{"version":1,"type":"rich","provider_name":"Libsyn","provider_url":"https:\/\/www.libsyn.com","height":90,"width":600,"title":"The Paradigm Shift in Innovation: Remixing Existing Tech to Advance Accessibility","description":"This podcast is about big ideas on how technology is making life better for people with vision loss. Technology developed specifically for people with low vision has historically been bespoke, specific, and expensive, requiring the creation of new technology for a relatively small population of users. But recently we\u2019re seeing a paradigm shift from building new vision tech from scratch to building on top of existing technology that most people use daily. In this episode, Dr. Cal talks with Karthik Mahadevan, the founder and CEO of Envision, about how his technology company builds on existing tech, like smartphones and smart glasses, to benefit users with low vision. Envision\u2019s software uses AI to recognize important visual cues in a user\u2019s environment and then relays that information to the user with computer-generated speech. Karthik\u2019s breakthrough realization early on that he didn\u2019t need to build hardware when he could just tap into the cameras of smartphones and smart glasses that people already owned, enabling Envision to reach a much wider audience. The episode also features an interview with Troy Otillio, the CEO of Aira. Aira\u2019s platform links users to a human visual interpreter, who can access the camera on their device and guide the user through the task, whether reading a letter, navigating a grocery store, or finding their way around an unfamiliar city. Ultimately, the future of creating vision technology might not be in reinventing the wheel but in improving it and figuring out how to turn the tech people already use every day into easy and accessible solutions for people with low vision.   The Big Takeaways Building on Existing Tech: Karthik stresses that for vision tech to be impactful, it has to be accessible. He describes his inspiration as building on top of existing consumer technology to create Envision and thus create a product that millions of people already have the hardware to operate. Later, Dr. Cal discusses the \u201cTaco Bell Phenomenon\u201d, which theorizes that while there may be no such thing as a new idea, the novel combinations of existing ideas are so infinite that they may be limitless. The Importance of a Visual Interpreter: Karthik discusses the limitations of communication formats such as braille and audio announcements in public places for people with vision impairment. While well-meaning, they can never really provide complete access to spaces that are meant to be navigated visually. That\u2019s where Envision comes in, allowing access to the camera on a smartphone or smart glasses to give the user a complete and accurate sense of their environment. Would You Like a Human for That?: To AI or not to AI? Speech-to-text technology is advanced enough that it can excel at reading something simple like a gas bill or a chicken soup recipe. But what if you got a birthday card from your grandchildren? Troy Otillio discusses how Aira recently partnered with Envision to offer their human visual interpreters as part of Envision\u2019s technology \u2014 providing camera access to a human agent who can fully understand the nuance of the user\u2019s situation. We Don\u2019t Make Hardware: A small market company like Envision doesn\u2019t have the capacity to build smart glasses (or smartphones) from scratch. The cost would be too high for a company that necessarily has a limited user base. Instead, the future of vision technology is likely to be in creating apps or finding novel uses for hardware that already exists. This will provide accessibility to people with vision impairments via tools they\u2019re already quite familiar with.   Tweetables \u201cIn the future, these AI are going to interact with other AIs\u2026 You know, someone like a Walmart will have their own AI. Someone like a Target will have their own AI. And your AI can speak to that AI and ask for specific information. And that's when it becomes super, super exciting.\u201d \u2014 Karthik Mahadevan, Envision Founder & CEO \u201cSo for many years, consumer electronics was evolving in one direction, and assistive technology was evolving in a different direction. But what I noticed recently is this merger of the two: that consumer electronics are becoming more accessible.\u201d \u2014 Dr. Cal Roberts, Lighthouse Guild President & CEO \u201cYou can look at Aira as just a layer, an accessibility layer that exists for when an automated solution, a pure software solution, doesn't work or when there is no solution, right? We're like that, call it a backstop, a more general purpose layer that you can always fall back to.\u201d \u2014 Troy Otillio, Aira CEO   Contact Us: Contact us at podcasts@lighthouseguild.org with your innovative new technology ideas for people with vision loss.   Pertinent Links Lighthouse Guild Envision Aira ","author_name":"On Tech & Vision With Dr. Cal Roberts","author_url":"http:\/\/www.lighthouseguild.org","html":"