Manovue

Roopam Sharma

While studying computer engineering at Manav Rachna University, Sharma wanted to develop a game for those who are colour-blind. “People with colour blindness can’t distinguish between shades of pink and red. The idea was to create a game like ‘the endless runner’," says Sharma, referring to a popular genre of gaming.

As he was researching colour blindness, he realised that there hadn’t been any innovation done on improving the literacy of blind people. With this idea in mind, in February last year he decided to survey and interview around 60 blind people in Delhi and the national capital region about the problems that they face.

After completing his survey over 15 days, Sharma realized that the visually impaired suffer from three major problems. First, the inability to read any text that is not in Braille; second, navigation through the environment and surroundings; and third, accessibility to smartphones. According to Sharma, only 8% of the total number of the visually impaired in India can read Braille.

Sharma, as part of his work at the Manav Rachna Incubation and Innovation Centre, decided to address these three problems by creating Manovue, a device that the user wears like a glove. (Mano means hand in Spanish and vue means vision in French; the combination denotes the objective of creating vision through the hand.)

The index finger of the glove has a camera that captures images of the printed text. The technology extracts the text and converts it as a voice message that makes reading easy. The glove also helps in navigation. “It detects obstacles in the way of the user and creates vibrating signals in the direction of the obstacle. The lower part of the palm receives the signals that could be from the left or right direction. In case of the centre, both left and right sides vibrate," adds Sharma. The glove is connected to a mobile app as well.

The app has voice-based maps and gives audio directions to the user. In addition to this, the app works like a personal assistant and talks to the user. It can send text messages, dial numbers and send alerts, among other things, when instructed by the user. In case of a situation where the user is unable of find the glove, the request is made on the app and a beeping sound from the glove makes it easier for the user to detect the location.

Manovue is in its last stage of testing, which has been performed on over 250 users in partnership with the Blind Association of Delhi and Faridabad. The device costs ₹ 4,000. “We want the device to be used by the low-income users, hence we have created a subsidy model where such users pay ₹ 500 and the balance is paid by our partners who are willing to fund users," says Sharma. The aim is to reach 50,000 people by the end of this year. A patent application has been filed for the device.