Accenture’s Drishti may be the answer for visually impaired to lead an active work life

BENGALURU: IT services company Accenture has developed a new artificial intelligence (AI)--powered solution to help the visually impaired improve the way they experience the world around them and enhance their productivity in the workplace.

The solution, called Drishti, was developed as part of Accenture’s focus on Tech4Good, which aims to apply technology to improve the way the world lives and works by solving complex social challenges.

Drishti, which means “vision” in Sanskrit, provides smart phone-based assistance using AI technologies such as image recognition, natural language processing and natural language generation capabilities to describe the environment of a visually impaired person. Initially developed and tested with 10 blind professionals through a collaboration with the National Association for the Blind in India, the solution provides narration to the user on the number of people in a room, their ages, genders and even emotions based on facial expressions. It can also be used to identify and narrate text from books and documents, including currency notes, and identify obstructions like glass doors to improve the safety of the user.

Accenture plans to introduce Drishti to more than 100 visually impaired employees in India. The solution is currently being piloted at Accenture in South Africa, and a Spanish language version is being tested with Accenture employees in Argentina.