00:01A navigation tool built in Kenya is using AI to help people with visual impairment
00:06understand what lies ahead as they move through the capital, Nairobi.
00:11SiteTRA runs as a phone-based web app, detecting cars, trees, furniture and other obstacles in real-time
00:17and sending spoken description through an earpiece while GPS helps guide users along a route.
00:26The audio description in real-time is helpful for me to know where the obstacles are
00:35and how to evade walking into cars, walking into trees and I feel like there's a lot of potential.
00:45In essence, the SiteTRA web app becomes your guide and for navigation, aside from my mobility can, this has come
00:59in handy.
01:00I feel like we need to refine more on the accuracy and description, but overall this is a good start.
01:12The tech doesn't replace the can but gives people with visual impairment another way to understand obstacles before they reach
01:19them.
01:21Its founders say the system has been trained on Nairobi and Kenyan roads,
01:26an infrastructure where uneven pavement-packed vehicles and inaccessible buildings can make independent movement harder.
01:33So, as a user walks, they're able to identify objects and obstacles along their way.
01:39So, the web app is able to do that and that information is relayed to them in real-time through
01:45an earpiece.
01:45So, it also makes use of GPS for routing the users to make sure to guide them from their starting
01:52point to their end point.
01:54Kenya's 2022 demographic and health survey reported that about 2% of people aged 5 and above had some difficulty
02:01seeing.
02:03Our physical environment, especially built environment, the lack of roads, our infrastructure, our buildings are not accessible to our person
02:12with disabilities.
02:13So, with this kind of innovation, it will enable persons with visual impairment to be able to understand the obstacles
02:21around the environment that we have.
02:25Site-wise being developed by Kenyan founders Roth Nzoki and Brian Gillow as an assistive navigation system for people with
02:31visual impairments.
02:32hands-wise
02:35What did we learn before we learn before and what do we learn before?
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