NEWS: Helping the blind

Three teams of local inventors hope to create a better standard of living for the visually-impaired with the use of modern technology.

NO MORE FAKE MONEY: Quah and Chen’s team developed the UV-ICU to help the blind detect counterfeit money.

Vision goes beyond sight. While sight is the ability to see, vision is a mental image.

An estimated 20,000 people in the country are living without the gift of sight, and a few socially conscious individuals have the vision of improving the lives of these less fortunate people, through the use of information and communications technology (ICT).

“Most ICT ideas and inventions are focused on improving the lives of able people but there doesn’t seem to be many for the disabled,” lamented inventor Phang Mun Yee.

Moses Choo, assistant executive director for the Malaysian Association of the Blind (MAB) says that most assistive technologies for the blind (like PCs with Braille keyboards, for instance) are foreign and costly.

“These technologies cost at least US$5,000 (RM17,500). The MAB would welcome local assistive technologies but we don’t hear of many,” he said.

That may soon change with local ICT inventors trying to do their bit for the visually-impaired.

Phang is one half of the Scope International Technology Competition winning team.

The competition is organised by Scope, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Standard Chartered Bank, and was held for the first time last December.

It gives awards for ICT concepts from both university students as well as ICT professionals.

Aroused social consciousness

Phang’s team, which won the professional section of the Scope International Technology Competition, received RM15,000, a plaque and a certificate of excellence for their idea of using Global Positioning System (GPS) technology and a Bluetooth headset to create a high-tech sensing cane for the blind.

The team, called Columbus, comprises of Phang and Jason Lee, a 26-year-old senior Microsoft application developer for Uberfusion Sdn Bhd.

Lee designed the software and the walking stick itself while Phang conceptualised the idea and developed it.

Phang, 26-years-old as well, is a sales support engineer for Asia E-Pros Sdn Bhd. He also contributed by doing background research on GPS and integrated it with the Bluetooth component, the processor chip and the voice synthesiser.

Lee explains that the idea grew out of last year’s spate of child kidnappings.

“One of our initial ideas was to attach a small GPS transmitter to a child’s clothes or school bag. Parents could then track their children’s location via the Web using applications similar to Google Earth,” Lee said.

“Unfortunately the idea had already been thought up. The team found that it was already used in other ICT competitions worldwide, so we decided to discard it,” said Phang.

GPS focus

The team went back to the drawing board and found that there weren’t many ICT inventions for the disabled.

“We decided to continue our focus on the application of GPS, but this time, we would use it to help visually-impaired people instead,” he said.

Phang often meets visually-impaired people while taking the KL Monorail to work as they often use this mode of transportation to get around the city.

“KL Monorail has a station which is near the MAB, and it has been a great way for the visually-impaired to move about.

“However, at the same time, I feel that their area of reach is limited by the Monorail. We hope that this idea can expand their area of reach,” said Phang.

Lee explained that most blind people would have a problem finding their way around unfamiliar places.

“More often than not, sighted people are bad at giving directions to blind people. They will still give visual landmarks, which is of no use to a blind person. By giving blind people a better means of navigating, we hope to improve their quality of life,” he said.

Talking cane

With this in mind, the team came up with the blueprint of a “talking cane” for the blind.

The cane receives the user’s verbal requests via a Bluetooth headset. For example, a user would say, “Take me to Sungei Wang Plaza.”

Upon receiving the instruction, the cane’s processing unit formulates a route, based on the user’s current location and the maps stored within its solid state memory.

Voice instructions would then be generated by the cane’s voice synthesiser and transmitted back to the user via the Bluetooth headset.

“Since there are certain geographical obstacles to avoid such as highways and big drains, the device would be good for short to mid-distance commute by foot,” said Jason.

The actual idea came up just three days before the submission date. “I just woke up with the idea. During that period, we rushed to design the features of the cane,” said Phang.

The idea was fine-tuned, while both members of the team were in different countries, over the Internet; Lee was in Dubai, while Phang was in Malaysia.

The team said it is now open to striking up joint ventures to further research and develop the walking stick.

Both members stress that should their blueprint be turned into a prototype and finally into a product, they hope that the Government will subsidise the purchase of this tool for the blind.

Cheaper alternative

Phang and Lee weren’t the only winners that had the visually-impaired at heart when coming up with an ICT invention idea.

Even the first prize winners of the university students section of the Scope International Technology Competition, were thinking along similar lines.

The winning team, called the UV-ICU, had the idea of using ultraviolet light and photodiode detection technology (a technology that converts light into an electrical signal) to help the blind detect counterfeit money.

“We got the idea from existing products in the market which were very expensive. I can’t remember the names of the products but all the detectors that were available were expensively priced from RM280 till RM1,000,” said Quah Kah Hin, the leader of the winning team.

The other members of the team are Chen Say Hong and Hooi Ling Goh of Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM).

The team decided to design something similar at a more affordable price but with the same performance.

“Our handmade versions would only cost us RM100 as we chose less costly components,” said Quah.

Checking for counterfeit

Quah and Chen designed the device, which is the size of a child’s pencil case, while Hooi designed its casing and also did market studies. The project took four months.

The device scans any currency bill and lets the user know if the money is counterfeit.

“With the use of a voice synthesiser, it will tell the user if the note is valid or not,” said Chen.

The team would not reveal more details as the team already has come up with a prototype and is currently trying to commercialise the idea.

The team received RM12,000, a plaque and a certificate for their prize-winning idea at the Scope International Technology Competition.

The three young inventors are aged between 24- and 26-years-old and are studying electrical and electronic engineering at UKM. Armed with a prototype, this team of students are very idealistic.

“We dare to dream. Our vision is to help the blind contribute to society at large, with our device.

“For example, those who are visually impaired can be hired as bank tellers, with an expanded version of our product.

“Perhaps one day, the blind will not be discriminated against and there will be more jobs for them,” Chen said.

D-Eye

The Scope International Technology Competition was not the only event that attracted ICT inventions for the visually impaired.

The Philips Young Inventors Challenge was introduced in 2004, to encourage technology-driven initiatives amongst Malaysians.

Unlike the Scope International Technology Competition which awards ideas, The Philips Young Inventors Challenge competition awards the actual prototypes.

The Philips Young Inventors Challenge has not taken place for the past two years but a Philips spokesman said that Philips “is currently in the process of reviewing this activity to see how it can be developed into something more comprehensive.”

E Sun Zheng, a design engineer for Intel, was part of the team that made to one of the Top 15 finalists of the Philips Young Inventors Challenge in 2005.

He too wanted to help the visually impaired, as one of his team members, Lee Teck Fah had a blind relative.

The Penang-based team visited the St. Nicholas School for the Blind to gauge what applications would be beneficial to them.

The prototype that the team came up with was called D-Eye, a laptop-sized device that identifies the Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) -tagged possessions for the blind.

A portable RFID reader is used to retrieve the information from the tags which is then converted to speech through a text-to-speech voice synthesiser, explained E.

The team took six months to prototype the idea and three years after entering the finals of the competition, are still hoping to commercialise D-Eye.

“However there is still a lot to be done. We need to get some funding to develop a more advanced D-Eye, “ said E.

“It can help the blind to have a better life, so we will keep working at it,” he said.

Now, that’s vision!