Korean blind Google developer says, ’Never stop trying to challenge impossible things’

“I memorize a few bars of music, practice until my fingers remember them. Then memorize the next few bars in the same way, and so on until I reach the end of the score, and only then can I play the whole music. I can‘t go through the Braille score with my hands and play the keys at the same time, because I only have two hands.”

Seo In-ho (28), the author of the recently published “I Code a Dream,” is a Korean developer of Google. He is a "person with total blindness" who cannot see at all. On October 10, I asked him how he became a developer at the leading information technology (IT) company, competing with the world’s best and brightest, and he told me an anecdote from his elementary school days, when he was learning to play the piano.

“No matter what I do, I have to put in a lot of effort from the beginning, unlike non-disabled people. But I think that‘s also the reason why I’m able to get ahead of non-disabled people in terms of proficiency and detail. I think my disability is like a ‘sandbag’ that an athlete uses to train.”

Seo In-ho takes a photo before boarding a racing car in Las Vegas, the U.S. in 2017 (left picture). Seo pats the head of a Doraemon sculpture during his trip to Tokyo, Japan, in 2022. Courtesy of Seo In-ho

He was born sighted, but at the age of five, he lost vision in one eye due to glaucoma complications, and three years later, he lost vision in the other eye. “At the time, I was just a kid and I was like, ‘I’m upset I can‘t play anymore,’” he said. ”But as I grow up, I gradually realized what kind of situation I was in."

When I asked him what kept him from breaking down, he said, “Even if it says 'impossible' on the shell, I just open everything.” He added, “Just because I became blind, my surroundings were quickly filled with things that were labeled ’impossible,‘ and I had no choice but to give up or challenge myself to the 'impossible.’”

One of those “impossible” things was “getting his sight back.”

“I read books, searched the internet, and tried everything, but I failed. My doctor at the time told me, ’Don‘t waste your life chasing impossible goals, and try to find what’s possible.‘”

He only half-heard the advice. He gave up on recovering his sight, but he never stopped challenging the “impossible.” In elementary school, he won a national children’s piano competition, and in 2015, he represented Korea at the “Seoul IBSA World Game,” an international chess tournament. As the only blind person in his college coding class, he used his blindness as a “sandbag” to take the top spot among 300 students.

In 2017, he spent nine months as an exchange student in the U.S. He traveled all over the U.S. by himself. He played gambling at casinos in Las Vegas and also experienced car racing. “My English improved faster than a person without disabilities, because I couldn‘t see the menu, so I had to ask the staff to explain things to me. I had the conditions to practice speaking and listening to English many times a day (laughs).”

These achievements and experiences helped him land an internship at Google in 2021, and within a year, he became a full-time employee.

He cannot see a monitor screen. Instead, he listens to the monitor through a device called screen reader that speaks the words aloud. When an error occurs in a program under development, he sometimes has to listen to dozens to hundreds of lines of code several times. Visual materials, such as graphs, need to be explained verbally by his coworkers. He needs more time and help than a non-disabled employee. Nevertheless, the company chose him.

“It was like, ’Are you blind? Then let’s find a way to work with us.’ In Korea, on the other hand, I had to become an expert in copyright law, because if I asked for a textbook to be made in braille, they would often refuse, citing ’possession of a copyright violation.’”

He received job interview offers from JP Morgan London, Facebook, and Apple Japan. It was the foreign companies that recognized his skills first, not the Korean ones. He said diversity and flexibility seem to be important factors in maximizing the capabilities of members of society. “There will be more ‘possible’ things in a society where there are multiple answers compared to a society where there is only one answer,” he said.

"There is no place for me to stand where the only answer is ‘You can’t work because you are blind,’ and 'the sacrifice of a few (the disabled) is inevitable for the greatest happiness of the greatest number (the non-disabled).’ I don't think it's just about disability. I think some cases where opportunities to display one's ability are limited due to academic background, origin, etc. are also one of the aspects of a ‘society with only one answer.’"

What should people who have to live in a "society with only one answer" do? He said they should never stop trying to challenge “impossible” things. "In such a society, I think the more you peel the shell of ’impossible,’ the more you’ll find that it‘s ‘possible.’ But, to check it out, you have to peel it first.”

※This article has undergone review by a professional translator after being translated by an AI translation tool.