{"id":131,"date":"2022-05-25T20:56:24","date_gmt":"2022-05-25T20:56:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/thepromiseoftechnologyproject\/?page_id=131"},"modified":"2022-06-09T15:15:07","modified_gmt":"2022-06-09T15:15:07","slug":"ai-for-the-visually-impaired","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/thepromiseoftechnologyproject\/ai-for-the-visually-impaired\/","title":{"rendered":"Navigation for the Visually Impaired"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Team:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Alex O\u2019Sullivan,\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Emily Becher,\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400\" data-rich-links=\"{&quot;per_n&quot;:&quot;Ashwin Subramanian&quot;,&quot;per_e&quot;:&quot;subraash@oregonstate.edu&quot;,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;person&quot;}\">Ashwin Subramanian<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">,\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Arya Rahnama<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>What is the problem to solve and the focus of the solution?<\/h3>\n<p style=\"text-align: left\">People with visual impairments may <strong>struggle<\/strong> to navigate busy streets or walkways. This has the potential to <strong>limit<\/strong> their confidence and <strong>abilities<\/strong> if they need to navigate through traffic or get to places they have never been before. This in turn may <strong>heavily restrict<\/strong> 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 <strong>second person<\/strong> to act as a guide, which while effective is something that is <strong>not always possible<\/strong>. The <strong>focus<\/strong> of our solution is to <strong>provide<\/strong> a method to people so that they can <strong>navigate any location<\/strong> and have a better idea of their general surroundings<b>,<\/b> outside the proximity of what a white cane might provide. This <strong>extra information<\/strong> about their surroundings will help them <strong>overcome<\/strong> navigational difficulties, which will <strong>afford<\/strong> them more social and economic opportunities.<\/p>\n<h3>Who is the primary audience of our program?<\/h3>\n<p>While this program would <strong>ideally<\/strong> and <strong>eventually<\/strong> reach all blind people in the world, the focus of our <strong>initial<\/strong> startup will most likely be people who have <strong>visual impairments<\/strong> who <strong>own<\/strong> smartphones in the <strong>U.S<\/strong>. This should be equally available for <strong>anyone of any demographic<\/strong> that suffers from visual impairments, which according to the National Federation of the Blind&#8217;s &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/nfb.org\/resources\/blindness-statistics\">Blindness Statistics<\/a>&#8221; page, will cover up to 2.4% of the U.S population, the majority of whom are women (<a href=\"https:\/\/nfb.org\/resources\/blindness-statistics\">NFB<\/a>). An <strong>urban environment<\/strong> is the best location for initially testing this technology due to the high <strong>density of traffic<\/strong>. Some level of <strong>training<\/strong> will be required to use this technology, but it should hopefully <strong>not be a prohibitive amount<\/strong> of training. We want it to be as <strong>affordable<\/strong> as possible so economic concerns such as a lack of funds or job opportunities don\u2019t prohibit access to this technology. If this technology is successful, we may be able to get the support of <strong>healthcare<\/strong> organizations, which may help both relieve economic prohibitions for the core audience as well as provide starting capital to deliver the program.<\/p>\n<h3>Why is this solution needed?<\/h3>\n<p>People who are visually impaired have <em>incredible difficulty<\/em> navigating to locations where they haven\u2019t been before, especially if they are on their own. This may <strong>heavily restrict<\/strong> their opportunities and in turn lead to <strong>poverty<\/strong>. There are some solutions to this issue, but most of them require <strong>outside intervention<\/strong> to be truly effective, which may not always be an option. Additionally, there are <strong>very few if any<\/strong> accommodations for blind people who are trying to <strong>navigate through traffic<\/strong>. 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 <strong>cost valuable time<\/strong> resources. There are also <strong>networks<\/strong> established by some companies to help navigate their locations, but those networks are <strong>location dependent<\/strong>. Because of this current lack of solutions, those with visual impairments have less <strong>economic<\/strong> and <strong>social opportunities<\/strong>, as they are unable to easily navigate to <strong>potential job<\/strong> locations nor able to easily navigate to <strong>social hubs<\/strong> in order to network. These lack of opportunities can lead to economic and social <strong>insecurity<\/strong>, which is a form of <strong>poverty<\/strong> that these people should not need to deal with.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Team: Alex O\u2019Sullivan,\u00a0 Emily Becher,\u00a0 Ashwin Subramanian,\u00a0 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&hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/thepromiseoftechnologyproject\/ai-for-the-visually-impaired\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":115,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-131","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/thepromiseoftechnologyproject\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/131","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/thepromiseoftechnologyproject\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/thepromiseoftechnologyproject\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/thepromiseoftechnologyproject\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/115"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/thepromiseoftechnologyproject\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=131"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/thepromiseoftechnologyproject\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/131\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":420,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/thepromiseoftechnologyproject\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/131\/revisions\/420"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/thepromiseoftechnologyproject\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}