PODCAST (+)plural makes Children's books for blind and visually impaired children affordable

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Startuprad.io

16 min readApr 26, 2022

This story was migrated from our old blog, originally published on November 19th, 2020.

Blind and visually impaired children learn Braille [writing for blind] only in school, so we had to re-think children books for blind and visually impaired
Christina Oskui, Co-Founder PlusPlural

Media Partnership

This interview is in media partnership with the CONTENTshif accelerator program (https://www.contentshift.de/en/accelerator/programme/for-startups/), which we follow since its inception. CONTENTshift is the accelerator program of the German Book Publishers and Printers Association. Below you will find more interviews from past batches. We used to record the interviews directly at Frankfurt Book Fair, but since it is canceled this year due to Corona, we resorted to remote only interviews. At the time of the recording, we did not know who won the final award. The winner of this year’s batch is SciFlow (https://www.contentshift.de/en/contentshift/news/congratulations-to-sciflow/). We will publish the exclusive interview with them as the last of our series this year.

Three things remain with us from paradise: stars, flowers, and children.
Dante Alighieri

The Founder

This time we speak to the co-founder of (+)plural (spoken plus plural http://www.plusplural.de/) Christina Oskui (https://www.linkedin.com/in/christina-oskui-825b8615a/, https://www.contentshift.de/en/accelerator/participants-2020/christina-oskui/). Christina wrote her first children’s book about a hedgehog, who lost his spikes, financed with a crowdfunding campaign on StartNext (https://www.startnext.com/en/kinderbuch-igel). During the writing, she also designed plush figures to go along with the book (owl, rabbit, duck), but she could not find any publisher who wanted to publish the books together with the stuffed animals.

During this time she also realized that books for blind and visually impaired children are extremely expensive, due to the high amount of manual labor going into each book. Also, books catering to sighted and blind children at the same time are not available. So she aims with her social startup (+)plural and modern production techniques to change that and make affordable books for all children.

There have been no books that blind and non-blind people can read at the same time.
Christina Oskui, Co-Founder PlusPlural

Affiliate Links

Is your startup in need of a bank account in Germany? Try our partner affiliate Penta http://bit.ly/3bdHX3d

A child can teach an adult three things: to be happy for no reason, to always be busy with something, and to know how to demand with all his might that which he desires.
Paulo Coelho

The Startup

Blind children learn Braille writing only in school, so many children have a very small choice of books they can enjoy. The high price comes from a large amount of manual labor going into these books (gluing, stitching, stapling of different textures, textiles, and pieces to the book). A friend of hers has a blind child who only likes part of one of its book. (+)plural (http://www.plusplural.de/) combines 3d printing, modern manufacturing, and picture books to make affordable picture books for blind and sighted children. The books include stuffed animals, as well as 3d printed parts.

(+)plural is a social enterprise.

Venture Capital Funding

(+)plural is at a very early stage, but they are open to talking to external investors. They are also looking for partners for the sale and distribution of their books.

My first book was about a hedgehog who lost is spikes and I designed a stuffed animal, which went along with the story
Christina Oskui, Co-Founder PlusPlural

The Video Interview is set to go live on November 19th, 2020

The Audio Interview

Feedback

Reach out to us, here is our audience survey, to give us feedback, suggest topics, interview partners or just to say “Hallo!” https://forms.gle/mLV6mVKwGwKuut8BA

The Interviewer

This interview was conducted by Jörn “Joe” Menninger, startup scout, founder, and host of Startuprad.io. Reach out to him:
LinkedIn
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Email

Automated Transcript

Intro

[0:00] Music.

[0:16] And Live Events.
Hello and welcome everybody this is Joe from startupradio your startup podcast and you to block from Germany,
today we bring you another interview in our series with the accelerator program contentshift of the German book publishers and book printers Association.
This time we are actually dealing with more or less a company which is social company that is actually dealing in books.
Not really physically but we’ll get into that and I would like to welcome one of the co-founders Christina he would me hey welcome.

[0:58] Welcome good morning my name is Christina I’m from + Paula and I’m a the team member.
Together with Pascal voice NE and we are publishing Children books for visual and Pad children.
That is quite something that instantly caught my eyes and when I Was preparing for this interview I found a wonderful quote from Dante Alighieri
three things remain with us from Paradise Stars flowers and children therefore I really appreciate that.
I would be a little bit curious what

The Founder

[1:35] choke you hear what brought you here I’ve been stalking you of course on LinkedIn and everybody would like to reach out to you they can go down here in the show notes there is a link to your LinkedIn profile so people can reach out to you directly
and I’ve seen that you’ve been in Insurance business that you’ve been self-publishing and that you are an
author but how did you get from.
Like being an insurance to publish to set up books for visually impaired children.

[2:11] Yeah this is a long story actually I started writing when I got my two children I stopped with the insurance company,
because I couldn’t work that way I used to and I just started to write because it was like a hobby.
And I just wrote for my children and I went to the school and to the kindergarten and read my stories there I only had them the script.
And a teacher told me while we really enjoyed stories you should publish them you should find a publisher.
And then I started to reach out find a publisher but it wasn’t that easy.
The way I thought it could be and I found an illustrator and she already had made a crowdfounding,
was stopped next year in Germany and so we decided to publish our first children book on our own.
And this is the story about a hedgehog who lost his spikes and.
Why I’m writing this story I was thinking about doing something special together with the book because I was a bad reader when I was a child so I started to design some plush figures.
And this is the Hedgehog and now you can see the Hedgehog which is naked he looks like this.

[3:36] And you can play the whole story’s with the plush figures I have the also the all the rabbit and the duck and.
Then I try to find again a publisher who would use both the book and the plush figures but I couldn’t find some.
Another illustrator get noticed from our work and she said well this is such a nice story because the Hedgehog lost something what is very important for him.
To keep himself safe.

[4:09] He lost his spikes so she said what about publishing this book for visually impaired children because you can.
Touch them and you notice the Hedgehog how.
How he is and she had the contact to the Dodgers and Hive you have I fought for Belinda and so,
published or they treat you say it’s translated because it’s translated into Breyer and it looks like this and there you can see,
the head shop.
Here is in relief print and this is the weight line children gets to know about the visual,
illustration so this is the illustration in the Rye book and this is the illustration in the classical children book so.

[5:03] I thought I had a friend who had lost his sight during a car accident and he was a father of two.
Young boys and his oldest boys her boy was about 5 years old.
And I gave to him the book of the Bride version.
To show him my story and to to get feedback from him and he said well it’s such a nice story but I have to tell you that my son was very bored because he couldn’t see.
A lot of visual illustrations it was kind of boring for him and the reading I did was very slow so.
He get very bored he has no pictures to look at because he has side his son is cited and I asked him why what about other books you should have,
plenty of them to read to your child and he said no there is no book.

[6:02] Cited and Visually Impaired persons so you can’t go together and read a book in Braille and someone who can see.
Can see the visual illustrations.
So that was the reason why I started to work on this because I couldn’t imagine that in Germany you can’t get a book where to.
People sit together have fun learn reading and get to a story get into dive into his story and that was the reason why I started with this project.

[6:39] Mmm-hmm let let me get the bottom line first you did this
fully cute book with a hedgehog who lost his spikes and that went along with the stuffed animal and that guts
you get the idea to basically translated into Braille which is d d d for everybody who’s just listening to this it’s the language is the writing of the plant where you actually have like.
So if I don’t read Brave it’s like a dots that you can actually feel with your fingers and you can be as fast as with normal rut reading.
And you actually turned then you booked into something.
That is actually a colored book but there’s an additional layer a see-through layer where it sits.
Like stamped in it a 3D printed it’s it’s feelable you can actually feel the paintings and that makes the book,
suitable for people and children who see and don’t see at the same time with this like a good wrap up.

[7:51] No actually it doesn’t work because visual,
people who are visual they get bored when they look at this
illustrations so you need something more for the visual people and you also need something more for the visually impaired people because if you see I show it again if you see this relief print.
It’s.
It could also be a pineapple I also could be an some so you have to read the sign underneath that it is a hedgehog and that was the reason why.
I’d start to to.
Research and there is nothing in three dimension so I started to find something else with it 3D printing and I started this one.
This is a hedgehog where you can grab and it’s very like a natural one.

[8:55] Through it and we also tried different kind of shapes to get through this toy that you have the book and you have a three-dimensional character.
To get into the story and to get from away from the two dimension.
So you have the 3rd Dimension you can take it in your head and you can play with it and you can also learn how a real hedgehog.
Feels like.
We met at the air for everybody who’s just listening to this podcast that you held up like a plaque 3D print of a hedgehog which basically fits into the palm of your hand right.

[9:39] And then we started to think about this was really the beginning we think about the materials we try to different materials and 3D printing and we thought about something where we can put
also the Braille print at the Briar and the normal.
Writing to get through that point and then we started to think about making a box where you can put the written story inside,
the classical book and also the Braille print and then the characters and this is the
the idea which we with which we were starting at the contentshift.

The Startup (Admittedly In An Early Stage)

[10:22] So what is now the idea you guys are pursuing at contentshift where you want to go ways to see the final outcome.

[10:33] Yeah we had a mentoring program together with two mentors and coach.
And they started to think about our idea and they said well we need to find our.
Personas to find out who would buy this well because actually there are,
not the so many blind children in Germany and the problem about that you can’t get the real numbers how many children in the age from
zero to six blind born blind you can’t get the statistic numbers,
that’s because our our historic in Germany so we can’t find out how many would buy this and then we said well
our wish is that you have both the visual children and the visual impaired children together that they have one.
Like a box where they can read and then they can play and they do it together so we thought it was a good idea to start at the kindergarten at the age of 4,
and so we decided that we need a project where you can.
Go to the Educators we’re before school starts because Normal sighted children they start to paint and do something like writing.

[12:03] In the first step they paint a snake or something like that this is the beginning of writing and actually every everything looks like a random circles like a little bit chaotic circus,
the first letters it’s over a whole page it’s one letter,
they start to write their name and really big letters so visually impaired children
usually start to write and to learn Braille at school not before not not in kindergarten they only if the parents are very interested in this,
problem and they have good education.

[12:48] And a good help a good support in the beginning but if,
I wouldn’t imagine I had children with visual loss I would more focus on.
How how much child could go outside how it could be in the house and,
things like that not at that moment I wouldn’t try to bring books to my children
there are many things you have to think about and you have to practice with the child to get Mobility to get mobility and to get out on his own.

[13:28] So that is the reason why we start that early at the age of 4 and in kindergarten I think there are many groups with where,
integrative were children with disabilities and not,
they are together so it’s a perfect time to start there and then we have to start with a.
Yeah kindergarten teacher you could we start the project too,
give them them a box and now we are at so far we are that we not only make a book so we try to make a lot of,
playing and a lot of learning but only with a lot of fun it’s not like
you give your child to the kindergarten and it should learn Mandarin or something we just want to have a box where that it’s like a surprise box you can
pain together you can hear something you can play something so it’s a box where a lot of.

[14:34] Different kind of.
When you just work a lot of different opportunities you get to play something and.
The second part is that you learn something earlier than right now.

[14:52] I see and basically you bumped into the problem that you want to start a kindergarten but the children there don’t the the blind children or visually impaired don’t learn Braille until,
until school so basically that was the problem you bumped into and that’s why you have to settle for like a 3D printed toys and stuff like this so,
children who can see and cannot see could interact with the exact same book right there was where we were you going at right.
Yeah yeah that’s that’s the reason why because if you don’t start that early in the beginning you said something that someone who reads Breyer could get as fast as a.
Rita was visual with vision it’s not that way it’s that a very good prior reader is three times slower than a normal reader,
and if you don’t start early to learn Breyer you don’t it’s like we in Germany we said who doth Aden.
It’s you you’re always behind because you don’t learn if you don’t have the.

[16:08] The idea of why you should learn Braille it’s that you don’t know how to use the computer later on you have you should imagine if they are in the fifth grade they have to learn.
The technical things and learn to use a computer they can’t use the mouse and that’s
real bad thing because they only they all have to learn these shortcuts and when they don’t have learned the the real writing the right grammar
they don’t get used to why should I make a that science and.

[16:49] Punctuation and all these punctuation you need for the shortcuts.
And if you don’t know why you should use it you won’t learn it and then you can’t use the computer the right way and then it’s,
getting forward and then you don’t use the Braille again and you let only use the audio description from the computer you don’t read anymore because you only get something and you hear it.
It’s it should be a good opportunity to use both that’s the reason why I want to start that early.

[17:26] To give them the children that the opportunity to learn Braille in a very good way and to get faster and reading and also in writing.

[17:37] Hmm I see learned something new when we talked before the interview when we did our prep talk I was
I was asking you what you currently doing so basically it turned out you don’t have like the financial capabilities to actually do
be production and distribution of the books yourself that’s what you currently looking for so you looking for only.
Distribution and production partner or are you also looking for something like an investor would you be open to that as well.

[18:13] Yes sure sure we look for an investor also because we have many ideas we want to build a real world about all these inclusion inclusion and both,
directions if you think about inclusion today it’s always we do something for visually impaired,
children and we do something for children without disability but you don’t do something weather.

[18:44] Blind or visually impaired children and the children without an IT disability get together,
and why shouldn’t a child who is has normal sight why shouldn’t this child learn bryl it’s just.
On top it’s just something maybe it could use in the future if you think about our.
Health System we know that many people have diabetes and it starts about when you’re 40 45.
A lot of people doesn’t even notice that they have diabetes they go to the eye doctor and then they say oh I can’t read that good and then after that
they see that they have diabetes and there are many.
Illness ionis things who comes out of this.

[19:40] Diabetes so if you have learned bryl at Children’s age you can use it in the future maybe or you have somebody in your family,
who lost his vision and you can help them.
And also it is for the educational for the teachers if you don’t work with it where should you learn bryl so you can start very early and in the future you have you earn it.

[20:09] I see so you going you argued that everybody should learn Braille because one of the main reasons,
that you need to use it in a later eight is when you get diabetes and your eyesight gets impaired so you cannot read properly anymore and it’s very hard to learn something especially like Braille
if you don’t on the other hand
I can read you cannot read the instructions you would need instantly to switch to Braille you’re also open for an external investor,
that’s what I take along as well.

Contentshift

[20:47] And let us get into the final part when we talk about content shift because you’re one of the finalists of contentshift at the time of recording this we don’t know who will be the winner nonetheless,
thumbs press for you in Germany we press thumbs we don’t cross fingers and,
what did contigent for you what would it take what did you take out of it and would you recommend other startups to apply there as well.

[21:19] Yeah contentshift is a very good platform to to get in contact to the book publisher.

[21:29] Community I didn’t had the chance since years to get there and I think it’s very good it’s also a very good platform
for new ideas and Innovations and they are very open-minded and there are a lot of mentors and coaches
they hope you to get to to your.

[21:52] Startup to get your startup known and to get very good ideas and impulses for your project so we first we wanted only to make a book,
with a few a few Futures features and after that.
We talked to our mentors and our Kochi they brought us to the point and we are one of the starters
we are in the seat face,
in the beginning and we are open-minded and we have many ideas so we needed someone who is profession and who could.
Help us to find the focus because we have so many ideas and we couldn’t bring it into one product.
And now we are at the point that we see where which things our product could do and we found out that we have many more opportunities to use the product.
When it’s done as a so
finish for example we talked about the problem in the future with diabetes we also found out that children who can’t read as well.

[23:14] Legos Tanika people who have dyslexia or.
If you go forward who have Alzheimer’s maybe they don’t know the word.
Still but if they see this little hedgehog
they may be no it’s it’s an animal it’s from the from from the garden I know it from earlier days they don’t get the word Hedgehog but maybe they get something what’s.

[23:45] What describes it so we don’t only get to the to reading and writing we get about over the figure that the people get a feeling for a word,
so it’s more like playing with something and then you see the word is also there and after a while,
over this playing you see the word and then you remember it so we have no I have to say in German sorry
so you have no research results for this type of learning but basically you can imagine that it’s
actually would work as always I want to add a little bit history because the first
diagnosed Alzheimer’s patients with somebody from Frankfort there is a trivia story that a lady from
the Frankfurt borough of bernheim went to dr. Alzheimer who was at this time practicing in in Frankfort and she said
how doctors On My Level 4 guess,
dear mr. doctor I forgot my life and she was basically Lee patient zero for dr. Alzheimer where he started to
discover research this illness that such I do believe we Now understand also your outlook that you are looking at therapy.

[25:09] Not only are children but also like Alzheimer’s patients and other patients at old age I would say you still have a lot of head of you.

[25:21] Best of luck for that and thank you very much for being a guest here on my show.
Thank you very much for being in this show I enjoyed it very much.

[25:32] Two great thank you very much with pleasure having here bye-bye thank you very much having.

[25:47] Music.

PODCAST (+)plural makes Children's books for blind and visually impaired children affordable

Media Partnership

The Founder

Affiliate Links

The Startup

Venture Capital Funding

The Video Interview is set to go live on November 19th, 2020

The Audio Interview

Further Readings / Additional Ressources

Feedback

The Interviewer

Automated Transcript

Intro

The Founder

The Startup (Admittedly In An Early Stage)

Contentshift

Written by Saif Morshed