Lazarillo creates software products that enable people with disabilities to participate in digital and physical spaces of companies and public organizations that are not fully optimized for accessibility.
How Lazarillo was born
René Espinoza, CEO of Lazarillo
When completing an engineering degree in college, René Espinoza, CEO of Lazarillo, worked with neurologists and occupational therapists in a hospital to develop assistive technology. As he talked with patients, René learned more about the challenges that people with disabilities face on a daily basis – from finding their way to the hospital to buying products online. This experience motivated him to create technology that can address the practical, everyday needs of people with disabilities.
In 2015, René met Miguel, a tech-savvy, experienced professional with whom he quickly established a mentoring relationship. At the time, Miguel, who is blind, was teaching people with visual impairments how to use computers for work, helping them to learn software such as Microsoft or Excel.
Miguel, UX Accessibility Lead at Lazarillo
Through their conversations, René received valuable feedback from Miguel that later gave rise to Lazarillo’s first prototype –
“the most difficult thing for us blind people is to find a door in a closed space. How do we find a specific place in any location when we do not have the assistance of a third party” shared Miguel.
Lazarillo was born a year later as an accessible app that supports people with visual disabilities to reach their destinations both indoors and outdoors. The app served as a potential way-finding solution for the more than 117.86 million people in Latin America who are vision impaired.
Key growth strategies
Within a year of founding, Lazarillo hired Miguel as its full-time UX accessibility lead and provided him with a stable salary and benefits. Miguel’s responsibilities transitioned into overall usability testing, beta user management, and live user support and training.
As its operations grew, Lazarillo proceeded to hire more people with disabilities to join its team; offering them full-time leadership positions or roles that have career growth, such as the positions of communications and sales lead.
“At Lazarillo, we believe that our app must be born from our users, and we want to hire more people who face similar challenges as our users to become part of the team to give them better job opportunities and to further improve the user experience of our app…Our users collaborate a lot with us on this, they are very involved in our campaigns.” - shared René.
Laying the groundwork for disability inclusion practices in Latin America
Today, Lazarillo has more than 240,000 active users across 50 countries and supports 25 different languages.
Realizing that most countries have few accessibility or inclusion policies in place, Lazarillo is now deepening its work in these areas. The enterprise expanded its services to various public and private organizations and corporations, offering not only to make their buildings more accessible but also to provide training that fosters inclusive workplaces. Lazarillo further raises awareness on disability inclusion by highlighting to its corporate partners that many of their clients are people with disabilities and should receive equitable services or product experiences, improving disability representation across sectors. “This was our way to push accessibility even without support from regulations,” shared René.
From way-finding app to multipurpose accessibility platform
In its first four years of operation, Lazarillo gained additional insight into the obstacles that the community faced beyond navigation, which motivated them to create another product– a multipurpose digital platform with automated features that help people with visual disabilities to access digital stores, make online purchases, or submit job applications.
“When lockdowns happened due to the pandemic, we realized a key issue that the disability community faced was the lack of accessible information and ways to interact in the market. This understanding gave us the opportunity to reinvent ourselves and stay current,” said René.
“We incorporated relevant information for users, especially during the pandemic, such as the opening hours of banks,” shared Miguel.
Lazarillo’s vision for creating an inclusive society
In the next five years, Lazarillo aims to reach 50 million users and companies through its apps and platforms, growing a community that understands the multifaceted nature of disabilities, which touches on every demographic category and can impact people who need greater accessibility brought on by disease, accidents, or aging. With its platform, Lazarillo seeks to foster a community of people that value equity and inclusion.
Lazarillo joined the NESsT - IKEA Social Entrepreneurship Latin America Accelerator in 2021. Learn more here.
