Helpful Tech

Deaf-led. Portland, Oregon.

Helpful Tech

Helpful Tech pairs accessible tools with hands-on teaching. Its goal is to help disabled people and underrepresented communities learn new skills, take part in public life, and benefit from everyday technology.

A band on a dark stage: a guitarist in a light-up helmet, a player behind a rack of electronics, and a drummer at a kit, with a screen behind them showing a rainbow field of concentric color rings and live video of two performers, and a caption screen at the left edge.

One event, reaching an audience several ways at once: as sound, as live captions, and as color and light.

Why

Everyone belongs in the same room.

Disabled people should be able to take part in the same rooms as everyone else. A class, a performance, a public meeting, a job.

Having a tool in the room is not the same as being able to use it. A caption track nobody can read, an interpreter cropped out of the shot, a screen reader nobody was shown how to use: the equipment is present and the person is still outside. People need both usable tools and the chance to learn how to use them.

That is the gap Helpful Tech works in, and it is the same gap in a classroom, a concert hall, a public meeting and a phone.

"Having a tool in the room is not the same as being able to use it."
What Helpful Tech Offers

Four ways to take part.

Inclusive music education leads our work. Animal adoption support and everyday technology help are exploratory pilots.

Program

Inclusive Music Education

Hands-on workshops in schools and communities use light, color, vibration and ASL-led instruction to make music accessible to Deaf and disabled learners.

Program

Accessibility Technology

Captions, ASL interpretation, audio description, access production and staff training help organizations welcome their whole audience.

Exploratory pilot

Animal Adoption Support

Explore donated Sparkle Classic licenses with shelters: playable portraits of animals awaiting homes, links to shelter-approved adoption profiles and responsible pet care information.

Pilot

Everyday Technology Help

Test one-to-one and group support for older adults who want more confidence with everyday technology.

A wide view of a university rehearsal room mid-workshop: about a dozen people wearing haptic vests play marimba, vibraphone, hand percussion, guitar and saxophone, with chairs pushed back and equipment cases stacked along the wall.

Western Oregon University, December 2024. Hands-on teaching, with a room set up so everyone can take part.

Inclusive Music Education

Everybody in the room can follow the music.

In schools and community settings, hands-on workshops use tools created by disabled engineers to turn sound into light, color and vibration so Deaf and disabled participants can make music visually.

A performer in a helmet and haptic vest plays guitar on a dark stage while the sound is rendered behind as a large green starburst of concentric rings and radiating beams, flanked by walls of green LED panels, with a line of live captions above.

Sound turned into color and light during a live performance, Western Oregon University, December 2024.

Accessibility Technology

A whole audience gets to take part.

Captions, ASL interpretation, audio description, access production and staff training, for organizations that want their whole audience to be able to take part.

A presenter in a t-shirt reading All The Senses gestures in front of a wall sized projection of live captions in large uppercase type, readable from the back of the room.

Live captions at wall scale, readable from the back of the room. ADA anniversary celebration, Hillsboro, July 2022.

Animal Adoption Support · Exploratory pilot

Help a shelter pet be seen.

We are exploring donated Sparkle Classic licenses so interested shelters could make playable portraits of animals awaiting homes, connect them to shelter-approved adoption profiles, and share responsible pet care information.

See the Sparkle Classic previews and pilot concept →

Sparkle Classic development preview showing a customizable cartoon cat beside appearance options; no shelter animal or adoption profile is shown.

Sparkle Classic development preview. Shelter use is proposed.

Everyday Technology Help · Pilot

Stay confident with the technology you already own.

We are testing one-to-one and group support for older adults who want more confidence with everyday technology. The interest form is live; the pilot application is still in development.

Flat illustration, not a photograph: an older adult and a helper sit at a table as equals, looking at a tablet together, with a speech bubble of caption lines above them.

Illustration, not a photograph of real people.

How

How funds and partners will be handled.

We plan to pay Deaf and disabled practitioners to design and lead programs. Charitable Partnership Fund sponsorship is available, but a Helpful Tech project agreement is not yet in place.

How charitable funds will be kept separate

Audiolux, Audiolux Jam, Pixelboop, SeeSound and Sparkle Classic belong to de Bastion, Inc., the for-profit studio owned by Helpful Tech's founder. Haptic vests are rented for each event. Helpful Tech plans to use the studio's tools under written, nonexclusive terms. Its planned safeguards include separate charitable funds, documented arm's-length dealings with the studio, and the founder's recusal from Helpful Tech's decisions about those dealings. We also seek other technology and design partners. Buying a studio product is a commercial purchase, not a donation to Helpful Tech.

Governance and trust

Guardrails from day one.

The rules that keep mission, money and method separate are written before the first gift arrives. They are drafted now and will be adopted at the first board meeting.

Confirm fiscal sponsorship terms before seeking gifts through the Charitable Partnership Fund
Separate bookkeeping for charitable funds
A written license for the studio's tools
Conflict-of-interest review, with the founder recused
Written agreements with every paid practitioner
Program budgets shared with funders

"No director may be economically dependent on a program line of the organization." From the draft director agreement.

Case Studies

Rooms we have already been in.

Work delivered with our community partners, through CymaSpace and de Bastion, Inc. The partners, the methods and the relationships carry forward.

Hillsboro · July 2022. Community partners: Hillsboro Parks and Recreation, CymaSpace.

A whole room shares one show

Every act on the bill was Deaf. Keith Brown, Sheena Lyles performing as Queen Foreverrr, and Nate Hergert as DJ Deaf Wish each worked under a signed agreement with an access rider. Live CART captioning ran through the event and ASL interpreters covered the full run of show. Lighting and projection cues were written into the technical rider as their own column, so the music was visible as well as audible.

  • Access designed into the production from the start, and Deaf performers paid under contract rather than booked as a gesture
Portland · July 2026. Community partner: StoryMinders. Delivered through de Bastion, Inc.

A production team learns to build access in, not bolt it on

A paid 90-minute accessibility workshop for ITVS staff, including the Independent Lens team, co-presented with Cheryl Green and Thomas Reid.

Portland · 2025 to 2026. Community partners: Portland Public Schools, CymaSpace.

A Deaf child gets to be a musician, not a spectator

Creston School houses the district's Deaf and hard-of-hearing program. Across a series of workshop days, four groups of students in grades K to 5 rotated through hands-on sessions using SeeSound LED tubes and Audiolux Jam, which turns sound into color on a screen. Creston supplied ASL interpretation.

  • Haptic vests were deliberately left out. The portable kit made a workshop series possible
  • The principal supports a return in spring 2027. It is not a signed booking
Developed through CymaSpace.

Live captions you can wear

CapCap is an open source system of networked wearable devices that display live captions.

Southern and Western Oregon · December 2024. Community partners: Southern Oregon University, Western Oregon University, CymaSpace, funded by South Arts.

A rural Deaf community gets a concert built for them

At Southern Oregon University, 30 Deaf and hard-of-hearing community members and students, plus 15 students, took part in workshops with the Honors and Percussion ensembles. Haptic vests went to everyone in the room and ASL interpreters worked throughout. The group was invited back to expand outreach. Three days later at Western Oregon University, a percussion workshop was followed by a concert with the Jazz Orchestra and Western Oregon Voices, with about thirty haptic vests distributed to an audience of about eighty.

Portland · founded 2023. Community partner: CymaSpace.

Ordering a coffee in your own language

A Deaf-operated coffee shop where ASL is the default language at the counter. There is a caption system on site, a gallery for Deaf and disabled artists, and a program of sign language poetry slams, DJ nights and family events. Its training program is a route into hospitality work for Deaf and disabled people, and a free monthly American Sign Language class for beginners runs there.

Portland · 2016 to 2017. Community partners: Portland Art Museum, CymaSpace.

Another way to encounter sound

The exhibition brought work about sound beyond hearing into a public museum. More than 115,000 visitors were recorded during its run.

  • A public audience for another way of experiencing sound

For qualifications, research and institutional consulting, see the track record that follows.

In the Room

Photographs, not renderings.

The workshop rig set up in an empty school auditorium: LED light tubes on stands, a bass drum, two laptops on a table, and color coded rows of tuned percussion tubes laid out on a floor mat printed with a treble clef and a piano keyboard border.

Creston School, Portland Public Schools, 2025 to 2026 school year.

Colorful LED light tubes arranged in an empty production studio.

Production studio setup, showing light and color tools.

A university percussion ensemble spread around a rehearsal room with marimba, vibraphone, a large gong and hand percussion, most of the players wearing haptic vests over their clothes.

Western Oregon University, December 2024.

Four musicians perform together on a dark stage with guitar, saxophone, mallet instruments and electronics, wearable lights glowing in the foreground.

Western Oregon University, December 2024.

Track Record

A record you can verify before you fund it.

Everything below was delivered by Helpful Tech's founder, Myles de Bastion, personally, or through CymaSpace, the nonprofit he founded in 2013 and has since left, or through de Bastion, Inc., his studio. The entity is named on each line.

Peer-reviewed accessibility research

"Sonic Agency: A Group Autoethnography of Technology-mediated Performance Practice by Deaf and Hard of Hearing Musicians." Cavdir, Simone, de Bastion, Trail, Hergert. Proceedings of the 27th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility, 2025. Personal.

"ASL Champ!: A Virtual Reality Game with Deep-Learning Driven Sign Recognition." Computers and Education: X Reality, vol. 4, 2024. Personal, with Gallaudet University's Action and Brain Lab.

"Recognizing Highly Variable American Sign Language in Virtual Reality." 8th International Workshop on Sign Language Translation and Avatar Technology, 2023. Personal, with Gallaudet University's Action and Brain Lab.

Standards

Member, W3C Immersive Captions Community Group. Individual member, listed on the W3C participant roster with a CymaSpace affiliation. Other participants include Google, Meta, the BBC, the National Association of the Deaf, and Gallaudet University.

Paid institutional consulting

Oregon Health Authority, facilitating the Early Hearing Detection and Intervention advisory committee, across two contract years. Gallaudet University's Motion Light Lab, research consulting. Oglethorpe University Museum of Art, artwork installation. Voice of Albertans with Disabilities. The Academy Museum of Motion Pictures and ITVS, both reached through Cheryl Green at StoryMinders. All de Bastion, Inc.

Fellowships and grants

United States Artists 2025 Fellowship in Media, nationally juried. Oregon Community Foundation and Oregon Humanities Fields Artist Fellowship, 2024 to 2026. Regional Arts and Culture Council Portland Arts Project Grant, $5,000, 2026. Oregon Arts Commission Career Opportunity Grant, 2025. MusicOregon Echo Fund, 2024 grantee, invited back as a 2025 review panelist. All personal.

CymaSpace, founded 2013

In his published account, CymaSpace grew to about 20 staff and contractors, held 50 or more community events a year, and reached around 200,000 people in person. Through CymaSpace.

Four people stand talking in a venue lobby before a concert, each wearing or holding a haptic vest, with spare vests draped over one person's arm ready to hand out. Overlaid title text reads Jazz Orchestra Concert, Western Oregon University, 12/06/24.

Western Oregon University, December 2024.

A workshop leader wearing a haptic vest signs to a room while a seated colleague in another vest watches, surrounded by percussion gear, stands and cases. Overlaid title text reads Percussion Ensemble Workshop, Western Oregon University, 12/07/24.

Western Oregon University, December 2024.

Two workshop participants wearing haptic vests stand at a marimba holding mallets, turned toward each other mid conversation.

Western Oregon University, December 2024.

What your support makes possible

A second year of Deaf children making music they can see

Creston School houses Portland Public Schools' program for Deaf and hard-of-hearing students. In the 2025 to 2026 school year, children in grades K to 5 there played music with light and color across a series of workshops. This proposal would bring that work back for spring 2027, led by paid Deaf and disabled practitioners.

Where it starts from

Community partners: Portland Public Schools and Creston School. The first series was delivered through CymaSpace and de Bastion, Inc.

Creston's principal wrote on 12 August 2026: "Yes, I will support the project." That is support for a return, not yet a signed booking.

Step 01

Two hours

Each workshop day runs two hours, on an early-release morning.

Step 02

Four groups

About five students in grades K to 5 rotate through 25-minute hands-on sessions.

Step 03

The tools

SeeSound LED tubes and Audiolux Jam, which turns sound into color on a screen.

Step 04

No haptic vests

Rental and setup did not fit the budget or the time slot last time. The portable kit made a workshop series possible.

Who does the work

A costed proposal, workshop day by workshop day, is available on request.

How to help

Help us fund workshop days when the charitable funding arrangements are in place, or introduce us to another school with Deaf and hard-of-hearing students.

The Creston workshop rig in an empty school auditorium: LED tubes, a bass drum, laptops and color-coded percussion tubes.

Creston School, Portland Public Schools, 2025 to 2026 school year.

Who We Are

A Deaf-led organization, taking shape in the open.

Founder: Myles de Bastion. Helpful Tech is preparing its Oregon nonprofit and federal tax-exemption filings.

CymaSpace Portland Public Schools Hillsboro Parks & Recreation Southern Oregon University Western Oregon University Tucker Maxon School Portland Jazz Composers Ensemble StoryMinders

Southern Oregon University, December 2024. Interpreters, students and community members worked together in two accessible workshops.

Helpful Tech

However you can help, there is a way to start today.

With a budget: request a workshop or an accessibility review.

Without one: many of our tools are available at low and no cost thanks to our partnerships. Join the music interest list.

An audience member in a flat cap raises a fist while watching a show, with two dancers on the LED lit stage behind, strongly out of focus.

ADA anniversary celebration, Hillsboro, July 2022.

Helpful Tech / Vision Brief, 2026

Request a workshop → Join the music interest list →