Turning Uncertainty into Confidence: Richard Jenkins’ Journey

Meet Richard Jenkins, Touchpulse’s Chief Growth Officer. Visually impaired himself, Richard brings lived experience into every part of how Tiera is built. In this interview, he shares his story and how that insight helps shape the future of accessible navigation. 

Can you tell us a bit about your background and what led you into your current career?

I joined the Royal Navy from school, it was something I always wanted to do. I joined as a tactical radio operator. Unfortunately, in my first few years of service, I lost my sight suddenly. Months later, we found out that that was due to a degenerative optic nerve condition, and led to me being medically discharged and registered blind. I was lucky, I was given the opportunity by Blind Veterans UK to have quite an intense rehabilitation. I learned how to use a white cane, I picked up computer skills.

My confidence built over the months with them, and I started a career with American Express, who gave me a real opportunity to grow within the organisation. I quickly got into the technology side of the business. It has been an interesting and colourful time; I’ve worked around the world, in every continent, I’ve worked with some of the largest brands in the world, like IBM and Talis, and I’ve also worked with some exciting start-ups, data centres, smart buildings, and more recently AI technologies. 

What are some of the biggest challenges you face when navigating new or unfamiliar places?

Living life with sight loss is all about navigation. You wake up in the morning, and you’re navigating until the moment you go to bed at night. You’re navigating in the home, at your workplace, social situations. Everywhere you go is about ensuring you get from A to B. So when it comes to new and unfamiliar areas, it really does dent your confidence. It makes you anxious. There’s a lot of personal stress. And however many times you might have done it before, you’re really putting your hands into so many factors. In the past, those factors have mostly included losing your independence and needing other people to support you. More recently, technology has come along, and has allowed people to navigate more independently, but it’s always been multiple technologies and it’s never been enough. It’s never fully completed a journey, or got you to the door, or even started you off in the right place. So you really are throwing yourself into the hands of the unknown. 

What would you like people to understand better about navigating with a visual impairment?

My experience with travelling and navigation since my sight has gone has been interesting to say the least. I’ve travelled all over the world, I’ve experienced many different countries, cultures, languages, airports, train stations, hotels and offices. I like to think that I’m independent, but frankly for most of the last 25 years, I haven’t had independence. The world is not set up for the visually impaired, and I’ve gotten myself into a lot of tricky and sometimes dangerous situations when trying to navigate. A lot of visually impaired people end up relying on people around them, who are busy with their own lives, and it’s difficult for you to interrupt that, and it’s quite isolating and scary when you’re in those situations. In more recent years, I’ve started to lean on technology. Again, that’s really not independent, that’s me getting into a tricky situation and needing eyes to help me. And I’ve probably been - is too confident, or maybe not confident enough - to ask people around me for support. There are multiple technologies for navigation, but they are often too complex for a lot of visually impaired people, myself included, as they’ve got a lot of features, which I’m sure are useful to have, but they’re just not useful for me. Using technology has gotten easier over the years, but it’s certainly not easy. And even today, as I get on the train this week on my way to London, and I navigate through the city, I will be anxious. I will be wondering if my journey will be incident-free, and where I’ll be looking for support when I didn’t think I’d need it, and where I’ll have to lean on technology. So it’s a big ‘don’t know’; you just don’t know what’s going to happen. It’s really anxiety-inducing, and a lot of people don’t travel because of it. 

I feel that we’re at an exciting juncture when it comes to providing assistive and accessible technology and services for people, especially when it comes to the visually impaired and navigation. We’re at a place where governments are legislating for websites and other services to be accessible, and there are penalties if they’re not. Brands are understanding that they’re missing out on loyal customers who will come back time and time again, and speak highly of them if they provide minimal accessibility services and features that will keep them coming back. Social media and public expectations demand that services and products are accessible, and technology has reached a point where, especially with AI, where connectivity and applications are moving at such a rate that they’re providing sight in a way that the visually impaired can use as a part of their daily lives, and certainly as part of their navigation. So I see it as a really exciting time, and 2026 is going to be a hugely pivotal year when it comes to accessibility. 

How did you first hear about Tiera? Was there a specific feature or idea behind Navis that immediately resonated with you?

I was introduced to Touchpulse towards the end of last year, when the CEO, Liam Geschwindt, contacted Blind Veterans UK. The CEO of Blind Vets, Adrian Bell, asked me to take a look at what they were doing, and I quickly realised it was something different. It wasn’t just another navigation app rewrapped, there were features in there that, however small they would seem to a sighted person, were massive to me. For example, sometimes when I’m navigating in the middle of the city, a navigation app might tell me to ‘turn North-East’, which is obviously not the most helpful instruction for me. And most cities around the world aren’t formed in blocks, so it’s not so easy to get the right starting location. Many of my journeys start off in the wrong direction. 

But I started to use Tiera, and in the first few days I realised that it was a game changer. It started me off in the right direction, and if I had gone in the wrong direction, it told me, it used my camera to look around, it gave me audible cues, and clock directions, so I’d start my journey in the right direction. It would also tell me what was going on on my route, which was amazing. For the first time, I was aware of the things around me as I walked, instead of being in a state of anxiety about getting to the next stage of my route. Every time there was a turn included, they have this feature called check points, where you can use your camera to make sure you’re going in the right direction, it’s looking at the world around you, to ensure there’s no danger, and you move forward on your journey. All of these things really enriched my journey. So I started working with the founders, and was immediately really impressed. They’ve really worked so hard over the past year, with a global user group, a beta product, they’ve won a number of competitions and received funding, and they’re moving fast. I wanted to be a part of an accessibility technology that was using the latest AI breakthroughs and was actually going to change the lives of visually impaired people of all technology capabilities. I’m really excited to be on board now. 

What impact do you hope Tiera will have on the visually impaired and blind community?

I’m really impressed with the culture at Touchpulse, the way it works with community support groups, charities, local government, and support agencies around Europe and around the world. They had a global beta user group that is providing constant feedback, that is feeding into the product’s development. My hope for where it’s going to go…we’re making more and more contact with facilities like universities, hospitals, train stations, business parks, supermarkets - to make them navigable and accessible to visually impaired people, it’s going to grow loyalty, it’s going to grow better customer experience, it’s going to ease the demand on business’ staff to provide that support as well. I think this is going to have such a huge impact. Those small elements of understanding the environment around you while you’re walking a route - knowing that maybe there’s a cafe, or maybe there’s a rubbish bin, finding the public toilets - these are normal things for sighted people, but these are really hard things - and sometimes reasons for not travelling - for visually impaired people.

I’m really excited that there is such a navigation application that is going to change the lives of visually impaired people. There’s over 30 million visually impaired people in the EU, there’s over 2 million in the UK, and hundreds of millions worldwide. By working with universities, hospitals, train stations…we can change these people’s experiences, and help them on a day-to-day basis. These are all basic expectations for society to provide to someone with a disability. I’m really pleased that we’re doing something about this, I’m really pleased that so many community organisations are working with us, and I really encourage people to contact us to see how we can work together. I think technology is changing everything, and we at Touchpulse are at the forefront of that. I’m excited for 2026, and beyond.