Visually impaired students to get Smart Vision glasses

Nearly 30 students with zero vision will get Smart Vision glasses, a device developed by Bengaluru-based startup.

The tech is attached to a pair of glasses assisting visually impaired (VI) persons in reading, object recognition, face recognition, or as a walking assistant with the help of artificial intelligence and machine learning.

All one needs is a mobile phone, and Bluetooth neckband provided with the glasses.

"The Shakuntala Mishra Rehabilitation University (SMRU) has witnessed prolonged protests due to unavailability of learning materials. With these glasses, the unsighted will no longer have to struggle for books in Braille or be dependent on a scribe," said Jitendra Maurya , a visually impaired student.

The glasses provided by the university in collaboration with Chennai based nonprofit Help and blind Foundation will help a VI person to read printed material written in over 50 scripts without any assistance and enhances their chance of giving a good performance in their exams.

V S Mishra, head, department of VI at SMRU, said, "Through these glasses, a completely blind student can know the environment around him. These glasses collect information from surroundings and convey it to the VI person in verbal format."

These glasses also have a flashlight to help VI students to read books and identify other objects at night.

To avoid fraud, face detection facilities have also been provided through which students can store photos of teachers, friends, employees, family members, and other people living around them in these smart glasses and whenever that person comes in front of or around, the glasses will recognise them and speak out their name.

"This type of technology will give new dimensions of success to VI students," Mishra said.