OKO – AI Copilot for Blind and Visually Impaired

Cities all over the world face difficulties making pedestrian crossings accessible to blind and visually impaired people. The current standard is to an audible signal at every intersection, which is extremely costly ($50K/intersection) and cumbersome to maintain. This means that in most places blind and visually impaired need to rely heavily on their orientation and mobility skills to cross streets without having access to the pedestrian signal status.

OKO is disrupting how cities can be made digitally accessible. OKO, a mobile app, makes every pedestrian signal accessible for blind and visually impaired people. Differentiable audio, haptic and visual feedback is used to communicate the status of the pedestrian signal. OKO doesn't rely on additional infrastructure to be installed nor does it rely on a WiFi or cellular connection. OKO is also being used provides

300M people all over the world are blind or visually impaired, and this number is going to increase to 500M by 2050. OKO is a 24/7 service that people can use anywhere, anytime to safely cross streets and explore new places. OKO helps with providing more information about the status of the pedestrian signal and enable people to make a better decision or confirmation when crossing the street. Using OKO leads to less injuries or fatalities and makes every pedestrian crossing in a city 100% accessible overnight without having to rely on infrastructural changes.

OKO is very easy to use. Simply put your phone against the chest, with the back camera facing in the direction of walking, and you'll immediately get feedback of the presence of a pedestrian signal. A fast, slop beep indicates the the WALK (green) respectively the DON'T WALK (red) signal. By following the sound/vibrations people can not only know when to cross but also enables them to not veer off into traffic, addressing one of the big challenges.