Team:

• Alex O’Sullivan, 
• Emily Becher, 
• Ashwin Subramanian, 
• Arya Rahnama

What is the problem to solve and the focus of the solution?

People with visual impairments may struggle to navigate busy streets or walkways. This has the potential to limit their confidence and abilities if they need to navigate through traffic or get to places they have never been before. This in turn may heavily restrict their economic opportunities and ability to be more self-sufficient if they are unable to reach locations to work. The majority of current solutions to this problem rely heavily on having a second person to act as a guide, which while effective is something that is not always possible. The focus of our solution is to provide a method to people so that they can navigate any location and have a better idea of their general surroundings, outside the proximity of what a white cane might provide. This extra information about their surroundings will help them overcome navigational difficulties, which will afford them more social and economic opportunities.

Who is the primary audience of our program?

While this program would ideally and eventually reach all blind people in the world, the focus of our initial startup will most likely be people who have visual impairments who own smartphones in the U.S. This should be equally available for anyone of any demographic that suffers from visual impairments, which according to the National Federation of the Blind’s “Blindness Statistics” page, will cover up to 2.4% of the U.S population, the majority of whom are women (NFB). An urban environment is the best location for initially testing this technology due to the high density of traffic. Some level of training will be required to use this technology, but it should hopefully not be a prohibitive amount of training. We want it to be as affordable as possible so economic concerns such as a lack of funds or job opportunities don’t prohibit access to this technology. If this technology is successful, we may be able to get the support of healthcare organizations, which may help both relieve economic prohibitions for the core audience as well as provide starting capital to deliver the program.

Why is this solution needed?

People who are visually impaired have incredible difficulty navigating to locations where they haven’t been before, especially if they are on their own. This may heavily restrict their opportunities and in turn lead to poverty. There are some solutions to this issue, but most of them require outside intervention to be truly effective, which may not always be an option. Additionally, there are very few if any accommodations for blind people who are trying to navigate through traffic. This poses a significant risk to them, especially in urban environments where crossing the street is a very common occurrence, and often the methods required to cross the road safely cost valuable time resources. There are also networks established by some companies to help navigate their locations, but those networks are location dependent. Because of this current lack of solutions, those with visual impairments have less economic and social opportunities, as they are unable to easily navigate to potential job locations nor able to easily navigate to social hubs in order to network. These lack of opportunities can lead to economic and social insecurity, which is a form of poverty that these people should not need to deal with.