Ayes – Helping the Blind and Visually Impaired Navigate Intersections Safely. Like Having an Audio Pedestrian Signal in your Pocket

Podcast Summary:

The Ayes team joined Jeff Thompson in the Blind Abilities studio to talk about Ayes, an Artificial intelligence company form to assist the blind and visually impaired in navigating intersections using traffic signal imagery and algorithmic computation and relaying the data to the user through audio and haptic feedback

This team of 3 left their AI jobs and formed Ayes after learning from a Blind friend that intersections were a huge obstacle and keeping him from getting out and about as much as he would like. And five months ago, Ayes began working on algorithms and an app called, “OKO”. Through the camera’s lens, the user can identify the traffic signal information available to sighted people and also will develop into a more robust app when object recognition and GPS navigation is incorporated into the OKO app. Available in Belgium and the Netherlands, the Ayes team is working with the CNIB in Canada and is setting their sights on the States. They have started the OKO campaign to get interested participants involved in the development and enhancement of their OKO App.

To find out more about Ayes and OKO and to become a tester here are some helpful links:

Link to become a tester: https://ayes.ai/get-oko
Link to the Ayes web site: https://ayes.ai
Link to OKO campaign: https://apps.apple.com/be/app/oko-campaign/id1583843828
Link to OKO App (Benelux only): https://apps.apple.com/be/app/ayes-oko/id1583614988

From the Ayes.AI web site:

We help blind and visually impaired people to navigate safely. OKO, our mobile application, is able to recognize the pedestrian traffic light by using the smartphone camera and our AI algorithm it is able to inform the user on the state of the pedestrian traffic light. We bring this information back to the user using audio and haptic feedback.

In the future OKO will become smarter and will be able to do much more, like detecting obstacles, incorporating GPS navigation such that blind and visually impaired people can explore new places safely. Check out the OKO campaign to see how you can help.

Contact Your State Services

If you reside in Minnesota, and you would like to know more about Transition Services from State Services contact Transition Coordinator Sheila Koenig by email or contact her via phone at 651-539-2361.