Fifty-seven million visually impaired people in India lack real-time access to content as less than 1% of content is available in Braille. Trestle Labs, an assistive technology company, is changing that for people with print and learning disabilities. On #TechThursdays we profile their leading innovation, Kibo XS.

For blind and low vision Indians, accessing content real-time is a major challenge. Consider this. Less than 1% of reading material available in Braille content, leaving them dependent on audio recordings. A 300-page book takes nearly six weeks to be audio recorded and delivered.

When it comes to e-books in regional languages, the situation is worse as the non-Unicode fonts make them inaccessible by screen readers.

Their struggles were brought home to Akshita Sachdeva when she was studying engineering.

"During my Bachelors from Manav Rachna College of Engineering, Faridabad, I worked on a project that could help blind and visually-impaired people navigate unknown environments and read printed text. When my team went to the National Association for the Blind, Delhi, to test our device, a little kid after using it, called his dad in Punjab, saying, he could now travel and read on his own".

The child then turned to Akshita and asked when he could get it. "That was when I realized the power of my technical skills to create a positive difference in his life and the lives of all the visually-impaired people", says Akshita.

That experience led to the creation of Trestle Labs, an assistive technology company that is changing the way people with print and learning disabilities read. The aim, say founders Abhishek Baghel, Bonny Dave and Akshita is to empower them towards education, employment, and eventually independence.

Like Akshita, the others were motivated by personal experiences to start looking at technology as an enabler. In Bonny's case, it was the time spent volunteering at the Blind People's Association (BPA), Ahmedabad, while studying engineering, while for Abhishek close interactions with blind students underlined their struggles to access printed competitive-exam books.

All three together came together in 2017 at the Digital Impact Square (DISQ) in 2017. This is a Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) Foundation initiative, an open social innovation centre in Nashik, Maharashtra which promotes innovation using digital technologies to address social challenges.
 

That inspired the team to start looking at ways to offer an immersive learning experience, thereby making learning at par with others

Features

Kibo XS, the world's first intelligent personalised scanning and reading companion for people who are blind and print-disabled, does that by reading printed and handwritten content across 12 languages, Indian and foreign, in real-time. Users can follow the text and take audio notes as it gets read out.

Kibo XS can translate text across over 100 languages and the saved documents can be accessed anytime, anywhere through Kibo Cloud. It is compatible with mobile and the Web, making it suitable for individuals and companies.
Source: https://newzhook.com/story/techthursdays-kibo-xs-worlds-1st-intelligent-personalised-scanning-reading-companion