Founder of Be My Eyes: AI Provides New Eyes and Opportunities
AI allows blind and visually impaired people to get a live description of their surroundings with a single tap on their phone’s camera.
“People would rather just be friends with their friends than be the one who has to ask for help,” says Hans Jørgen Wiberg, founder of the technology company Be My Eyes.
When the company was founded in 2012, Hans Jørgen was employed by the Danish Association of the Blind and spoke daily with blind and visually impaired people who described this very challenge.
He knows firsthand what it’s like to have a visual impairment, as he is visually impaired himself. It can be difficult to ask friends or acquaintances for help with small tasks, and the feeling of being dependent on others’ eyes can be inhibiting. That was the start of Be My Eyes:
– I thought we should create a group of volunteers you can call, where volunteers can help blind and visually impaired people who need an extra pair of eyes.
Much has changed with rapid technological advancements, but Hans Jørgen Wiberg’s goal remains the same: to make the world more accessible to blind and visually impaired people.
With 777,000 blind and visually impaired users on the platform and 8.5 million volunteers, he and the company have already come a long way.
Technological quantum leaps and partnership with OpenAI
Be My Eyes has long been a service that connects blind and visually impaired people with volunteers via video calls. The user points the camera at their surroundings and receives a description of what they see: Is this whole milk or skim milk I’m taking off the shelf? Can I bring my dog to the restaurant? Are there train tracks on both sides of the platform?
In recent years, however, AI has really come into its own, and Be My Eyes has taken advantage of this. As early as 2023, the company became the first of its kind to partner with OpenAI. The result is Be My AI, which Hans Jørgen talks about with enthusiasm:
– When we partnered with OpenAI, we were the first company to gain access to the model capable of describing images. You can take a photo with the app and get an AI description of it. It has become by far our most-used feature. We receive 43 million requests a year, and 40 million of those are image requests.
The partnership is an example of how AI can make it easier than ever before to navigate the world as a blind or visually impaired person. And the possibilities for future technological solutions for people with disabilities – so-called “Disability Tech” – are limitless.
Smart glasses and new partnerships
A partnership with Meta is the next big step for Hans Jørgen Wiberg and Be My Eyes. The integration into Meta’s new Ray-Ban Smart Glasses will allow volunteers to see directly through the glasses, so that people who are blind or visually impaired can keep their hands free.
This provides even more freedom and opportunities for people who are blind or visually impaired:
“People are absolutely thrilled to use Be My Eyes. It makes a huge difference in their daily lives. The fact that you can make 50 requests a day without your friends getting tired of it – that gives you a sense of independence,” Hans Jørgen emphasizes.
Fact Box: Be My Eyes
Be My Eyes is a free app that helps blind and visually impaired people around the world by providing visual assistance. The app connects users with visual impairments to registered individuals or companies (including Google, Microsoft, LinkedIn, Hilton, and a number of others). Through the app, users can, among other things, call the company directly and speak with an employee who has expertise in the usability of the company’s products and their accessibility for people who are blind or visually impaired.