Project description
Innovative device to increase blind people’s mobility
Over 40 million blind and more than 238 million visually impaired people worldwide face mobility challenges. Despite technological advancements, most existing solutions that offer related assistance are expensive and provide limited navigation services. Solutions such as the guide dog are unfortunately not scalable: 28 000 guide dogs to 40 million blind. Romanian start-up .lumen has developed a solution that replicates the main features of a guide dog, without the disadvantages that make the guide dog a non-scalable solution. The device recognises the environment, computes navigation paths and transmits information through sounds and haptics. In addition, it is affordable and user-friendly. The EIC-funded .lumen – Glasses for the blind project will work to finalise the product, pilot it and commercialise it.
Objective
There are over 40 M blind and over 238 M visually impaired people in the world struggling with everyday mobility, who can’t be employed or educated because of it. While technology advanced, and solutions appeared for multiple challenges that they face, the area of mobility has not seen
much change. Most of the technological solutions available are expensive, they don’t help to navigate and work only with some eyesight. Lumen has tackled these problems and created a solution, which has a system able to understand the world like a vision capable individual. The device
understands the environment, computes navigation paths for the users, and transmits information through the sound and impulses on the forehead. Moreover, it is affordable and easy to use. Lumen already made an incredible progress with its patents, research, and product iterations. Now, the
team is applying for the EIC Accelerator to finalise the product, pilot it, and enter the market, thus requests EUR 5.5 M of funding.
Keywords
Programme(s)
Funding Scheme
HORIZON-EIC-ACC-BF - HORIZON EIC Accelerator Blended FinanceCoordinator
400146 Cluj Napoca
Romania
The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.