Taking Control of Life: Lessons from creating Louie Voice Control

Editor’s Note: Louie Voice Control – The Story and the creator, Pramit Bhargava

We are excited to share with you the story behind Louie Voice Control, an accessibility app conceptualized and developed by the visually impaired for the visually impaired. The app has voice functionality that enables the users to use other popular apps with voice commands and interacts like humans for the visually impaired. There are several inspirational chapters from the life of Louie Voice Control’s creator, Pramit Bhargava, and we cover some of them in this article. Rajiv Maheshwari spoke at length with Pramit and has distilled some of these life lessons from Pramit’s experience. Pramit lost his eyesight and yet had the vision of helping others (and himself) through Louie Voice Control. His product has the potential to transform the lives of millions of visually impaired. Additionally, his journey also has transformational lessons for all the sighted people. They can see the reality of the pandemic and their woes in a very different light. Check out the lessons in managing business in the New Normal in the second part of this series.

Here is an audio version of this article, “Taking Control of Life: Lessons from creating Louie Voice Control”

A Dream Journey – Dream Education, Dream Job, Dream Brand

Pramit Bhargava had a life that was the stuff of dreams until the 1990’s. He had a IIT-IIM pedigree, having completed B Tech in Computer Science from IIT-BHU and an MBA from IIM Bangalore. He was handling ‘LUX’, one of the most prominent brands of those times, in his high flying role at HUL. It was the dream brand in the dream company for any marketer in the country.

However, life had other plans and as a result of a rare reaction to medication, his vision dropped sharply in 1999. Pramit promptly stopped the medication and life continued with three sets of glasses. In addition to glasses for distant vision and near vision, he had a third set of glasses for reading newspapers with a very high power of +11. He did not allow this to affect his professional life. His corporate career continued to soar high, as he worked in leadership roles with several leading corporates over the next few years. The deterioration in vision continued during this period, until he realized in 2012 that he could not read anymore.

The Lost Phase

This realization sparked what Pramit calls the ‘Lost Phase’. The fact that he could not read and work with the tools of the trade required to perform leadership roles in corporates shook him up. For the next few years (post 2012), he was understandably at a loss. He sorely missed his ability to do basic things as a result of his impaired vision.

The devil started playing havoc with his mind on a daily basis, reminding him of all the things that he could have done earlier, but could not do now. He also struggled to use the technology meant for visually impaired, such as screen readers. Each day that the rest of the world would take a step forward, Pramit would live in the past.

The A-ha Moment

Meditation and following a spiritual path helped immensely during this phase. Even during the ‘Lost Phase’, Pramit was quite relaxed mentally. In fact, he points out that such an incident can lead people to depression and alcoholism, but it had the opposite effect on him. He stopped drinking and turned vegetarian, soon after losing his sight!

However, even though he was relaxed, he continued living in the Lost Phase for a couple of years. Finally, there was an ‘a-ha’ moment that completely changed his mindset and the course of his life. A few of his friends paid him a visit and one of them told him – “Why are you living in the past? Forget what you have done earlier. Now, the question is – What is it that you want to do now?”

These questions hit home and Pramit started to think differently and prepared for winning the mental battle.

Louie Voice Control

As Pramit started thinking about what he could do under the present circumstances, answers started emerging and the dots started to connect. His B Tech degree in Computer Science from IIT (BHU) was of little relevance in his corporate career. Now, it became the pivot of his next move. He was frustrated with the lack of support provided by the voice assistants on leading mobile operating systems and apps. They were simply not designed with the visually impaired in mind and presumed that the users would rely on a combination of sight and voice.

As one of his friends was helping him hail an Uber ride, the idea for Louie Voice Control was born. The speech assistants in the market, did not cater to the needs of the visually impaired and were designed and developed for and by sighted people. Pramit thought of creating a voice enabled virtual friend to interact with the most commonly used apps. This idea had the power to transform not just his life, but also the life of millions of visually impaired people all over the world.

Pramit could now use his technology, operations and marketing experiences to create this app that was designed around the unique needs of the visually impaired. And, he could run the venture on professional lines, given his experience in leadership roles during his illustrious corporate career.

Check the video below, where Pramit speaks about how Louie Voice Control is so much more than any other voice assistant or a voice enabled app. Little wonder that this initiative has been recognized as an Aatma Nirbhar Champion by the Government of India.

The Lost Phase vs The Pandemic

It was a comparison that I could not resist making. So, I did ask Pramit about how he felt about the pandemic. And, how he compared his experience during the pandemic with his own experience of the ‘Lost Phase’. His response was as clear as it was prompt.

Pramit mentioned that the two situations cannot be compared on account of two reasons. Firstly, visual impairment was a terminal condition and had no light at the end of the tunnel. On the other hand, the pandemic is a temporary phenomenon. We all believe at the back of our minds that the pandemic will end in some time, whether it is one year or a couple of years.

Secondly, the pandemic is a global phenomenon that has afflicted everyone, although the severity may vary. However, in his case, he was the only one suffering from visual impairment across all the people that he knew.

Most of the world may have found the pandemic to be the biggest disruption in their lives. However, Pramit feels that managing the pandemic was ‘easy’ for him and he can manage another 5 years like this! Having seen and survived something far worse, dealing with the pandemic is like a small hiccup for him. There are positives and negatives of any situation, and he chooses to focus on the positives and move on!

Mindset

This brings us to the question of mindset and attitude and I asked Pramit about his observations about the typical mindset of the visually impaired. He initially did not interact much with the visually impaired community. In fact, he did not even know of other visually impaired people. However, that has changed in the last couple of years, as he now interacts with the strong and growing community of Louie Voice Control users.

The biggest learning that he draws from these experiences is that we should not allow an impediment to become our identity. If we do this, we end up creating a block around ourselves and perpetuate self-limiting beliefs. This is so true, not just for the visually impaired, but also for so many other people. For instance, think of the devastating effect of someone who stammers and makes stammering their core identity in their minds.

Instead of this, Pramit’s golden advice is to start thinking about what you can do with your abilities and create an identity around the same. He proudly points to three visually impaired team members in his team. They have amazing strengths that help them outshine others, including sighted people.

The manner in which Pramit has created his own identity as the creator of Louie Voice Control is a shining example of how to live by this principle of keeping a laser sharp focus on your strengths.

It’s all in the Mind

As Pramit was speaking about mindset, I started thinking about our minds and how easily we can get distracted. We find it easy to pin the blame on social media, smart phones, etc. So, I asked Pramit what he feels about getting distracted.

His response was very surprising. He mentioned that YouTube is the most popular among the visually impaired and even Instagram, despite being a visual platform is very popular. Someone, who wants to be heavy on social media will be heavy, irrespective of sight or other faculties. Ultimately, whether you get distracted by what you ‘see’ around you is not a function of your sight. It is a function of your mind. It is a conscious (or sub-conscious) choice that you make.

Pramit himself uses messaging platforms merely as productivity tools, as his key focus is on Louie Voice Control. Rather than whiling away time on social media, he invests his time in deriving vibrant energy from practicing spiritualism, meditation and exercising. The third area where he spends his time is in reading.

Interestingly, Pramit is a voracious reader now and does not remember reading too many books when he was sighted. This further proves his point about the abilities residing more in the mind than in the physical space of our faculties. Of course, his reading now takes the form of audio books, Audibles, podcasts, etc. Not only that, he likes reading books and magazines across genres and is on top of all the global news. He can be found reading at least 3-4 different genres on any given day.

We have heard this many times over, but such examples show us that truly it is all in the mind!

Life as a Teacher

We have all heard this cliche that life is the best teacher. Many of us have learnt some very important life lessons during the pandemic. Some lessons, though already known, were reinforced in our minds during this period. However, the temporary nature of these episodes in life imply that there is a real risk of reverting to the old normal ways of thinking.

This conversation set me thinking of how and why we react differently to the same set of challenges. And, what determines whether our response is merely episodic and temporary, or whether it is permanent? I don’t know all your answers, because they are all in your mind!

I hope that the inspirational story behind the creation of the Louie Voice Control by Pramit Bhargava inspires you to the next chapter in your journey. In the meantime, please do spread the word. This may help those who are visually impaired to transform their lives using Louie Voice Control.

Follow this space, as the next edition will explore how Pramit has redefined managing work and teams. Some of these insights will help us all as we come to terms with remote working and the hybrid workforce models. You can read these lessons in managing business in the New Normal here. Until then, stop living in the past and think of what is it that you can do now!

Editor’s Note:

The name of Pramit Bhargava is synonymous with Louie Voice Control. This is the app that Pramit, an IIT-IIM alumni, has created for helping the visually impaired. When you want to help people, the universe conspires and so did Bing, by showing this article as a Featured Snippet upon searching for ‘Pramit Bhargava, a FTEM Success Story.

About Pramit Bhargava

Pramit Bhargava completed B Tech (Computer Science) from IIT (BHU), Varanasi and MBA from IIM Bangalore. He worked in leadership roles in various organizations such as Hindustan Unilever, Motorola, The Mobile Store and Quest Diagnostics.

Faced with impaired vision and lack of viable alternatives, Pramit took matters in his own hands and created Louie Voice Control that lets you fully control the phone and specified apps with just voice commands.

About The Author

Rajiv Maheshwari is a business and start-up advisor, and the co-founder of From The Experts Mouth. He is a management professional with over 25 years of experience, and worked as CEO for a decade, and in leadership roles with NYSE listed companies such as Accenture and WNS.

He is a Chartered Accountant and MBA (Director’s Merit List from IIM Bangalore) and an autodidact, who is on the path of self-directed life long learning and sharing. He is a thought leader, author and keynote speaker and has developed several frameworks to bridge the gap between academia and industry.