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Lee Mannion
Thomson Reuters Foundation
A phone application that allows blind people to call for visionary volunteers to help them win a technology award on Tuesday as businesses support vulnerable groups. 19659004]
Be My Eyes – a Danish company that allows some 87,000 people who have downloaded the free app to ask for help in situations where 1.5 million volunteers need vision – won the accessibility award at the Tech4Good Awards.
"Many judges are inclined to social enterprise because of the sustainability component," said award organizer Mark Walker, referring to companies looking to make a change while making a profit.
"Charities still depend on the next grant," adds Walker of AbilityNet, which strives to make the digital world more accessible to people with disabilities to improve their lives .
Judges at the Tech4Good Stock Exchange, eight years old, included telecommunications giant BT, Lloyds Banking Group and technology company Microsoft Corp.
Great Britain is considered a world leader in the innovative social enterprise sector, with about 70,000 companies employing nearly one million people last year, according to the United States. social organization Social Enterprise UK, compared to 55,000 companies in 2007.
The founder of Be My Eyes, Hans Jorgen Wiberg, visually impaired, started his business in 2015 after a blind friend told him that the video was calling his family and friends to help him in his daily tasks, such as reading labels. ]
"It's like a Swiss Army knife that can help you read newspapers or help you get on the right bus," said Alexander Jensen, director of the Be My Eyes community, available in 150 countries and 180 languages. 19659004]
According to the World Health Organization, some 253 million people suffer from vision disorders globally, of which 36 million are blind, which means that these figures could triple with growth and age of populations.
Jensen told the Thomson Reuters Foundation that the company had initially struggled to determine where he was going to find revenue because they wanted everyone, regardless of his ability to pay, to use the application.
The solution was to ask companies – like Microsoft, their first paying customer – to make their support services directly accessible through the app, to help users install products or verify connections Internet.
"Companies are learning to make their products more accessible and can offer customer support that they could not do before, and thus attract a much wider audience," said Jensen.
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