{"id":38926,"date":"2023-10-20T14:59:43","date_gmt":"2023-10-20T14:59:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/startupsmart.test\/2023\/10\/20\/meet-the-australian-startup-using-artificial-intelligence-to-help-blind-people-see-startupsmart\/"},"modified":"2023-10-20T14:59:43","modified_gmt":"2023-10-20T14:59:43","slug":"meet-the-australian-startup-using-artificial-intelligence-to-help-blind-people-see-startupsmart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/uncategorized\/meet-the-australian-startup-using-artificial-intelligence-to-help-blind-people-see-startupsmart\/","title":{"rendered":"Meet the Australian startup using artificial intelligence to help blind people see – StartupSmart"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Aipoly<\/div>\n

The first time people use Australian startup Aipoly \u2013 an app which helps blind people to see the world using artificial intelligence \u2013 they often cry.<\/p>\n

Created by entrepreneurs Marita Cheng, Alberto Rizzoli and Simon Edwardsson, the Aipoly app uses an AI algorithm to near-instantaneously identify an object when a smartphone is held over it and say what it is out loud.<\/p>\n

It allows those living with vision impairment to navigate their external surroundings and get around independently.<\/p>\n

After launching only three weeks ago, Cheng says the feedback from the blind and vision impaired community has already been overwhelming.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople have told us that they\u2019ve just started crying when they used it,\u201d Cheng tells\u00a0<\/span>StartupSmart<\/i>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019ll say, \u2018I have 200 apps on my phone and none of them have made the difference in my life that Aipoly has.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s an amazing impact you can have on the life of someone that can\u2019t see.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"aipoly3\"<\/p>\n

A homework assignment<\/b><\/p>\n

\n

The original concept for Aipoly emerged from a homework assignment given at\u00a0<\/span>Singularity University<\/a>\u2013 of which Cheng was the only Australian among a cohort of 80 students.<\/p>\n

The assignment was a lofty one: Create something that would impact the lives of a billion people within the next 10 years.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe vehicle that we chose to do that through was starting a company,\u201d Cheng says.<\/p>\n

After meeting with a Google executive who described her vision impaired friend\u2019s day-to-day struggles, Cheng and her two co-founders had the idea to combine an image- recognition algorithm with a smartphone to give instant feedback on surroundings.<\/p>\n

With an MVP in hand after only a few days, Cheng began to meet with numerous blind organisations to get feedback.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were a bit jaded and when we first started talking to them they\u2019d say, \u2018we\u2019ve seen all these technologies before and they haven\u2019t actually made as much of a big impact as we would have liked\u2019,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut when we showed them the technology they were absolutely blown away. The responses we got were really amazing \u2013 we were surprised about how positively we were received.\u201d<\/p>\n

Buoyed by this feedback, the team threw together a video describing the product which was soon picked up by major publications around the world \u2013 and the startup was just a week old.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe decided to go ahead and turn Aipoly into a bigger thing,\u201d Cheng says.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n