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Listen "EP02: Perspective of Industry Developers on The Challenges and Opportunities for Advancing Visual Interpretation Technologies"
Episode Synopsis
Brief summary of the episode
Saqib Shaikh, Will Butler, and Karthik Kannan share about their experiences developing visual interpretation products and services for blind and low vision users.
Questions asked in the episode
[03:10] Could you share how you are trying to improve products and services for people with vision impairments within your company and how you got into your current line of work?
[11:18] What are the challenges that are encountered in trying to improve upon the state of accessibility in practice? Please comment both on challenges your team has overcome as well as unsolved problems currently encountered.
[22:29] There are a spectrum of solutions for visual assistance that could range from sole reliance on remote sighted humans to sole reliance on artificial intelligence. Could you talk about which solution you use or prefer? Could you also discuss what aspects you think should be done by humans vs artificial intelligence?
[35:10] Do you engage your target audience in developing or improving upon the products or services and, if so, how?
[42:45] How can students and others get involved? For example, what skills does your team look for when recruiting and how might a computer vision or accessibility person make themselves appealing to an accessibility team?
Guest bios
Saqib Shaikh is an Engineer Manager at Microsoft, where he founded Seeing AI - an app which enables someone who is visually impaired to hold up their phone, and hear more about the text, people, and objects in their surroundings.
Will Butler is the Chief Experience Officer at Be My Eyes, a free app with one of the largest online communities, that supports visually impaired individuals to get free, on-demand, live video support from around 4 million volunteers and companies. Will also has hosted two podcasts on the topic of vision loss and accessibility.
Karthik Kannan is the co-founder and chief technology officer of Envision, a company that provides technology to help people with visual impairments in their daily lives. His company builds an app and smart glasses which helps people with visual impairments learn about their surroundings including to read text and recognize faces.
Samreen Anjum is a PhD student at University of Colorado Boulder. Her research focuses on computer vision and its applications in the fields of biomedical sciences and assistive technologies as well as designing systems that enable collaborations between humans and machines.
Links to resources mentioned
https://vizwiz.org/workshops/2022-workshop/
Saqib Shaikh, Will Butler, and Karthik Kannan share about their experiences developing visual interpretation products and services for blind and low vision users.
Questions asked in the episode
[03:10] Could you share how you are trying to improve products and services for people with vision impairments within your company and how you got into your current line of work?
[11:18] What are the challenges that are encountered in trying to improve upon the state of accessibility in practice? Please comment both on challenges your team has overcome as well as unsolved problems currently encountered.
[22:29] There are a spectrum of solutions for visual assistance that could range from sole reliance on remote sighted humans to sole reliance on artificial intelligence. Could you talk about which solution you use or prefer? Could you also discuss what aspects you think should be done by humans vs artificial intelligence?
[35:10] Do you engage your target audience in developing or improving upon the products or services and, if so, how?
[42:45] How can students and others get involved? For example, what skills does your team look for when recruiting and how might a computer vision or accessibility person make themselves appealing to an accessibility team?
Guest bios
Saqib Shaikh is an Engineer Manager at Microsoft, where he founded Seeing AI - an app which enables someone who is visually impaired to hold up their phone, and hear more about the text, people, and objects in their surroundings.
Will Butler is the Chief Experience Officer at Be My Eyes, a free app with one of the largest online communities, that supports visually impaired individuals to get free, on-demand, live video support from around 4 million volunteers and companies. Will also has hosted two podcasts on the topic of vision loss and accessibility.
Karthik Kannan is the co-founder and chief technology officer of Envision, a company that provides technology to help people with visual impairments in their daily lives. His company builds an app and smart glasses which helps people with visual impairments learn about their surroundings including to read text and recognize faces.
Samreen Anjum is a PhD student at University of Colorado Boulder. Her research focuses on computer vision and its applications in the fields of biomedical sciences and assistive technologies as well as designing systems that enable collaborations between humans and machines.
Links to resources mentioned
https://vizwiz.org/workshops/2022-workshop/
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