Be My Eyes App Brings Help to the Blind and Visually Impaired | Re/code

A new app created by Danish craftsman Hans Jørgen Wiberg seeks to make life easier for the blind by connecting them with sighted volunteers. Be My Eyes allows anyone with a visual impairment to ask a sighted volunteer for help with something that requires normal vision.

“As a blind person, you are 100 percent sure that the person who answers the call is willing to help you,” said Wiberg, who has tunnel vision and expects to eventually go blind. “As a helper, if you don’t have the time, you don’t answer.”

Wiberg, who serves as the regional chairman of a Dutch organization for the blind, said many of his blind friends use Apple’s FaceTime video conferencing application to ask sighted friends for help when they’re alone in their homes, and need a second set of eyes. But that can feel like an imposition, he said.

Be My Eyes seeks to build upon the success of live video-conferencing technology by recruiting a network of volunteers who were willing to lend a hand. In April 2012, Wiberg the pitched his idea at a Startup Weekend technology competition in Aarhus, Denmark — and won the prize for the most innovative concept.

Curated from Be My Eyes App Brings Help to the Blind and #visually impaired | Re/code