use the voice view setting for voiceover on it. And the last piece of technology I’ll talk about in today’s video is my BrailleNote Touch. This is a technology Braille device. So, that is how I, as a blind person and also as a blind athlete content creator, use technology in my life. This is just some of the ones that I use. Thank you for listening. I’ll see you in the next video.