Technological innovations are making it possible for people with disabilities to take on new tasks, improve communication, and be empowered in the workplace. Entrepreneurship along with AI are creating great new ventures focused on helping people with disabilities and physical and health challenges. Who are these leaders and how are their companies improving people’s lives?

First, Mike Walks the Floor

Host Mike Walter attended the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, Nevada. Join him while he explores the technological advances in healthcare. 

How does Be My Eyes help the blind, low-vision? 

Be My Eyes creates technology for a community of over 250 million people who are blind or have low vision. connecting people who are blind or have low vision with volunteers for help daily life tasks like identifying a product or navigating an airport. Be My Eyes now has an additional tool through their AI image recognition application. 

“We have seen unparalleled performance to any image-to-text object recognition tool out there,” says Michael Buckley, CEO of Be My Eyes.  “In the not so distant future, the blind and low vision community will utilize these tools not only for a host of visual interpretation needs, but also to have a greater degree of independence in their lives.” 

How do these hearing glasses work?

Mike has a conversation with Davide D’Alena, the global marketing director for Nuance Audio at EssilorLuxottica, the company that makes glasses designed for people with mild to moderate hearing loss. Nuance Audio smart glasses amplify hearing based on what the user is looking at with invisible speakers that are built into the eyewear. 

“So what’s going on? Actually, you have a number of microphones which are placed in the front and in the temple of the glasses, which are basically capturing the sound all around you. Then you have two speaker in the bottom of the temple, which are delivering the sound directly into your ears. And you see it’s completely open ear. First device ever open ear. And then there is a software inside which is doing the job. So basically, it’s collecting all the sound, it’s cleaning out the sound, and it’s going to amplify all in the direction that you are looking at.”

Can an app help the elderly stay healthy?

Asha AI is a health care solution to help elderly patients, and their family members, monitor the patient’s health from home. I speak to the company’s founder, Rashmi Joshi. 

 In 2019, Joshi’s grandmother, who was living in India, was diagnosed with cancer. Trying to care for her from a distance became the inspiration for the app. In fact, Asha is named after Joshi’s grandmother and means hope. 

Empowering Low Mobility Individuals

Strutt is a leading mobility technology company that brings together world-leading experts in sensing, robotics, and product design. With a passion for people,centered research and breakthrough technologies, Strutt is dedicated to creating the smartest, safest, and most user-friendly personal mobility solutions. Mike speaks to Tony Hong, Founder and CEO of Strutt.