The Daily Pennsylvanian :: App gives the blind a ThirdEye

Last fall at the PennApps hackathon, Engineering freshmen Rajat Bhageria, Ben Sandler and Joe Cappadona won the title of top 10 finalist with their Google Glass app. Named ThirdEye, the application is virtually an image-recognition

 

The app aims to help visually impaired people feel more independent by letting them “see” what’s going on in front of them, Bhageria said. The team was inspired by Cappadona’s blind grandfather, who wanted to rely on himself when getting the right amount of change or taking the right kind of medicine.

 

Last December, the team brought their product to the National Federation of the Blind’s Baltimore headquarters and immediately secured a partnership with the institution. NFB tested ThirdEye on more than 10 visually impaired individuals and provided feedback to help the team further improve the product.

 

about ThirdEye for Technical.ly Philly. The story generated publicity for the product, and Bhageria invited Ongchoco to join the team after PennApps. He has been working on partnerships and promotions for ThirdEye ever since.

 

“The fulfilling part about doing this is that we are trying to solve a very specific problem, which is helping handicapped people do things that we normally take for granted,” Ongchoco said.

 

Ongchoco was not the only one who wrote about ThirdEye during PennApps. Bhageria and his team thought their project had great potential, so they set up a website, printed out posters and started marketing ThirdEye even before the judging of PennApps began. Because of their efforts, the team gained the attention of multiple tech firms and media companies before launching as a startup.

 

Curated from The Daily Pennsylvanian :: App gives the blind a ThirdEye