On Tech & Vision With Dr. Cal Roberts

This podcast is about big ideas on how technology is making life better for people with vision loss.

Today's big idea is about using augmented reality, machine learning, and soon, fifth generation (5G) connectivity to improve vision. The Eyedaptic Eye2 is software-driven smart glasses for people with vision impairment. Dr. Roberts speaks with Dr. Mitul Mehta and Jay Cormier about how Eyedaptic uses machine learning to develop algorithms to guide augmentations that adapt to a person's vision deficits, habits and environments to help them see better. They also discuss how 5G connectivity is going to continue to enhance the user experience for Eyedaptic users.

The Big Takeaways:

• Eyedaptic identifies a wearer's visual defect, and adapts to that specific problem by using technology to address the gaps in vision. It applies that technology to commercial augmented reality headsets.
• Algorithms analyze what the camera in the user's Eyedaptic glasses is looking at, as well as what the user is doing at the time, and the combination informs what the user sees.
• As augmented reality continues to develop, the next big breakthrough is going to be connectivity using 5G. This will enable the Eyedaptic glasses to transfer large amounts of data very quickly, improving future machine learning algorithms; it will also allow the device to become more mobile.

Tweetables:

• "That brought me to the whole concept of being able to use technology to fix problems with the body. One of the things I found ... was people trying to solve the problem of vision loss not medically, but with technology." — Dr. Mitul Mehta
• "When we were able to put our technology on one of our users, this fellow couldn't read anymore and we were able to get him to read again. Certainly, that was our first indication that this technology can really do what we hoped it could do." — Jay Cormier
• "In essence, what these algorithms are doing is to become adaptive not only to the person's vision deficits but also their habits and environments." — Jay Cormier
• "The goal of any sort of vision technology company, in the end, should also be trying to help people who have 'normal' vision, be able to see things that they cannot currently see." — Dr. Mitul Mehta
• "Ophthalmology is the most exciting field of medicine because ophthalmologists in general are very pro-technology and they're always trying to get better." - Dr. Mitul Mehta

Contact Us:

• Contact us at [email protected] with your innovative new technology ideas for people with vision loss.

Pertinent Links:

• Lighthouse Guild
• Eyedaptic

Guest Bios:

Jay Cormier, President and CEO, Eyedaptic

• As an experienced technology executive and entrepreneur, Jay has a strong track record of founding, growing, and turning around businesses. He has completed several successful exits totaling over $750M, across embedded software, SaaS, and hardware solutions. By leveraging his background at Analog Devices, Jay has led marketing, sales, engineering, operations, strategic partnerships, business development, new product strategy and execution. As Vice President & General Manager, Jay achieved exits at Teridian, Sierra Monolithics and Mindspeed using his expertise building high performance, execution-oriented multi-disciplinary teams. Jay earned his BS in Electrical Engineering from Worcester Polytechnic Institute and an MBA from Northeastern University.

Dr. Mitul Mehta, Medial Advisor, Eyedaptic

• Mitul is a board-certified ophthalmologist with fellowship training in medical and surgical diseases of the retina at UCI's Gavin Herbert Eye Institute. He earned his Medical Degree from the Keck School of Medicine of USC, and also holds a M.S. in BioPhysics from Georgetown and B.S. from MIT, where he first ventured into software startups. He completed fellowship training in vitreoretinal surgery at the New York Eye & Ear, and conducts research on surgical devices and techniques, as well as on vitreoretinal diseases, such as diabetic retinopathy and macular degeneration. Mitul is the cofounder of the online America Retina Forum and the Young Retina Forum as well as the editor of the retina section for the surgical education website, CSurgeries.com.

Host Bio:

Dr. Calvin W. Roberts

• Calvin W. Roberts, MD, is President and Chief Executive Officer of Lighthouse Guild, the leading organization dedicated to providing exceptional services that inspire people who are visually impaired to attain their goals. Dr. Roberts has a unique blend of academic, clinical, business, and hands-on product development experience. Dr. Roberts is a Clinical Professor of Ophthalmology at Weill Cornell Medical College. He was formerly Senior Vice President and Chief Medical Officer, Eye Care, at Bausch Health Companies where he coordinated global development and research efforts across their vision care, pharmaceutical, and surgical business units. As a practicing ophthalmologist from 1982 to 2008, he performed more than 10,000 cataract surgeries as well as 5,000 refractive and other corneal surgeries. He is credited with developing surgical therapies, over-the-counter products for vision care, prescription ocular therapeutics, and innovative treatment regimens. He also holds patents on the wide-field specular microscope and has done extensive research on ophthalmic non-steroidals and postoperative cystoid macular edema. Dr. Roberts has co-founded a specialty pharmaceutical company and is a frequent industry lecturer and author. He currently serves as an Independent Director on multiple corporate boards and has served as a consultant to Allergan, Johnson & Johnson, and Novartis. A graduate of Princeton University and the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Columbia University, Dr. Roberts completed his internship and ophthalmology residency at New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center in New York. He also completed cornea fellowships at Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary and the Schepens Eye Research Institute in Boston.

This podcast is about big ideas on how technology is making life better for people with vision loss.

Today's big idea is how the technology used in instruments that extend human vision to space is being relied on by vision technology developers in devices that help people with vision loss in everyday tasks here on Earth. Using substitute senses has allowed scientists across many fields to continue their work without the use of sight. The eSight is one such device that stimulates the remaining functioning vision to improve the quality of life for users. Dr. Roberts speaks with Charles Lim about the development of the device, the principles behind how it works, and the motivation for future improvements.

The Big Takeaways:

• Astronomers and other scientists who are blind can continue to make meaningful contributions to their field by using substitute senses — even discovering things unseen to the human eye — especially in fields where instruments do most of the heavy lifting.
• eSight is designed to help people with low vision; they've found that with the right stimuli, they can leverage the dormant portions of the eye that still have some function. It is a wearable and mobile device that maximizes the visual information provided to the brain to naturally compensate for gaps in the user's vision.
• As they continue to develop the device, some of the most important factors are making sure it's comfortable, accessible for a wide range of wearers, has a long battery life, and is future-proof.
• The ability to possibly change individual lives, and to create a more accessible world, is one of the most motivating reasons behind this technology advancement and continues to drive the developments that are on the horizon for eSight.

Tweetables:

• "What it all means is how do we leverage the technology advances in cameras, image, sensors, and processing to allow...our users to enhance their vision through more information." - Charles Lim, Chief Technology Officer, eSight
• "What we did is that we converted into sound data from a gamma-ray burst. We were able to listen to small variations in the data that were not visible to the human eye." — Dr. Wanda Diaz Merced, Astronomer
• "Astronomers have realized that you can learn a lot about the Universe by developing instruments that can be extensions of our own senses." — Dr. Bernard Beck-Winchatz, Astrophysicist
• "I dream of a future where eSight can really become a natural extension of our users' vision." — Dr. Charles Lim

Contact Us:

• Contact us at [email protected] with your innovative new technology ideas for people with vision loss.

Pertinent Links:

• Lighthouse Guild
• Touch the Universe, Noreen Grice
• eSight

Guest Bios:

Charles Lim, Chief Technology Officer, eSight

• Charles Lim is a global technology expert with 20 years of experience and a proven record of scaling businesses. Previously, Charles worked in progressive global senior leadership positions with IMAX where he led strategy, operations and business development during a key moment in the company's rapid growth stage. He's also acted as a consultant with MaRS Discovery District where he worked closely with technology startups to ensure their success and was a key player in building the MaRS technology innovation ecosystem. Charles has successfully led engineering teams developing leading-edge fiber optic broadcast systems, consumer electronics and aerospace technologies that earned him multiple awards including the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Award of Excellence. Charles holds a Bachelor of Electrical Engineering and Master of Electrical and Computer Engineering from Ryerson University, and an MBA from Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto. He has also completed executive-level courses at Harvard Business School.

Dr. Bernard Beck-Winchatz, Professor, DePaul University

• Interim Director of STEM Center, Professor of Physics & Astrophysics, Graduate Program Director of Physics & Astrophysics; Campus Director of Illinois Space Grant Consortium

Wanda Díaz-Merced

• Wanda Díaz-Merced is an astronomer best known for using sonification to turn large data sets into audible sound. She currently works at the South African observatory's Office of Astronomy for Development (OAD) leading the project AstroSense. As someone who has lost their eyesight, she is a leader in increasing equality of access to astronomy and using audible sound to study astrophysical data. Wanda has been included in the list of the 7 most trailblazing women in science by the BBC.

Host Bio:

Dr. Calvin W. Roberts

• Calvin W. Roberts, MD, is President and Chief Executive Officer of Lighthouse Guild, the leading organization dedicated to providing exceptional services that inspire people who are visually impaired to attain their goals. Dr. Roberts has a unique blend of academic, clinical, business, and hands-on product development experience. Dr. Roberts is a Clinical Professor of Ophthalmology at Weill Cornell Medical College. He was formerly Senior Vice President and Chief Medical Officer, Eye Care, at Bausch Health Companies where he coordinated global development and research efforts across their vision care, pharmaceutical, and surgical business units. As a practicing ophthalmologist from 1982 to 2008, he performed more than 10,000 cataract surgeries as well as 5,000 refractive and other corneal surgeries. He is credited with developing surgical therapies, over-the-counter products for vision care, prescription ocular therapeutics, and innovative treatment regimens. He also holds patents on the wide-field specular microscope and has done extensive research on ophthalmic non-steroidals and postoperative cystoid macular edema. Dr. Roberts has co-founded a specialty pharmaceutical company and is a frequent industry lecturer and author. He currently serves as an Independent Director on multiple corporate boards and has served as a consultant to Allergan, Johnson & Johnson, and Novartis. A graduate of Princeton University and the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Columbia University, Dr. Roberts completed his internship and ophthalmology residency at New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center in New York. He also completed cornea fellowships at Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary and the Schepens Eye Research Institute in Boston.

This podcast is about big ideas on how technology is making life better for people with vision loss.

Today's big idea is all about the cutting edge advancements in ocular bionic prosthetics. The Argus II is a device that uses a camera and a chip to stimulate the retina and send signals to the brain. Our guest, Dr. Mark Humayun, developer of the Argus II, speaks with Dr. Roberts about the development of this device, and the importance of the collaboration between developers and early adopters. He talks about the engineering, neurophysiology, and surgical challenges they've overcome to get to where they are, as well as what kind of advancements might be possible in the future.

The Big Takeaways:

• The Argus II is a device with two components: a wearable component that consists of glasses with a camera and video processing unit and an implanted device that includes an antenna and an electronic chip that sends electrodes to stimulate the remaining cells of the retina.
• The visual system is similar to a computer in that it requires hardware (our eyes, retina, optic nerve, visual cortex) and software (converts signals to what we describe as sight). When developing artificial vision, Dr. Humayun had to pinpoint how much of the retina needed to be replaced, as well as how much of the retina needed to still exist for the device to work.
• The electronic system stimulates groups of neurons into visual perceptions. Users of the Argus II can currently perceive up to 10 shades of gray. Dr. Humayun and his team are working on getting the device to generate color vision by stimulating the retina at different frequencies, which the wearer learns to associate with a named color.
• The cochlear implant was a big influence on the initial development of Argus II — they reconfigured a cochlear implant and used it to stimulate the retina rather than the cochlea. As they reconfigure and continue to develop the device, the collaboration between actual users and developers is crucial.
• Now that they have the hardware and technology, they can focus on future developments like an implant that bypasses the optic nerve and sends electrodes directly to the visual cortex.

Tweetables:

• "I've been so lucky my whole adult life to have that collaborative experience with everyone who's ever built legs for me." — Aimee Mullins, actor, athlete, public speaker, and double amputee
• "The most emotional thing for me was being able to see letters again. That was such an emotional experience, I don't know how to put it into words." — Barbara Campbell, Argus II implant recipient
• "You can think of it like this, that it wirelessly connects the blind person to a camera, and jumpstarts the otherwise blind eye and sends the information to the brain." — Dr. Mark Humayun
• "There are some features that are different than our human eye, there are some advantages, but clearly our human eye is incredibly, exquisitely engineered to give you a very pristine, refined, and high-resolution image." — Dr. Mark Humayun

Contact Us:

• Contact us at [email protected] with your innovative new technology ideas for people with vision loss.

Pertinent Links:

• Lighthouse Guild
• Argus II

Guest Bio:

Dr. Mark Humayun

• Mark S. Humayun, MD, PhD, is Director, USC Ginsburg Institute for Biomedical Therapeutics and Co-Director, USC Roski Eye Institute. Dr. Humayan received his Bachelor of Science degree from Georgetown University in 1984, his Master's Doctorate from Duke University in 1989, and his PhD from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill in 1994. He completed his ophthalmology residency at Duke Eye Center and fellowships in both vitreoretinal and retinovascular surgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital. He stayed on as faculty at Johns Hopkins where he rose to the rank of associate professor before moving to USC in 2001. Dr. Humayun has devoted much of his career to clinical and scientific research in ophthalmology and bioengineering, becoming both a biomedical engineer and professor of ophthalmology. Dr. Humayun led a talented and diverse team of interdisciplinary researchers with the ultimate goal of creating the world's first artificial retina. He assembled a team of world experts with a wide range of proficiency, including biomedical engineering, computer science, medicine, chemistry, biology, and business. In clinical trials since 2007 and approved by the FDA in 2013, the Argus II retinal implant, represents the culmination of a visual restoration strategy that offers an unprecedented degree of sight to those with complete retinal blindness. He was elected to the prestigious National Academy of Medicine (NAM) and National Academy of Engineering (NAE) for his pioneering work to restore sight. With over 200 publications and more than 100 patents and patent applications, Dr. Humayun has received several research awards, which include the 2005 Innovator of the Year award. He was also featured as one of the top 10 inventors in Time Magazine in 2013, voted as one of the Best Doctors in America for three years, and one of the top 1% of Doctors by U.S. News & World Report. In 2016, Dr. Humayun received the National Medal of Technology and Innovation from President Barack Obama for his innovative work and development of the Argus II.

Host Bio:

Dr. Calvin W. Roberts

• Calvin W. Roberts, MD, is President and Chief Executive Officer of Lighthouse Guild, the leading organization dedicated to providing exceptional services that inspire people who are visually impaired to attain their goals. Dr. Roberts has a unique blend of academic, clinical, business, and hands-on product development experience. Dr. Roberts is a Clinical Professor of Ophthalmology at Weill Cornell Medical College. He was formerly Senior Vice President and Chief Medical Officer, Eye Care, at Bausch Health Companies where he coordinated global development and research efforts across their vision care, pharmaceutical, and surgical business units. As a practicing ophthalmologist from 1982 to 2008, he performed more than 10,000 cataract surgeries as well as 5,000 refractive and other corneal surgeries. He is credited with developing surgical therapies, over-the-counter products for vision care, prescription ocular therapeutics, and innovative treatment regimens. He also holds patents on the wide-field specular microscope and has done extensive research on ophthalmic non-steroidals and postoperative cystoid macular edema. Dr. Roberts has co-founded a specialty pharmaceutical company and is a frequent industry lecturer and author. He currently serves as an Independent Director on multiple corporate boards and has served as a consultant to Allergan, Johnson & Johnson, and Novartis. A graduate of Princeton University and the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Columbia University, Dr. Roberts completed his internship and ophthalmology residency at New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center in New York. He also completed cornea fellowships at Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary and the Schepens Eye Research Institute in Boston.

This podcast is about big ideas on how technology is making life better for people with vision loss.

Today's big idea is the power of virtual reality - how people are using VR to remap sight and help people with vision loss in their daily lives Dr. Roberts visits with Grace Andruszkiewicz and Dr. Frank Werblin about how emerging technologies help people with low vision access the areas of vision they still have, by using a virtual reality system. They also talk about how sight works biologically, and how one such device, IrisVision, works to connect people socially.

The Big Takeaways:

• Virtual reality changes the sensory inputs our brain receives, to change the visual field our eyes are scanning and the sounds we are hearing. These new inputs trick the brain into thinking we're in a different reality.
• IrisVision is a combination of a Samsung phone and a headset for virtual reality that modulates the visual field of a person with low vision so they can see better. The technology re-maps the visual world they're seeing so it becomes resonant with their individual pathology.
• The development of IrisVision technology started as a device to improve macular degeneration, but has evolved to resolve any type of visual pathology (retinal versus cortical), including magnification or "minification" (reducing the size) to modify the visual field depending on the user's visual function.
• IrisVision re-mapping provides the brain access to the raw material; after using the device for a few months, users' native vision is often improved, ultimately leading to a renewed social connection for users.
• People who use the device need to have some remaining vision.

Tweetables:

"What's really meaningful too is helping people go back to places that are really emotionally meaningful from their past. When they feel like they're back in that place or doing that thing, they come alive again." - Grace Andruszkiewicz describing senior's experience with virtual reality

"Because the screen is a half an inch from your eyes, it's not uncommon for people to see something clearly for the first time in a VR headset." - Grace Andruszkiewicz

"It occurred to me that what was needed was a low-cost, non-invasive device that could recode the visual message in a way that would resonate with those islands of sight that people still have remaining." - Dr. Frank Werblin on the development of IrisVision

"Assisting patients with visual loss has a much broader function - it reconnects people with each other. IrisVision assists people in seeing the visual world, but what it's really doing is reconnecting them socially." - Dr. Frank Werblin

Contact Us:

Contact us at [email protected] with your innovative new technology ideas for people with vision loss.

Pertinent Links:

Lighthouse Guild

Rendever

IrisVision

Guest Bios:

Dr. Frank Werblin, Co-Founder, Chief Scientist, IrisVision

IrisVision was founded by Dr. Frank Werblin, an MIT graduate, Guggenheim Fellow, and professor at UC Berkeley. Dr. Werblin is renowned for his scientific contributions to our understanding of retinal functioning. He has dedicated his life to innovating, developing and delivering an affordable non-invasive solution for millions of people with low vision. With the help of our research partners at Stanford, Johns Hopkins, UC Berkeley, UPMC, The Chicago Lighthouse for the Blind, and other institutions contributing to low vision science, IrisVision is the realization of that lifetime of work. He is dedicated to pushing the boundaries of low vision solutions by continuing to expand the relationship with top vision scientists and technology powerhouses like Samsung.

Grace Andruszkiewicz, Director of Marketing & Partnerships, Rendever

Host Bio

Dr. Calvin W. Roberts

Calvin W. Roberts, M.D., is President and Chief Executive Officer of Lighthouse Guild, the leading organization dedicated to addressing and preventing vision loss. Dr. Roberts has a unique blend of academic, clinical, business, and hands-on product development experience. Dr. Roberts is a Clinical Professor of Ophthalmology at Weill Cornell Medical College. He was formerly Senior Vice President and Chief Medical Officer, Eye Care, at Bausch Health Companies where he coordinated global development and research efforts across their vision care, pharmaceutical and surgical business units. As a practicing ophthalmologist from 1982 to 2008, he performed more than 10,000 cataract surgeries as well as 5,000 refractive and other corneal surgeries. He is credited with developing surgical therapies, over-the-counter products for vision care, prescription ocular therapeutics, and innovative treatment regimens. He also holds patents on the wide-field specular microscope and has done extensive research on ophthalmic non-steroidals and postoperative cystoid macular edema. Dr. Roberts has co-founded a specialty pharmaceutical company and is a frequent industry lecturer and author. He currently serves as an Independent Director on multiple corporate boards and has served as a consultant to Allergan, Johnson & Johnson, and Novartis. A graduate of Princeton University and the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Columbia University, Dr. Roberts completed his internship and ophthalmology residency at New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center in New York. He also completed cornea fellowships at Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary and the Schepens Eye Research Institute in Boston.

This podcast is about big ideas on how technology is making life better for people with vision loss.

Today's big idea is how we can use touch and sound together to create spatial awareness. Just like learning to play the piano or another instrument, smart cane technology engages the both sound and touch to compensate for loss of vision. Kürşat Ceylan, the founder and CEO of WeWALK, shares how the WeWALK smart cane engages a number of senses to develop new autonomy for users, and how their technology is a jumping-off point for integrating other technologies.

The Big Takeaways:

• People who are blind use their canes to detect obstacles in front of them to understand and visualize their surroundings. Tapping the cane allows them to hear the echo as well; hearing and touch go hand in hand.
• WeWALK is a white cane enabled with smart technologies: it detects obstacles at the head level, pairs with a smartphone so both don't need to be held, and has the flexibility to receive new features with the software updates.
• This particular smart cane is a gateway for many different useful technologies that are adapted for accessibility for people who are vision impaired.
• New technologies for people who are blind tap into and expand on our natural senses. WeWALK uses ultrasound for obstacle detection, which converts the data from the ultrasound waves into meaningful information for the user — through touch (vibration) and eventually sound (a beep).
• The big vision for the future of WeWALK is to turn it into a personal hub assistant, including image recognition, voice assistant, and smart-stick integration. A more robust smart cane will allow for a fully autonomous journey for people who are visually impaired or blind.

Tweetables:

• "The research has shown that people who take piano lessons or instrumental lessons, their spatial skill is more established than the people who have never done it." — Yu-Pin Hsu
• "From when I started [playing piano] to now, I hear differently, and I think maybe I hear other things differently. I don't know if my sound is better, or my brain is more attuned to listening and absorbing other sounds." — Bill Graham
• "It's easy to rely on the sight, but as a visually impaired person, I can't rely on my sight. It means I have room to rely on my other sense." — Kürşat Ceylan
• "WeWALK is powerful because of our partnerships. It gives the opportunity to integrate smart solutions into smart canes as well." — Kürşat Ceylan

Contact Us:

• Contact us at [email protected] with your innovative new technology ideas for people with vision loss.

Pertinent Links:

• Lighthouse Guild
• WeWALK

Guest Bios:

• Kürşat Ceylan

Kürşat Ceylan was born in 1986. He was born blind. Kürşat studied psychological counseling at Boğaziçi University. During his university years, he was selected to attend the YGA Leadership Program as one of 50 participants out of 50,000 applicants. He volunteered on projects for the socioeconomic development of the visually impaired. After his graduation, he started to work at Roche, Istanbul. During this time, he was producing and hosting a Turkish award-winning radio show called, "Exploration of Emotions that are Suppressed by Sight", which aired every week on NTV Radio. In 2015, he resigned from Roche and started working at YGA as project leader, spearheading projects for the visually impaired. Kürşat won various global awards for his work in the field of visual impairment, dealing with indoor navigation, audio description in movie theatres, and the WeWALK Smart Cane. Currently, Kürşat Ceylan is the co-founder of WeWALK Technology INC, which strives to solve problems for people who are visually impaired through innovation.

• Yu-Pin Hsu, EdD, OT, SCLV is Manager, Vision Rehabilitation Projects for Lighthouse Guild and a Classically Trained Pianist

Host Bio:

• Dr. Calvin W. Roberts

Calvin W. Roberts, MD, is President and Chief Executive Officer of Lighthouse Guild, the leading organization dedicated to addressing and preventing vision loss. Dr. Roberts has a unique blend of academic, clinical, business, and hands-on product development experience. Dr. Roberts is a Clinical Professor of Ophthalmology at Weill Cornell Medical College. He was formerly Senior Vice President and Chief Medical Officer, Eye Care, at Bausch Health Companies where he coordinated global development and research efforts across their vision care, pharmaceutical, and surgical business units. As a practicing ophthalmologist from 1982 to 2008, he performed more than 10,000 cataract surgeries as well as 5,000 refractive and other corneal surgeries. He is credited with developing surgical therapies, over-the-counter products for vision care, prescription ocular therapeutics, and innovative treatment regimens. He also holds patents on the wide-field specular microscope and has done extensive research on ophthalmic non-steroidals and postoperative cystoid macular edema. Dr. Roberts has co-founded a specialty pharmaceutical company and is a frequent industry lecturer and author. He currently serves as an Independent Director on multiple corporate boards and has served as a consultant to Allergan, Johnson & Johnson, and Novartis. A graduate of Princeton University and the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Columbia University, Dr. Roberts completed his internship and ophthalmology residency at New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center in New York. He also completed cornea fellowships at Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary and the Schepens Eye Research Institute in Boston.

This podcast is about big ideas on how technology is making life better for people with vision loss.

Today's big idea is seeing with your ears — exploring technology that uses audio to connect people with vision loss to the world around them. Dr. Cal Roberts speaks with Dr. Yonatan Wexler about the OrCam My Eye device. They explore the ideas of whether the brain can recreate a picture using audio alone, how well hearing can replace lost sight, and what are the discovery processes for using audio description technology as a substitute for vision.

The Big Takeaways:

• Developments in technology allow for the use of audio as a substitute for vision for people with no or low vision, sending signals to the brain to create a picture in their mind's eye.
• The natural gesture of pointing signals the OrCam device to enable audio feedback to the wearer, the same way our selective vision helps us discriminate objects from our surroundings.
• The journey to the development of this device was intricate and involved, highlighting the constant evolution of this technology and future opportunities for development such as the ability for a user to save their experiences.

Tweetables:

"I have an idea of how the ball field is shaped, where the players are standing, and what they do. … It's not a fully-fleshed out picture, but it … helps me know what everyone is doing at any … moment." — Karen, a blind baseball fan describing hearing a game play-by-play

"A radio allows you to use your imagination. In some ways, radio is even better." — John Sterling

"It happens and you describe it and hopefully you describe it well. I hope it helps the listeners see the game." — John Sterling, Voice of the New York Yankees

"The beauty of the brain is that it can generate sight using the information from the ears." — Dr. Wexler

Contact Us:

Contact us at [email protected] with your innovative new technology ideas for people with vision loss.

Pertinent Links:

Lighthouse Guild

OrCam

Guest Bios:

John Sterling

John Sterling is an American sportscaster best known as the radio play-by-play announcer of Major League Baseball's New York Yankees. Sterling called 5060 consecutive Yankees games, beginning in 1989, before taking an 8-day (4-game) break in July 2019.

Dr. Yonaton Wexler

Dr. Yonatan Wexler is an experienced researcher in the field of Artificial Intelligence and Computer Vision. He has conducted research at the Hebrew University, University of Maryland, Oxford University, Weizmann Institute of Science, and Microsoft. His passion is efficient use of visual information that enables exciting new abilities. He is the recipient of the Marr Prize, the highest in the field of Computer Vision. Currently, Yonatan leads the R&D at OrCam, a company that pioneers a generation of clever AI-based assistants that improve people's daily lives. The OrCam MyEye revolutionizes the lives of the blind and the visually impaired. It clips onto any pair of glasses and verbalizes information they find hard to perceive. The OrCam Focus breaks new grounds for hearing aids. It solves the age-old "cocktail party problem" for the first time and lets the wearer focus on one speaker, discarding any other chatter and noise, hence solving the #1 problem with existing solutions.

Host Bio

Dr. Calvin W. Roberts

Calvin W. Roberts, M.D., is President and Chief Executive Officer of Lighthouse Guild, the leading organization dedicated to addressing and preventing vision loss. Dr. Roberts has a unique blend of academic, clinical, business, and hands-on product development experience. Dr. Roberts is a Clinical Professor of Ophthalmology at Weill Cornell Medical College. He was formerly Senior Vice President and Chief Medical Officer, Eye Care, at Bausch Health Companies where he coordinated global development and research efforts across their vision care, pharmaceutical and surgical business units. As a practicing ophthalmologist from 1982 to 2008, he performed more than 10,000 cataract surgeries as well as 5,000 refractive and other corneal surgeries. He is credited with developing surgical therapies, over-the-counter products for vision care, prescription ocular therapeutics, and innovative treatment regimens. He also holds patents on the wide-field specular microscope and has done extensive research on ophthalmic non-steroidals and postoperative cystoid macular edema. Dr. Roberts has co-founded a specialty pharmaceutical company and is a frequent industry lecturer and author. He currently serves as an Independent Director on multiple corporate boards and has served as a consultant to Allergan, Johnson & Johnson, and Novartis. A graduate of Princeton University and the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Columbia University, Dr. Roberts completed his internship and ophthalmology residency at New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center in New York. He also completed cornea fellowships at Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary and the Schepens Eye Research Institute in Boston.

The Lighthouse Guild Teaser Trailer