August 7, 2020 – Karla Curin is a Faculty of Graphic Arts student in Zagreb, one of the recent speakers at the Tedx in Koprivnica, and creator of a prototype for an application that helps youth with depression.

„You were just born under a lucky star.“

This sentence follows a 23-year-old student whose path was slightly different. Karla is deaf from birth, but she can hear with a hearing aid and understands people through lip reading. That didn't stop her from expressing herself in the way she wanted. From the very beginning, Karla was a child with a vivid imagination, who loved to draw and make new creations. Although she wanted to become a doctor and was into science, a creative side prevailed.

At the age of 14, Karla enrolled at the School of Applied Arts and Design, where she worked on metal design. Just a year before high school graduation, fashion design came to mind and didn't let her be at peace. But it was too late, the Faculty of Textile Technology waited. "In my final year of undergraduate study, a crisis arose again: I knew what I didn’t want, and I didn’t know what I wanted. I needed and wanted something more, stronger, more challenging, and I discovered that graphic design was calling," said Karla, who was often called indecisive. Her mother was, and still is, her biggest support.

High school days

As Karla highlights, crises sometimes occur, so her mother is there to remind Karla who she is and that it is normal to be 'down' sometimes. "When I was preparing for an entrance examination at the Faculty of Graphic Arts, I was afraid of competition, wasn't satisfied with my work, and constantly asking myself 'what if?'" But her mother showed Karla she believes in her. "And she didn't make a mistake," said Karla proudly.

When Karla mastered fashion design, she enrolled in graduate school at the Faculty of Graphic Arts, where she heard about UX/UI design, and that was finally what she wanted. “I felt that all my passion was where it needed to be, in the right place." A passion made of science and art, just like she dreamed about it once as a child.

Karla is currently working on her master thesis, and as she said, a decision about the topic was clear from the beginning. The SUVAG polyclinic is a health institution where specialists-consultants provide health care for people with speech difficulties. But the irony is that its website is outdated, inaccessible to people with disabilities. "As a deaf person, I can’t order a hearing test on my own, which isn’t just a problem for me," said Karla, whose master thesis is about improving the accessibility of SUVAG's website with the help of redesign.

Promotion at TTF, Bachelor of Fashion and Textile Designer

As everyone, Karla would like to work in her profession. Her volunteering experiences filled out her CV and gave her wind in her back. After a year of volunteering in the eSTUDENT association, as a part of Visual communications, she worked on several projects simultaneously, participated in workshops and events organized by the eSTUDENT. Besides that, while studying textile and fashion design, she volunteered at URIHO as a versatile designer with an emphasis on fashion design. She got there through the competition 'Iskustvo zlata vrijedi', and it was a springboard for her. As a freelancer, she also designed visuals for the newly opened trade "Simply Design", and for FER's project "DroneDays," she designed graphic and web visuals.

URIHO, bag design

After Jutarnji List opened the competition "Student Digi Award 2020," selecting the best Croatian young innovators, versatile Karla didn't think twice about the application. She wrote down every idea that came to her mind, but one was strongly pointing out. Aware of depressed young people, and unfortunately, also inspired by a tragic event of a friend, Karla created a prototype that helps people struggling with depression, anxiety, and dark thoughts. "It does not change the psychologist, but encourages conversation, connects people with similar problems, and monitors moods on a weekly, monthly, and even annual basis," said Karla. She understands that most young people today live on mobile devices, so the idea was to help them acceptably, through communication and technology that they understand. She hopes that her "Oaza" (Oasis) application would help depressed people, with no one to talk to.

After she was secretly daydreaming of appearing on a TEDx to tell people her story on the red carpet, her dreams came to life. "I was so excited and scared at the same time. But, as I have a fear of talking in front of people, I decided to see that as an opportunity to beat that fear," said Karla, whose first Tedx was recently in Koprivnica. She was supposed to tell people about her life, but she also wanted to convey her light motive: Your life will be what your thoughts are - a lot of hard work included. "I wanted to show people with a disability through my example that they can limit them, but they cannot prevent them from realizing their dreams," said Karla.

"Yes, I intentionally have one black and one white shoe. It’s kind of my thing, “life is both black and white, and it’s up to us which color will dominate,” as I said on TEDx talk. It's clear which color dominates in my case."

Growing up with a disability made Karla aware she has to give three times more than the rest. Not everyone believed her, and she was often told that professors conduce her on the exams - as she isn't capable of learning something better than them. But surprisingly, the most discrimination she experiences is from deaf people. "There were situations when they would tell me that I am not allowed to speak, that I have to use only sign language and that I actually can hear," said Karla, pointing out that not every deaf person told her this. But people often see Karla as she sees herself - as a confident person without complexes and always a cheerful character. Karla says there will always be jealous people. Envy is more significant when a person with a defect succeeds and does more than a person who does not have any defects/difficulties/disabilities. "As for the people who hear, I don't remember any particular discrimination, and even if there was something, 'I didn't hear them'," said Karla wisely.

The main thing about her speech on TEDx was motivating people to do and be better - just like she finds motivation in others. "I wanted everyone to ask themselves what they could get the most out of themselves - to dream, be passionate in life, and leave their little mark on this world."

Statistics show that about 12,000 deaf people live in the Republic of Croatia, but unfortunately it is rare for them to complete their higher education.

As Ivan Tominac/Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 14th of April, 2019, Josip Ivanković was born in Čapljina, Bosnia and Herzegovina, but just one year after his birth, he was declared deaf, and this fact was one of his reasons for his relocation to Croatia. His move to Croatia certainly paid off as being the right move, and Josip, despite the diagnosis, managed to develop his speech and the technique of listening. That was, as Josip himself states, a painstaking and long process.

"The situation is that I have to treat speaking Croatian as if I was speaking a foreign language," Josip Ivanković explained.

For four years now, his speech and listening abilities have been being developed at the SUVAG Polyclinic, where Josip learned to speak with vibration, tone amplification, visualisation and by learning anatomy.

"When I learned to pronounce the letter ''r'', I had to touch the vocal chords of the logopad to feel a certain vibration and titration, then I'd lean my hand on my neck to feel the same vibration, so I learned to pronounce the letter ''r'' I learned to pronounce ''ž'' in a similar way, I just put my hand on my head. Generally speaking, the hardest letters to pronounce for the deaf are l,č,ć,đ,dž,lj and nj, and the reason for that is that such letters can't be visually identified. They're explained through the anatomy of the oral cavity, just like a doctor explains the heart's organs, or where the blood enters and where it exits,'' explained Josip.

After the kindergarten era ended, in which he learned the basics of socialisation, it was decided that he should attend a regular school.

This period of schooling, without any curriculum adjustment, he adds, was defined by perseverance, and communicational misunderstandings are, in his words, quite normal and natural.

"The professors made me equal with my peers, and this proved to be a good thing because I learned so much about the world of those who can hear, and I learned how to gather information," said Josip. As stated, statistics show that about 12,000 deaf people live in Croatia, but it is rare for them to complete higher education. Josip was not one of them, and he completed a college which has some very demanding academic requirements for its students.

He enrolled at FER (University of Zagreb, Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing), and the likelihood of him completing his studies was slim, yet Josip had different plans for himself.

"At the beginning of the semester, it was very difficult for me to adapt,'' recalled Josip. Before Josip's arrival, professors from Zagreb's FER didn't have any experience in working with people with impaired hearing. At the beginning, he failed several exams, but he didn't let that dampen his spirit, and later he turned to further consultations.

This combination led him to become the very first deaf person to graduated from that college.

"The professors were very approachable, and our relationship was very flexible and adaptable. I will never forget how Professor Brnetić, instead of me asking him, personally invited me to consultations during the holidays and showed me much he cared that I didn't miss anything from the lecture. On the other hand, one professor asked me during consultations why I didn't go to the lectures and asked me how I was learning. I told him that I don't go to the lectures because I can't hear them. I took out a 100-page notebook with my assignments, and the professor was surprised that I did all that without having gone to any lectures. He asked me to lend him that notebook and later I learned that he'd showed my notebook to all of the professors. Believe it or not, a year after when I came to his office, that copy of the notebook was still on his desk,'' Josip stated, recalling his faculty days.

In the end, none of the obstacles he faced along the way turned him away from his goal, and he passed 62 engagements that mostly relied solely on him and his level of dedication. This FER student didn't have to wait around long before a job opportunity came knocking, and it wasn't your regular offer. He started his working life at no less than Rimac Automobili as an Embedded Hardware Engineer. Rimac had no problems with his deafness and offered him a position after his interview.

''At the beginning of the job, I was given a pretty demanding project that I had to complete within a month, which was the length of my trial period, and when the project ended I realised that I was able to complete it and was given the green light to remain with the firm,'' Josip said. The work never stops at Rimac Automobili, and at the moment, Josip is working on a project for the development of electric car chargers.

"Communication skills are the most difficult for me, because I have to invest extra energy into lip reading and that's mentally challenging and difficult. Imagine a situation in which a colleague is referring to professional terms, and I need to decode them with and put them into context in order for me to have any understanding. Imagine switching off your ears, and focusing your eyes on their lips alone.

You aren't likely to understand because they're not using standard words, they're using technical phrases that are difficult to decode and recognise. At the beginning, it was very difficult for me to follow verbal communication and understand the complexity of the project. Of course, since working here I've changed a lot and become much more calm, more focused and concentrated on the small things. The worst thing is when a colleague does not know how to communicate with me properly, and this is where I'm concerned about information which is valuable to the project, and that's an extra effort. Each colleague has his own specific way of speaking and they aren't all the same in communication. With time, I somehow adjusted to them, and they also had to adapt to me, I accepted that this was all normal and there would always be a situation where they couldn't understand, but I'll always ask them to repeat themselves not just twice, but 1000 times!'' concluded Josip.

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Click here for the original article by Ivan Tominac for Poslovni Dnevnik