Humane: App For The Blind, Straight Outta Great Ife, Nigeria


     Four students from Nigeria's Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife recently put the country on the world map as one of the countries who have developed an app that will help the blind or visually impaired use their smart phones.
     The app was designed for the 2014 Microsoft Imagine Cup, a global competition that gives students a chance to present new technology solutions.    
     The "Humane App" is a software that works with a hand held operated device with an audio guide and three buttons to help the user select and play music, videos, surf the net and audio read-back of printed words.
     Humane app is currently available on the windows phone platform while the controller device is still being worked on to make it less bulky to carry.
     Access to printed words by the blind is a huge challenge and if this is mass produced, it will go a long way to help the over one million blind people in Nigeria, and nine million blind people in sub-Saharan Africa...not to talk of the world.
    Kudos to the four guys - Otaru Babatunde, Obasegun Ayodele, Victor Shoaga and Oyatope Blessing.

FYI, first picture was gotten from the internet, and the rest was taken by my colleague +Omotara Fagbuyi.

Video link on CCTV site

Picture credit - Internet
 Tara posing with the four techies

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