Halifax Students use Artificial Intelligence to Help the Visually Impaired
HALIFAX – A group of Halifax students is using artificial intelligence to help visually impaired people navigate their surroundings.
Rudransh Goyal, Vinayak Maheshwari, and Mustafa Zahid make up Team Guiding Eyes, which was recently named one of the five finalists of the Samsung Solve for Tomorrow contest. The contest asks Canadians between the ages of 16 and 25 to solve problems in their communities using S.T.E.M. skills.
“Our main goal was just to create a universal solution for them [visually impaired people],” Goyal told Huddle.
Meet the team
Goyal, Maheshwari, and Zahid are second-year engineering students at Dalhousie University. They first heard about Solve for Tomorrow from a social media posts and thought it would be the perfect avenue for developing their concept.
“One day, we’re just sitting looking through what different places we can get the funding for such ideas and one of the most promising ones was obviously Samsung and the Solve for Tomorrow contest,” said Goyal.
Each member of the team is studying a different stream of engineering, which allows each to provide their expertise on different aspects of the project.
Zahid explained how he, as a mechanical engineer, is familiar with design aspects of the project. Meanwhile, Maheshwari, an industrial engineer, has been tackling the project optimization side of things — everything from market feasibility to cost analysis. Meanwhile, Goyal, an electrical engineer, has been useful in dealing with the integration of electrical components and some light coding.
Making guides more accessible
The first seed for the idea came when Goyal spent part of last summer working with the Canadian National Institute for the Blind. He noticed how long it takes to train guide dogs and how expensive it can be for the owner.
“We decided to make goggles, which are AI-enabled, so it helps blind people navigate daily life without limitation,” said Zahid
The goggles will use AI technology to analyze the user’s environment and provide real-time feedback through a headset. It’s essentially like having someone describe your surroundings to you 24/7.
One of the goals of the project is to create a product that is affordable and practical for the user.
“Our final prototype is going to look like normal glasses with a headset that has all the involved microprocessors and the AI,” said Maheshwari. “We want to make the prototype visually appealing so they [the user] don’t feel uncomfortable or insecure about it.”
The perks of innovation
A benefit of being one of the five finalists for the contest is access to resources from Samsung. Not only has the Guiding Eyes team been gifted a $5,000 prize pack, including tech that will help them bring their idea to life, but Samsung also provides around-the-clock communication and advice from some of the tech industry’s greatest minds.
The team has a meeting with one of the contest’s judges, Ann Makosinski, who was named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 list and will be offering each finalist an educational masterclass to help strengthen their ideas ahead of final submissions.
“We are all very excited for it. She is such a creative person, we are all highly motivated by her,” said Goyal.
The future of Guiding Eyes
While the team is honoured to have been named a finalist in the competition, they are by no means satisfied.
“We obviously want to go to the last step and get the final trophy,” said Goyal.
If Team Guiding Eyes is named the winner of this year’s contest, they will not only be rewarded with an additional $8,000 worth of Samsung technology, but they will also receive a $20,000 grand prize. As for what they will do with their winnings, the team already has an answer.
“We spoke about the final prizes earlier and what we decided was that we would use the final prize to make this project into a reality,” said Zahir.
They plan to invest their winnings into hiring more employees and expanding their marketing so that the word about guiding eyes reaches the people who need it most.
Joe Thomson is a Huddle student intern, based in Halifax. Send him your feedback and story ideas: [email protected]