AI wearable leads the way

A compact wearable designed to assist the visually impaired is expected to serve over 1,000 people in Hong Kong by the year's end.

The wearable, called Seekr, is developed by Vidi Labs, an artificial intelligence start-up. Founded by Turzo Bose and Lamia Sreya Rahman, it is the other champion of the Challenge.

Seekr currently offers three modes: text recognition, scene recognition and distance detection. Upon capturing a photo, it analyses the information according to the mode chosen and reads the results in Cantonese, Mandarin or English. It can also analyze videos and once charged, works for four hours.

The latest version of Seekr has already won a lot of interest, Bose says.

The wearable has a price tag of HK$6,000, and flexible software pricing for forthcoming features, with three new additions slated for release later this year.

By using vision technology akin to that employed in Tesla's self-driving cars, Seekr is able to decipher and organize information to meet the specific needs of visually impaired people, empowering them to navigate and engage with their surroundings, Bose says.

He says user feedback has been helpful in the product's iteration.

"They [users] do not want to be told to turn left or right but want access to information about what is around them and let themselves make decisions," he says.

The inspiration for Seekr came from Bose's grandfather, whose sight began to deteriorate, and whose life was made even more difficult when the Covid pandemic broke out.

It also came from Rahman's volunteer work during Covid when she found out that there were many visually impaired persons living in buildings with no lifts.

In Hong Kong alone, an estimated 200,000 people grapple with varying degrees of visual impairment, underscoring the urgency of solutions like Seekr, they say.

Apart from sales of Seekr, Vidi Labs plans to team up with museums and theme parks to offer rental options.

Recalling the words of a visually-impaired person who wistfully said they want to take risks but the world won't let them, Rahman hopes Seekr will give such adventurous souls a better insight into the world around them.