Stephanie Cowper is helping the visually impaired with BeSpecular app

South African entrepreneur, Stephanie Cowper, together with her colleagues from school have created an app that assists visually impaired people identify objects and different situations. The goal is to ultimately help the blind lead more independent lives.

The idea for the app came while Stephanie and her colleague, Giacomo Parmegianni, were thinking up ideas for a project they were given. Both Stephanie and Giacomo majored in Technology Entrepreneurship at Stanford University, USA. One of their semester projects was to prepare to start a company of their own. They decided they were going to use their technical know-how to help a group in society that was largely neglected.

The idea for the app came while Stephanie and her colleague, Giacomo Parmegianni, were thinking up ideas for a project they were given. Both Stephanie and Giacomo majored in Technology Entrepreneurship at Stanford University, USA. One of their semester projects was to prepare to start a company of their own. They decided they were going to use their technical know-how to help a group in society that was largely neglected.

The Birth Of BeSpecular

Stephanie Cowper’s team went on to do some research at the American Council of the Blind’s annual conference. Consequently, they found that the main thing that visually impaired people struggled with was identifying objects and/or situations on their own. Often, they have to rely on people around them to help.

They figured that the issue could be helped using their particular set of skills. This gave birth to BeSpecular Ltd. After their semester was over, they discovered that they was a huge demand for their app and so they got a few of their colleagues together to try to get the app to market.

How BeSpecular app works

The group identified that visually impaired people are heavily reliant on sighted people around them to identify objects and situations. Most times they have to be accompanied or wait for sighted people to come to their aid. This often takes a long time. The app allows them to ask sighted people questions from locations across the world.

The Specular app allows sighted people understand their community and offers knowledge on how they can be of help in their society. Speaking to Lionesses of Africa, Stephanie Cowper explained that sighted people would get rewards for being of help on the app from time to time.

Source: lionessesofafrica.com

BeSpecular  launched its crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo to help raise funds for the professional development on various platforms, specifically the iOS and Android platforms. They will also be sourcing for talent locally in South Africa.

The Specular app is currently being used in about 50 countries worldwide according to reports. The company also has plans to launch a business software to help people become aware disability in the workplace. This has seen the app being tested a select number of offices in South Africa.

Download BeSpecular

You can download the BeSpecular app here.

Source: CP Africa