As technology continues to advance by day creating solutions to many challenges bedevilling society, visually impaired Kenyans can have a sigh of relief after a group of University students invented Artificial Intelligence (AI) powered smart glasses.
The innovation is specifically designed to enhance the lives of visually impaired individuals as it offers glasses with advanced optical character recognition and contextual recognition thereby breaking down barriers for the visually impaired.
According to Samson Muturi, a fourth-year Software Development student at KCA University, the invention uses a combination of Google Maps and other devices such as computer vision to navigate, read and conduct other tasks such as screening to facilitate object recognition.
Muturi says that smart glasses are accessible to people with blindness and low vision.
They can use them for various tasks as they contain features such as voice assistant, object recognition and navigation assistance to help the affected identify stuff, navigate unfamiliar environments and receive audio descriptions of the surroundings.
“The smart glasses for the blind come as a major solution to the visually impaired persons especially those without assistive mobility devices as they are able to scan the environment. The glasses will effectively replace the white cane and other devices like braille since they can read and interprete information to a visually impaired person,” said Muturi.
“This is just a prototype that we hope to better into an actual product. What we lack currently is funding to facilitate further upgrading. We also want to partner with AI experts to enhance the capacity of these glasses and are using the smartest but simplest solutions to ensure that the product will be as affordable as possible for easy access to all the visually impaired persons,” said Muturi.
Victor Ng’ang’a, a co-innovator of the product who is also a fourth-year Software Development student revealed that the high-tech invention will provide independent access to information, and instant text among other features.
Ng’ang’a who spoke during the KCA University innovation week however decried that low funding has been hindering the actualization of the product and requires it to be constantly updated with a database of objects and scenes.
“With mentorship and enough funding, we hope to bring the best solution to the visually impaired persons. We have started the process of patenting the product to ensure that the idea is not plagiarized or stolen by unscrupulous individuals. The University through the Research and Innovation Hub has played a pivotal role in ensuring our innovations and ideas are well protected,” said Ng’ang’a.
KCA University Vice Chancellor and CEO Isaiah Wakindiki told journalists the problems bedevilling the society are an opportunity for innovators whom he urged to continue innovating for posterity.
“The horizon is wide in terms of what to research or what to innovate. KCA University is committed to supporting the innovation agenda in terms of funding. So far, we have an annual Sh 10 million through the VC research and invention fund and have partners to help us promote innovation together,” said Wakindiki.
